are true c. Here are a great many things recommended by the Apostle to our thoughts and pursuit If we would make a distribution of them I believe they will all naturally enough full under these Four Heads For the things here recommended are not so many as the words by which they are express'd there being several Words used in this Enumeration that are of the same importance and seem to express much the same thing The Four Heads I would reduce them to are these I. A constant Adherence to the true Religion II. Honesty and Justice in our Dealings III. A Life of Strict Purity in opposition to Sensuality and Lewdness IV. The adorning the Doctrine of God we do profess by the constant Practice of every other thing that is Virtuous or Commendable or well thought of by Mankind This as I take it is a fair account of the Parts of this Text and these I shall make the Heads of my following Exhortation I begin with the first Finally my Brethren whatsoever things are true think on those things The Truths that St. Paul here exhorts them to think on are undoubtedly the Truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ which he had delivered to them These he would have them to think upon and persist in and never to be prevailed upon by any Temptation to depart from them Let me now apply this Advice of his to you It is the particular Blessing of God to this Kingdom and an inestimable Blessing it is that he has not only vouchsafed us the Light of his Gospel for many years but he has also taken Care that the Truths of it should be delivered to us with greater Purity and Sincerity and freer from the mixtures of Errour than to most I was going to say than to any other People in the World If it lay in your way to make observations concerning the State of Religion in other Countries nay or but to read the Accounts that are given of it I am sure you would be convinced how exceedingly happy we of this Church are above all the Churches in Christendom O therefore let us all firmly adhere to the Truths we have been taught to the Truths we have hitherto made Profession of And let us firmly adhere to that Church which hath held forth these Truths to us and taught us this Profession We do not pretend that any Church is Infallible and therefore not ours But this we dare say and we can justifie that if we take our measures concerning the Truths of Religion from the Rules of the Holy Scriptures and the Platform of the Primitive Churches the Church of England is undoubtedly both as to Doctrine and Worship the Purest Church that is at this day in the World the most Orthodox in Faith and the â—â—â—est on the one hand from Idolatry and Superstition and on the other hand from Freakishness and Enthusiasm of any now extant Nay I do farther say with great seriousness and as one that expects to be called to account at the dreadful Tribunal of God for what I now say if I do not speak in sincerity That I do in my Conscience believe that if the Religion of Jesus Christ as it is delivered in the New Testament be the true Religion as I am certain it is Then the Communion of the Church of England is a safe way to Salvation and the safest of any I know in the World And therefore I do exhort you all in the Name of God steadfastly to hold and to persevere in this Communion Here you have the Things that are true Think of them and embrace them heartily and Live and Die in the Profession of them This is the Doctrine I have always Taught you and by the Grace of God I mean to Practise accordingly II. The next thing I have to recommend to you from these words of the Apostle is Universal Honesty and Justice and Righteousness in your Conversation Whatsoever things saith he are true whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are just think on these things You see I join these two words Honest and Just together as importing the same thing Though yet I am aware that the word we here render Honest is often used in another signification that is to say for Grave or Venerable But since that other signification falls in most properly under my last Head I wave it here and take the word as our Translation renders it Indeed it is in vain to expect any advantage from our profession of the Truth if we be not sincerely Just and Honest in our Actions Whosoever can allow himself in the practice of any dishonest knavish indirect Dealing let that Man be never so Orthodox in his Belief and Opinions yet I am sure he is no true Christian O therefore let me exhort you all whatever Interests you have to serve whatever Dealing you are to engage in to be always strictly Just and Vpright in your Conversation Use no Tricks practise no ill Arts for the serving your ends but in all your transactions with Men deal with that Simplicity and Integrity and good Conscience that becomes those who would be accounted the Disciples of Him who was the most Innocent the most Sincere and the least Intrigueing Person in the World Assure your selves no dishonesty can prosper long Whatever turns you may serve by it at present yet you will bitterly repent of it sometime or other But Righteousness and Justice doth establish a Man's ways And the upright Man though he is not always the richest yet always walketh most surely And as for the final event of things Remember this that God Almighty has pronounced that no Vnrighteous men no Covetous no Lyars no Extortioners shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven But to go on III. The next thing I have to exhort you to from the words of my Text is the Practice of Purity For after the Apostle hath recommended the pursuit of things that are true and the things that are honest and just he next adds the things that are pure Meaning hereby that we should study to be pure and chast and temperate both in our Hearts and Lives avoiding all Excesses and Lewdness and Sensuality And if he thought it convenient in that Age of strictness and severity and devotion to put the Christians in mind of this I am sure it is not only convenient but necessary to do it in this Age of ours when Luxury and Debauchery when Whoredom and Drunkenness and all sorts of Vice that are contrary to Purity are grown to that height among us that we seem to defie God Almighty by our impudent Practice of them and provoke Him to give us up to Destruction I pray God make the whole Nation deeply sensible of the Folly and Wickedness as well as of the Danger and dreadful Cousequences of these Practices And as for you who are here present let me bespeak you in the Words of the Apostle Dearly Beloved I beseech you as Strangers and Pilgrims to
Opinions so long as we keep them to our selves cannot possibly cause any disturbance in or do any injury to Society But a Power in the latter sense is absolutely necessary for if Men may be allowed to vent and publish whatever fancies come into their head and the Church have no Authority to impose silence upon them it cannot be avoided but she will be over-run with Heresies and embroiled in insinite Quarrels and Controversies to the destruction of her publick Peace The fourth Proposition is That we can have no just cause of withdrawing our Communion from the Church whereof we are Members but when we cannot communicate with it without the Commission of a Sin For if we are bound to Communicate with the Church when we can lawfully do so as hath been before proved it is plain we are bound so long to continue our Communion with the Church till it be unlawful to continue in it any longer But it cannot be unlawful to continue in her Communion till she require something as a Condition of her Communion that is a Sin So that there are but Two cases wherein it can be lawful to withdraw our Communion from a Church because there are but two cases wherein Communion with her can be sinful One is when the Church requires of us as a Condition of her Communion an Acknowledgment and Profession of that for a Truth which is an Errour The other is when the Church requires of us as a Condition of her Communion the joyning with her in some practices which are against the Laws of God In these two Cases to withdraw our Obedience to the Church is so far from being a Sin that it is a necessary Duty because we have an obligation to the Laws of God antecedent to that we have to those of the Church and we are bound to obey these no farther than they are consonant or agreeable to those But now from this discourse it will appear how insufficient those Causes how unwarrantable those Grounds are upon which many among us have proceeded to Separation from our Church For first If what I have laid down be true it cannot be true that Vnscriptural Impositions are a warrantable cause of Separation from a Church supposing that by Vnscriptural be meant no more than only what is neither Commanded nor Forbid in the Scriptures For the Actions required by these Vnscriptural Impositions are either in themselves lawful to be done or not lawful to be done If they be in themselves unlawful to be done then they do not fall under that notion of Vnscriptural we here speak of they are downright Sins and so either particularly or in the general forbid in the Scripture If they be in themselves lawful to be done then it cannot be imagined how their being commanded can make them unlawful So that in this case there is no Sin in yielding obedience to the Church and consequently no cause of withdrawing our Communion from it Neither secondly can it be true that Errours in a Church as to matter of Doctrines or Corruptions as to matter of Practice so long as those Errours and Corruptions are only suffered but not imposed can be a sufficient cause of Separation the reason is because these things are not Sins in us so long as we do not joyn with the Church in them So that so long as we can Communicate with a Church without either professing her Errours or partaking in her sinful Practices as in the present case it is supposed we may do so long we are bound upon the Principle before laid down not to separate from her Neither in the third and last place is the enjoying a more profitable Ministery or living under a more pure Discipline in a separate Congregation a just Cause of forsaking the Communion of the Church of which we are Members And the reason is because we are not to commit a Sin for the promoting a good end Now as we have said it is a Sin to forsake the Communion of the Church whereof we are Members so long as her Communion is not sinful But the enjoyment of a less profitable Ministery or a less pure Discipline doth not make her Communion sinful therefore the enjoyment of a more profitable Ministery or a more pure Discipline cannot make a Separation from her lawful Thus have I as briefly as I could represented to you the Particulars of that Duty we owe to our common Mother in the preservation of her Vnity and Communion And I hope I have not been so zealous for Peace as to have been at all injurious to Truth I am confident I have said nothing but what is very agreeable to Scripture and Reason and the Sense of the Best and Antientest Christians And I am certain I have not intrenched upon any of those Grounds upon which our Ancestors proceeded to the Reformation of Religion among us And for most of the things here delivered we have also the Suffrage of several and those the most learned and moderate of our dissenting Brethren And now if after this any one be offended as indeed these kind of Discourses are seldom very acceptable all I can say is this That the Truths here delivered are really of so great importance to Religion and the publick Peace that they ought not to be dissembled or suppressed for any bad Reception they may meet with from some Men But as for the manner of delivering them I have taken all the care I could not to give offence to any I now pass on to the second part of my Task upon this Head which is to consider the Duty recommended in the Text with relation to particular Christians our Brethren And here my Business is to direct you to the Pursuit of those things that make for Peace as Peace signifies mutual Love and Charity in opposition to Strife and Bitterness and Contentions The things that make for Peace in this sense are more especially these that follow which I shall deliver by way of Rules and Advices The first Rule is to distinguish carefully between matters of Faith and matters of Opinion and as to these latter to be willing that every one should enjoy the liberty of judging for himself This is one thing that would help very much to the extinguishing of those unnatural Heats and Animosities which have long been the Reproach of Christians If Men would set no greater value upon their Notions and Opinions than they do deserve if they would make a difference between necessary Points and those that are not so and in those things that are not necessary would not rigorously tie up others to their measures but would allow every Man to abound in his own sense so long as the Church's Peace is not hereby injured we should not have so many bitter Quarrels and Heart-burnings among us But alas whilst every one will frame a System of Divinity of his own head and every puny Notion of that System must be Christen'd by the name of an
and assuring them of Eternal Rewards if they would repent I say If they were Witnesses of these things I will appeal to all the World whether they had not greater Means of Conviction offered to them than if any Ghost had appeared to them from the Dead or any particular Miracle had been vouchsafed them for the bringing them over to Vertue and Sobriety But I believe no Body will much doubt of this for indeed the matter will not bear a dispute But here is the Question Whether we that live at this distance from our Saviour have the same Means of Conviction and Whether one now appearing from the dead to us would not be of greater force to persuade us than the standing Revelation of the Gospel as we have it now conveyed to us This therefore leads me to my second Proposition upon this Head which if it can be made out will wholly take away all Controversie in this Matter And it is this That we at this day have as great Arguments to convince us of the Truth of Christ's Revelation and consequently as great Motives from thence to persuade us to reform our Evil Lives as those that Lived in the Times of our Saviour It is true indeed we want the Evidence of Sense in these Matters which they had and upon that account it must be acknowledged that they have the Advantage of us But this we say notwithstanding that if we take all things together and weigh them Impartially we shall find that that Want is abundantly supplied to us in other respects For first of all Our Saviour's Gospel and all the Evidences of it I have been now speaking of were timely and faithfully recorded and are as faithfully transmitted down to us So that though we did not see or hear those things yet we have a certain and exact Account of them and such an Account as was never yet questioned by any Adversaries that lived in those Times when such a Question was most reasonably to be made and such an Account as appears by all the Evidences that a thing of that Nature is capable of to have been written by Eye-witnesses and such Witnesses as were honest undesigning Men and not only so but they sealed with their Blood the Truth of what they reported And this same Account was religiously received by all Christians in all Places without Contradiction in those very Times and was shortly after translated into a Multitude of Languages so that it is scarce possible it should in any Considerable Matter be corrupted And from that Time to this in a continual Succession there have been Men that have suffer'd Martyrdom for the Attestation of it and in the first Ages after Christ when they had the best Opportunities of Examining the Truth of these things many thousands did so Now I say Though acccording to the Ordinary Proverb Seeing be Believing Yet next to Seeing an universal well-grounded Tradition which hath visible Effects attending it hath the most force to gain belief Nay I do not know whether there be so much Difference between the Evidence of the one and the other as one would think at first Sure I am there are many Cases in which we do as firmly believe Matters of Fact upon the Credit of Tradition and the permanent Effects that do accompany it as if we our selves had been present and seen them with our Eyes Which of us for Instance doth make any more doubt of the Story of William the Conquerour his subduing this Kingdom or of Henry the Eighth his casting off the Pope's Supremacy than he doth of the Revolutions that have happned in his own time And yet these Matters of Fact are no better attested than the History of our Saviour and his Miracles and Doctrines But Secondly Though those that lived in our Saviour's time had Evidence of Sense for the Truth of what they believed concerning him and his Doctrine which we have not Yet this is to be considered that they laboured under far greater Prejudices against his Religion than we now do And consequently all that sensible Proof which they had of the Truth of it would not be more effectual for the convincing of them than that Proof we now have though it be less ought in reason to be for the convincing of us They that were the Hearers and Spectators of what our Saviour said and did had mighty and inveterate Prepossessions to struggle with They were educated in a quite Different Religion and so must be supposed to have entertained several Notions and Principles which would very difficultly be rooted out and indeed for the effecting of it there needed little less than an Almighty Power But it is not so with us we by our Education are already disposed and prepared for the receiving Christianity We have no praevious Engagements to alienate our Minds from it nay it is our Interest to be of that Religion rather than any other So that certainly a less Evidence for the Truth of it will be as convincing to us as a much greater would have been to those to whom our Saviour first Preached Nay I am very confident that this thing being duely considered it will appear that our Arguments for Christianity drawn from Tradition will be more convincing to thinking Men among us than those Arguments they had from Sense and Experience could be to them But Thirdly If to what hath been said we add the several Arguments for the Credibility of the Christian Religion which we now have at this distance that they had not nor could have that were our Saviour's Immediate Disciples we shall be satisfied that in point of Evidence we have indeed much the advantage of them We have now several standing proofs of our Religion which they could not have and which are so strong and conclusive that they do more than compensate for the want of that Evidence of Sense which they had and we have not I breifly Instance in these three following First The strange Propagation and Success of our Religion throughout the World and the Means by which it was Effected That a poor despised crucified Person should in a few Years draw all the Roman Empire after him and that without any visible Means except the Goodness of his Cause and the Reasonableness of his Doctrine and the Sincerity and Constancy of his Disciples not in fighting for their Master but in laying down their Lives for him And this against all the Power and all the Arts and Stratagems that the Devil or the Princes of this World could invent to stifle and suppress his Name This is so strong an Argument that this Cause was the Cause of God and that his Providence was particularly concerned in the promoting of it that he must seem little to be sensible either of God or Providence that is not convinced by it If Christianity had been of the same strain that the Religion of Mahomet is had been as well calculated for Mens Lusts and Worldly Interests as that
careless unchristian Livers that ever they were I appeal to the Consciences of Men whether this be not true and why should we think it would fare otherwise with us if God should send one from the Dead to reclaim us That very Miracle would not convince our Understandings more then they have been convinced already and therefore why should we think it would work more upon our Wills The Sum of all this Discourse is this That how prevaling soever we may imagine such an experiment as the Rich Man here offers to Abraham for the Conversion of his Brethren would be upon us yet a sensual Man that was unwilling to give up himself to the Conduct of Religion might easily find out ways to avoid the Force that it ought to have upon his Mind Nay more easily perhaps than he hath hitherto resisted the Motives of the Gospel And therefore we may certainly conclude with Abraham in the Text that they that hear not Moses and the Prophets or to put it into our own Language they that hear not Christ and his Apostles neither in all probability would they be persuaded though one rose from the Dead Nothing now remains but that I draw two or three Inferences from what hath been said and so conclude In the first place From what I have discoursed upon this Argument we may discover the Infinite Wisdom of God in the pitching upon that Method he hath done for the bringing Men to Vertue and Happiness namely by the standing Revelations of Moses and the Prophets and of Christ and his Apostles For we may perceive this Method is every way more accommodated for that End than if God should be every day working Miracles for the reclaiming particular Persons As it is more suitable to the other Methods of God's Providence to the way that he hath chosen for the Government of the World which is by the setled standing Laws of Motion leaving Natural Causes to produce their Natural Effects and not interposing his Omnipotency but upon especial extraordinary Occasions So also as we have seen is it much more effectual for the covincing Mens Understandings and the working upon their Wills than the other Method of Private Miracles and Revelations would be We have seen how many ways the Force of an Argument drawn from ones appearance from the Dead may be evaded But now none of these Pretences can be made against the Evidence of a Publick Revelation so attested and confirmed and conveyed down to us as that of Christianity is And besides there are many Arguments to be drawn from such a Revelation to shew the Credebility of it which are altogether wanting to such a Private Miracle as we speak of Secondly We may learn from hence what little need there is of any new modern Miracles for the confirming to us any Doctrine of Christianity which was long ago in all the Articles of it so well attested by the Illustrious Miracles of Christ and his Apostles And more especially we may learn from hence what little Credit is to be given to those Miracles that are wrought or pretended to be wrought for the proof of such Doctrines as are really contrary to that Revelation of our Lord as it is delivered in the Holy Scriptures We are sure that Moses and the Prophets Christ and his Apostles taught nothing but the Truth of God he having so publickly and so convincingly set his Seal to all their Doctrines And we are sure likewise that the Scripture contains nothing in it but what was taught by them and consequently must be the Truth of God also And therefore if any Doctrine or Article of Religion be at any time recommended to our Belief that doth not agree with these Holy Writings or doth contradict them either directly or by plain unavoidable consequence we may be equally sure that that Doctrine cannot be true nor is to be received by us though we are told of never so many private Miracles that have been wrought for the confirmation of it Our Rule in these Cases is To the Law and to the Testimony To the Publick and undoubted Oracles of God in the Old and New Testament Whatever Doctrine can be proved out of them we are bound to embrace it without a new Miracle On the other side Whatever Doctrine is inconsistent with them we must reject it though an Angel from Heaven or one from the Dead should come and Preach it to us Thirdly From hence we see the Vanity and Unreasonableness of thos Men that not content with the Ordinary Means of Grace are always wishing for Extraordinaries There are a great many of us that will be saved by Methods of our own chusing otherwise we will not be saved at all As it was in St. Paul's time the Jews they required a Sign the Greeks they were for Wisdom and Philosophy and perhaps a third sort of Men were for another kind of means of Conviction So it is among us Here is one Man would have a particular Miracle wrought for his Conversion If he could see a Spirit or a Ghost he would believe there was another World If God would send an Angel from Heaven to preach to him he thinks he should become a New Man Here is another would believe the Gospel if every Point of it could be demonstrated by Reason and a clear and plain account be given of all the Mysteries of it but till that be done he is of the Religion of the Philosophers Here is another Man waits for Immediate Impulses and Inspirations The ordinary Assistances of the Spirit that acccompany the Word and Sacraments will not do his business But let us not deceive our selves All these Imaginations are vain and foolish If God should grant us our several desires and give one of us a Sign another of us a Demonstration another of us a powerful Conviction upon our Minds from his Holy Spirit and that in an extraordinary way Yet it is still very doubtful whether for all this the Business of our Conversion would be effected None was more confident than the Rich Man in the Parable that if to the Testimony of Moses and the Prophets was superadded a new Miracle his Brethren would certainly be persuaded But yet you see our Saviour affirms the direct contrary Oh let us all close with the standing Publick Methods which God hath established in the Church for the bringing us to Vertue and eternal Happiness and not be hankering after new and fanciful ways of our own chusing Most certainly the Ordinary Means of Grace are sufficient for the Salvation of all our Souls and will be effectual to that End if we be not wanting to our selves And if any Extraordinaries be at any time needful God without doubt will supply us with them also Fourthly and lastly From what hath been said we see the horrible Guilt and the utter Inexcusableness of those Men that notwithstanding the Gospel means of Salvation that have been so long afforded them do still continue Infidels in
rewarded and wicked Men punished to deny the liberty of Humane Actions and to say that all things which we do we do by a fatal necessity and we cannot do otherwise And yet we may every day meet with Men of these Principles nay and that laugh at all those that maintain the contrary But then as for the business of Jesus Christ and that which we call the Christian Religion what a very little do a great many among us make of that To talk of Christ's being sent for the Saviour of the World and that he died to procure the Pardon of our Sins and that we must believe all the Scripture-Doctrines concerning him and worship him as a God why what stuff is this to a great many of the resined Spirits of our Age It is very well if they can so far prevail with themselves as to own the Being of God and to acknowledge their obligation to the Duties of moral Honesty and Justice which natural Religion teacheth But as for Jesus Christ and the Trinity and the Sacraments and all revealed Religion they beg your Pardon for these things they are too nice and subtil for them to meddle with Not but that they are good Christians all the while For they can come to our Churches and to our Sacraments too if there be occasion Because indeed they will always be of the Religion of the Country where they live But at the same time they do this they do no more really believe or expect any Spiritual Benefit in our Religion nor look for any more Salvation from Christ Jesus than they would expect from Mahomet if they should live in Turky But this is not all Even among those that do believe in Jesus Christ and own his Religion yet what little regard have they generally speaking to his Worship and Service It is very well if they now and then afford their presence on Sundays at the publick Religious Assemblies I will not examine with what designs and for what ends they come thither nor how devoutly and religiously their hearts are affected during the time they are there I say it is very well that they are there at all But even of those that do come thither and do once a Week seem to have a sense of publick Religion I say how few are there of them that take any care of worshipping God either in their Families or in their Closets Why if a Man was truly Religious he could not pass a day without solemn Addresses to his Maker and to his Redeemer He would pray in his Closet constantly and if he had a Family he would Pray with them constantly And if he had no Family he would constantly resort to those places where he might pay his Tribute of publick Prayer and Praises to God unless he had urgent business to hinder him But is there any thing of this to be seen among us except in some few Persons here and there Are there not twenty Families for one that live without so much as the shew of any Devotion Without any sort of Prayer or Worship of God in their Houses Nay and I am afraid I may say there are twenty for one even of Private Persons that live without Devotion in their Closets that never call upon God never renew their Vows to their Saviour never pay him any Homage except perhaps once a Week in a formal way when the Custom of the Country obliges them to resort to the Church The truth is so little sense have most of us of Religion and Devotion so little regard of our Duty to God and our depenance upon him and expressing that dependance either in Private or in our Families That were it not for that Happy Institution of the Lord's day on the which we are obliged by the Laws of God and Man to meet together for the Worship of God we should hardly see any Face of Religon among us and in a little time should scarce be distinguished from Heathens But yet this is not the worst of our Case Our gross Immoralities that Horrid Lewdness and Debauchery that is every where to be observed in our days doth still increase our Guilt and cry to Heaven for Judgment upon our Nation It would make a Man's heart ake that has any sense of God or Religion to think of the Riots the Drunkenness the continued course of spending our Time and our Parts and our Substance in Revelling and Gaming and all manner of such excesses that is daily practised among us And yet at the same time the Men that thus live think themselves very honest Men all the while It would really amaze a Man and put him upon admiring God's Patience that he doth not presently confound the World if he did seriously reflect on the many filthy lewd Speeches and Actions the numerous wicked intrigues of Lust the Infamous Whoredoms and Adulteries that are without any sense of shame daily carried on and acted among us and that by Persons too that have the Face to shew themselves at our Holy Assemblies Especially if to these be added the infinite Lyes and Cheats and Perjuries which our Land groans under The Blasphemous Oaths and Imprecations the Damn me 's and Sink me's the Horrid Profanations of the Name of God and all things Sacred that are in every place in every street where we pass belched out in contempt of the Almighty and his Laws by all sorts of Persons of all sorts of Qualities from the Beggar in the street to the Man of Honour and that for no other reason in the World but because it is their Humour or their Custom And lastly to fill up the measure of our iniquities to our other reigning Vices we have added that of Hypocrisie too which one would think should not often be found among so much Profaneness How many of us make a mighty noise with Religion and are zealous even to Bigottry in the defence of it and yet have not one grain of inward sense of what it obligeth them to Nay so far from that that if Religion be but in their Mouths If they do but appear Zealous enough for the Protestant Cause If they can but cry loue enough The Temple of the Lord The Temple of the Lord as the Jews did in the Prophet They matter not how coutradictory their Actions are to the Precepts of that Religion they do Profess Their Zeal for so good a Cause will sanctifie all the other Actions be they never so wicked and unjust But if this be not Hypocrisie there is no such thing in the World Sure I am it was this sort of Carriage that God so often reproves the Jews for by his Prophets and upon account of which they are so often reproached as a Generation of Hypocrites and for which he threatens them with utter destruction O my Brethren what have we to say to these things If the Case be thus with us as I am afraid it is What plea have we to put in for our selves If
he was not only to profess his faith in Christ's Death and Resurrection but he was also to look upon himself as obliged in correspondence therewith to mortifie his former carnal affections and to enter upon a new state of Life And the very Form of Baptism did lively represent this Obligation to them For what did their being plung'd under water signifie but their Undertaking in Imitation of Christ's Death and Burial to forsake all their former evil courses As their ascending out of the water did their Engagement to lead a holy spiritual Life This our Apostle doth more than once declare to us Thus Rom. vi 4. We are buried saith he with Christ by Baptism unto death that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the Glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newness of Life Thus again in the 10th and 11th verses of that Chapter In that Christ died he died unto sin once but in that he liveth he liveth unto God likewise reckon ye your selves to be dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. That is to say After the example of Christ's Death and Resurrection account ye your selves obliged to die to sin and to live to Righteousness Lastly To name no more Texts the same use doth the Apostle make of Christ's Resurrection in Coloss iii. 1 2. If ye then saith he be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God i. e. You by entring into the Christian Covenant are incorporated into Christ He is your Head you are his Members and therefore since he no longer leads a life of this World it will by no means become you to live like Worldlings or Epicures but being risen with him as the Members ought to do with the Head to mind those things that are above where he is to set your affections as he goes on on the things above and not on the things of the Earth For ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God These things plainly shew that the Apostles delivered the Doctrine of Christ's Resurrection as a Practical Doctrine as a point which if Christians believed as they should do it would ingage them to mortifie their lusts to die to the World to place their affections on Spiritual things to have their conversations in Heaven where Christ our Head our Life now sits at the right hand of God II. Great will the insluence and Power of Christ's Resurrection upon our lives appear to be when we consider that it is indeed the principal Evidence that we have for the Truth of our Religion the very design of which is to make us Vertuous and Holy If any thing in the World can make a man good it must be a hearty belief of the Gospel And if any thing in the World can make a man heartily to believe the Gospel it must be the Resurrection of our Saviour from the dead All that Power therefore that the Gospel of Christ hath to make men good all that force and efficacy that its Arguments its Promises its Precepts its Encouragements its Threatnings have upon the Understandings and Wills of men in order to bring them to Vertue and Holiness I say all this may in a great measure uitimately be resolved into the Article of Christ's Resurrection For this Resurrection of his was the thing that did from the beginning and doth now and ever will ascertain mankind of the Truth of Christ's Religion This was and will be for ever the convincing Evidence that what Jesus taught was true Doctrine that what he commanded was of perpetual obligation that what he promised or threatned he was able to make good If Christ had not risen from the dead but had for ever been detained in the Grave notwithstanding all that might be urged from the Goodness of his Doctrine and the Inuncency of his Life and the multitude of his Miracles for the Proof of the Truth of Christianity though yet very strong and concluding Proofs these are I doubt it would hardly have met with that ready Entertainment in the World that we find it did But a great many both then and now would have made the same Objection against Jesus Christ and his Gospel that the Pharisees did of old that is to say That all his great Works and Miracles were done by Sorcery and Magick And that as for the Innocency of his Life and the great Vertue and Strictness that he expressed in his Conversation that was only used as a Trick and an Artifice the more easily to impose upon the World But now when it appears that Jesus who taught this holy Religion who did those Miracles who liv'd that vertuous Life did after he was put to a cruel death rise again to Life and conversed upon earth for forty days together and after that in the presence of many Spectators did ascend into Heaven I say when this appears as God be thanked it is evident beyond all contradiction here is no room left for any suspicion of this nature but all pretences of Imposture do perfectly vanish It is impossible for any considering man to believe Christ's Resurrection and at the same time to doubt of the truth of his Religion For thus let us reason Christ over and over again told his Apostles that he should be put to death but after that he would within three days rise again Matth. xvi 21. xvii 22. John xvi 16. Nay he told this not only to the Apostles but to all the People nay more than that he gave this as a Token as an Evidence to them whereby they should know and be convinced that he was what he gave himself out to be the Son of God and the great Prophet and Saviour that was to come John ii 19. Nay in the last place he not only refers the Jews to his Resurrection as an Evidence of his being the Christ but as the last and greatest Evidence that he had to give And such as if they were not convinced by they must expect no other Matth. xii 39 40. Our Saviour now laying such a mighty stress upon this point of his Resurrection putting his whole cause as I may speak upon this Issue I ask How is it possible to imagine that God Almighty should make these predictions of our Saviour good if he was not really what he pretended to be If Christ had been an Impostor it had been the easiest matter in the World to have stifled all his pretences for ever It had but been to have let him mouldered to dust in his Grave as all other men do and as He without the help of Omnipotency would have done and then all the World would have seen that he was a Deceiver But now when in stead of perishing in the Grave he was after three days restored to life again as he had foretold the People nay to a gloririous immortal Life What are we to conclude from
FIFTEEN SERMONS Preach'd on Several Occasions The Last of which was never before Printed BY The Most Reverend Father in God JOHN Lord Arch-Bishop of York Primate of England and Metropolitan LONDON Printed by Will. Bowyer for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's-Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1700. MVNIFICENTIA REGIA 1715. GEORGIVS D.G. MAG BR FR. ET HIB REX F.D. THE CONTENTS SERMON I. Page 1. THE Things that make for Peace Or The Obligation of Christians to Church-Communion and mutual Charity Rom. xiv 19. Let us therefore follow after the things that make for Peace Preach'd before the Lord Mayor c. 1674. SERMON II. Page 41. The Profitableness of Godliness Or The Advantages of Piety for the promoting all a Man's Interests in this World 1 Tim. iv 8. Godliness is profitable unto all things having a Promise of the Life that now is and of that which is to come Preach'd before the Lord Mayor 1675. SERMON III. Page 88. Of doing Good in our Lives shewing that it is every one's great Concernment and is in every one's Power Eccles iii. 10. I know that there is no good in them but for a man to rejoyce and to do good in his Life Preach'd at the Yorkshire Feast 1680. SERMON IV. Page 127. The Rich-Man's Duty and the Encouragement he hath to Practise it 1 Tim. vi 17 18 19. Charge them that are rich in this World that they be not high-minded nor trust in uncertain Riches but in the living God who giveth us richly all things to enjoy That they do good that they be rich in good works ready to distribute willing to communicate Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come that they may lay hold on eternal Life Preach'd at the Spittal 1680. SERMON V. Page 169. A Description of the Vpright Man and his Security in evil Times Psal cxij. 4. To the upright there ariseth Light in the Darkness Preach'd at the Election of the Lord Mayor 1680. SERMON VI. Page 205. A standing Revelation of more force to persuade Men than one rising from the Dead With the Evidence we have at this day for the Truth of the Christian Religion Luke xvj 31. If they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded though one rose from the dead Preach'd at White-Hall 1684. SERMON VII Page 243. Rules for the Conduct of our selves where we are at a loss to distinguish the Bounds of Duty and Sin Lawful and Vnlawful in any Action Galat. v. 13. Vse not Liberty for an occasion to the Flesh Preach'd before the Queen 1690. SERMON VIII Page 173. Vertue and Religion the only means to make a Nation prosperous Deut. v. 29. O that there were such an heart in them that they would fear me and keep all my Commandments always that it might be well with them and with their Children for ever Preach'd before the House of Commons 1690. SERMON IX Page 209. General Directions for a Holy Life Phil. iv 8. Finally Brethren whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report if there be any Vertue if there be any Praise think on these things A Farewel-Sermon preach'd at St. Giles 's 1691. SERMON X. Page 241. Zeal for Religion how to be govern'd Rox. x. 2. For I bear them Record that they have a zeal of God but not according to knowledge Preach'd before the House of Lords Novemb. 5. 1691. SERMON XI Page 369. Of our Saviour's Appearance Heb. ix 26. Now once in the end of the World hath he appeared to put away sin by the Sacrifice of himself Preach'd before the King and Queen on Christmass-day 1691. SERMON XII Page 401. The Power of Christ's Resurrection Philip. iij. 10. That I may know him and the power of his Resurrection Preach'd before the Queen on Easter-day 1692. SERMON XIII Page 429. God's Government of the World matter of Rejoycing to Mankind Psal xcvij. 1. The Lord is King the Earth may be glad thereof yea the multitude of the Isles may be glad thereof Preach'd before the King and Queen on the Day of Thanksgiving 1693. SERMON XIV Page 459. Of the Government of the Thoughts Prov. iv 23. Keep thy heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of Life Preach'd before the King and Queen 1693. SERMON XV. Page 487. A Persuasive to Prayer Luke xviii 1. And he spake a Parable unto them to this end That Men ought always to Pray and not to faint Preach'd before the King 1697. Note That by Mistake the Eighth Sermon which begins Page 173 hath on the Top of the Page the Title of the Ninth Sermon throughout As also the Ninth Sermon which begins Page 209. has for several Pages together the Title of the Tenth Sermon SERMON I. PREACHED AT GVILD-HALL CHAPEL On the 23d of August 1674. Rom. xiv 19. Let us therefore follow after the things that make for Peace WHOSOEVER understandeth any thing of the State of Christianity as it hath now been for some Ages in the World will be easily convinced that there is no one Point of our Religion more necessary to be daily Preached to be earnestly pressed and insisted on than that of Peace and Love and Vnity here recommended by the Apostle It hath fared as the Learned Mr. Hales observed with the Christian Religion in this matter as it did with the Jewish of old The great and principal Commandment which God gave the Jews and which as they themselves teach was the Foundation of all their Law was to worship the God of Israel and Him only to serve yet such was the Perversness of that People that This was the Commandment that of all others they could never be brought to Keep but they were continually running into Idolatry notwithstanding all the Methods that God made use of to reclaim them from that Sin What the Worship of one God was to the Jews that Peace and Love and Vnity is to the Christians even the Great distinguishing Law and Character of their Profession And yet to the shame of Christians it may be spoken there is no one Commandment in all Christ's Religion that has been so generally and so scandalously violated among his Followers as this Witness the many bitter Fewds and Contentions that have so long Embroiled Christendom and the numerous Sects and Parties and Communions into which at this day it stands divided And God knows this is a thing that cannot be sufficiently lamented among our selves For though in many Respects we are the Happiest Nation in the World and particularly in this that we have the Advantage of all others both as to the Constitution of our Church and the Purity of Christ's Doctrine professed therein Yet in this point of Schisms and Divisions and Religious Quarrels we are as unhappy if not more than any Whether ever we shall see that blessed Day when these our Breaches will
of our selves into some particular Congregation and an explicit Promise or Ingagement to joyn with it in Church-Ordinances 2. How wildly and extravagantly they discourse that talk of a Christianity at large without relation to a Church or Communion with any Society of Christians The second Proposition is That every one is bound to joyn in Communion with the established National Church to which he belongs supposing there be nothing in the Terms of its Communion that renders it unlawful for him so to do For if we are bound to maintain Communion with the Catholick Church as I have before proved it is plain that we are bound to maintain Communion with that Part of it within whose Verge the Divine Providence has cast us For we cannot communicate with the Catholick Church but by communicating with some Part of itâ— and there is no communicating with any Part of it but that under which we live or where we have our Residence Well but it may be said that there may be several Distinct Churches in the place where we live There may be the fixed Regular Assemblies of the National Church and there may be separate Congregations both which are or pretend to be Parts of the Catholick Church so that it may be all one as to our communicating with that which of these we joyn with supposing we joyn but with one of them and consequently there is no necessity from that Principle that we should hold Communion with the Publick Assemblies of the National Church But as to this I desire it may be considered that That which lays an Obligation upon us to joyn in Communion with the Church to wit our being Members of that one Body of Christ doth also lay an Obligation upon us as much as in us lies to preserve the Vnity of that Body for this both the Fundamental Laws of Society and the express Precepts of Christianity do require of every Member But now to make a Rent in or separate from any Part of the Body of Christ with which we may lawfully communicate and such we now suppose the established Assemblies of the Nation to be is directly contrary to the preserving the Vnity of that Body And therefore certainly such a Rent or Separation must be unlawful And if so then it must be unlawful also to joyn with any Congregation of Men among us that have made such a Rent or Separation So that let our pretences be what they will so long as the fixed Regular Assemblies of the Nation wherein we live do truly belong to the Catholick Church and we can lawfully joyn with them it is certain we are bound so to do and not to joyn with those Congregations that have withdrawn themselves from them for to do this would be to joyn in Society with Separatists would be a partaking of their Sin and a breach of the Apostle's Precept of avoiding those that cause Divisions Rom. 16.17 The third Poposition is That the being a Member of any Church doth oblige a Man to submit to all the Laws and Constitutions of that Church This Proposition is in the general so unquestionable that no sober Man will deny it And indeed it is the Basis upon which all Societies are founded and by which they do subsist For to suppose a Society and yet to suppose the Members of it not under an Obligation to obey its Laws and Government is to make Ropes of Sand to suppose a Body without Sinews and Ligaments to hold its parts together So that all the Question here is concerning the nature and extent of the Church's Power over her Members how far and in what instances she hath Authority to oblige them Which is a Question not difficult to be answered if Men would come to it without Passion and Prejudice For it must be acknowledged in the first place that the Church must as all other Societies be intrusted with at least so much power over her Subjects as is necessary for the securing her own Welfare and Preservation For to think otherwise is to suppose God to have founded a Church and intended the Well-being and Continuance of it which are things that every one must grant and yet to suppose that he hath denied her the use of the Means without which that Well-being and Continuance cannot be attained which is monstrous and contradictious Farthermore it must be granted that the Welfare and Preservation of the Church cannot be secured but upon these two Suppositions First That Provision be made for the due and orderly performance of the Worship of God Secondly That there be means of maintaining Peace and Vnity among its Members This latter is necessary to the Welfare and Preservation of a Church as a Society the former is necessary to it as a Religious Society Now then this being admitted it follows in the general that whatever Power over her Subjects is necessary in order to either of these things all That at least must be supposed to be lodged in the Church that is to say in Those that have the Govenment of it So that from hence it is plain in the first place that the Church hath power so far to restrain the exercise of her Subjects Liberty as to oblige them to all such Laws Rules Orders and Ceremonies as she shall establish for the more Solemn Regular Decent and Convenient Administration of Religious Affairs And if it be questioned whether her Appointments do indeed conduce to that end of That She her self is to be the Judge Her Members being no farther concerned therein than only before they obey her Impositions to see that they be not repugnant to the known Laws of God This Power the Church must be supposed to have otherwise She will not be enabled to make Provision for the first thing whereon her Welfare doth depend viz. the Performance of God's Worship and Service in a due and orderly manner Secondly From hence also it is plain that the Church must be furnished with a Power to end and determine Controversies of Religion that arise among its Members that is to say to give such an Authoritative decision of them as that all Parties are bound to acquiesce in it for without this she would be defective in the second thing required to her Welfare and Preservation viz. maintaining her self in Peace and Vnity But here it may be taken notice that this Power of ending Controversies which we ascribe to the Church doth not imply any Anthority over our Judgments or that in virtue thereof she can oblige us to give an inward assent to her Determinations any farther than she gives us evidence for the Truth of them which is that extravagant Power the Church of Rome doth challenge to her self but only an Authority over our Practices that she can oblige us to submit so far to her Definitions as not to act any thing contrary to them A Power in the former sense is not necessary to the Church's Peace and the reason is because our Judgments and
Article of Faith and every Man that doth not believe just as he doth must streight be a Heretick for not doing so How can it be expected but we must wrangle eternally It were heartily to be wished that Christians would consider that the Articles of Faith those things that God hath made necessary by every one to be believed in order to his Salvation are but very few and they are all of them so plainly and clearly set down in the Scripture that it is impossible for any sincere honest-minded Man to miss of the true sense of them And they have farther this Badge to distinguish them from all other Truths that they have an immediate influence upon Men's Lives a direct Tendency to make Men Better whereas most of those things that make the matter of our Controversies and about which we make such a noise and clamour and for which we so bitterly censure and Anathematize one another are quite of another nature They are neither so clearly revealed or propounded in the Scripture but that even good Men through the great difference of their Parts Learning and Education may after their best Endeavours vary in their Sentiments about them Nor do they at all concern a Christian Life but are matters of pure Notion and Speculation So that it cannot with any reason be pretended that they are Points upon which Men's Salvation doth depend It cannot be thought that God will be offended with any Man for his Ignorance or Mistakes concerning them And if not if a Man may be a good Christian and go to Heaven whether he holds the right or the wrong side in these matters for God's sake why should we be angry with any one for having other Opinions about them than we have Why should we not rather permit Men to use their Vnderstandings as well as they can and where they fail of the Truth to bear with them as God himself without question will than by stickling for every unnecessary Truth destroy that Peace and Love and Amity that ought to be among Christians The second thing I would recommend is a great Simplicity and Purity of Intention in the pursuit of Truth and at no hand to let Passion or Interest or any Self-end be ingredient into our Religion The practice of this would not more conduce to the discovery of Truth than it would to the promoting of Peace For it is easie to observe that it is not always a pure Concernment for the Truth in the Points in Controversie that makes us so zealous so fierce and so obstinate in our Disputes for or against them but something of which that is only the Mask and Pretence some By-ends that must be served some Secular Interest that we have espoused which must be carried on We have either engaged our selves to some Party and so its Interests right or wrong must be promoted Or we have taken up an Opinion inconsiderately at the first and appeared in the favour of it and afterward our own Credit doth oblige us to defend it Or we have received some Slight or Disappointment from the Men of one Way and so in pure pet and revenge we pass over to their Adversaries Or it is for our gain and advantage that the Differences among us be still kept on foot Or we desire to get our selves a Name by some great Atchievements in the Noble Science of Controversies Or we are possessed with the Spirit of Contradiction Or we delight in Novelties Or we love to be singular These are the things that too often both give birth to our Controversies and also nourish and foment them If we would but cast these Beams out of our eyes we should both see more clearly and certainly live more peaceably But whilst we pursue base and sordid Ends under the pretence of maintaining Truth we shall always be in Errour and always in Contention Let us therefore quit our selves of all our prepossessions let us mortifie all our Pride and Vain-glory our Passion and Emulation our Covetuousness and Revenge and bring nothing in the World to our Debates about Religion but only the pure Love of Truth and then our Controversies will not be so long and they will be more calmly and peaceably managed and they will redound to the greater good of all Parties And this I dare say farther to encourage you to labour after this Temper of Mind That he that comes thus qualified to the Study of Religion though he may not have the luck always to light on the Truth yet with all his Errours be they what they will he is more acceptable to God than the Man that hath Truth on his side yet takes it up or maintains it to serve a turn He that believes a Falshood after he hath used his sincere endeavours to find the Truth is not half so much a Heretick as he that professeth a Truth out of evil Principles and prostituteth it to unworthy Ends. The third Rule is Never to quarrel about Words and Phrases but so long as other Men mean much-what the same that we do let us be content though they have not the luck to express themselves so well I do not know how it comes to pass whether through too much heat and eagerness of disputing that we do not mind one another's Sense or whether through too much love to our own manner of Thinking or Speaking that we will not endure any thing but what is conveyed to us in our own Methods But really it often happens that most bitter Quarrels do commence not so much from the different Sense of the contending Parties concerning the things they contend about as from the different Terms they use to express the same Sense and the different Grounds they proceed upon or Arguments they make use of for the proof of it For my part I verily believe that this is the Case of several of those Disputes in which we Protestants do often engage at this day I do not think in many Points our Differences are near so wide as they are sometimes represented but that they might easily be made up with a little allowance to Men's Words and Phrases and the different Methods of deducing their Notions It would be perhaps no hard matter to make this appear in those Controversies that are so much agitated among us concerning Faith and Justification and the necessity of good Works to Salvation and Imputed Righteousness and the difference between Vertue and Grace with some others if this were a fit place for it The Difference that is among us as to these Points is possibly not much greater than this That some Men in these Matters speak more clearly and fully others more imperfectly and obscurely Some Men convey their sense in plain and proper words others delight in Metaphors and do perhaps too far extend the Figurative Expressions of Scripture Some reason more closely and upon more certain Principles others possibly may proceed upon weaker Grounds and misapply Texts of Scripture and discourse
day render for so doing Thirdly Mens Religion and Christianity are also deeply concerned in this point Works of Charity are so essential to all Religion and more especially to that which we call Christian that without them it is but an empty name in whosoever professes it Let Men pretend what they will let them be never so Orthodox in their belief or regular in their conversation or strict in the performance of those Duties that relate to the worship of God yet if they be hard hearted and uncharitable if God hath given them Wealth and they have not Hearts to do good with it they have no true piety towards God They may have a name to live but they are really dead An unmerciful Christian or a Religious covetous Man are terms that imply a contradiction For the satisfying you of this I shall but need to put these following questions Can that Man be accounted Religious that neither loves God nor his Neighbour Sure he cannot for these two things are the whole of Religion as the Holy Scripture often assures us but now the Covetous Man neither doth the one nor the other His Neighbours he doth not love that is certain for if he did they would find some fruits of it unless this be to be accounted Love James 2.14 c. to give them good words to say to a Brother or a Sister that is naked and destitute of daily food depart in peace be ye warmed and filled when notwithstanding they give them not those things that be needful for the Body But this kind of Love S. James hath long ago declared not to be worth any thing And as for the Love of God another Apostle hath put it out of doubt that the uncharitable Man hath no such thing in him 1 John 3.17 Whoso saith S. John hath this World's good and seeth his Brother have need and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him how dwelleth the love of God in him cap. 4.20 For he that loveth not his Brother whom he hath seen how can he love God whom he hath not seen Can he be thought a Religious Man or a true Christian that wants the two main qualifications that go to the making up a Disciple of Christ that is to say Faith and Repentance yet this doth he that is rich in this World but is not rich in good works Good works are the very soul of Faith and it is no more alive without them than the Body is without the Spirit as S. James has expresly told us Jam. 2.26 If we mean that our Faith should avail us any thing it must work or be made perfect by Charity Gal. 5.6 saith S. Paul for though a Man have all faith so that he could remove mountains i. e. though he be so heartily persuaded of the truth of Christ's Religion as in the strength of his belief to be able to work Miracles as was usual in the first times of Christianity yet if he have not charity his Faith is nothing 1 Cor. 13.2 If it be said that the Charity that S. Paul makes so necessary to effectual Faith is not giving Alms but quite another thing for according to him a Man may give all his goods to feed the poor and yet want the Charity that he speaks of I answer it is true a Man may give Alms and very largely and yet want that Charity that S. Paul here so much recommends but then on the other side none can have that Charity that he speaks of but they will certainly express it in Alms and Bounty as they have ability and opportunity So that for all this suggestion Alms and Bounty are absolutely necessary to the Efficacy of Faith if there be opportunity of doing them The plain account of this matter is this S. Paul speaks of Charity with respect to its inward principle in the heart which consists in an universal kindness and good-will to the whole Creation of God and we speak of it with respect to the outward fruits of it in the Life and Conversation which are all sorts of good works especially works of Mercy and Bounty But both these come to the same thing as to our purpose for the one always follows the other whereever there is Charity in the heart it must of necessity shew it self in these kind of actions as there is occasion otherwise the Charity is not true but only pretended for as S. John hath told us He that loveth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in truth must love 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in work and in deed And then as for Repentance Charity and Alms-giving is a necessary ingredient into that also Luke 3.10 11. When S. John Baptist came preaching Repentance unto Israel the people asked him saying what shall we do meaning in what manner they should express their Repentance his answer was this He that hath two Coats let him impart to him that hath none and he that hath meat let him do so likewise and suitable to this was the Prophet's advice to the King of Babylon when he exhorteth him to Repentance Dan. 4.27 break off thy sins saith he by righteousness and thy iniquity by shewing mercy to the poor that is evidence thy Repentance by thy Alms-giving and Charity Furthermore can he be either a good Man or a good Christian that lives in the habitual neglect of that which of all other Vertues God in Scripture seems to set the greatest value upon and contrariwise practiseth that which God hath most particularly declared his hatred and aversion to Yet thus doth he that is not charitable with what he hath So highly acceptable to God are works of Mercy and Charity that they are declared to be the sacrifices with which he is well pleased Heb 13.8 the things in which he doth delight Jerem. 9.24 and blessed and happy are they pronounced that do them Pro. 22.9 cap. 14.21 for hereby Men become the children of God Luke 6.35 and entitled to his more especial care and protection Ps 41.1 c. nay so dear do they render a Man to his Maker that the wise Son of Sirach scrupled not to recommend the practice of them in these terms Be thou saith he a Father to the Fatherless Ecclus. 4.10 and instead of a Husband unto their Mother so shalt thou be as the Son of the Most High and he shall love thee more than thy own Mother doth On the other side if we will believe the Scripture there is nothing more odious to God than the contrary qualities and practises The love of money which is the foundation of all uncharitableness 1 Tim. 6.10 is in Scripture called the root of all evil as certainly the greatest evils and mischeifs in the World do often take their beginning from thence Those that are covetous are styled by the name of Idolaters Eph. 5.5 than which no more hateful appellation can be given to a Man in the Sacred Language It is said
ver 4. He sheweth favour and lendeth ver 5. He hath dispersed he hath given to the poor ver 9. Now the Blessedness of such a Man as this as to this Life is describ'd in the five instances following The first of which is A great and happy Posterity thus ver 2. His seed shall be mighty upon earth the generation of the Vpright shall be blessed The second is A Plentiful and an Ample Fortune thus in the third verse Riches and Plenteousness shall be in his house The third is A lasting Fame and Reputation thus again in the third verse His Righteousness remaineth for ever and likewise in the sixth verse He shall be had in everlasting remembrance The fourth is Honour and Power and Dignity even such as shall excite the Envy of the Wicked thus in the ninth verse His horn shall be exalted with honour the wicked shall see it and shall be grieved c. The fifth is Great Safety and Peace in the midst of Dangerous and Troublesome times thus in the Text To the Vpright there ariseth Light in the Darkness i. e. Light in the greatest Straits and Difficulties for that is the meaning of Darkness in this place Times of Darkness in the Scripture Language are Evil and Difficult and Dangerous times Now upon account of this Light that ariseth to the Vpright Man in Evil times it comes to pass as it followeth v. 6 7 8. that such a one shall not be moved for ever neither shall he be afraid of evil tidings for his heart is established and he shall not shrink until he see his desire upon his Enemies Or as the Chaldee perhaps better renders it until he see redemption in distress This is the just Analysis of the whole Psalm Now of these several Characters whereby the Pious Man is describ'd I have pitch'd upon that of his Vprightness to give an account of and to recommend to you at this time And of the several Instances of the Blessedness of such a Man I have pitch't upon that of Safety and Peace in the midst of Perillous and Troublesome times These two points I have chosen to entertain you upon as judging them most suitable to the present occasion and to our present circumstances And we find them both join'd together in the words of the Text To the Vpright there ariseth Light in the Darkness Here then we have Two things to consider First The Person to whom the Promise here made or the Blessedness here mentioned doth belong It is the Vpright Man Secondly The Promise or the Blessedness it self It is Light in times of Darkness I begin with the Character of the Person to whom this Promise is made He is the Vpright Man or as in our more common Language we express him the Honest Man the Man of Integrity We all know so well what is meant by these words that it would render the thing more difficult to offer Critically to give Light to them As all those General Terms whereby a Man 's whole Duty is exprest in Scripture have their several respects and considerations which difference them one from the other though they be all equally Comprehensive So hath this term of Vprightness That which it immediately and particularly respects is the Goodness of a Man's Principles and the suitableness of his Actions to them Or thus The Conformity of a Man's Mind to the Eternal Rules of Righteousness and the Conformity of his Actions to the Principles of his Mind This is that upon account of which any person is denominated Upright and contrary to this is all Hypocritical and Partial dealings in matters of our Duty So that if we would give the definition of an Vpright Man it should be in such terms as these He is a Man that in all things follows the Dictates of his Conscience Or he is One that makes his Duty the Rule of his Actions Or he is One that always proposeth to himself Righteous Ends and pursues those Ends in Righteous Ways This is the general description of the Vpright Man But for the more lively display of him and the rendring him as more Amiable so more Imitable it will be fit that we represent him a little more particularly under those several Respects and Capacities in which his Uprightness is principally seen and exprest And here we must consider him with respect to God and with respect to Men. Under the former Consideration we are to view his Religion under the latter his Civil Conversation And none ought to be surpriz'd that in the Character of an Vpright Man we take notice of his Religious Carriage towards God For in truth that is a point which is Essentially necessary to Uprightness He saith Solomon that walketh in Vprightness feareth the Lord. Prov. 14.2 Indeed take away Religion and the Fear of God and the Foundation of Vprightness is destroy'd For all the Principles of Conscience and all the Obligation to live up to those Principles is thereby taken away He that hath no sense of God and Religion can never think himself bound to observe any Rules in his Actions and Behaviour but what are subservient to the carrying on his private sensual worldly Interest And consequently whatever is Inconsistent with that be it never so base and vile and injurious he cannot take himself in point of Duty oblig'd to stick at it when he hath the least temptation to it The result of which is That he may commit all the villanies in the World and yet think himself as Innocent and his Actions as Commendable as if he had been never so Honest and Vertuous He therefore that is an Vpright Man hath a serious and hearty sense of God and Religion upon his Spirit and is above all things careful to preserve and increase that sense But then his conduct in this affair is much different from that of ordinary pretenders to Religion For he is a Man that doth not content himself with a mere speculative belief or an outward profession of the Truths of Religion but doth so far impress them on his Heart that they influence his whole Life and Conversation He doth not think it sufficient to be Orthodox in his Opinions or to be a Member of a True Church or to be zealous in maintaining and promoting the right way But he takes care to live as he believes to practise suitably to the prefession he makes As he holds fast the Form of Godliness so he never fails to express the power of it in an Innocent and a Vertuous Life He is a Man that in the whole Conduct of his Religious affairs minds Conscience more than any selfish consideration He takes not up his Principles either out of Humour or Passion to advance his Interest or to please a Party But he believes a thing because it is True and Professeth it because it is his Duty In matters of Religion he hath the indifference of a Traveller whose great concernment is to arrive at his Journeys end but
for the way that leads thither be it high or low all is one to him so long as he is but certain that it is the Right Way And as he doth not chuse his Religion out of worldly considerations So neither doth he quit it upon such But is resolute and constant in bearing witness to the Truth against all opposition whatsoever As he doth not make shew of his Religion the more when it is in fashion and when it may prove advantagious to him So neither doth he practise it the less when it may prove Ignominious or Dangerous He is obstinately tenacious of his Principles when he knows them to be good and prepared to endure the utmost extremities rather than violate the Laws and Dictates of his Conscience He is a Man that thinks Religion too Sacred a thing to be prostituted to mean purposes and therefore he never useth it as an Instrument for the serving a turn never makes it a Cloak for the covering a private end though he were sure he could compass his designs by it He knows that the greatest Impostures have laid hid under this mask and by such Artifices God hath been often made a Patron of the most horrid villanies He is a Man that doth not place his Religion in outward forms and services or in little cheap Duties that cost him nothing He hath a nobler sense of God than to think that such things can alone recommend us to him And therefore his principal concernment is about the great Indispensable Duties of Christianity Matt. 23.23 The weightier matters of the Law Justice and Mercy and Faith He hath the everlasting Notions and differences of Good and Evil deeply ingraven in his Heart and in the practising or the avoiding them he chiefly lays out himself He is a Man that doth not pick and chuse out of God's Commandments which to observe to the neglect of the rest but endeavours Uprightly and Sincerely to observe them all He calls no sin little because his temper inclines him to it or the course of his Life leads him more frequently into the Temptations of it But he hath an hearty uniform Aversion to every thing that is Evil. He holds no secret friendship or correspondence with any Enemy of God but fights as resolutely against his most agreeable and most gainful sins as those that he hath less Temptation to upon those accounts He is a hearty Enemy to all Factions in Religion as knowing the Life and Soul of Christianity is often eaten out by them All dividing Principles he abhors and as much as he loves Truth he is not less concerned for Peace And he is better pleased with one Instance of his Charity in Composing or his Zeal in Suppressing Religious Differences than with twenty of his Skill and Abilities in disputing them For he knows that LOVE is more acceptable to God than a right Opinion and to be a Martyr rather than divide and rend the Church Dionys Alex. in Euleb is not less Glorious than to be a Martyr for refusing to offer Sacrifice to Idols Lastly He is a Man Religious without Noise and uses no little Arts to make his Piety taken notice of in the World For he seeks not the praise of Men in any thing he doth but studies to approve himself to God only And therefore he is as careful of his Thoughts as of his Actions and hath the same fear of God and regard of his Duty when no Man sees him as when he is in the most publick places These are the great strokes of Vprightness as to Religion And whoever makes good these Characters may unquestionably conclude of himself that he is an Honest Man to God-ward a true Israelite indeed in whom there is no guile Come we now in the second place To take a view of the Vpright-Man in his civil Conversation To give some account of him with reference to his Carriage and Demeanour amongst Men. And here again we must consider him under two capacities as a Private Person and as a Magistrate And First As a Private Person The general Rule by which he frames and models his whole Conversation is such a prudent and diligent care of himself and his own good as is not only consistent with but doth effectually tend to promote the Good and Happiness of all others that he deals with This is the Fundamental Principle which he lays down to observe in all his commerce with Mankind For he considers that every Man in the World hath a right to be happy as well as himself And he considers that as things are so contriv'd that he cannot be happy without the assistance of others So it is infinitely reasonable that he in like manner should contribute his endeavours to the making them happy also These now being the main Principles of his Mind he takes care in his whole Conversation that his Actions and Carriage be suitable to them and bear some proportion with them And therefore we may be sure that he is a Man exactly Just in all his dealings and would not knowingly do the least wrong or injury to any though he could gain never so much by it and were he never so secure that he could do it without discovery He is a Man that where he is trusted is faithful to the uttermost Never making advantages of Mens credulity nor abusing the considence they repose in him He is one that in point of fair dealing between Man and Man is severe even to Scrupulosity and he would rather sit down with loss than serve his own ends by any practice that hath but a bad report that hath but even the appearance or suspicion of evil in it though in the mean time he knows that what is got by such practices is by some Men accounted lawful gain He is a Man of great candour and sweetness and obligingness in his Behaviour But withal as on one hand he is careful not to run himself into Inconveniencies by his good nature So on the other hand the kindness and good-will he professeth to all about him is more than a compliment or a semblance of his countenance For his fair speeches are always attended with honest dealings and what he once promiseth he is punctual in making it good though it be to his own prejudice He is a Man that loves a good Name and Reputation as well as any one and is extremely tender of it but yet he scorns to make use of any evil Arts either for the procuring or preserving it And consequently he is a Man that hates all mean and servile compliance and will neither speak nor do any thing against the sense of his Mind for the humouring any Flattery and Dissimulation he abhors and he dares speak his Mind when he judges it fit and reasonable even though he knows the doing it will give offence And as he is perfectly averse to all Fawning and Flattery So he is above Envy and Detraction He never lessens another Man to
is had allowed as many sensual Liberties to its Disciples as that doth and lastly had been carried on in the World by the same ways and means that that hath been that is by the Force of Arms and Dint of the Sword it would have been no great wonder that it should have prevailed as we see it hath done But that a Religion which had no Worldly Advantages to promise to its Followers Nay on the contrary was so contrived that none could own it but he must at the same time deny all his Temporal Interests quit his Friends his Reputation and all his Fortunes in this World and live in hourly expectation of a Martyrdom that such a Religion as this should not only not die with the first Broachers of it but daily grow and spread and the more it was persecuted the more increase till at last it so weathered out all Opposition that it got Possession of the Thrones of Princes and Kings became Nursing Fathers to it I say Whoever is not convinced that the Finger of God was in this would scarce have been convinced that the Finger of God was in our Saviour's Miracles had he been alive and present when they were done But this Effect of Christianity both the Prophets and our Lord long ago foretold and this we now see was verified long ago and is still verified in our days Though those that lived with our Saviour had no experience hereof nor perhaps would several of them have been forward to believe it though it had been told them So that in this respect we have a most Considerable Argument for our Religion which they had not Secondly This is not all Those that undertook the Religion of our Saviour upon his Preaching had no Experience of it They were to be the first Experimenters themselves They ran a great Risque and ventured the Sale of all that they had and yet knew not so certainly what kind of Treasure they should Purchase But we have the Experience and Suffrage of Sixteen Ages which will all vouch that what we lay out in this way will prove valuable Treasure will Reward all the Pains and all the Expence we are at for the Purchasing of it We have never in the compass of our own knowledge nor in all History met with any who seriously laid out themselves in the Service of Jesus Christ and lived up to his Religion that ever grudged the Pains they took about it or repented themselves that they believed or practised as they did The more any Man has been a Christian still the more he hath thanked God for it still the more Quiet of Mind and Peace of Conscience he hath possessed the more he hath enjoyed him self and the less he hath feared Death and all other outward Calamities If ever any Christian hath repented of any thing it is that he hath not been Christian enough that he hath not so heartily believed in our Saviour and obeyed his Precepts as he should have done This we all know and must be sensible of and it is a mighty Evidence of the Truth and Goodness of the Religion we profess We now can try our Religion and give our Approbation of it by the same Standard and Measures by which we try and approve of our Customs and Common Laws After long experience we find the Usefulness and the Conveniency of it and to put another in its place would involve us in horrible Mischiefs and Dangers and Perplexities But this Argument for Christianity those that were the first Converts to it could not have and therefore in this respect also we have the advantage of them Thirdly and Lastly There is another very Considerable standing Argument for the Truth of the Christian Revelation which those in our Saviour's Time were uncapable of and that is the Events which he by the Spirit of Prophecy foretold should after his Death come to pass in the World most of which have punctually hapned as he predicted them and the rest in due time we doubt not will be accomplished I have not leisure to prosecute this Argument particularly only two things I cannot pass by without mention in both of which our Lord shewed himself as wonderful and as true a Prophet as ever appeared in the World The one is the Destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple which he foretold with all the Circumstances imaginable both as to Time and Manner Now all that he said concerning that Destruction was punctually verified even according to the Accounts that the Jewish Historian gives us of that Matter And when afterwards Julian the Emperour with a design to blast the Credit of our Saviour's Prophecy resolved to re-edifie that Temple and set Men on work for that purpose he was soon forced to desist from his Enterprise by Earthquakes and Globes of Fire issuing from out of the Foundations As the Writers of that time both Christian and Pagan do assure us The other Instance I mention is our Saviour's Prophecy of the Rejection of the Jews and that they should be carried Captive into all Nations till the Times of the Gentiles were fulfilled Now this we see hath been accomplished for many Ages and still continues to be so in our days That Nation of the Jews who were once the Peculiar People of God settled in the Land of Canaan by his own immediate Hand are now dispersed all the World over but no where incorporated into a Nation Yet which indeed is wonderful they continue Jews still a People that mingle not with the rest of the World and that are still as zealous for the Scriptures from whence we fetch the Grounds of our Christianity as ever they were So that they are a standing Monument of God's Vengeance upon a People for rejecting the Gospel and a standing Testimony of the Truth of our Saviour's Prophecies These things now with others that I might name are very considerable Evidences of the Truth of our Religion which those that were Contemporary with our Saviour could not have So that putting all these things together I think we may safely draw our Conclusion viz. That we now have as great or greater Arguments to convince us of the Truth of Christ's Revelation as or than they had who were Witnesses of what he did and taught And consequently those that are not persuaded now by the Evidence of it would not have been persuaded though they had seen with their Eyes or heard with their Ears the Publication of the Gospel Which is in effect to say They would not have been persuaded though one had risen from the dead But notwithstanding all this that I have said it is to be feared the thing will not easily go down with many of us but still with the Rich Man in the Parable after all that Abraham had said concerning Moses and the Prophets we will insist on our former Notion Nay but if one came to us from the Dead we should repent The Motives that are offered to us in the Gospel
of this Probity this Purity of Mind and Heart it would better instruct us in the use of our Liberty and teach us to distinguish between good and evil what is sit to be done and what ought not to be done in all cases and emergencies we are concerned in than all the dry Rules of Casuistical Learning be they never so carefully and accurately laid down When a Man is once arrived to that holy temper of Mind that he heartily loves God and his Neighbour and has such a lively sense of the truth and the excellency of Christ's Religion that he is resolved that that shall influence and govern the whole course of his Life and that he will do all his Actions as much as he can for the honour of our Lord and the advancement of his service in the World There can hardly any particular case occur to such a Man in which he will not have rules and measures ready at hand to steer and direct him in his proceedings Nay this general Principle alone of doing all his actions to the glory of God that is to say to the honour of his Religion and the edification of his Neighbour I say this alone will afford him sufficient light and direction for the government of his Actions in all Contingencies Because there is no Action he can be ingaged in but it is at the first sight discernable whether the doing of it or the not doing of it doth more tend to the honour of his Religion or the good of others That which makes the conduct of a Man's self in this World so nice and difficult a matter and has given occasion to the discussion of so many Cases of Concience about the lawfulness or unlawfulness of Actions is this That Men are not throughly honest but halt between God and the World They have a great mind to serve their pleasure and their ambition and their secular ends and yet to serve God too and this puts them upon tampering and trying to reconcile these interests together Whence it comes to pass that the usual Questions that arise about their Actions are not what is best to be done or what is most agreeable to their Duty in this or the other ease But how far they may go in the gratification of such an Appetite or Passion without trangressing the Laws of God How far they may satisfie their covetuous desires without being unjust Whether they may use such arts or tricks in getting or saving without being knavish How far they may drink and not be drunk How far they may gratifie their humour of decking and adorning themselves and yet do no unlawful thing How far they may indulge wantonness and yet be chast Now as I said before such Questions as these are not easy to be resolved nor indeed is the Gospel of Christ so contrived as if it had taken much care whether they were resolved or no. But they are really Cases and Problems that require both Judgment and Learning and likewise the consideration of abundance of particular circumstances to have a good account given of them But now the Man that doth intirely give up himself to the conduct of the Spirit and proposeth nothing to himself in all his Actions but the pure glory of God Such a Man having none of these Worldly sensual designs to serve in his Actions can rarely be supposed to have any of these Questions to put to himself And consequently he can never be at a loss or uncertainty how he is to act for want of a resolution of them much less can he be in danger of transgressing the bounds that God hath fixed to his Actions All the point that such a one hath to consider in any Action is whether will his doing or not doing such an Action better serve the ends of Religion Which will tend most to his own spiritual benefit and the profit of his Neighbour to pursue this design or to let it alone Whether will be more conducive to the Honour of his Lord to gratifie such an Appetite or to deny it satisfaction This I say is the only Question that such a Man has to put to himself and there is no difficulty in giving an Answer to it For there is scarce any case to be put concerning an Action but it is very obvious without an Instructer to find out which side of the case if it be chosen will most minister to the ends of Vertue and Religion and Charity Or if it be not obvious then it is very certain the Man needs not much deliberate about it but may chuse either side indifferently It is a very hard matter oftentimes to determine concerning the Necessity and Obligation of Actions that is whether a Man be bound to do them or no. It is likewise often a hard matter to determine concerning the lawfulness of Actions whether a Man may do them or no. But it is a very easy matter in most cases to determine concerning the expedience of Actions that is to say whether it be best and fittest for a Man to do them or no. Now this last I say is the point that a throughly good Man will consider and steer himself by in all his Actions Thus for Instance It may perhaps bear a dispute Whether a Man be precisely bound by God's Law to pray solemnly twice a day so as that he sins if he do not But it will bear no dispute that it is much better and more acceptable to God and beneficial to our selves to pray at least thus often than to pray seldomer And therefore such a Person as I am speaking of will upon this consideration put it in practice nay and pray oftner too as he has occasion without concerning himself whether he be strictly bound so to do or no. It may bear a dispute among some Persons whether painting the Face be not allowable to Christian Women But it can bear no dispute among any that it is more agreeable to the Sobriety and Modesty and Chastity of a Disciple of Jesus Christ and better serves the ends of Religion to forbear all such suspicious Ornaments There being rarely any good end to be served by them but abundance of evil often arising from them Now this consideration alone is enough to set the Heart of every serious Christian against those practices and to make them wholly to refrain them Thus again it is argued both ways about Play or Gaming whether it be lawful or no especially when sums of Money are played for and the thing becomes rather an avaritious Contention than a Recreation and Divertisement some believing that it is innocent others that it is a grievous sin But there is no Man even of those that use it most but will readily acknowledge that it exposeth a Man to great and Dangerous Temptations of sundry kinds that it is the occasion of abundance of Sin and abundance of Mischief and that it seldom fails to produce intolerable consequences both as to Men's Souls and Estates
fell down flat only at the sound of Rams-Horns 2 Kings 7. ch And when the City of Samaria was Besieged and brought into the greatest extremity that was possible so that Women even are their own Children yet in one night God by an unaccountable terrour which he struck into the hearts of the Enemies raised the Siege And such plenty was left in their Camp that every one of the Besieged had wherewith not only to satisfy his hunger but to enrich himself Only that Nobleman that would not believe this when it was foretold by the Prophet did not live to taste of the Fruits of God Almighty's Victory being trodden to Death in the Crowd II. But it is time to come to the second general point I observed from this Text viz. That the Happiness and Prosperity of Nations is to be attained the same way that any particular Man's happiness is that is to say by being sincerely virtuous and religious or as my Text expresses it by fearing God and keeping all his Commandments always This is a true Proposition both with respect to particular Persons and to Nations too but with this difference That if we take Happiness and Prosperity for that which the World accounts so that is to say the possession of a great many outward Blessings and the freedom from temporal evils and inconveniencies the Proposition is not so universally true with reference to particular Persons as it is with reference to Nations and Kingdoms For every Man that fears God is not always blessed with happy outward Circumstances On the contrary some good Men are exposed to many and great Afflictions and Misfortunes and Sicknesses and Crosses all their lives long But it is certainly true of all Nations and Peoples whatsoever Every Nation or Society shall fare better or worse in this World exactly according as they fear God or despise and affront him exactly according to the degree they keep God's Commandments or break them Though it is not certain that every particular Man shall always do so And there is great reason that it should be thus For First We know that all God's ways are just and equal Now as to particular Persons there is a great room left for the dispensing this Justice and Equity to them For they being in their natures made to live for ever it is enough for the vindicating God's Justice that they be at any time hereafter either rewarded for their Piety and Virtue or punished for their Wickedness and abuse of God's Mercies So that wicked Men may be happy and prosperous here and good Men may suffer many afflictions and tribulations without any the least reflection on the Justice or Goodness of the great Governour of the World Because there is a farther day reserved for the adjusting all Men's Rewards according to their Works But now the consideration of publick Societies and Nations is quite different Nations are not made to be Immortal but end with this World No Society as a Society shall be called to a future account But all the Rewards and Punishments they are capable of as Societies must be adjudged and distributed to them in this present Life And therefore if we suppose God to be the Judge and Governour of the World and of all the Nations in it as well as he is the Judge and Governour of particular Persons We must likewise suppose that he administers all affairs so that Righteous and Religious Nations have in this World the reward of their Virtue in the blessings of Peace and Plenty and all manner of temporal Prosperity And on the other side impious and incorrigible Nations are likewise punished in this World for their wickedness either by severe Judgments or by a total destruction as God in his infinite Wisdom sees cause This now that I have offered is I think so reasonable that if there was no more to be said it ought to go a great way towards the making of the point I have in hand highly credible But in the second place there is a great deal more to be said The word of God doth all along bear testimony to the truth of this A multitude of Texts of Scripture there are that do most plainly give this account of God's dealing with Nations and Peoples that I have now mentioned There is no Judgment threatned to any Nation in the holy Scripture and abundance of Nations are there threatned but it is upon account of the sins and wickedness they were guilty of Which Sins if they repented of so repented as to forsake them they might find mercy And accordingly we find in fact that God always dealt with Peoples and Nations according to these measures God had solemnly denounced destruction to the City of Nineveh by his Prophet and that within forty Days But upon the Repentance of the Ninevites and turning to God with all their hearts he reversed his Sentence tho' to the great discontent of the Prophet and gave them a further time On the other side he waited long for the Repentance of the Canaanites but would not destroy them because their sins though very heinous admitted a place for Repentance But when their iniquities were filled up to the measures according to which God proceeds in his destruction of Nations He then sent the Israelites to root them out and to take possession of their Land And thus was Nebuchadnezzar raised up by God to be a scourge to all the Nations about him for the punishment of their sins Nebuchadnezzar had indeed other things in his Head That which he designed was the gratifying his own Ambition and enlarging his Dominions But these were not the ends which God had to serve by him God made use of him as his Instrument as his Servant and so he calls him for the rendring to the Nations that just recompence of vengeance which their sins called for I mention these things the rather because they are instances of God's dealing with Heathen Nations who were under no particular Covenant with God And I might have recourse likewise to the Histories of all Nations to shew the truth of this Name any Nation that was ever remarkable for Justice for Temperance and severity of Manners for Piety and Religion though it was in a wrong way that did not always thrive and grow great in the World and that did not always enjoy a plentiful portion of all those things which are accounted to make a Nation happy and flourishing And on the other side when that Nation has declined from its former Virtue and grown impious or dissolute in manners we appeal to Experience whether it has not likewise always proportionably sunk in its Success and good Fortunes I am sure any one that will be at the pains to read either the Greek or the Roman or even the Turkish History will meet with matter enough there to satisfie him of the truth of this observation But I confine my self to the Scripture and in that the History of the Jews is
to worship God things would not be so bad among us But how can we expect better when there is no Religion either taught or practised in our Houses We give our Domesticks opportunities enough of learning all our bad qualities but we give them none of learning our good ones if we have any They see us offending God by many rash words and finful actions but they do not see us repenting and asking God's Pardon by our solemn Prayers and Applications to the Throne of Grace Let us therefore seriously lay this point to heart I am sure we have just cause to do it Let us bring Religion into our Families and not be contented that once a Week some of our People in their turns should hear something of it Let us every day call our Family together and pay our Common Tribute of Prayer and Praise for the Mercies we do daily receive in common Methinks our Saviour seemed to have a respect to this very Duty and to charge it mightily upon us when he made us that gracious promise that even where two or three were gathered together in his Name there would he be in the midst of them Sure his words have most naturally a respect to the Worship of God that is performed in Families As hath likewise the very contrivance of the Lord's Prayer All the Petitions thereof being so framed as to be most proper to be said by more than one and yet too when we have shut our Doors for that purpose But Thirdly As you ought to take care about the Worship of God in your Closets and in your Families let me add that it equally concerns you to frequent the more publick Worship of God in his own House It is a bad sign of some very ill principle or other for any Man to be much a stranger there Even to have the liberty and opportunity of worshipping God in publick is one of the greatest Blessings and Privileges that we can have in this World and hath by good Men always been so accounted Now sure if we have this Notion of it we shall think our selves mightily concerned to take all opportunities that come in our way not only on Sundays but on other days of resortting to the Publick Assemblies and joining with them in the solemn Sacrifice of Prayer and Thanksgiving and thinking it a good day to us wherein we have thus employed our selves The Sacrifices of this kind that we offer to God with an honest and devout mind we cannot doubt will always find acceptance and produce their effects nay perhaps when our Closet-prayers will not For there are certainly more promises to publick Prayers than to private ones Though yet both are very good nay both are absolutely necessary But to proceed Fourthly Being upon this Argument of the Means and Instruments of Religion you may be sure I cannot omit the mentioning of another thing as one of those points that I would most seriously recommend to you and that is the solemn observation of the Lord's Day I am not for laying stress upon the keeping of this day or any other more than the nature of the thing requires I am sensible that the Doctrine about the observation of the Sabbath as it is delivered by some Men is superstitious enough and oftentimes where it is believed proves rather a snare to Mens Consciences than of use to make them more Religious Far therefore am I from desiring you to be nice and scrupulous about the Punctilio's of the Lord's-Day-service The Laws both of God and Men have in that matter left a great deal to your own discretion and the circumstances you are in But however thus much is necessary that every Man who professeth himself a Christian should bear a constant Religious regard to the Lord's Day by devoting it to spiritual uses more especially the publick Worship of God I do not much doubt of the truth of the observation which some good Men have made viz. That a Man shall prosper much better both in his Spiritual and Temporal Affairs all the Week after for his careful observance of the Lord's Day And I am likewise of opinion that those Men have little or no sense of Religion that make no Conscience of sanctifying that Day or that put no difference between it and other Days Sure I am were there nothing of a Divine Command for the setting a part this Day to Religious uses which yet I believe there is yet it is one of the most prudent and useful Constitutions that ever was made So that even upon that account all Men that have any Honour for God or Zeal for the Publick Good should think themselves obliged to observe it The benefits of it are indeed unspeakable Not to mention the Civil or Temporal conveniences of it in truth to the keeping up the Religion of this day we owe in a great measure that the very Face of Christianity hath hitherto been preserved among us And were it not for this for any thing I know most of us in a very few years would become little better than Heathens and Barbarians And so great an influence towards the making Men better or at least keeping them from growing worse hath this practice always had that you may observe the most profligate Men among us who for their wickedness come to an untimely end do generally impute their falling into those sins which caused their Death to their breaking the Sabbath as they commonly express it But Fifthly Let me upon this occasion put you in mind of another thing which by many of us is too much neglected And that is the taking all opportunities of coming to the holy Sacrament I have often spoken to you abbout this matter and I now desire to remind you of it There are little hopes you will ever make any great progress in Virtue and Holiness till you can bring your selves to a frequent and constant participation in this Holy Mystery Because indeed this is the solemn Ordinance that Christ hath appointed for the conveying his Grace to us and enabling us to overcome our sins and grow daily in Virtue and Goodness I know we have generally many and inveterate prejudices as to this matter But assure your selves they are meer prejudices and no good reasons Every Man that means or designs honestly and endeavours to lead his life as a Christian ought to do may certainly with as little scruple come every Month to the Communion as he may come every Week to say his Prayers or hear a Sermon Nay and I say further if a Man do not so lead his life that he may approach to the Sacrament every Month nay every Week nay every Day if there be occasion I am afraid that he doth not live so as to be fit for it though he comes but once in a Year or once in seven Years For the dueness of your Preparation doth not depend upon your setting aside so many extraordinary days for the forcing your selves into a
all worldly respects when I once came to the knowledge of the Christian Religion I dispised them all For in truth I found that they were so far from being real Advantages to me that they were rather hindrances in the way of Vertue and Piety Yea doubtless as he goes on in the 8th verse I account all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but dung that I may win Christ That is to say Not only the above-named priviledges but all other things whatsoever Wealth Greatness Fame Friends and Life it self I account them all very pitiful things if they be compared with the inestimable advantages of being a Christian As I have once so I will again readily forsake all part with all things that the World holds most dear and valuable nay I will trample them under my feet like dirt and dung provided I may obtain the Favour of Christ And as he goes on in the 9th verse that I might be found in him not having my own Righteousness which is of the Law but that which is by the Faith of Jesus Christ the Righteousness which is of God by Faith This passage hath been frequently misunderstood and interpreted to a sense that I believe St. Paul did not think of St. Paul doth not here oppose an inherent Righteousness to an imputed one but an outward natural legal Righteousness to that which is inward and spiritual and wrought in a Man by the Spirit of God The Righteousness which the Apostle here desires to be found in is not the Righteousness of Christ made his or imputed to him but a real Righteousness produced in his Soul by the Faith of Jesus Christ The plain Sense of the Verse seems to be this That which above all things I desire is to be found in Christ i. e. to be found a Disciple of his ingrafted into him by being a Member of his Church not having my own Righteousness which is of the Law i. e. not being content with those outward Priviledges and that outward Obedience which by my own natural Strength I am able to yield to the Precepts of the Law which is that Righteousness in which the Jews place their Confidence and by which they expect to be justified before God But that which is by the Faith of Jesus Christ the Righteousness which is of God by Faith i. e. that Righteousness which I desire and in which only I shall have the Confidence to appear before God is an inward Principle of Holiness that Spiritual renewed Obedience to God's I aws which he doth require as the condition of his Favour and Acceptance and which I can never attain to but by the Faith of Christ by becoming a Christian This is none of my own Righteousness but God's it being wrought in me by his Spirit accompanying the preaching of the Gospel and as it is his Gift so he will own it and reward it at the last â—ay This is the full importance of that Verse and then it follows by way of Explication of what he now said That I may know him and 〈…〉 Resurrection c. This is the 〈…〉 that I aspire after that I may know Christ nor only by a nâ—â—ional belief of his Doctrines 〈…〉 of his Religion but by a spirituâ—â— experimental Knowledge of him such a Knowledge as â—â—ansformâ—â—â— Spirit and Temper and that 〈…〉 the power of his 〈◊〉 i. e. then 〈◊〉 experience in my self all the good 〈…〉 that his Resurrection 〈◊〉 a power to work in me that I may see the Vertue and Efficacy of it in my daily dying to Sin and rising again to a 〈◊〉 holy and heavenly Life This is that Righteousness I long for and in comparison of which I account all things in the World but as less and as duâ—â— Thus have I given you a full account of the Text and all the Apostle's Discourse that it depends upon I now come to treat more particularly of it with reserence to the solemnity of this Day We all here present do profess to believe the Article of our Saviour's Resurrection and our business at this time is to celebrate the memory of it But we must not rest here We are not to look upon our Lord's Resurrection meerly as a thing to be believed or professed or commemorated or as a matter of Fact that only concerned himself But there is a great deal in it which doth nearly concern us The Apostle tells us there is a great Power in it even a Power of raising us from Sin to a Holy and Vertuous Life It is so ordered as to be capable of being and it ought to be a Principle of now Life in us as it was the beginning of a now Life in our Saviour Now this Vertue this Power this Efficacy of it as it is that which with the Apostle we ought all most earnestly to endeavour the experiencing in our selves so it is that which will be fittest for us at this time to apply our Meditations to My Work therefore at this time shall be to give some Account of the Power of Christ's Resurrection in order to the making Men good which the Apostle here speaks of to shew how or in what respects it doth instuence upon the Lives of Christians Now if we look into the Holy Scriptures we shall find that there is a four-fold Power attributed to it or that it hath an insluence upon our Lives in these four respects That is to say I. As it lays an Obligation upon Christians to Holiness and Vertue II. As it is the Principal Evidence of the Truth of our Religion the Design of which is to make Men Holy and Vertuous III. As it is the great Support of our future Hopes or our Hopes of another Life which indeed is the main Encouragement we have to apply our selves seriously to the business of Holiness and Vertue IV. And Fourthly as to it we do principally owe all that supernatural Grace and Strength by which we are inabled to live Holily and Vertuously Of these four Points I shall Discourse very briesly I. And First of all our Saviour's Resurrection hath an influence upon our Practice as it lays an Obligation upon Christians to lead Holy and Vertuous Lives As it is in it self an incitement to Piety and heavenly-Mindedness This is indeed the lowest instance of its Power but yet we ought not to pass it by because the Writers of the New Testament do frequently insist on it For thus they argue If Christ was crucified for our Sins then ought we to crucifie them in our members And if Christ rose again the third day then are we ingaged in conformity to him to rise again to newness of Life to lead a Spiritual Divine Heavenly Life such a lise as he now lives with God And this in the ancient times was taught every Christian in and by his Baptism Whenever a person was baptized
hence Did not God in this appear with a witness as a Voucher and Approver of his cause Was not this a demonstration to all the World that Christ Jesus was no Deceiver but that he came from God and that whatever he delivered was the Truth of God and to be received as the Oracles of God Certainly it was For that a man should be raised from the Dead by any other Power than the very Power of God all the World knows to be impossible The Devil though he can do very strange Feats in the natural World Yet I rever heard or read that either he or any of his Agents or Ministers so much as pretended to raise the dead to life again And certainly if he could have done it he would have done it often before this as in the case of Apollonius Tyanaeus Mahomet and others if it had been for no other reason than to baffle thereby the Evidence of our Saviour's Resurrection and render it unconcluding Ir must therefore certainly be the Power of God that raised up Jesus from the dead But then to suppose that God should employ this Tower for the giving Testimony to a Falshood that he should set his own Seal to attest an Untruth as he must be supposed to have done if Jesus was not his Son What an unaccountable thing is this No man that believes that God is faithful and just and true and that he governs the World can possibly imagine such a thing For this had been to have contradicted all his own Attributes and to have laid an invincible temptation and snare before all mankind to believe an Impious Lye You see then what an unexceptionable Proof nay Demonstration I may call it the Resurrection of Christ doth afford us of the Truth of his Religion which is the second Instance of the Power that is in it to bring men over to Holiness and Vertue III. But Thirdly the Power of Christ's Resurrection for the making us holy and vertuous will further appear in this respect Namely as it is in particular the great support of our Future Hopes the great Pledge and Assurance of our own Resurrection and Immortality For if Christ be risen then may we also be certain that we shall at last be raised by him Because Christ is not risen for himself only but as the first-fruits of them that slept 1 Cor. xv Good reason therefore had S. Paul to argue as he doth in that place If Christ be preached that he is risen from the dead how say some among you that there is no Resurrection On the contrary as he urges If we believe that Jesus Christ died and rose again Even so them also that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him 1 Thess iv 14. For how can we desire to be better assured that our Bodies shall not for ever sleep in the Grave but shall at last be reunited to our Souls and both Soul and Body live eternally in unspeakable bliss and happiness I say How can we have greater assurance of this than by what was on this day brought to pass in our Saviour We have hereby a clear demonstration that the Resurrection is possible For Christ who was once dead is alive again and lives in unexpressible Glory at the right hand of God And at the same time that he rose he raised up other Bodies also of Holy Men to accompany him in his Triumph over Death But that is not all He that raised up himself and them hath given us his solemn Word and Promise in as express terms as is possible that he will by the same Power raise up us also and exalt us to the same Glory that he is possessed of He hath told us That he is the Resurrection and the Life And that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life and he will raise him up at the last day There cannot be a stronger Proof of any thing than our Saviour's Resurrection is of the happiness of good Men in another State Which being so How powerful a means must we needs conclude it to be for the Reforming the manners of Mankind and making them truly Holy and Vertuous Since we have thereby such a Demonstration given us of a glorious Immortality to be expected by us what is it that can be able to hinder or divert us from a serious pursuit of those things that lead to it What could God do more by way of Motive and Argument towards the Proselyting the World to Religion and Righteousness than he hath done by thus Ascertaining our future Happiness by the Resurrection of his Son Jesus To be certain that if we seriously apply our selves to a life of Piety here we shall be crowned with everlasting Felicity hereafter To be certain that if we follow the steps of our Blessed Saviour we shall for ever shine in the same Glory and Lustre that he now doth at the right hand of his Father To be able positively to say I know that my Redeemer liveth and I know that if I live as he did I shall for ever live with him and tho' it doth not yet appear what I shall be yet this I know that when he shall appear I shall be like him O what noble Thoughts what brave Resolutions is this able to inspire us with What Difficulties shall we be afraid of What Labours shall we not willingly undertake What Temptations shall we not easily vanquish in the Prospect of such an eternal Crown of Glory as awaits us and is secured to us by our Lord Jesus O happy we Christians that have so clear a Revelation of those things which God hath prepared for them that love him those things which eye hath not seen nor ear heard neither did they enter into the heart of man Blessed for ever blessed be our Lord Jesus Christ that hath begotten us again to this lively hope by his Rosurrection from the dead O! what mighty Encouragements have we to set our selves against our Sins and to labour after the Perfection of Vertue in comparison of what those have who are ignorant of our Saviour's Resurrection and who know nothing of the other World but by the uncertain conjectures of their natural Reason If we had no other assurance of the Immortality of the Soul and the rewards and punishments of another life but what is afforded us by the light of Nature and the deductions of Philosophy I doubt we could never expect to see any great Reformation in our manners Some of the Philosophers have indeed to their immortal Fame asserted the truth of these things But then others of them have as much made it their business to run them down And as for those of them that spoke the best concerning the other World yet God knows their Discourses upon this Argument as will appear to any that reads them are generally very uncertain and altogether conjectural But admitting their Reasons to be strong and conclusive as I am far from denying
that the Souls Immortality is demonstrable by the light of Nature yet there are generally these two Inconveniences in the Arguments they make use of for the Proof of this matter which render them in a great measure ineffectual for the reforming mens lives First They are generally of so great Subtilty so Nice so Metaphysical so much above the reach of ordinary Capacities that they are useless to the greatest part of Mankind who have not understandings fitted for them And Secondly They have this inconvenience likewise that a Man doth not see the Evidence of them without actual attention to a long Train of Propositions which attention it may be when a Man most stands in need of their Support he shall neither have the leisure nor the humour to give But now the Christian Method of proving another Life is quite of another strain and wholly free from these inconveniences That Demonstration which Christ hath given us of a glorious Immortality by his Resurrection from the dead as it is infinitely certain and conclusive so it is plain and easy short and compendious powerful and operative No Man that believes the matter of Fact can deny the Cogency of it Men of the meanest Capacities may apprehend it Persons in a crowd of business and in the midst of temptations may attend to it And it hath this Vertue besides that it leaves a lasting impression upon the Spirits of those that do believe and consider it Thanks therefore to our Lord Jesus Christ for this excellent Instrument of Piety that he hath given us by his Resurrection Everlasting Praises to his name that he hath thus brought Life and Immortality to light by his Gospel This very thing alone was there nothing else to be said for the Christian Revelation would sufficiently justify both the Gospel it self and our Lord Jesus the Author of it to all Mankind nay and effectually recommend his Religion above all others that ever were taught to all Persons in all Nations of the World IV. Fourthly and Lastly There is still a further Blessing coming to us by our Saviour's Resurrection from the dead and in which indeed is chiefly seen and expressed the great Power of it for the making us Holy and Vertuous That is to say Unto it we do principally owe all that supernatural Grace and Assistance by which we are enabled to vanquish our Corruptions and to live up to the Precepts of our Religion As Christ by his Resurrection did oblige us to lead new lives As Christ by his Resurrection did demonstrate the truth of the Christian Religion which is wholly in order to our leading new lives As by his Resurrection he cleared up to us the certainty of our future State and thereby gave us the greatest Motive and Encouragement to lead new lives So in the last place by the same Resurrection he acquired a Power of conferring Grace and Strength and Influence upon us by the Virtue of which we are in fact inabled to lead new lives Tho' Christ by his death reconciled us to God and procured a Pardon of Sin for us yet the actual benefit of this Reconciliation the actual application of this Pardon did depend upon our performance of certain Conditions Which conditions were that we should mortify all our evil affections and frame our Lives suitable to the Laws of the Gospel But now the Grace and Power by which we are inabled to do this was not the effect of Christ's Death but of his Resurrection It was when he ascended up on high and led Captivity Captive that is when he had vanquished Death which had vanquished all the World before It was then as the Scripture assures us and not till then that he was in a capacity of giving gifts unto men It was not till he was glorified as St. John observes that the holy spirit was given Hence it is that we every where find the Apostles attributing the business of Man's Justification and Salvation as much or more to Christ's Resurrection than to his Passion If Christ be not risen saith St. Paul 1 Cor. xv your Faith is in vain ye are yet in your Sins Indeed if Christ had perished in the Grave we had still had all the load of our sins upon us because we had no assurance that God had accepted the Atonement and Propitiation which he had made for them And much less could we have promised to our selves that we should have been assisted by any Divine Power for the subduing of them Again the same St. Paul tells us Rom. iv that Christ was delivered for our sins and raised again for our justification Christ's Death was the Sacrifice the Satisfaction for our Sins But it was by the means of his Resurrection that that Sacrifice and Satisfaction is applied to us and we for the merits of it become justified before God Lastly To name no more Texts Who saith the same Apostle Rom. viii shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect It is God that justifyeth Who is he that condemneth It is Christ that died yea rather that is risen again who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for us Here then is the great Power of our Saviour's Resurrection to make us good Christ being risen from the dead hath all Power given him both in Heaven and in Earth God as St. Paul expresseth it hath put all things under his feet and hath given him to be head over all things to the Church Eph. 1.22 Now in the fullness of that Power that he is invested with as he doth on one hand with never-failing efficacy make continual Intercession for his Church and every Member of it So he doth on the other hand out of the fulness of that Power derive and communicate so much Strength and Grace and Assistance of the Divine Spirit to all Christians that if they make a good use of it they shall not fail to perform all those Conditions of Faith and Repentance and a Holy Life that are required of them in order to their being made actual partakers of all those unspeakable Benefits which he purchased for Mankind by his Death and Sufferings Christ by his Resurrection is become both our High-Priest and our King both our Advocate and our Lord. By that Power which he then obtained as our Priest and Advocate he doth with Authority recommend us and all our concernments to his Father As our King and Lord he rules and governs us he takes care of us he provides for us he represses the insults of his and our Enemies and defeats all their attempts against us And lastly he supplies us from time to time with such a measure of Grace and Strength and influence of his Divine Spirit as he sees is needful or proper for our Condition If all this now that I have said be the effect of our Saviour's Resurrection as it certainly is Must we not needs own that there is a mighty Power in it for the making us good
this World so dark and miserable a place that no serious considering man can tolerably enjoy himself in it For here upon the former supposition you are left without Counsel or Advice You have nothing to propose nothing to design in the course of your Lives It is all one how you behave your selves whether honestly or wickedly whether you mind your Business or mind it not for the Even will be the same You are obliged to no body for any Benefits you can complain of no body for any ill usage If you be in ill circumstances you have none to apply to for Remedy and if you be in good ones you may be stript of them without Remedy the next moment for all things are carried on by a whirl of Fate And you are not much better'd by the latter Hypothesis That God hath trusted the Government of the World with Mankind who are endowed with Reason and Understanding For if we consider how Mankind do sometimes use their Reasons it is as good if not better to be exposed to the Hazards of Chance or Necessity as to be subject to their Wills The truth of it is if this Systeme of the World be well consider'd it will appear a more uncomfortable one than the other for it doth not remove from us the Iron Bands of Fate we are still under that Yoke as much as we were before Yet besides these it puts upon us another Yoke the arbitrary Pleasures of those of our own kind which if they be not govern'd by Reason are ten times more unsupportable than the other We are by this Hypothesis as much exposed to Natural Evils as we were before and there is no help for them but over and above we must bear the Indignities and Insolences the Ravages and Cruelty of every one that is stronger than our selves and hath the will to oppress us O hard Lot of Mankind if this was their Constitution better by far were it for them to be Brutes and think of nothing than to be Men upon such Terms as these Happy therefore are the Inhabitants of the Earth happy are the remotest Isles thereof that there is a King that reigns both over Fate and Men. Happy are we that there is a wise and intelligent Being that superintends all our Affairs and so governs both the Powers of Nature and the Powers of Mankind that nothing can be done by either of them but what is designed by and pursuant to his Counsels Upon this Supposition we may live like Men and enjoy our selves with some Comfort in this World We may propose Ends and Designs to our selves and hope that with our diligence and good management they may take effect Upon this Supposition we may and ought to look upon all our good Successes as the Blessings of God to us and particularly that which we are this day met together to thank Him for I mean the wonderful Preservation of His Majesty from all the Dangers to which he hath so often been exposed and his safe Return to us Upon this Supposition we may hope that tho' all things have not succeeded according to our Wishes yet in due time they may since the King of the World hath by the frequent and unexpected Deliverances he hath wrought for us and the strange unusual Providences that have attended our King given us some Encouragement to believe provided we do our parts towards it that He hath reserv'd Vs for better Times and Him for the executing those Glorious Designs which Good Men hope will at last be accomplish'd in the World Lastly Upon this Supposition every Honest Man will find reason enough both to bear contentedly whatever uneasie Circumstances he lyes under and to trust in God's Mercy for the removal of them and in the mean time to possess his own Soul in a cheerful dependance on God's Providence and a hearty Thankfulness for all the innumerable Blessings he hath receiv'd and doth daily receive from his Hands And therefore since the Lord is King let the earth be glad yea let the multitude of the isles be glad thereof Now That the Lord is really thus the King of the World there are all the Arguments to perswade us that can be desir'd It is the Voice of Reason It is the Voice of all Mankind It is the Voice of GOD himself both in His Works and in His Word Give me leave to give you a Specimen in all these ways of Arguing and but a Specimen because it would be rather the Work of a Book than of a Sermon to dilate upon these matters First I say Reason tells us it must be thus For admitting that the World did not make it self but was made by God it will follow that the same God that made it must still govern it For the same Ends and Designs and Motives whatever they were that induced God to make the World at first will oblige Him for ever to take care of it and look after it Unless we suppose God to contrive an act as uncertainly and unstedily and with the same inconstancy and levity of Mind that some of us Mortals here upon Earth do Secondly It is the Voice of all Mankind For otherwise how comes it to pass that among all Nations and in all Ages there has been some Religion or other practised I pray what is the meaning of worshiping God of putting up Prayers and Supplications to Him for the things we need of returning Thanks for the Benefits we have received of appointing Religious Rites and Methods for the expiation of Guilt or the averting of impendent Calamities all which things have been practised in all Nations from the beginning of the World to this day I say what is the meaning of all this unless it was hereby meant to be signified That there is a God which doth concern himself in the Affairs of Mankind and who doth dispense Good or Evil to them as they well or ill behave themselves towards him The Truth is To say that God doth not govern the World is to say that all Religion is a Cheat and that all Mankind except a few debauch'd Wits in the more polite Countries and a few Brutes in the very barbarous ones who are of no Religion at all have been and are a company of credulous Fools For this is certain whatever Argument either Jew or Turk or Pagan or Christian can suggest to himself for the convincing him that it is his Concernment or his Duty to worship God or to be of any Religion at all nay or to make any conscience of any Action he does I say all these Arguments do not only prove but suppose that God both knows and orders the Affairs of the World Thirdly It may likewise be as strongly proved from Effects from the tracks and footsteps of a Divine over-ruling Providence which are to be seen in the Events that happen in the World which is what I call the Voice of God in his Works These are indeed so many and so
any of our Betters without saluting them or some way or other testifying our Respect to them tho' they had no way particularly obliged us But if we were beholding to them for our daily Bread to come into their Presence without taking notice of them or their Bounty to us would be intolerable How much more intolerable therefore must it be to pass by God Almighty day after day nay to be in his Presence continually as indeed we always are and yet neither to pay any Homage or Reverence to him as He is our Supreme Lord nor to make any Acknowledgments as He is our daily Preserver and Benefactor If we had any sense of Ingenuity we should blush to think of passing a Day without several times lifting up our Minds and doing our Respects to Almighty God tho' there was no other ill in the Neglect than only the horrible Rudeness and ill Manners that it discovers in us But Secondly The constant Exercise of Prayer is not only recommended to us under the notion of a very decent and reasonable thing but as an indispensable Duty God Almighty hath most strictly charged it upon us and we are Transgressors of his Laws if we do not practise it Nature it self speaks sufficiently plain in this matter And where-ever God hath to the Law of Nature super-added any Revelation of his Will this Duty we are speaking of fails not to make up a considerable part of it It would be endless to mention all that is said upon this Head by our Lord and his Apostles in the new Testament I have told you already that they oblige us to no less than Praying always Praying without ceasing They use likewise abundance of other Expressions to the like purpose They bid us every where to lift up holy hands In every thing to make our Supplications known unto God To pray in the Spirit with all Prayer and Supplication and and to watch thereunto with all perseverance If it be said there is no such express command for Prayer in that Revelation which was made to the Jews I answer It is a great Mistake The Prophets do over and over again injoin it as the Principal Part of the Worship of God And those that live without Praying are by those Inspired Writers rank'd among the Atheists Psalm 53.1.4 And as for the Law of Moses it self it is obvious to observe that the greatest part of it is concerning Sacrifices Now Sacrifices if we will understand them right were nothing else but that Form or Method of putting up Prayers to God that was in those times used in the World So that in truth so far was Prayer from being left as a Matter of Indifferency to the Jews that most of their Religion consisted in it And accordingly all the Devout Men of that Church spent much of their Time in this Exercise David's manner was to pray seven times a Day And Daniel took himself to be so much obliged to the frequent Practice of this Duty that rather than break his Custom of performing his Solemn Devotions three times a day he would expose himself to the Den of Lyons Nay Thirdly So great is our obligation to frequent Prayer that he acts against his Nature whosoever doth not practise it For in truth Prayer is the proper and peculiar Duty of Man as he is a Man That which constitutes the nature of Man and doth formally difference and distinguish him from all other Animals is not so much the power of Reason as the capacity of being Religious There are some Foot-steps of an obscure Reason to be observed in many Creatures besides Man But in none except Him is there found any sense of a Deity or Disposition towards Religion or any thing that looks like it That seems to be the Prerogative of Mankind God endowed them and them only with Spirits capable of Reflecting upon the Author of their Beings and of making acknowledgments and performing Religious Worship to him So that to Worship God to converse with him in the exercise of Devotion to Pray and give Thanks for his Benefits may be truly said to be the proper Office of a Man as Man The natural exercise of those Faculties that distinguish him from brute Creatures And consequently those that live in a continual neglect of this what must be said of them but that they act unsuitably to their Natures and are degenerated into a sort of Brutishness It appears then that our Obligations to this Duty are many and great and such as there is no possibility of evading But here is our unhappiness that those Duties which we are most strictly obliged to are not those that we are always most inclined to practise There may be something in the most indispensable Duties so harsh and unpleasant so disagreeing with our other Appetites or Interests They may be so hard to be performed so Laborious or so Expensive or upon some other account so ungratefull that we shall naturally put our selves upon the finding out Excuses for the ridding our hands of them and easily satisfy our minds for so doing But now which I desire in the Fourth place to be considered There are none of these pretences to be made against this Duty of Prayer none of these Inconveniencies do attend it But it is so naturally so easily performed and so inoffensively to all our other Appetites and Interests That one would think nothing but mere laziness or stupidity could hinder a Man from the daily Exercise of it It requires no great Parts or Learning or Study for the discharging it The meanest Capacity the most un-improved Vnderstanding if there be but an honest Heart may perform it as well as the learnedest Man in the World It requires no Labour or Toil. The feeblest and most dis-spirited Body that can but lift up eyes to Heaven and direct wishes thither doth it as effectually as the most vigorous Constitution It doth not go against the grain of any natural Inclination nor put the body to any pain or hardship Nor doth it contradict any appetite or affection that Nature hath implanted in us No Humour but either the Sottish or the Malicious the Brutish or the Devilish is distasted by it It puts us to no Charge or Expence in the World save that of our Thoughts yet that is the noblest way of spending them And if they be not employed thus it is ten to one but they will be employed much worse It is not at all consumptive of our Time For we may attend this work when we are a doing other business and there is no man so full of business but he hath abundance of vacant spaces which he will not know how to fill up to any good purpose unless he hath learned this Art of saving Time In a word there is no Objection against it it is one of the Easiest Naturalest Inoffensivest Duties in the World Nay so easie it is that the most Selfish Man if he was to make his own Terms with