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Ἂν ΝΙΝ. πον, 5 De Breas STL στα δ atte se totter tes oh : See Aa nn RN ονοκτττς μὲ a y PRL A RAS RAE AO NA A RNS he eet Patina σ' ᾿ “ mae na sete ene etc ἐν τ Atacama ; ΡΥ Ρ ΡΟΝ : | im ety ὸ Cpe i ΡΣ ΠΑ ρα, τες ἈΛΟΝ αν νυν ΦΈΡΟΙ 7 Ae tect UR FRR ὦ δι νος AS Pe oh at ie Soe PAO OPO ee in sey epbeinamanare mn ary Mann oboe tite Piri γον ον ee ewer z ¥ ν er oe em ty OLS UPR Pe Pana Penge ees ν r piney » Seat αν ΟΣ besnan arene eet. awe RAE A ere tra) Ce tee ee nee ΟὟ OF PRINCETG> \ EOL OGICN. > Spe 5199. Θ᾽ Θὰ Hammond, Henry, 1605-1660. Thirty-one sermons preached on several occasions Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/thirtyonesermonsO2hamm ᾿ ἌΝ A i ἊΝ ἣν" pe ἢ $i 4 ᾿ 1 ἡ Υ " ri - | τ ᾿ ᾿ at = ὍΝ a ny i,t My Nr i hig μ Ἄν. ἼΥ p “8 ree ἥρω ee) Ϊ ᾿ It eae δ νον, THE MISCELLANEOUS THEOLOGICAL WORKS OF HENRY HAMMOND, D.D., ARCHDEACON OF CHICHESTER, AND CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH. ape . Νὰ » ᾿ ae " μεν δ 40 ΒΝ ΠΝ SI le! dled ivy τω 4 ὃ Say: > 41 ane Wen WAT ΙΓ Pie a Vale ἣ» 7 δ τ’ ἀφο, ὍΝ "ΚΑ OE αν ΤΥ tee THE MISCELLANEOUS ERE OLOGICAL WORKS OF HENRY HAMMOND, D.D., ARCHDEACON OF CHICHESTER AND CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH. TO WHICH IS PREFIXED, THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR, BY JOHN FELL, D.D., _DEAN OF CH. CH., AND LORD BISHOP OF OXFORD. THIRD EDITION. VOLUME III. CONTAINING SERMONS. OXFORD: JOHN HENRY PARKER. MDCCCL, Ss ehibh "PS iY THIRTY-ONE SERMONS PREACHED ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS. BY ΠΝ Y HAMMOND, -D.D., ARCHDEACON OF CHICHESTER AND CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH. “ον shall they hear, without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent?” Rom. x. 14, 15. “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every crea- ture.” St. Mark xvi. 15. A NEW EDITION. OXFORD : JOHN HENRY PARKER, MDCCCL. ΠΤ"... 7 ne yi \ γι γι Γ ’ , ᾿ > ᾿Ξ “2 Δ. fot oe . J ei ΓΥΣ ἢ ᾿ ᾿ “"Ψ } aa Ge at. CATE i a 7 =< 4 ; ᾿ ὃ ἐς 5. 7 ‘ ᾿ Ἢ , y “P “᾿ F “tele ys Aa τ ᾿ Ἢ , » Ps ‘6 i, ᾿ 4 vy 4 ὦ ADVERTISEMENT. THe arrangement of the Sermons in the present volume follows the order observed in the folio edition of the author’s works, and is entirely independent of the time of their de- livery or publication. They belong to three different classes. The first ten, as the reader will perceive by the Dedication, were published towards the close of the year 1648. They came out in a small 4to. volume, under circumstances which are explained in the note at page 3, and a second edition was published in 1652, but they were never again reprinted apart from the other Sermons. With regard to the time at which they were written or preached, the present editor can give no further information than what the attentive reader will gather for himself. It may be sufficient to notice that the first and last were prepared for delivery in Advent, 1648, and that the author has himself specified the time at which the seventh, eighth, and ninth were preached, and from the latter being called an Haster Sermon, at St. Mary’s in Oxford, A.D. 1644, we may perhaps infer that the other two preached in Lent, 1643, and 1645 respectively, were preached at some other church in that city. But the style of the sermon and the frequent quotations of Greek and Latin phrases suffi- ciently indicate, that at whatever church they may have vill ADVERTISEMENT. been preached, the audience must have been members of the University. It will be observed that the first and the tenth sermons intended for the King, are more sparing in these quotations from ancient authors in the original languages. With regard to the remaining five, it can only be inferred from their learned character, that they were intended for a University audience, or at least for an educated congregation. It must not be forgotten that the court was held at Oxford during the year 1644. The royal proclamation convoking the parliament to meet at Oxford on the following 22nd of January, bears date, Dec. 22nd, 1643, and there were there assembled eighty-three members of the upper, and a hundred and sixty-five of the lower house, and they continued to sit till April 16th, when the King adjourned the parliament. A troop of horse had previously been sent under Sir John Byron to Oxford, for its defence. The next two Sermons are amongst the earliest, if they are not quite the earliest production of Hammond’s pen, but they did not appear in print till 1657, and then only as an after-thought, as it appears, and with the view of giving an interest to a volume of additional notes to his Para- phrase and Annotations. These two sermons are spoken of by his biographer? as a specimen of a corisiderable number which he was from time to time called upon to preach at the visitations of the clergy, and at St. Paul’s cross. The latter forms the subject of an interesting anecdote, in which Dr. Potter, the Dean of Wor- cester, is spoken of as ascribing his worldly prosperity to his having followed the advice there given. The story must be in some respects inaccurately told, as Dr. Potter died at the commencement of 1646, and it is not likely that the last five or six years of his life having been spent however well, * Life, p. xxvi. ADVERTISEMENT. ΙΧ would have entitled him to be spoken of as one ‘ whose memory, for his remarkable charity and all other excellencies befitting his profession and dignity in the Church, is precious.’ Besides, his preferments, such as they were, were all con- ferred upon him some years previously. Of this sermon it only remains to notice, that it was preached at St. Paul’s cross, and not as is stated in the title, which is reprinted exactly from the folio, in St. Paul’s church. The remaining nineteen Sermons were not published till after the author’s death, 1664, and as they appeared without any advertisement, it is not known who was the editor, or from what materials they were selected. The title-page in- dicates that they were preached on several occasions, but there is none but internal evidence to shew the period at which, or the audience before whom they were preached. They have all, with the exception of the fourth and the last five, the character of University sermons, and it will be observed that once in the fifth sermon (p. 363) his audience are addressed as ‘right honourable.’ The reader will find in many of them, expressions which lead to the supposition that they were preached at Oxford, whilst the King’s troops were there. With regard to the six which seem exceptions to this, there appears no sufficient ground on which to hazard a conjecture, as to whether they were preached in his parish of Penshurst, before the civil war broke out, or in Worcestershire after he had taken up his residence at Westwood Park. They were published in a small folio, which is divided into two parts; the first, which contains the twelve Sermons, was printed for Royston, the well-known publisher of the royalist and episcopalian divines. The other nineteen, which now came out for the first time, were printed for Garthwaite, whose publications were also for the most part of the same class. His name appearing in the title-page leads to the sup- x ADVERTISEMENT. position that Sheldon was the editor, for Garthwaite was Sheldon’s publisher. This part also bears the Jmprimatur of Geo. Stradling, domestic chaplain to Sheldon, then Bishop of London. They were reprinted in 1675, and also in the complete collection of the author’s works in 1684. Nov. 8, 1850. Ne > \ THEOLORLAX Tie k ἴω 5}»γ-- Ῥν...-: 3 ἡ. = Ve νυγυυς = CONTENTS. SERMON I. (Page 5.) THE CHRISTIAN’S OBLIGATIONS TO PEACE AND CHARITY. Isaiah ii. 4. They shall beat their swords into plough shares, and their spears into pruning hooks. SERMON II. (Page 28.) CHRIST’S EASY YOKE. Matthew xi. 30. My yoke is easy, and My burden is light. SERMON III. (Page 48.) EPHRAIM’S COMPLAINT. Jeremiah xxxi. 18. 1 have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus; Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccus- tomed to the yoke : turn Thou me, and I shall be turned. xu CONTENTS. SERMON IV. (Page 69.) JOHN BAPTIST’S WARNING. Matthew iii. 2. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. SERMON V. (Page 85.) GOD IS THE GOD OF BETHEL. Genesis xxx. 18. 1 am the God of Bethel. SERMON VI. (Page 107.) THE NECESSITY OF THE CHRISTIAN’S CLEANSING. 2 Corinthians vi. 1. Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves. SERMON VII. BEING A LENT SERMON AT OXFORD, A.D. 1643, (Page 128.) CHRIST AND BARABBAS. John xviii. 40. Not this Man, but Barabbas. SERMON VIII. BEING A LENT SERMON AT OXFORD, A.D. 1645. (Page 151.) ST. PAUL’S SERMON TO FELIX. Acts xxiv. 25. And as he reasoned of righteousness, and temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled. CONTENTS. xiii SERMON IX. BEING AN EASTER SERMON AT ST. MARY’S IN OXFORD, A.D. 1644. (Page 173.) THE BLESSING INFLUENCE OF CHRIST’S RESURRECTION. Acts iil. 26. God having raised up His Son Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities. SERMON X. PREPARED AT CARISBROOK CASTLE, BUT NOT PREACHED, (Page 196.) GOD’S COMPLAINT AGAINST REVOLTERS. Isaiah 1. 5. Why should you be stricken any more? you will revolt more and more. SERMON XI. A SERMON PREACHED TO THE CLERGY OF THE DEANERY OF SHORHAM IN KENT, AT THE VISITATION BETWEEN EASTER AND WHITSUNTIDE, A.D. 1639, HELD AT ST. MARY-CRAY. (Page 217.) THE PASTOR’S MOTTO. 2 Corinthians xii. 14. For I seek not yours, but you. SERMON XII. PREACHED IN ST. PAUL’S CHURCH BEFORE THE LORD MAYOR AND ALDERMEN OF THE CITY OF LONDON, ON APRIL 12, A.p. 1640, (Page 239.) THE POOR MAN’S TITHING. Deuteronomy xxvi. 12, 13. When thou hast made an end of tithing all the tithes of thine increase the third year. .. Then thou shalt say before the Lord thy God... XIV CONTENTS. SERMON XIII. (Page 273.) Ezekiel xvi. 30. The work of an imperious whorish woman. SERMON XIV. (Page 297.) Philippians iv. 13. 1 can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me. SERMON XV. (Page 316.) Proverbs 1. 21. How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity ? SERMON XVI. (Page 336,) Matthew i. 238. Emmanuel, which is by interpretation, God with us. SERMON XVII. (Page 353.) Luke ix. 55. Vou know not what spirit you are of. SERMON XVIII. (Page 374.) Ezekiel xviii. 31. For why will ye die? SERMON XIX. (Page 393.) Jeremiah ν. 2. Though they say, The Lord liveth; surely they swear falsely. CONTENTS. XV SERMON XxX. (Page 411.) Luke xviii. 11. God, I thank Thee, that I am not as other men, extortioners, &c., or even as this publican. SERMON XXI. (Page 444.) Matthew iii. 3. Prepare ye the way of the Lord. SERMON XXII. (Page 466.) John vii. 48. Have any of the Pharisees believed on Him ? SERMON XXIII. (Page 489.) Matthew x. 15. It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city. SERMON XXIV. (Page 507.) Acts xvii. 30. And the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men every where to repent. SERMON XXV. (Page 528.) Acts xvii. 30. And the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men every where to repent. XV1 CONTENTS. SERMON XXVI. (Page 550.) Romans 1. 26. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections. SERMON XXVIII. (Page 580.) Galatians vi. 15. But a new creature. SERMON XXVIII. (Page 598.) 2 Peter ui. 3. Scoffers walking after their own lusts. SERMON XXIX. (Page 616.) 2 Peter 111. ὃ, Scoffers walking after their own lusts. SERMON XXX. (Page 632.) 1 Timothy i. 15. Of whom I am the chief. PARS SECUNDA. SERMON XXXI. (Page 648.) 1 Timothy i. 15. Of whom I am the chief: peeee PR a ON on Ny ἀν ἀν ee uur EMIN KBE: Verve vuwvwe SERMON XVII. Luke ix. 55. You know not what spirit you are of. Or all errors or ignorances there are none so worthy our pains to cure, or caution to prevent, as those that have influ- ence on practice. The prime ingredient in the making up a wise man, saith Aristotle in his Metaphysics, is to be well- advised περὶ ὧν ἀπορῆσαι δεῖ πρῶτον, what doubts must first be made, what ignorances earliest provided for: and there is not a more remarkable spring and principle of all the Scripture folly (that is wickedness) among men, than the beginning our Christian course unluckily, with some one or more false infusions, which not only are very hardly ever cor- rected afterward—like the errors of the first concoction, that are never rectified in the second—but moreover have an in- auspicious poisonous propriety in them, turn all into nourish- ment of the prevailing humour: and then, as the injury of filching some of that corn that was delivered out for seed, hath a peculiar mark of aggravation upon it; is not to be measured in the garner but in the field; not by the quan- tity of what was stolen, but of what it would probably have proved in the harvest; so the damage that is consequent to this infelicity is never fully aggravated but by putting into the bill against it all the sins of the whole life; yea, and all the damnation that attends it. Of this kind I must profess to believe the ignorance of the gospel-spirit to be chief, an ignorance that cannot choose but have an influence on every public action of the life. So that as Padre Paolo was designed a handsome office in the 5. [Aristot. Metaph. B. c. 1.] HAMMOND. Aa 854 SERMON XVII. senate of Venice, to sit by and observe, and take care nequid contra pietatem ; so it were to be wished that every man on whom the name of Christ is called had some assistant angel, some ἐπίτροπος δαίμων, be it conscience, be it the remem- brance of what I now say unto him, to interpose in all, espe- cially the visible undertakings of the life, nequid contra spiri- tum Evangelii, that nothing be ventured on but what is agree- able to the spirit of the gospel. Even disciples themselves may, it seems, run into great inconveniences for want of it; James and John did so in the text ; ignem de celo, “ fire from heaven” on all that did not treat them so well as they ex- pected; but Christ turned and reproved them, saying, “ You know not what spirit,” οἵου πνεύματος, ‘ what kind of spirit you are οἵ; and that with an ἔμφασις on ὑμεῖς, not ὑμεῖς ἐστὲ, but ἔστε ὑμεῖς, you “disciples,” you “Christians,” “ You know not what spirit you are of.” In the words it will be very natural to observe these three particulars; 1. That there is a peculiar spirit that Christians are of, οἵου πνεύματος ὑμεῖς: 2. That some prime Christians do not know the kind of spirit, οὐκ οἴδατε: even so James and John, “ You know not,” &c.: 3. That this ignorance is apt to betray Christians to unsafe, unjustifiable designs and actions. You that would have fire from heaven, do it upon this one ignorance, “ You know not,” &e. I begin first with the first of these, that there is a peculiar spirit that Christians are of; a spirit of the gospel; and that must be considered here, not in an unlimited latitude, but only as it is opposite to the spirit of Elias, θέλεις ὡς καὶ Ἠλίας; wilt thou do as he did? It will then be necessary to shew you the peculiarity of the gospel spirit by its oppo- sition to that of Elias, which is manifold; for instance, first, Elias was the great assertor of law; upon which ground Moses and he appear with our Saviour at His transfigura- tion; so that two things will be observable which make a difference betwixt the legal and the gospel spirit: 1. That some precepts of Christ now clearly (and with weight upon them) delivered by Christ, were, if in substance de- livered at all, yet sure not so clearly, and at length, and intelligibly proposed under the law. You have examples in SERMON XVII. 855 the fifth of Matthew, in the opposition betwixt the ἐρρήθη Matt. v. ἀρχαίοις, what was said by Moses to the ancients, and the ἐγὼ δὲ ὑμῖν, Christ’s sayings to His disciples; which if they be interpreted of Moses’ law,—as many of the particulars are evidently taken out of the decalogue, “Thou shalt not kill, commit adultery, perjury,”—Christ’s are then clearly super- additions unto Moses’; or if they refer to the Pharisees’ glosses, —as some others of them possibly may do,—then do those glosses of those Pharisees—who were none of the loosest nor ignorantest persons among them; but, ἀκριβεστάτη αἵρεσις, [ Acts xxvi. for their lives the strictest ; and, “ they sit in Moses’ chair, and a ἡ whateverthey teach, that do,” for their learning most consider- eae 2.] able—argue the Mosaic precepts not to be so clear and in- capable of being misinterpreted; and so still Christ’s were additions, if not of the substance, yet of light and lustre, and consequently improvements of the obligation to obedience in us Christians, who enjoy that light, and are precluded those excuses of ignorance that a Jew might be capable of. From whence I may sure conclude, that the ego autem, of not re- taliating, or revenging of injuries,—for that is sure the mean- ing of the μὴ ἀντιστῆναι, which we render “ resist not evil,” [ Matt. v. —the strict precept of loving, and blessing, and praying for 52] enemies, and the like, is more clearly preceptive, and so more indispensably obligatory to us Christians, than ever it was to the Jews before. And there you have one part of the spirit of the gospel, in opposition to a first notion of the legal spirit. And by it you may conclude, that what Christian soever can indulge himself the enjoyment of that hellish sensuality, that of revenge, or retributing of injuries; nay, that doth not prac- tise that high piece of (but necessary, be it never so rare) per- fection of “overcoming evil with good ;” and so heap those [Rom. xii. precious melting coals of love, of blessings, of prayers, those a three species of sacred vestal fire upon all enemies’ heads; nescit qualis spiritus, ‘‘he knows not what kind of spirit he is of.” But there is another thing observable of the law, and so of the Judaical legal spirit; to wit, as it concerned the planting the Israelites in Canaan, and that is the command of rooting out the nations; which was a particular case, upon God’s sight of the filling up of the measure of the Amorites’ sins, [πὰ XVe Aad { Mark iii. 17.] [2 Pet. i. 20. ] [ Amos iii. 8.] 356 SERMON XVII. and a judicial sentence of His proceeding upon them; not only revealed to those Israelites, but that with a peremptory command annexed to it, to hate, and kill, and eradicate some of those nations. Which case, because it seldom or never falls out to agree in all circumstances with the case of any other sinful people, cannot lawfully prescribe to the eradi- cating of any other—though in our opinion never so great —enemies of God, until it appear as demonstrably to us, as it did to those Israelites, that it was the will of God they should be so dealt with; and he that thinks it necessary to shed the blood of every enemy of God, whom his censorious faculty hath found guilty of that charge, that is all for the fire from heaven, though it be upon the Samaritans, the not receivers of Christ, is but as the Rabbis call him sometimes one of the o97 93 and wx )5, “ sons of bloods,” in the plural number, and “sons of fire ;” yea, and like the disciples in my text, Boanerges, “sons of thunder,” far enough from the soft temper that Christ left them; “ Ye know not what kind of spirit ye are of.” In the next place, Elias’ spirit was a prophetic spirit, whose dictates were not the issue of discourse and reason, but im- pulsions from heaven. The prophetic writings were not, saith St. Peter, ἰδίας ἐπιλύσεως, (I conceive in an agonistic sense,) of “their own starting,” or incitation, as they were moved or prompted by themselves, but, as it follows, ὑπὸ πνεύματος ἁγίου φερόμενοι, “as they were carried by the Holy Ghost ;” not as they were led, but carried ;—“ when the Lord speaks, who can but prophesy?” And so likewise are the actions pro- phetic ; many things that are recorded to be done by prophets in Scripture, they proceed from some peculiar incitations of God; I mean not from the ordinary, or extraordinary, gene- ral, or special direction or influence of His grace, co-operat- ing with the Word, as in the breast of every regenerate man, —for the spirit of sanctification, and the spirit of prophecy, are very distant things,—but from the extraordinary revela- tion of God’s will, many times against the settled rule of duty—acted and animated not as a living creature, by a soul, but moved as an outward impellent, a sphere by an intelli- gence, and that frequently into eccentrical and planetary motions; so that they were no further justifiable than that SERMON XVII. 357 prophetic calling to that particular enterprise will avow. Consequent to which is, that because the prophetic office was not beyond the Apostles’ time to continue constantly in the Church, any further than to interpret, and super- struct upon what the canon of the Scripture hath settled among Christians,—Christ and His word in the New Testa- ment being bath-col, which the Jews tell us was alone to survive all the other ways of prophecy,—he that shall now pretend to that prophetic spirit, to some vision, to teach what the word of God will not own; to some incitation to do what the New Testament law will not allow of; he that with the late friar in France”, pretends to ecstatical revelations, with the enthusiasts of the last age°, and fanatics now with us, to ecstatical motions; that with Mahomet pretends a dialogue with God, when he is in an epileptic fit, sets off the most ghastly diseases, I shall add, most horrid sins, by undertak- ing more particular acquaintance and commerce with the Spirit of God, a call from God’s providence and extraordi- nary commission from heaven, for those things, which if the New Testament be canonical, are evaporate from hell; and so first “leads captive silly women,’—as Mahomet did his wife, —and then a whole army of Janizaries into a war, to justify and propagate such delusions, and put all to death that will not be their proselytes, is far enough from the gospel spirit that lies visible in the New Testament (verbum vehiculum spiritus), and the preaching of the word (διακονία πνεύμα- tos), and is not infused by dream or whisper, nor autho- rized by a melancholy or fanatic fancy ; and so οὐκ οἶδεν οἵου, “knows not what kind,” &e. In the third place, Elias was the great precedent and ex- ample of sharp unjudiciary procedure with malefactors, which [differed] from the common ordinary awards on criminals, in that execution preceded trial, and the malefactor suflered ἐπ᾽ αὐτοφώρῳ, without attending the formalities of law. [2 Tim. iii. 6.] [2 Cor. iii. 8.] Of this kind two examples are by Mattathias cited, one of 1 Maccab. > Pere Barnard, ¢ Copinger or Arthington. [ Fana- ties in the reign of Q. Elizabeth, the pretended prophets of Hacket who pre- tended to be our Saviour; see the book entitled ‘‘ Conspiracie for intended Re- formation, a treatise discovering the late designments and courses held for ad- vancement thereof by Edmund Cop- pinger, William Hacket, and Henry Arthington (out of others’ depositions, and th_ir own letters, writings and con- fessions.) 4to. Lond, 1592. (by Rich, Cosin, LL.D.)’’] ii, (54. ] [1 Mace. ii. 58.] [2 Kings i. 10 ] [ Acts vii. 59; xiv. 5, 19. | [John ii. 15.] [ Ps. lxix. 95] 358 SERMON XVII. cv. Phinehas, ἐν τῷ ζηλῶσαι ζῆλον, that “ zealed a zeal,” and, in that, run through Zimri and Cozbi, and so—as the captain once answered for the killing the drowsy sentinel—reliquit quos invenit, found them in unclean embraces, and so left them. And the variety of our interpretations in rendering of that passage in the Psalm, “Then stood up Phinehas and prayed,” in the old, and “then stood up Phinehas and ex- ecuted judgment,” in the new translations, may perhaps give some account of that action of his, that upon Phinehas’ prayer for God’s direction what should be done in that matter, God raised up him in an extraordinary manner to execute judg- ment on those offenders. And the other of Elias in the text, and he with some addition, ἐν τῷ ζηλῶσαι ζῆλον νόμου, “ In zealing the zeal of the law, called fire from heaven upon those that were sent out from Ahaziah, to bring him to him.” And this fact of his, by God’s answering his call, and the coming down of the fire upon them, was demonstrated to come from God also, as much as the prediction of the king’s death, which was confirmed by this means. It may very probably be guessed by Mattathias’ words in that place, that there were no precedents of the zelotic spirit in the Old Testament but those two; for among all the cata- logue of examples mentioned to his sons to inflame their zeal to the law, he produceth no other; and it is observable, that though there be practices of this nature mentioned in the story of the New Testament, the stoning of St. Stephen, of St. Paul at Iconium, &c., yet all of them practised by the Jews, and not one that can seem to be blameless, but that of Christ (who sure had extraordinary power) upon the buyers and sellers in the temple; upon which the Apostles remembered the Psalmist’s prophecy, ζῆλος κατέφαγε, the “zeal of God’s house” carried him to that act of νέμεσις, of indignation and punishment upon the transgressors. And what mischief was done among the Jews by those of that sect in Josephus 4, that called themselves by the name of zealots, and withal took upon them to be the saviours and preservers of the city, but as it proved, the hasteners and precipitators of the destruc- tion of that kingdom, by casting out and killing the high- priests first, and then the nobles and chief men of the nation, 4 [Josephus de Bell. Jud., lib, iv. 3. et passim. ] SERMON XVII. 359 and so embasing and intimidating, and dejecting the hearts of all the people, that all was at length given up to their fury— Josephus, and any of the learned that have conversed with the Jewish writers, will instruct the enquirer. And ever since, no very honourable notion had of es in the New Testament ; one of the “ fruits of the flesh,” Gal. v., of the “ wisdom that Gal. v. comes not from heaven,” Jam. 11]., ‘aid in the same, πικρὸς ἐπ “ee ζῆλος, a “ bitter zeal,” a gall that will embitter all that come £14, 15.] near it. The short of it is, the putting any man to death, or inflicting other punishment upon any terms but that of legal, perfectly legal process, is the importance of a zelotic spirit, as 1 remember in Maimonides “, “ him that curses God in the name of an idol, the p'x3p that meet him, kill him,” 1.6. the zea- lots—permitted, it seems, if not authorized to doso. And this is the spirit of Elias, that is of all others most evidently repre- hended and renounced by Christ. The Samaritans, no very sacred persons, added to their habitual constant guilts at that time to deny common civility of entertainment to Christ Himself; and the disciples asked whether they might not do what Elias had done, “call for fire from heaven” upon them [Luke ix. in that case; and Christ tells them that the gospel spirit was ἢ of another complexion from that of Elias, καὶ στραφεὶς ἐπε- τίμησε, turned to them as He did to Peter, when He said, Piste XVi. “Get thee behind Me, Satan ;” as to so many fiery satanical- ~ ‘J spirited men, and checked them for that their furious zeal, with an οὐκ οἴδατε οἵου, x.T.r. The least I can conclude from hence is this, that they that put any to death by any but perfectly legal process, that draw the sword upon any but by the supreme magistrate’s command, are far enough from the gospel spirit, whatever precedent they can produce to countenance them. And so if they be really what they pre- tend, Christians, οὐκ οἴδασι, they are in a prodigious mistake or ignorance; “they know not what spirit they are of.” Yet further it is observable of Elias, that he did execrate and curse, call for judgments from heaven upon men’s per- sons ; and that temper of mind in the parallel, you may dis- tribute into two sorts: first,im passing judgments upon men’s future estates, the censorious reprobating spirit, which though we find it not in Elias at this time, yet is a consequent of © De Idol., ο. 2. [sect. xiii. p. 34. ed. Voss. 1641.] [Luke xviii. 11.] {John vii. 49. [e. g. Ps. cix. | { Rom. xii. 20.] 3860 SERMON XVII. the prophetic office, and part of the burden received from the Lord, and laid upon those guilty persons concerning whom it hath pleased Almighty God to reveal that secret of Tlis cabinet; but then this rigour cannot, without sin, be pretended to by any else; for im the blackest instances, “charity believes all things,’ and “hopes all things,’ and even in this sense, “‘covers the multitudes of sins.” Now this so culpable an insolent humour, rashly to pass a con- demning sentence, was discernible in the Pharisees,—“ this publican,” whose profession and trade is forbidden by that law, and this “ people that know not that law, is accursed,” —so likewise in the Montanists,—mnos spirituales, and all others animales and psychici —so in the Romanists (who condemn all but themselves) and in all those generally whose pride and malice conjoined—most directly contrary to the gospel spirit of humility and charity—doth prepare them one, and the other inflame them, to triumph and glut themselves in this spiritual assassinacy, this deepest dye of blood, the murdering of souls; which because they cannot do it really, they endeavour in effigy, anathematize and slaughter them here in this other Calvary, the place for the crucifying of reputations, turning them out of the com- munion of their charity, though not of bliss; and I am confi- dent reject many whom the angels entertain more hospitably. Another part of this cursing spirit there is, more peculiarly Elias’s, that of praying (and so calling) for curses on men’s persons; and that being upon the enemies of God, and those appearing to Elias a prophet to be such, might be then law- ful to him and others like him—David perhaps, &c., in the Old Testament—but is wholly disliked and renounced by Christ under this state of higher discipline to which Chris- tians are designed by Him in the New. I say, not only for that which concerns our own enemies, for that is clear, “When thine enemy hungereth, feed him ;” and somewhat like that in the Old Testament, “ When thine enemy’s‘ox,” &e.&: but I extend it even to the enemies of God Himself, and that I need not do upon other evidence than is afforded 1 (Cf. Tertullian. de jejun. ad init.] 485 of him that hateth thee lying under ® (‘‘Ifthou meet thine enemy’s ox his burden, and wouldest forbear to or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely help him, thou shalt surely help witi bring itto him again. If thou seethe him.” Exod. xxiii. 4, 5.] SERMON XVII. 361 from the text; the Samaritans were enemies of Christ Him- self and were barbarous and inhuman to His person, and they must not be cursed by disciples. And he that can now curse even wicked men, who are more distantly the enemies of God, can call for—I say not discomfiture upon their de- vices, for that is charity to them, to keep them from being such unhappy creatures as they would be, contrivers of so much mischief to the world; but—plagues and ruin upon their persons,—which is absolutely the voice of revenge, that sulphur-vapour of hell ;—he that delighteth in the misery of any part of God’s image,—and so usurps upon that wretched quality of which we had thought the devil had gotten the monopoly—that of éxvyarpexaxia, joying in the brother’s misery,—but now see with horror is got loose out of that pit to rave among us ;—he that would mischief, if it were in his power, and, now it is not, by unprofitable wishes of execra- tion shews his good-will toward it, is quite contrary to the gospel spirit, and so οὐκ οἶδε οἵου, “he knows not,” ἕο. Lastly, Elias was not only rapt to heaven, but moved on earth in a fiery chariot, ζηλώσας ζῆλον, saith the author of [1 bree the book of Maccabees; his zeal had fire and fire again, = ζηλόω comes from ζέω, an excessive fervency,—and agreeable to his temper is his appetite ; he desires nothing but fire upon his adversaries, calls for fire, and fire, and fire, as you may see it in the story. And the gospel spirit is directly contrary to this, an allaying, quenching spirit, a gentle lambent flame, that sits on the Apostles’ heads to enlighten and adorn; by its vital warmth expelling partial hectic heats, and burning feverish distempers, that spiritual πύρωσις mentioned in the gospel; and putting in the place, a cool, sedate, and equable temper, “to have peace with all men,” and chiefly with our- selves, φιλοτιμεῖσθαι ἡσυχάζειν,---ὰ admirable phrase in [1 Thess. St. Paul,—to use as much diligence to restore the earth to '™ 1 } peace again as all the wind, or air, or perhaps fire in its bowels (I mean, ambitious, contentious men) do to set it a shaking; and he that will not contribute his utmost to quench those flames, that will not joyfully do any thing that may not directly or by consequence include sin, to- ward the extinguishing a fire thus miserably gotten into the veins and bowels of a calamitous kingdom, is far enough [2 Kings xviii. 33.] 362 SERMON XVII. from the gospel spirit, and so οὐκ οἷδε οἵου, “he knows not,” &c. I shall not clearly give you the gospel spirit unless I proceed from its opposition to Elias’ act, to that other, the opposition to the motion of those disciples, considered in the particular circumstances. The case stood thus; Christ was going up to Jerusalem, thereupon the Samaritans receive Him not; the disciples will have fire from heaven upon those Samaritans. Jerusalem was at that time the only proper place of God’s worship, and may note to us as an emblem, the true established Protestant religion of this kingdom. The Samaritans were great enemies to this, enemies to Jerusalem ; being, first, heretics in religion, took in the Assyrian idols into the worship of the true God; ‘they feared the Lord, and served their own gods,” as it is in the story, and continued their wont when they turned Chris- tians, make up the first sort of heretics in Epiphanius’ catalogue". Secondly, they were schismatics in an eminent manner, set up a new separation by themselves on mount Gerizim. And further yet, in the third place, pretended to the only purity and antiquity; they lived where Jacob once lived; and therefore, though Assyrians by extraction, they boast they are Jacob’s seed, and pretend more antiquity for that schism of theirs, because Jacob once worshipped in that mountain, than they think can be shewed for the temple at Jerusalem, which was but in Solomon’s time of a later struc- ture. Just as they which pretended, though never so falsely, that they were of Christ, have still despised and separated from all others as novelists, which walked im the Apostles’ steps and practices; and so Samaritans under guilts enough ; first, haters of Jerusalem; secondly, heretics; thirdly, sepa- ratists; fourthly, pretenders—though without all reason —to the first antiquity, and so arrogant hypocrites too; and fifthly, beyond all, prodigious, but still confident, dis- puters; and yet, sixthly, one higher step than all these, con- temners and haters of all, even of Christ Himself, on this only quarrel, because He was a friend to Jerusalem, and looked as if He were a going thither, as if He had some favour to the established religion of the land. I wish this ΝΒ. Epiphanius cont. Hereses, lib. i. p. 24.] | = ee a συν SERMON XVII. 363 passage did not hitherto parallel itself; but seeing it doth too illustriously to be denied or disguised, I shall imagine that that which follows may do so too. All this together was temptation to two honest disciples, to think fire from heaven a but reasonable reward for such Samaritans; and, having flesh and blood about them, com- pounded with piety, you will not much wonder at them that they were wrought on by the temptation; and yet this very thought of theirs, the Κύριε θέλεις, is presently checked by Christ, as being against the gospel spirit; ‘you know not what spirit you are of.’ Haters of the Church, heretics, schismatics, hypocrites, irrational pretenders, enemies, con- tumelious even to Christ Himself, must not presently be assigned the devil’s portion, the ἐσφράγισται ταμιεῖα, may be yet capable of some mercy, some humanity, not instantly devoted to be sacrifices to our fury. The gospel spirit will have thoughts of peace, of reconcileableness toward them. And let me beseech God first, and then you, right honour- able: God, that He endue and inspire your hearts with this piece of the gospel spirit, so seasonable to your present con- sultations; and you, that you would not reject my prayers to God, but open your hearts to receive the return of them, and not imitate even the disciples of Christ, in that they are Boa- nerges; but stay till the cool of the day, till you have them in a calmer temper, when Christ’s word and doctrine hath stilled those billows, as once He did the other tempestuous element. It was Antoninus’! way to be revenged on his enemies, μὴ ἐξομοιοῦσθαι, not to imitate them, whatever he did. And this was but an essay or obscure shadow of the Christian magnanimity, that goes for poverty of spirit in the world, but proceeding from the right principle of unshaken patience, of constant unmoveable meekness, of design to be hike our royal Master-sufferer. ‘Father, forgive them” that [Luke crucify Me; and “ Go and preach” the doctrine of the king- = 47) dom to them, after they have crucified Me. And you know . all we ministers ever since are but ambassadors of Christ, to ingrate crucifying enemies, “ praying them in Christ’s [2 Cor. v. name and stead that they would be reconciled,” that they 7%! 1 ["Apioros τρόπος τοῦ ἀμύνεσθαι, Td μὴ ἐξομοιοῦσθαι .--- Antoninus ad Seipsum, lib. vi. § 6.] {John xiii. 35.] [ohn xiv. Pf) { Matt. xi. 29. ] James iii. (17.] [ Gal. v. 22.4 ΠΕΡ τι: 1.) ΓΙ τι. 1.2: 9604. SERMON XVII. that have done the wrong will vouchsafe to be friends. What is it but that eminent piece of gospel spirit which they that can be persuaded to part with, for all the sweetness that thirst of revenge can promise or pretend to bring in unto them, are unhappily ignorant of the richest jewel that ever came within their reach. “They know not,” &c. I have as yet given you the gospel spirit in one colour or notion, that of its opposition to Elias first, and then to the Boanerges. It will be necessary to add somewhat of the positive consideration of it, though that must be fetched from other Scriptures. And this will be but necessary to this text, because that which is here mentioned is the πνεῦ- μα, spirit in the extent, not only that one part of it that re- spected the present action; where, though any one eminent defect—that particularly wherein those disciples offended— were destructive to the gospel spirit, malum ex quolibet defectu, yet all the several branches of it are required to integrate or make up the gospel spirit, bonwm ex essentia integra. And what these branches are I cannot better direct you, than by putting you in mind of these few severals. First, Christ’s badge or cognizance—“ By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if you love one another’’—not of one opinion, but of love. Add nunquam leti sitis), &c., as Jews rend garments at blasphemy, so we at uncharitableness. Secondly, Christ’s legacy, “ Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you.” Thirdly, Christ’s copy, “ Learn of Me;” what is beyond all His other perfections, “I am meek.” Fourthly, the nature of that ‘“ wisdom which cometh from above; first pure, then peaceable.” Fifthly, the quality of the fruits of the spirit in St. Paul; “ Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, good- ness, faith, meekness,” &c. Sixthly, the gallantry of meek- ness in St. Peter, “Ornament of a meek and quiet spirit.” Seventhly, Titus’ charge that all Christians are to be put in mind of, “To be subject to principalities, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work, to speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers (ἄμαχοι, no fighters), but gentle, shewing all meekness to all men”’—things that it seems nothing but j Nazar. Sosp. [So in printed edi- pel by St. Jerome, Comment. in Ephes. tions by mistake for Gosp. The pas- lib. iii. (in cap. v. 4.) Op., tom. vii. p. sage is quoted from the Nazarene Gos- 641. Β, See above, Serm. ii. p. 37.] SERMON XVII. 365 Christianity could infuse—“For we ourselves were some- times fools, disobedient, &c. . . . but after the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared,” then room for this spirit. : I cannot give you ἃ readier landscape to present them all to your view together than that excellent sermon of Christ upon the mount, that ἄκρον καὶ κορυφὴ φιλοσοφίας, as Chry- sostom calls it, ‘that top pitch of divine philosophy,” worthy to be imprinted in every man’s heart; and of which he that hath not been a pondering student, and resolved to regulate his practice by it, as much as his faith by the Apostles’ creed ; yea, and to lay down his life a martyr of that doctrine—though he hath all faith, I cannot promise myself much of his Chris- tianity. If you will have the brachygraphy of that, the ma- nual picture that may be sure, either in words or sense, never to depart from your bosom, but remain your constant phy- lactery or preservative from the danger of all ungodly spirits, then take the beatitudes in the front of it ; and among them— that I may, if it be possible, bring the whole [liads into a nut- shell—those that import immediately our duty towards men ; for in that the gospel spirit especially consists, increasing our love to brethren, whose flesh Christ now assumed, and in whose interests He hath a most immediate concern. And if you mark, in the chapter following, all the improvements mentioned, except only that of swearing, belong to the com- mands of the second table. And then the integral parts of this gospel spirit will be these four constantly, humility, meekness, mercifulness, peaceableness, and if need be, suffer- ing too. Every of these four brought in to us with a checker or lay of duty towards God, of mourning betwixt humility and meekness; hungering and thirsting after righteous- ness, betwixt meekness and mercifulness; purity of heart be- twixt mercifulness and peaceableness; and persecution and reproaches, and πᾶν πονηρὸν ῥῆμα, every Rabshakeh topic of railing rhetoric vomited out upon us,—blessed persecu- tion, blessed reproaches, when our holding to Christ is that which brings them all upon us,—the consummation and crown of all. . Having but named you these severals, humility, meekness, mercifulness, peaceableness, and, if need be, patience of all [ Tit. 11}. 3.] [See Matt. νυν. 8—12.] [John xviii. 10.] 366 SERMON XVII. stripes, both of hand and tongue; the sparkling gems in this jewel, blessed ingredients in this gospel spirit, you will cer- tainly resolve it full time for me to descend to my second particular at first proposed, that some disciples there were, some prime professors do not know the kind of that spirit, οὐκ οἴδατε οἵου, “You know not what kind of spirit you are of.” James and John it appears were such disciples, and that after they had been for some competent time followers and auditors of His sermons; so far an ‘easier thing it is to leave their worldly condition and follow Christ, than to leave their carnal prejudices and ignorances and obey Him; especially those that had such hold in their passions,—as revenge, they say, 15 the pleasingest piece of carnality in the heap,—cheaper to hear His gospel sermons than to practise them. And you will less wonder at these two when you see that St. Peter him- self, after a longer space of proficiency in that school, even at the time of Christ’s attachment, had not yet put off that igno- rance, ὁ θερμὸς Πέτρος, say the fathers *, Peter was of an hot constitution, and Christ’s doctrine had not yet got down deep enough into his heart to allay or cool him. Nondum con- cipiens in se Evangelicam patientiam illam traditam sibi a Christo, &c., saith Origen'; that gospel patience and peace- ableness that Christ had commended to him, he had not, it seems, yet received into an honest heart, and so he makes no scruple to cut off Malchus’ ear when he was provoked to it. I have heard of a friar that could confess that Malchus sig- nified a king, and yet after made no scruple to acknowledge him in that notion to be the high-priest’s servant; and secondly, to justify St. Peter’s act and avoid Christ’s repre- hension, by saying that he was chid, not for doing so much, but for doing no more; not for cutting off his ear, but for not directing the blow better to the cutting off his head. And how far this friar’s barbarous divinity hath been justi- fied of late by the writings of some—who will yet persuade us that Christ did not reprehend St. Peter for that act—and by k fe. g. St. Chrysostom; τὶ οὖν 6 ' (Origen. Tractat. xxxv. in S. Matth. Πέτρος 6 πανταχοῦ θερμὸς καὶ ἀεὶ τῶν ὃ 101. Op., tom. iii. p. 907 E. Only ἄλλων mporndav.—Op., tom. vii. p.5259. extant in the Latin.] * D; cf. ibid., p. 524. D.] SERMON XVII. 367 the actions of others, I have little joy to represent unto you; God knows I love not to widen breaches; only Iam sure the fathers are clear; that though formerly St. Peter were igno- rant, and from that ignorance and zeal together, ran into that fury, yet Christ μεταρρυθμίζων αὐτὸν εἰς εὐαγγελικὴν πολιτείαν τὰ, desirous to tune him to that sweet harmonical gospel temper, tells him he must not use the sword,—he having no commission, especially against those that have it, though they use it never so 1]],---κἂν τὸν θεὸν δοκεῖ τις ἐνδι- xeiv, “though it were to avenge even God Himself.” And having given you these proofs of this ignorance in three dis- ciples, I think it is possible I might extend it to the rest of them that they were in this particular ignorant too,—as it seems they were in many other things,—till the Holy Ghost came according to promise, “to teach them all things, and [John xiv. to bring to their remembrance,”—to thaw their memories, 2 that the words of Christ, like the voice in Plutarch that had been frozen, might at length become audible; or as Plato’s precepts were learned by his scholars when they were young, but never understood till they were men of full age, and tamer passions",—I say, to bring to their re- membrance whatsoever Christ had in person said unto them. And 1 wish to God it were uncharitable to charge this igno- rance still upon disciples, after so many solemn embassies of the Holy Ghost unto us, to teach us and remember us of this duty. Nay, I wish, that now after He hath varied the way of appearing, after He hath sat upon us in somewhat a more direful shape, not of a dove, but vulture,—tearing even the flesh from us on purpose, that when we have less of that carnal principle left, there might be some heed taken to this gospel spirit,—there were yet some proficiency observable among us, some heavings of the εὐαγγελικὴ πολιτεία, that hath so long been a working in the world; I am confident there were no such way of designing a prosperous, flourish- ing, durable kingdom, as to found its policy upon gospel principles, and maintain it by the gospel spirit. I have au- thority to think that was the meaning of that prophecy of ™ Theophyl. Comm. in Matth. xxvi. suos in virtute sentiat profectus,” ὃ 7. [Op., tom. i. p. 151. B.] Op., tom. i, P. i, p. 802, Wyttenb. ] 5 [See Plutarch; ‘“‘Quomodo quis [Isa. iii. 4.) [ Gen. viii. [ Acts xxvi. 28. ] Psalm cix. 368 SERMON XVII. Christ’s “turning swords into plough-shares,” not that He should actually bring peace, He tells you that it would prove quite contrary, but because the fabric of the gospel is such that would all men live by it, all wars and disquiets would be banished out of the world. It was a madness in Machiavel to think otherwise, and yet the unhappiness of the world that Sir Thomas More’s book that designed it thus should be then called Utopia, and that title to this hour remain perfect prophecy, no place to be found where this dove may rest her foot, where this gospel spirit can find reception. No not among disciples themselves, those that profess to adventure their lives to set up Christ’s kingdom in its purity ; none so void of this knowledge as they. Whether we mean a speculative or practical knowledge of it, few arrived to that height or vacancy of considering whether there be such a spirit or no. Some so in love with nature, that old Pelagian idol, resolve that sufficient to bring them to heaven, if they but allow their brethren what they can claim by that grand character, love of friends, those of the same persuasion, those that have obliged them; they have nature’s leave, and so are resolved to have Christ’s, to hate, pursue to death whom they can fancy their enemies. And I wish some were but thus of Agrippa’s religion, ἐν ὀλίγῳ Χριστιανοὶ, so near being Christians as nature itself would advance them; that gratitude, honour to parents, natural affection, were not become malignant qualities, disclaimed as consci- entiously as obedience and justice, and honouring of bet- ters. Others again so devoted to Moses’ law, the Old Tes- tament spirit, that whatever they find practised there, they have sufficient authority to transcribe. And it is observ- able that they which think themselves little concerned in the Old Testament duties,—which have a long time passed for unregenerate morality, that faith hath perfectly out- dated,—are yet zealous assertors of the Old Testament spirit, all their pleas for the present resistance fetched from them, yea, and confessed by some that this liberty was hidden by God in the first ages of the Christian Church, but now revealed we cannot hear where, yet, but in the Old Testament, and from thence a whole Psalm, 109th, full of curses against God’s enemies and theirs,—and generally SERMON XVII. 369 those pass for synonymous terms,—the special devotion they are exercised in; and if ever they come within their reach, no more mercy for them than for so many of the seven nations, in rooting out of which a great part of their religion consists. I wish there were not another prodigy also abroad under the name of the Old Testament spirit, the opinion of the necessity of sacrifice, real bloody sacri- fice,—even such as was but seldom heard of among Indians and Scythians themselves,—such sacrifices, of which the can- nibal Cyclops’ feasts may seem to have been but attendants, —furnished with the τομαὶ and μερίδες, that come from such savage altars,—sacrificing of men, of Christians, of protes- tants as good as any in the world, to expiate for the blood shed by papists in Queen Mary’s days; and some prophets ready to avow, that without such sacrifice there is no re- mission, no averting of judgments from the land. What is this but like the Pharisees, ‘to build and garnish the sepul- [Matt. chres of the prophets, and say, that if they had lived in their **"* 2%-J fathers’ days, they would never have partaken of the blood of the prophets,” and yet go on “to fill up the measure of their fathers?” The very men to whom Christ directs thee, ‘“ O [ver. 37.] Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest,” in the present tense, a happy turn, if but the progeny of those murderers, and what can then remain, but the “ Behold, your house is left unto [ver. 38.] you desolate,”’—irreversible destruction upon the land. A third sort there is again, that have so confined the gospel to promises, and a fourth, so persuaded that the Unum neces- sariwm is to be of right persuasions in religion; 1. 6. of those that every such man is of,—for he that did not think his own the truest, would sure be of them no longer,—that betwixt those two popular deceits, that of the fiduciary, and this of the solifidian, the gospel spirit is not conceived to consist in doing any thing; and so still those practical graces, humi- lity, meekness, mercifulness, peaceableness, and Christian patience, are very handsomely superseded; that one Moses’ rod, called faith, is turned serpent, and hath devoured all [Ex. vii. these for rods of the magicians; and so still you see men | sufficiently armed and fortified against the gospel spirit. All that is now left us, is not to exhort, but weep in secret, not to dispute, but pray for it, that God will at last give us eyes HAMMOND. B b 370 SERMON XVII. to discern this treasure put into our hands by Christ, which would yet, like a whole navy and fleet of plate, be able to recover the fortune and reputation of this bankrupt island, fix this floating Delos, to restore this broken shipwrecked ves- sel to harbour and safety, this whole kingdom to peace again. Peace! seasonable, instant peace, the only remedy on earth to keep this whole land from being perfect vastation, perfect Afric of nothing but wild and monster; and the gospel spirit that Christ came to preach and exemplify, and plant among men, the only way imaginable to restore that peace. Lord that it might at length break forth among us! the want of it is certainly the author of all the miseries we suffer under; and that brings me to the third and last particular, that this ignorance of the gospel spirit is apt to betray Chris- tians to unsafe, unjustifiable enterprises : you that would have fire from heaven, do it upon this one ignorance, “ You know not,” &c. It were too sad, and too long a task, to trace every of our evils home to the original; every of the fiends amongst us to the mansion in the place of darkness peculiar to it. If I should, it would be found too true, what Du Plesse is affirmed to have said to Languet, as the reason why he would not write the story of the civil wars of France, “that if he were careful to observe the causes, and honest to report them, he must hound the fox to a kennel which it was not willing to acknowledge ;” drive such an action to the brothel-house, that came speciously and pretendedly out of a church: find that to be in truth the animosity of a rival that took upon it to be the quarrel for religion ; or as in Polybius° oft, the πρό- facts to be a thing very distant from the air/a, the colour from the cause. In the mean, it will not be a peculiar mark of odium on the embroilers of this present State and Church, to lay it at their doors, which I am confident never failed to own the like effects in all other Christian states, the ignorance—i.e. in the Scripture phrase, not practising—of those Christian rules which the gospel spirit presents us with. I might tire you but with the names of those effects that flow constantly from this ignorance, such are, usurping the ° [Polybius. Hist., lib. iii. 6. 6. § 6; and ibid., c. 7. § 3.] SERMON XVII. BYAll power that belongs not to us, which humility would cer- tainly disclaim; such, resisting the powers under which we are placed by God, to which meekness would never be pro- voked; such the judging and censuring men’s thoughts and intentions any further than their actions enforce, most un- reconcileable with the forgiving part of mercifulness; such the doing any kind of evil, that the greatest or publickest good may come, designing of rapine or blood to the sancti- fiedest end, which St. Paul and peaceableness would never endure; such impatience of the cross, shaking a kingdom to get it off from our own shoulders, and put it on other men, dia- metrally opposite to the suffering and patience of a Christian. To retire from this common to the enclosure, and to go no further than the text suggests to me, “To call fire from hea- - yen upon Samaritans,” is here acknowledged the effect of the οὐκ οἴδατε, the want of knowledge, or consideration of the quality of their spirit. And what may that signify to us? Why, fire, you know, is the emblem of a civil war, which is called a πύρωσις, a “ com- bustion,” or, being further broken out into flames, a ‘“ confla- gration ;” and I conceive should be so rendered in that place of St. Peter, where we read “ the fiery trial.” [1 Pet. iv. Now fire, you know, belongs most naturally to hell; and ch therefore when the fire and brimstone came down upon So- dom, mey of the fathers calls it gehennam de celo: and cally the civil fire, the combustion in a state, its oris m thence too; part of that ‘‘ wisdom that is not [Jar iii. fro _ above.” These tares so apt for burning, are sowed by ἐν Satan, the enemy-man. From whence come “ wars and striv- [Jam. iv. ings among γοι;,᾽--πόλεμοι καὶ μάχαι, wars of all sizes,— ot “are they not from your lusts, that war in your flesh?” saith St. James. The lusts from the flesh, but the war from hell, the devil, the spiritus sufflans that sets them a warring. Believe it, they would not be able to do it in this manner, prove such fiery boutefeus, if they were not inflamed from beneath, if they were not set on fire by hell. And therefore to call fire from heaven, to entitle God or heaven to that fire, is to do both of them great injury; nay, though it be on Samaritans, that are not so friendly to Christ as might be expected. And so to call fire from heaven upon Samaritans, Bb 2 [ Luke iii. 4.} [Heb. xii. 14.] 8173 SERMON XVII. is (by accommodation at least) to pretend God, or heaven, or religion, for the cause of war, which of all things hath least to do it, if the gospel spirit may have leave to be considered. Indeed, very few kinds of war there are that will be justified by gospel principles. It was truly said, (though by a rough soldier,) “that if the Lord of Hosts were permitted to sit in the council of war, there would soon be a cessation of arms, and disbanding of armies.” Though that all war is not un- lawful, will appear by John Baptist’s address to the soldiers, who gave rules to regulate their militia, but did not disband them ; and the example of the convert centurion, a centurion still after his conversion: where yet this still remains as an infallible resolution, that wars are to be used like the regia medicamenta, never but when the physician sees there is no other means available; never upon the wantonness of the patient, but command of the physician, and never but when peace appears to be impossible; for if it be possible, the pre- cept is of force, “ Follow peace with all men.” And then to shed the blood of Christians, when blood may be spared, what an hideous thing it is you may guess by that emperor, that having beheaded a Christian, was by the sight of a fish’s head that came to his table so astonished, fancying that it was the head of that slaughtered Christian gaping on him, that he scarce recovered to his wits; or of that poor penitent [Ps.li.14.] David in his pathetic expression, “Deliver me from blood- guiltiness, O Lord.” A wonderful deliverance, it seems, to get clear from that. And what an ocean of fishes’ heads may appear one day gaping on some men I have no joy to tell: “ Deliver us from blood-guiltiness, Ὁ God.” I have done with my third particular also, and have now no more to importune you with, but my requests to you, and to heaven for you, that the time past of all our lives be suffi- cient to have spent in the will of the Gentiles, after the dic- tates of that heathen spirit, the natural or Jewish principles. That you be content at length to go up to the mount with Christ, and be auditors of His sermon; to that other mount with the same Christ, and be transfigured after Him to that spirit of humility, spirit of meekness, spirit of all kind of mercifulness; that peaceable, patient spirit, which will give you a comfortable passage through this valley of Achor here; — SERMON XVII. 970 yea, though it prove a Red sea of blood, and will fit you fora crown, that true Olympic olive crown; the “ peaceable fruits [Heb. xii. of righteousness,” an “eternal weight of glory hereafter.” " Pai Which God of His infinite mercy grant, through the merit and promise of His Son. To whom with the Father, &c. Luke viii. 32. SERMON XVIII. Ezex. xvii. 31. For why will ye die? Since the devil was turned out of heaven, all his care and counsels have been employed to keep us from coming thither ; and finding God’s love very forward and increasing towards us, he hath set us upon all ways of enmity and opposition against Him. The first warlike exploit he put us upon, was the building of Babel, when man having fortified himself, and the arm of flesh grown stout, began to reproach and chal- lenge, and even assault the God of heaven. But the success of that boldness cost so dear, that we have ever since been discouraged from such open proud attempts. Our malice and despite hath kept in somewhat more close and secretly, hath retired and settled in the soul; the inward man hath ever since erected its Babel; proud and high imaginations out- bidding heaven and God. These were a long while forged in the brain, when instead of the acknowledgment of one true God, all monsters of atheism filled the understanding, sometimes with a multitude and shoal of gods; sometimes deprived it quite, and left it utterly void of any: but now at last, the devil and all the atheism in the world, being at last exorcised and banished out of the brain, by the evidence and power of truth, hath like the legion, which being cast out of the man, had leave to enter the swine, fixed violently, and taken possession, and intrenched itself in the brutish bestial part, the affections. All the swellings, and tumours, and ulcers, that ever shewed themselves in any portion of the circum- ference, are now retired into the centre. All the atheism or SERMON XVIII. 315 heresy that ever soared or floated in the brain, or surface of the soul, is now sunk into the heart; and there the devil is seated at ease, there to set up and fortify and contemn God for ever. So that in brief, the issue of all this is, there is an infinite opposition and thwarting, a professed combat and bandying of forces betwixt the will of man and the will of God; God doing, in a kind, His best on one side, and man on the other. God wonderfully willing and desirous that we should live; man most perversely wilful to his own destruc- tion. This is a truth of a most dismal importance that con- cerns you to be instructed in, and will not be more power- fully enforced on you from any place of Scripture than the text which I have read to you, “ Why will ye die?” It is God speaks it, and with an infinite emphasis and πάθος, to note His passion and affectionateness in desiring our good, and willing that we should live. And then secondly, “ Why will you die?” Man’s resoluteness and stubborn wretchless- ness towards his own ruin, rushing or tumbling as in a precipice violently to hell, like the swine which formerly our wills were resembled to, running full speed down a steep Luke viii. place into the lake. And these are like to prove the parts δ. of my ensuing discourse; first, God’s willingness that we should be saved; secondly, man’s wilfulness toward his own damnation. And of these plainly to your hearts, not your ears; not so much to advance your knowledge, which though it could be raised to the tallest pitch, might yet possibly bear thee company to hell; but rather to increase your zeal, to work some one good inclination in you, to persuade you to be content to suffer yourselves to be saved; to be but so tame as to be taken by heaven that now even besieges you. And with my affectionate prayers for success to this design, I will presume of your ears and patience, and begin first with the first, God’s willingness that we should live. “ Why will ye die?” Amongst all other prejudices and misconceits that our fancy can entertain of God, I conceive not any so frequent or injurious to His attributes, as to imagine Him to deal double with mankind in His word; seriously to will one thing, and to make show of another; to deliver Himself in [Job xiii, 8.] 1 John iy. 9. Ezek. xvi. [6.] ver, ὅ. Eccles. xiv. 12. 376 SERMON XVIII. one phrase, and reserve Himself in another. It were an unnecessary, Officious undertaking to go about to be God’s advocate, to apologize for Him, to vindicate His actions, or in Job’s phrase, to “accept the person of God.” Our pro- ceedings will be more Christian, if we take for a ground or principle, that scorns to be beholding to an artist for a proof, that every word of God is an argument of His will, every action an interpreter of His word. So that howsoever he reveals Himself, either in His Scripture or His works, so certainly He wisheth and intends to us in His secret coun- sels. Every protestation of His love, every indignation at our stubbornness, every mercy conferred on us, and that not insidiously, but with an intent to do us good, are but ways and methods to express His will; are but rays, and emissions, and gleams of that eternal love which He exhibits to the world. Now there is no way to demonstrate this willingness of God that we should live, a priori, or by any thing either in God or us, pre-existent as the cause of it, unless it be His love, which yet is rather its genus than its cause, somewhat of larger extent, though otherwise coincident with it. The more vulgar powerful convincing way, is to enforce it to your hearts by its effects, and those divers and familiar: some few of which we will insist on. And first, and principally, the sending of His Son; “In this was manifest the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.” Mark God’s love to us in sending His Son that we might live through Him. His love the cause of this mission; this mission, the manifestation and argu- ment of that love; and that we live, the end of both. Had God been any way inclined to rigour or severity, there had needed no great skill, no artificial contrivance for a fair plau- sible execution of it; it had been but passing us by, the taking no notice of us, the “leaving of us in our blood,” and then hell had presently opened its mouth upon us. “ We were all cast out in the open field to the loathing of our per- sons, in the day that we were born,” ready for all the vul- tures infernal to fix on, that hideous Old Testament, διαθήκη ἅδου, “the testament of hell,” or in the mercifulest con- struction, the “covenant of grace” had passed on us, natu- SERMON XVIII. 377 rally then—what infidelity now makes us—condemned ΔἸγοδαν; our damnation sealed to us with our life, born to no other inheritance but hell; as if the devil had out of policy fallen before Adam, or rather descended, and that in post, “ like Luke x. 18. lightning,” lest if his journey from heaven had been to have been performed after, some other creature should have inter- cepted him of his prey. But God’s bowels were enlarged above the size, wider than either the covetous gates of hell, or that horrid yawning head that is all mouth. It was not within the devil’s skill to fear or suspect what a way of mercy and deliverance God had found out for us. Somewhat he understood by the event, the decay of his prophetic arts be- coming now his oracle; and even his silence growing vocal to him. But all this could not declare the mystery at large ; when Christ was born, he would have been rid of Him be- times, musters all his forces, Pharisees and people, Herods and Pilates, Rome and Jerusalem, and all the friends he had in the world, to make away with Him; and yet when he was just come to the push, to the consummation of his plot, he was afraid to act it; as in the epistle ascribed to Ignatius the Martyr*, and directed to the Philippians, it is observed, that whilst he was at a pretty distance, ἔσπευσε γενέσθαι σταυρὸν, “the devil hastened the structure of Christ’s cross,” as much as he could; set Judas and all the artificers of hell about the work, μέλλοντος δὲ γίνεσθαι, but “ when all was even ready,” Christ for the cross, and the cross for Christ, then he began to put in demurs; shews Judas an halter, frights Pilate’s wife in a dream, she could not sleep in quiet for him; and in sum, uses all means possible to prevent Christ’s crucifixion. Yet this, saith Ignatius, not out of any repentance, or regret of conscience, but only being started with the foresight of his own ruin by this means. Christ’s suffering being in effect the destruction of his kingdom, His death our triumph over hell, and His cross our trophy. By this you may discern what a miracle of God’s love was this giving of His Son; the conceiving of which was above the devil’s reach, and wherein he was providentially engaged, and (if we may so speak) θεο- dopovpevos, carried blindfold by God, to be an instrument of his own ruin, and in a kind, be a co-worker of our salvation. 4 {Pseudo-Ignatius, Epist. ad Philipp., c. iv. Patr. Apost., tom. 11, p. 119.] 158. 1111. [1.] Wisd. xvi. 20. [cf. Wisd. xi. 26.] 378 SERMON XVIII. Not to enlarge or expatiate upon circumstances; man being thus involved in a necessity of damnation, and no remedy within the sphere, either of his power or conceit, left to res- cue him ;—nay, as some have been so bold to say, that God Himself had no other means besides this in His storehouse of miracles to save us, without intrenching on some one of His attributes ;—for God then to find out a course that we could never prompt Him to, being solicited to it by nothing in us but our sins and misery, and without any interposition, any further consultation or demur, to part with a piece of Him- self to redeem us; Brachiwm Domini, “the arm of the Lord,” as Isaiah calls our Saviour. Nay, to send down His very bowels amongst us to witness His compassion ; to satisfy for us by His own death, and attach Himself for our liberty; to undergo such hard conditions rather than be forced to a cheap severity ; and, that He might appear to love His ene- mies, to hate His Son. In brief, to fulfil the work without any aid required from us, and make salvation ready to our hands, as manna is called in the sixth of Wisdom, ἑτοῖμος ἄρ- τος ἀπ᾽ οὐρανοῦ, “bread baked, and sent down ready from heaven,” to drop it in our mouths, and exact nothing of us but to accept of it: this is an act of love and singleness, that all the malice we carry about us knows not how to suspect; so far from possibility of a treacherous intent, or double deal- ing, that if I were a heathen, nay a devil, I would bestow no other appellation on the Christians’ God, than what the author of the book of Wisdom doth so often,—@rovyos, the “friend,” or the lover of souls. But this is a vulgar, though precious subject, and therefore I shall no longer insist on it. Only before I leave it, would I could see the effect of it ex- pressed in our souls, as well as acknowledged in our looks; your hearts ravished as thoroughly as your brains convinced ; your breasts as open to value and receive this superlative mercy, as your tongues to confess it; then could I triumph over hell and death, and scoff them out of countenance; then should the devil be reduced to his old pittance, confined to an empty corner of the world; and suffer as much by the solitariness as darkness of his abode; all his engines and arts of torment should be busied upon himself, and his whole ex- ercise, to curse Christ for ever, that hath thus deprived him SERMON XVIII. 879 of associates. But alas! we are too solicitous in the devil’s behalf, careful to furnish him with companions, to keep him warm in the midst of fire; it is to be feared we shall at last thrust him out of his inheritance. It is a probable argument that God desires our salvation, because that hell, wheresoever it is,—whether at the centre of the earth, or concave of the moon,—must needs be far less than heaven; and that makes us so besiege the gate as if we feared we should find no room there. We begin our journey betimes, lest if we should be forestalled, and had rather venture a throng or crowd in hell, than to expect that glorious liberty of the sons of God. It [Rom. viii. is to be feared that at the day of judgment, when each body Ἵ comes to accompany its soul in torment, hell must be let out, and enlarge its territories, to receive its guests. Beloved, there is not a creature here that hath reason to doubt but Christ was sent to die for him, and by that death hath pur- chased his right to life. Only do but come in, do but suffer yourselves to live, and Christ to have died; do not uncrucify Christ by crucifying Him again by your unbelief; do not disclaim the salvation that even claims right and title to you; and then the angels shall be as full of joy to see you in heaven, as God is willing, nay, desirous to bring you thither ; and Christ as ready to bestow that inheritance upon you at His second coming, as at His first to purchase it. Nothing but infidelity restrains Christ’s sufferings, and confines them to afew. Were but this one devil cast out of the world, I should be straight of Origen’s religion, and preach unto you universal catholic salvation. A second argument of God’s good meaning towards us, of His willingness that we should live, is the calling of the Gentiles, the dispatching of posts and heralds over the whole ignorant heathen world, and giving them notice of this trea- sure of Christ’s blood. Do but observe what a degree of pro- faneness and unnatural abominations the Gentile world was then arrived to, as you may read in all their stories; and in the first to the Romans, how well grown and ripe for the devil Christ found them ; all of them damnably superstitious and idolatrous in their worship ; damnably unclean in their lives ; nay, engaged for ever in this road of damnation by a law they had made, μὴ ἀλλοτριονομεῖν, “never to entertain any new Acts xvii. 18. Acts x. 9, 86. [ Acts x. 14. ] Acts x. 45. Eph. iii. 10. ver. 9. 380 SERMON XVIII. laws,” or religion: not to innovate, though it were to get salvation, as besides their own histories, may be gathered out of Acts xvii. 18. And lastly, consider how they were hooked in by the devil, to join in crucifying of Christ, that they might be guilty of that blood which might otherwise have saved them, and then you will find no argument to persuade you it was possible that God should have any design of mercy on them. Peter was so resolved of the point that the whole succession of the Gentiles should be damned, that God could scarce persuade him to go and preach to one of them. He was fain to be cast into a trance, and see a vision about it; and for all that he is much troubled about the τὸ κοινὸν καὶ ἀκάθαρτον, “their profaneness and uncleanness,” that they were not fit for an Apostle to defile himself about their con- version. And this was the general opinion of all the Jews; they of the ‘circumcision were astonished at the news.” Nay, this is it that the angels wondered at so, when they saw it wrought at the Church by Paul’s ministry ; never dreaming it possible, till it was effected, as may appear, Eph. ii. 10. This was the “mystery, which from the beginning of the world had been hid in God,” ver. 9. One of God’s cabinet councils, a mercy decreed in secret, that no creature ever wist of till it was performed. And in this behalf are we all—being lineally descended from the Gentiles—bound over to an infinite measure both of humiliation and gratitude, for our deliverance from the guilt and reign of that second original sin, that heathenism of our ancestors, and catholic damnation, that sixteen hun- dred years ago we were all involved in. Beloved, we were long ago set right again, and the obligation hes heavy upon us, to shew this change to have been wrought in us to some purpose; to prove ourselves Christians in grain, so fixed and established, that all the devils in hell shall not be able to re- duce us again to that abhorred condition. If we that are thus called out, shall fall back, after so much gospel, to heathen practices, and set up shrines and altars in our hearts to every poor delight that our sottishness can call a God; if we are not called out of their sins, as well as out of their ignorance ; b [Cf Dio Cassius, Hist. Rom., lib. 111. cap. 36. p. 689, ed. Reimar.] SERMON XVIII. 881 then have we advanced but the further toward hell; we are still but heathen gospellers ; our Christian infidelity and prac- tical atheism will but help to charge their guilt upon us, and damn us the deeper for being Christians. Do but examine yourselves on this one interrogatory, whether this calling the Gentiles hath found any effect in your hearts, any influence on your lives; whether your conversations are not still as heathenish as ever? If you have no other grounds or motives to embrace the Gospel, but only because you are born within the pale of the Church, no other evidences of your disciple- ship but your livery; then God is little beholding to you for your service. The same motives would have served to have made you Turks, if it had been your chance to have been born amongst them: and now all that fair Christian outside is not thankworthy. It is but your good fortune that you are not now at the same work with the old Gentiles, or present Indians, a worshipping either Jupiter or the sun! It was a shrewd speech of Clemens, that the life of every unregene- rate man is an heathen life; and the sins of unsanctified men are heathen sins; and the estate of a libertine Chris- tian an heathen estate: and unless our ‘resolutions and practices are consonant to our profession of Christ, we are all still heathens; the Lord make us sensible of this our condition. The third, and in sum, the powerfulest argument to prove God’s willingness that we should live, is, that “ He hath be- stowed His Spirit upon us ;” that as soon as He called up the Son, He sent the Comforter. This may seem to be the main business that Christ ascended to heaven about; so that a man would guess from the 16th chapter of St. John, verse John xvi.7. 7, that if it had not been for that, Christ had tarried amongst us till this time; but that it was more expedient to send the Spirit to speak those things powerfully to our hearts, which often and in vain had been sounded in our ears. It is a fancy of the Paracelsians, that if we could suck out the lives and spirits of other creatures, as we feed on their flesh, we should never die: their lives would nourish and transubstantiate into our lives, their spirit increase our spirits, and so our lives grow with our years, and the older we were, by consequence, the fuller of life; and so no difficulty to become immortal. 1 Cor. xv. 31. 382 SERMON XVIII. Thus hath God dealt with us; first sent His Son, His in- carnate Son, His own flesh to feed and nourish us; and for all this we “ die daily.” He hath now given us His own very life and incorporeous essence, a piece of pure God, His very Spirit to feed upon, and digest, that if it be possible we might live. There is not a vein in our souls, unless it be quite pinned and shrivelled up, but hath some blood produced in it by that holy nourishment; every breath that ever we have breathed toward heaven, hath been thus inspired; be- sides those louder voices of God, either sounding in His word, or thundering in His judgments, there is His calm, soft voice of inspiration, like the night vision of old, which stole in upon the mind, mingled with sleep, and gentle slumber. He draws not out into the field, or meets us as an enemy; but entraps us by surprise, and disarms us in our quarters, by a spiritual stratagem, conquers at unawares, and even betrays, and circumvents, and cheats us into heaven. That precept of Pythagoras*, πρὸς τὴν ἀνέμων πνεόντων ἠχὼ TposkuveiD, “ΤῸ worship at the noise and whistling of the wind,” had sense and divinity in it, that Jamblichus that cites it never dreamt of; that every sound and whispering of this Spirit, which rustles either about our ears, or in our hearts,—as the philosopher saith, Zecum est, intus est—when it breathes and blows within us, the stoutest faculty of our souls, the proud- est piece of flesh about us, should bow down and worship. Concerning the manner of the Spirit’s working, I am not, I need not to dispute. Thus far it will be seasonable and profit- able for you to know, that many other illuminations and holy graces are to be imputed to God’s Spirit, besides that by which we are effectually converted. God speaks to us many times when we answer Him not, and shines about our eyes, when we either wink or sleep. Our many sudden, short- winded ejaculations toward heaven, our frequent but weak inclinations to good, our ephemerous wishes, that no man can distinguish from true piety but by their sudden death; our every day resolutions of obedience, whilst we continue in sin, are arguments that God’s Spirit hath shined on us, though the warmth that it produced be soon chilled with the damp it meets within us. For example, there is no doubt, ¢ fJamblichus Protrept. Explanation of Symbol. viii. } SERMON XVIIT. 383 beloved, but the Spirit of God accompanies His word, as at this time, to your ears; if you will but open at its knock, and receive, and entertain it in your hearts, it shall prove unto you, according to its most glorious attribute, “the power [Rom. i. of God unto salvation :” but if you will refuse it, your stub- ε bornness may repel and frustrate God’s work, but not an- nihilate it; though you will not be saved by it, it is God’s still, and so shall continue to witness against you at the day of doom. Every word that was ever darted from that Spirit, as a beam or javelin of that piercing sun, every atom of that flaming sword, as the word is phrased, shall not, though it be rebated, vanish; the day of vengeance shall instruct your souls that it was sent from God, and since it was once re- fused, hath been kept in store, not to upbraid, but damn you. Many other petty occasions the Spirit ordinarily takes to put off the cloud, and open His face toward us: nay, it were not a groundless doubt whether He do not always shine, and the cloud be only in our hearts, which makes us think the sun is gone down, or quite extinct, if at any time we feel not his rays within us. Beloved, there be many things amongst us that single fire can do nothing upon; they are of such a stubborn, frozen nature, there must be some material thing for the fire to consist in, a sharp iron, red hot, that may bore as well as burn, or else there is small hopes of conquering them. Many men are so hardened and congealed in sin, that the ordinary beam of the Spirit cannot hope to melt them ; the fire must come consubstantiate with some solid instrument, some sound, corpulent, piercing judgment, or else it will be very unlikely to thrive. True it is, the Spirit is an omni- potent agent, which can so invisibly infuse and insinuate its virtue through the inward man, that the whole most enraged adversary shall presently fall to the earth, the whole carnal [Acts ix. man lie prostrate, and the sinner be without delay converted ; 11: and this is a miracle which I desire from my heart might be presently shewed upon every soul here present. But that which is to my present purpose is only this, that God hath also other manners and ways of working, which are truly to be said to have descended from heaven, though they are not so successful as to bring us thither; other more 884 SERMON XVIII. calm, and less boisterous influences, which if they were re- ceived into an honest heart, might prove semen immortalita- tis, and in time increase, and grow up to immortality. There is no such incumbrance to trash us in our Christian progress as a fancy that some men get possessed with; that if they are elected they shall be called and saved in spite of their teeth; every man expecting an extraordinary call, be- cause Saul met with one; and perhaps running the more fiercely because Saul was then called, when he was most vio- lent in his full speed of malice against Christians. In this behalf, all that I desire of you is, first, to consider, that though our regeneration be a miracle, yet there are de- grees of miracles, and thou hast no reason to expect that the greatest and strongest miracle in the world, shall in the highest degree be shewed in thy salvation. Who art thou, that God should take such extraordinary pains with thee? Secondly, to resolve that many precious rays and beams of the Spirit, though when they enter they come with power, yet through our neglect may prove trausitory—pass by that heart which is not open for them. And then thirdly, you will easily be convinced, that no duty concerns us all so strictly, as to observe, as near as we can, when thus the Spirit appears to us; to collect and mus- ter up the most lively, quick-sighted, sprightfulest of our fa- culties: and with all the perspectives that spiritual optics can furnish us with, to lay wait for every glance and glimpse of its fire or light. We have ways in nature to apprehend the beams of the sun, be they never so weak and languishing, and by uniting them into a burning-glass, to turn them into a fire. Oh that we were as witty and sagacious in our spirl- tual estate! then it were easy for those sparks which we so often either contemn or stifle, to thrive within us, and at last break forth into a flame. In brief, incogitancy and inobservance of God’s seasons, supine numbness and negligence in spiritual affairs, may on good grounds be resolved on, as the main or sole cause of our final impenitence and condemnation ; it being just with God to take those away in a sleep who thus walked in a dream, and at last to refuse them whom He hath so long solicited. He that hath scorned and wasted his inheritance cannot com- SERMON XVIII. 385 plain if he dies a bankrupt; nor he that hath spent his can- dle at play, count it hard usage that he is fain to go to bed darkling. It were easy to multiply arguments on this theme, and from every minute of our lives to discern some pawn and evidence of God’s fatherly will and desire that we should live. Let it suffice, that we have been large, if not abundant in these three chief ones: first, the giving of His Son to the world; secondly, dispatching the gospel to the Gentiles; and lastly, the sending of His Spirit. We come now to a view of the opposite trenches, which 116 pitched at the gates of hell, obstinate and peremptory to besiege and take it: man’s resolvedness and wilfulness to die, my second part, “Why will you die ?” There is no one conceit that engages us so deep to continue in sin, that keeps us from repentance, and hinders any sea- sonable reformation of our wicked lives, as a persuasion that God’s will is a cause of all events. Though we are not so blasphemous as to venture to define God the author of sin, yet we are generally inclined for a fancy, that because all things depend on God’s decree, whatsoever we have done could not be otherwise; all our care could not have cut off ne sin from the catalogue. And so being resolved, that when we thus sinned we could not choose, we can scarce tell how to repent for such necessary fatal misdemeanors; the same excuses which we have for having sinned formerly, we have for continuing still, and so are generally better prepared for apologies than reformation. Beloved, it will certainly much conduce to our edification, instead of this speculation—whose grounds or truth I will not now examine—to fix this prac- tical theorem in our hearts, that the will of man is the prin- cipal cause of all our evil, that death, either as it is the pun- ishment of sin, eternal death, or as it is the sin itself, a privation of the life of grace, spiritual death, is wholly to be imputed to our wilful will. It is a problem in Aristotle, why some creatures are longer in conceiving and bringing forth than others, and the sensiblest reason he gives for it, is σκλη- ρότης ὑστέρας “, “the hardness of the womb,” which is like dry earth, that will not presently give any nourishment to either seed or plant; and so is it in the spiritual conception 4 [ Aristot. Problem., sect. 10. § 9.1 HAMMOND. ce [ Matt. xiii. 4, 5, 1 John ii. 15. Eph. iii.17. 386 SERMON XVIII. and production of Christ, that is, of life in us. The hardness and toughness of the heart, the womb where He is to be born, that ξηρὰ γῆ °, that “ dry earth,” in the philosopher’s, or that “ way-side,” or at best ‘‘ stony ground” in Christ’s phrase, is the only stop and delay in begetting of life within us, the only cause of either barrenness or hard travail in the Spirit. Be the brain never so soft and pliable, never so waxy and capa- ble of impressions ; yet if the heart be but carnal, if it have any thing much of that “lust of the flesh” in its composi- tion, it will be hard for the spiritual life to be conceived in that man. For faith, the only means by which Christ lives and dwells in us, is to be seated in the heart, i. e. the will and affections, according to the express words, “ that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.” So that, be your brains never so swelled and puffed up with persuasions of Christ our Saviour, be they so big that they are ready to lie in, and tra- vail of Christ, as Jove’s did of Minerva in the poem'; yet if the heart have not joined in the conception, if the seed sown have not taken root and drawn nourishment from the will, it is but an aerial or fantastical birth, or indeed rather a disease or tympany; nay, though it come to some proof, and afterward extend and increase in limbs and proportions never so speciously, yet if it be only in the brain, neither is this to be accounted solid nourishment and augmentation, but such as a chameleon may be thought to have, that feeds on air, and itself is little better, and in sum, not growth but swellings. So then if the will, either by nature or custom of sinning, by familiarity and acquaintance, making them dote on sen- sual objects otherwise unamiable; by business and worldly ambitious thoughts, great enemies to faith; or by pride and contentment, both very incident to noble personages and great wits, to courtiers and scholars; in brief, if this will, the stronger and more active part of the soul, remain car- nal, either in indulgence to many, or, which is the snare of judicious men in chief, of some one prime sin, then cannot all the faith in the world bring that man to heaven; it may work so much miracle, as Simon Magus is said to have done, who undertook to raise the dead, give motion to the head, make the eyes look up or the tongue speak; but the lower part of the man, and that the heaviest, will by no charm or ¢ [Aristot. ibid. ] f [Cf. the Homeric Hymn to Pallas. ] SERMON XVIII, 387 spell be brought to stir, but weigh and sink even into hell, will still be carcass and corruption ; “ damnation is his birth- Ecclus. right.” And it is impossible, though not absolutely, yet ex ἢν “i hypothesi, the second covenant being now sealed, even for God Himself to save him or give him life. It is not David’s music that exorcised and quieted Saul’s evil spirit, nor Pytha- goras’s ® spondees that tamed a man, καὶ ἐπανώρθωσαν, “ set him right in his wits for ever, that can work any effect on a fleshy heart.” So that Chrysostom" would not wonder at the voice that cried, “O altar, altar, hear the voice of the Lord,” [1 Kings because Jeroboam’s heart was harder than that; nor will I ee) find fault with Bonaventure that made a solemn prayer for a stony heart, as if it were more likely to receive impression than that which he had already of flesh. It were long to insist on the wilfulness of our fleshy hearts, how they make a faction within themselves, and bandy facul- ties for the devil; how when grace and life appear, and make proffer of themselves, all the carnal affections, like them in the Gospel, “join all with one consent to make excuses ;” Luke xiv. nothing in our whole lives we are so solicitous for, as to get Το off fairly, to have made a cleanly apology to the invitations of God’s Spirit, and yet for a need rather than go, we will venture to be unmannerly. We have all married a wife, espoused ourselves to some amiable delight or other; we cannot, we will not come. The devil is wiser in his genera- tion than we; he knows the price and value of a soul, and will pay any rate for it rather than lose his market; he will give all the riches in the world rather than miss. And we, at how low a rate do we prize it? it is the cheapest commodity we carry about us. The beggarliest, content under heaven is fair, is rich enough to be given in exchange for the soul. Spiritus non ponderat, saith the philosopher; the soul being a spirit, when we put it into the balance, weighs nothing; nay, more than so, it is lighter than vanity, lighter than no- thing, i.e. it doth not only weigh nothing, but even lifts up the scale it is put into, when nothing is weighed against it. How many sins, how many vanities, how many idols, i.e. in the Scripture phrase, how many nothings be there in the [1Cor. viii. & (Cf. Jamblichus, de Vita Pythagore, cap. xxv. δὲ 112, 114. ] Ἵ h [S. Chrysostom, De Peenitentia, Homil, viii, Op., tom. ii. p. 345, E.] cc2 Heb. x. 81. ver. 27. 388 SERMON XVIII. world, each of which will outweigh and preponderate the soul ! It were tedious to observe and describe the several ways that our devilish sagacity hath found out to speed our- selves to damnation, to make quicker dispatch in that un- happy road than ever Elias’s fiery chariot could do toward heaven. Our daily practice is too full of arguments, almost every minute of our lives as it is an example, so is it a proof of it. Our pains will be employed to better purpose if we leave that as a worn, beaten, common-place, and betake our- selves to a more necessary theme, a close of exhortation. And that shall be by way of treaty, as an ambassador sent from God, that you will lay down your arms, that you will be content to be friends with God, and accept of fair terms of composition; which are, that as you have thus long been enemies to God, proclaiming hostility, and perpetually op- posing every merciful will of His by that wilfulness, so now being likely to fall into His hands, you will prevent that ruin, you will come in; and whilst it is not too late, submit yourselves, that you may not be forced as rebels and outlaws, but submit as servants. This perhaps may be your last par- ley for peace, and if you stand out the battery will begin suddenly, and with it the horrendum est, “It is a fearful, hideous thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” All that remains upon our wilful holding out may be (the doom of apostates from Christianity) a “certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, that shall devour the ad- versaries.” And methinks the very emphasis in my text notes as much; ‘ Why will you die?” as if we were just now falling into the pit, and there were but one minute be- twixt this time of our jollity and our everlasting hell. Do but lay this one circumstance to your hearts, do but suppose yourselves on a bed of sickness, laid at with a violent burn- ing fever, such a one as shall finally consume the whole world; as it were battered with thundering and lghtning, and besieged with fire, where the next throw or plunge of thy disease may possibly separate thy soul from thy body, and the mouth of hell just then open and yawning at thee; and then suppose there were one only minute wherein a seri- SERMON XVIII. 389 ous resigning up thyself to God might recover you to heaven ; O then what power and energy! what force and strong effi- cacy would there be in this voice from God, “ Why will you die?” I am resolved, that heart that were truly sensible of it, that were prepared seasonably by all these circumstances to receive it, would find such inward vigour and spirit from it, that it would strike death dead in that one minute; this ultimus conatus, this last spring and plunge, would do more than a thousand heartless heaves in a lingering sickness, and perhaps overcome and quit the danger. And therefore let me beseech you to represent this con- dition to yourselves, and not any longer be flattered or co- zened in a slow security: ‘To-day if you will hear His [Ps. xev. voice, harden not your hearts.” If you let it alone till this 8. day come in earnest, you may then perhaps heave in vain, labour and struggle, and not have breath enough to send up one sigh toward heaven. The hour of our death we are wont to call tempus improbabilitatis, a very improbable inch of time to build our heaven in; as after death is impossibilitatis, a time wherein it is impossible to recover us from hell. If nothing were required to make us saints but outward per- formances; if true repentance were but to groan, and faith but to cry, Lord, Lord; we could not promise ourselves that [Matt. vii. at our last hour we should be sufficient for that; perhaps a lethargy may be our fate, and then what life or spirits even for that? perhaps a fever may send us away raving, in no case to name God, but only in oaths and curses; and then it were hideous to tell you what a Bethlehem we should be carried to. But when that which must save us must be a work of the soul, and a gift of God, how can we promise ourselves that God will be so merciful, whom we have till then contemned, or our souls then capable of any holy im- pression, having been so long frozen in sin, and petrified even into adamant? Beloved, as a man may come to such an estate of grace here, that he may be most sure he shall not fall, as St. Paul in likelihood was, when he “resolved [Rom. viii. that nothing could separate him:” so may a man be en- ον gaged so far in sin that there is no rescuing from the devil. There is an irreversible estate in evil as well as good, and perhaps I may have arrived to that before my hour of death ; Exod. ix. 34. Cant. iii. 1. Tit. ii, 14. Matt. iii. 8. 390 SERMON XVIII. for I believe Pharaoh was come to it after the seventh plague hardening his heart; and then I say, it is possible, that thou that hitherto hast gone on in habituate, stupid, customary rebellions, mayest be now at this minute arrived to this pitch, that if thou run on one pace further thou art engaged for ever past recovery. And therefore at this minute, in the strength of your age and lusts, this speech may be as season- able as if death were seizing on you, “ Why will you die?” At what time soever thou repentest God will have mercy ; but this may be the last instant wherein thou canst repent, the next sin may benumb or sear thy heart, that even the pangs of death shall come on thee insensibly ; that the rest of thy life shall be a sleep, or lethargy, and thou lie stupid in it till thou findest thyself awake in flames. Oh, if thou shouldst pass away in such a sleep! Again, I cannot tell you whether a death-bed repentance shall save you or no. The spouse sought Christ on her bed, but found Him not. The last of Ecclesiastes would make a man suspect, that remem- bering God when our feeble impotent age comes on us, would stand us in little stead. Read it, for it is a most learned powerful chapter. This I am sure of, “God hath chosen to Himself a people zealous of good works.” And they that find not some of this holy fire alive within them, till their souls are going out, have little cause to think themselves of God’s election. So that perhaps there is something in it, that the exhortation, “ Bring forth fruits worthy of repentance,” is expressed by a tense that ordinarily signifies time past, ποιή- cate, “have brought forth fruits.” It will not be enough upon an exigence, when there is no way but one with me, to be inclinable to any good works, to resolve to live well when I expect to die. I must have done this, and more too in my life, if I expect any true comfort at my death. There is not any point we err more familiarly in and easily than our spiritual condition; what is likely to become of us after death? any slight fancy that Christ died for us in particu- lar, we take for a faith that will be sure to save us. Now there is no way to preserve ourselves from this error but to measure our faith and hopes by our obedience ; that if we sincerely obey God, then are we true believers. And this cannot well be done by any that begins not till he is on his SERMON XVIII. 391 death-bed ; be his inclinations to good then never so strong, his faith in Christ never so lusty; yet how knows he whether it is only fear of death, and a conviction that in spite of his teeth he must now sin no longer, that hath wrought these inclinations, produced this faith in him ? Many a sick man resolves strongly to take the physician’s dose, in hope that it will cure him; yet when he comes to taste its bitterness will rather die than take it. If he that on his death-bed hath made his solemnest, severest vows, should but recover to a possibility of enjoying those delights which now have given him over, I much fear his fiercest re- solutions would be soon out-dated. Such inclinations that either hover in the brain only, or float on the surface of the heart, are but like those wavering, temporary thoughts, “Like a wave of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed ;” Jam. i. 6. they have no firmness or stable consistence in the soul; it will be hard to build heaven on so slight a foundation. All this I have said, not to discourage any tender, languish- ing soul, but by representing the horrors of death to you now in health, to instruct you in the doctrine of mortality betimes, so to speed and hasten your repentance; now, as if to-mor- row would be too late, as if there were but a small isthmus or inch of ground between your present mirth and jollity and your everlasting earnest. To gather up all on the clue. Christ is now offered to you as a Jesus: the times and sins of your heathenism and un- belief, “God winketh at.” The Spirit proclaims all this by Acts xvii. the Word to your hearts; and now—God knows if ever again ὅδ —commands all men “ every where to repent.” Oh that there were such a spirit in our hearts, such a zeal to our eternal bliss, and indignation at hell, that we would give one heave and spring before we die; that we would but answer those invitations of mercy, those desires of God, that we should live with an inclination, with a breath, with a sigh toward heaven. Briefly, if there be any strong, violent, boisterous devil within us, that keeps possession of our hearts against God; if the lower sensual part of our soul; if an habit of sin, 1. 6. a combination or legion of devils, will not be overtopped by reason or grace in our hearts; if a major part of our carnal { Matt. xvii, 21.] 392 SERMON XVIII. faculties be still canvassing for hell; if for all our endeavours and pains it may appear to us that this kind of evil spirit will not be cast out, save only by fasting and prayer; then have we yet that remedy left, first, to fast and pine, and keep him weak within, by denying him all foreign, fresh provision, all new occasions of sin, and the like, and so to block, and in time starve him up: and then secondly, to pray that God will second and fortify our endeavours; that He will force, and rend, and ravish this carnal devil out of us; that He will subdue our wills to His will; that He will prepare and make ready life for us, and us for life; that He will prevent us by His grace here, and accomplish us with His glory hereafter. Now to him, ἕο. SERMON XIX. JER. v. 2. Though they say, The Lord liveth; surely they swear falsely. Nor to waste any time or breath, or—which men in this delicate and effeminate age are wont to be most sparing and thrifty of—any part of your precious patience unprofitably, but briefly to give you a guess whither our discourse is like to lead you, we will severally lay down and sort to your view every word of the text single; and so we may gather them up again, and apply them to their natural proper pur- poses. First, then, the particle “ though”’ in the front, and “surely’ in the body of the text, are but bands and junctures to keep all together into one proposition. Secondly, the pronoun “they,” in each place, is in the let- ter the Jews, in application, present Christians; and being indefinite, might seem to be of the same extent in both places, did not the matter alter it, and make it universal in the for- mer, and particular in the latter. For artists say, that an in- definite sign, where the matter is necessary, is equivalent to an universal, where but contingent, to a particular. Now to say “the Lord liveth,” was and is necessary ; though not by any logical, yet by a political necessity ; the government and human laws, under which then the Jews and now we Chris- tians live, require this profession necessarily at our hands: but to “swear falsely,” not to perform what before they pro- fessed, is materia contingens, a matter of no necessity, but free- will and choice, that no human law can see into; and there- fore we must not interpret by the rules of art, or charity, > Jer, iv. 2. 394 SERMON XIX. that all were perjured, but some only; though it is probable a major part; and as we may guess by the first verse of this chapter, well nigh all of them. Thirdly, to “say” is openly to make profession, and that very resolutely and boldly, that none may dare to distrust it ; nay, with an oath to confirm it to jealous opinions, as appears by the latter words, “ They swear falsely,” while they do but “say :” and, “Thou shalt swear, The Lord liveth,” &c. Fourthly, “the Lord,” i. e. both in Christianity and ortho- dox Judaism the whole Trinity. Fifthly, “liveth,” i.e. by way of excellency hath a life of His own, independent and eternal, and in respect of us is the fountain of all life and being that we have; and not only of life, but motion, and perfection, and happiness, and salvation, and all that belongs to it. In brief, to say, “The Lord liv- eth,” is to acknowledge Him in His essence, and all His attri- butes, contained together under that one principle; on that of life, to believe whatever Moses and the prophets then, or now our Christian faith, hath made known to us of Him, Sixthly, to falsify and swerve from truth becomes a further aggravation, especially in the present instance; though they make mention of that God, who is “ Yea,” and “ Amen,” and loves a plain veracious speech, yet they swear; though by loud and dreadful imprecations they bespeak Him a witness and a judge unto the criminal, pray as devoutly for destruc- tion for their sin as the most sober penitent can do for its pardon, yet are they perjured; “ they swear falsely.” More than all this, they openly renounce the Deity when they call upon Him; their hearts go not along with their words and professions; though it be the surest truth in the world that they swear when they assert that “the Lord liv- eth,” yet they are perjured in speaking of it; though they make a fair show of believing in the brain, and from the teeth outward, they never lay the truth that they are so vio- lent for at all to their hearts; or as the original hath it, raw, in vanum, to no purpose it is that they swear, no man that sees how they live will give any heed to their words, will ima- gine that they believe any such matter. So now having paced over, and as it were spelt every SERMON XIX. 395 word single, there will be no difficulty for the rawest un- derstanding to put it together, and read it currently enough in this proposition; amongst the multitude of professors of Christianity there is very little real piety, very little true belief. In the verse next before my text there is an “O yes” made, a proclamation, nay, a hue and cry, and hurrying about the streets, if it were possible to find out but a man that were a sincere believer; and here in my text is brought in a Non est inventus, ‘Though they say, The Lord liveth,’—a multitude of professors indeed every where,—“‘yet surely they swear falsely ; there is no credit to be given to their words; infi- delity and hypocrisy is in their hearts; for all their fair be- lieving professions, they had an unfaithful rebellious heart, and the event manifested it, “they are departed and gone,” arrant apostates in their lives, by which they were to be tried ; “Neither say they in their hearts, Let us fear the Lord,” whatsoever they flourished with their tongues. Now for a more distinct survey of this horrible wretched truth, this heathenism of Christians, and infidelity of be- lievers,—the true ground of all false swearing, and indeed of every other sin,—we will first examine wherein it consists ; secondly, whence it springs; the first will give you a view of its nature, the second its root and growth, that you may prevent it. The first will serve for an ocular or mathema- tical demonstration, called by artists ὅτι, “that” itis so; the second a rational or physical διότι, “ how” it comes about. The first to convince of the truth of it, the second to instruct you in its causes. And first of the first, wherein this infidelity, and to speak more plainly, perjury of formal believers consists; “ Though they say,” &c. Since that rather fancy than divinity of the Romanists, schoolmen, and casuists, generally defining faith to be a bare assent to the truth of God’s word seated only in the under- standing, was by the protestant divines banished out of the schools, as a faith for a chameleon to be nourished with, which can feed on air; as a direct piece of sorcery and con- juring, which will help you to remove mountains only by thinking you are able; briefly, as a chimera or fantastical ver, 23. ver. 24. 396 SERMON XIX. nothing, fit to be sent to limbo for a present; since, I say, this magical divinity which still possesses the Romanist, and also a sort of men who would be thought most distant from them, hath been exorcised, and silenced, and cast out of our schools—would I could say out of our hearts—by the Reformation, the nature of faith hath been most admirably explained; yet the seat or subject of it never clearly set down, —some confining it to the understanding, others to the will, —till at last it pitched upon the whole soul, the intellective nature. For the soul of man, should it be partitioned into faculties,—as the grounds of our ordinary philosophy would persuade us,—it would not be stately enough for so royal a guest: either room would be too pent and narrow to enter- tain at once so many graces as attend it. Faith therefore, that it may be received in state, that it may have more free- dom to exercise its sovereignty, hath required all partitions to be taken down; that sitting in the whole soul it may com- mand and order the whole man;; is not in the brain sometimes, as its gallery, to recreate and contemplate; at another in the heart, as its parlour to feed, or a closet to dispatch business ; but if it be truly that royal personage which we take it for, it is repletive in the whole house at once, as in one room, and that a stately palace, which would be much disgraced, and lose of its splendour, by being cut into offices: and accord- ingly this royal grace is an entire absolute prince of a whole nation,—not as a tetrarch of Galilee, a sharer of a Saxon hep- tarchy,—and described to us as one single act, though of great command; and defined to be an assent and adherence to the goodness of the object ;—which object is the whole word of God, and specially the promises of the gospel. So then, to believe, is not to acknowledge the truth of Serip- ture, and the articles of the Creed,—as vulgarly we use know- ledge,—but to be affected with the goodness and excellency of them, as the most precious objects which the whole world could present to our choice; to embrace them as the only desirable thing upon the earth; and to be resolutely and uniformly inclined to express this affection of ours, in our practice, whensoever there shall be any competition betwixt them and our dearest delights. For the object of our faith is not merely speculative, somewhat to be understood only, SERMON XIX. 397 and assented to as true, but chiefly moral, a truth to be pro- secuted with my desires through my whole conversation, to be valued above my life, and set up in my heart as the only shrines I worship. So that he that is never so resolutely sworn to the Scrip- tures,—believes all the commands, prohibitions, and promises never so firmly, if he doth not adhere to them in his prac- tice, and by particular application of them as a rule to guide him in all his actions, express that he sets a true value on them ; if he do not this, he is yet an infidel; all his religion is but like the beads-man’s, who whines over his creed and commandments over a threshold so many times a week, only as his task to deserve his quarterage, or to keep correspond- ence with his patron. Unless I see his belief expressed by uniform obedience, I shall never imagine that he minded what he said. The sincerity of his faith is always proportion- able to the integrity of his life; and so far is he to be ac- counted a Christian as he performs the obligation of it, the promise of his baptism. Will any man say that Eve believed God’s inhibition, when she eat the forbidden fruit? If she did, she was of a strange intrepid resolution, to run into the jaws of hell and never boggle. It is plain by the story that she heard God, but believed the serpent; as may appear by her obedience, the only evidence and measure of her faith. Yet can it not be thought, that she that was so lately a work of God’s omnipotence, should now so soon distrust it, and believe that He could not make good His threatenings. The truth is this; she saw clearly enough in her brain, but had not sunk it down into her heart; or perhaps she assented to it in the general, but not as appliable to her present case. This assent was like a bird fluttering in the chamber, not yet confined to a cage, ready to escape at the first opening of the door or window ; as soon as she opens either ears or eyes to hearken to the serpent or behold the apple, her former assent to God is vanished, and all her faith bestowed upon the devil. It will not be Pelagianism to proceed and observe how the condition of every sin since this time hath been an imitation of that. The same method in sin hath ever since been taken, first to revolt from God, and then to disobey ; first to become infidels, and then sinners. Every murmuring of the Israel- Heb. iii. 12. Heb. x. 38. 398 SERMON XIx. ites was a defection from the faith of Israel, and turning back to Egypt in their hearts. Infidelity, as it is the fountain from whence all rebellion springs,—faith being an adherence, and “every departure from the living God, arising from an evil heart of unbelief,”— so it is also the channel where it runs; not any beginning or progress in sin, without a concomitant degree of either weak- ness or want of faith. So that heathens or heretics are not the main enemies of Christ,—as the question de oppositis fidei is stated by the Romanists,—but the hypocrite and libertine, he is the heathen in grain, an heretic of Lucifer’s own sect ; one that the devil is better pleased with than all the cata- logue in Epiphanius or the Romish calendar. For this is it that Satan drives at; an engine by which he hath framed us most like himself; not when we doubt of the doctrine of Christ,—for himself believes it fully, no man can be more firmly resolved of it,—but when we heed it not in our lives, when we cleave not to it in our hearts; when instead of living by faith, ὑποστέλλομεν, we draw back, and cowardly subduce ourselves and forsake our colours, refusing to be marshalled in His ranks, or fight under His banner. Arrian the Stoic philosopher hath an excellent discourse concerning the double infidelity, of the brain and heart, very appliable; Aitrat ἀπολιθώσεις, k.T-X., “ There are two sorts of this sense- lessness and stupidity, whereby men are hardened into stones ; the first of the understanding part, the second of the practi- cal.” He that will not assent to things manifest, his brain is frozen into a stone or mineral; there is no more reasoning with him than with a pillar. The academic’s ἀκαταληψρίαϑ, never to believe or comprehend any thing, was a stupid philosophy, like to have no disciples but posts or statues ; and therefore long ago laughed out of the schools, as an art of being brutes, or metamorphosis, not to instruct but trans- form them: he could not remain a man that was thus incre- dulous. But the second stupidity, that of the practical, not to abstain from things that are hurtful, to embrace that which would be their death,—the vice, though not doctrine of the epicures,—though this were an argument, both in his and Scripture phrase, of a “stony heart,’ yet was it such an * [Cf. e. g. Sextus Empericus, Pyrrhon. Hypotyp., p. 1. ed. Bekker. } SERMON XIX. 399 one as the lustiest, sprightfulest men in the world carried about with them. Nay, “It was an evidence,” saith he, “ of their strength and valour, of a heart of metal and proof, to have all modesty and fear of ill cold as a stone, frozen and dead within it.” And thus holds it in Christianity, as it did then in reason: not to believe the truth of Scripture, to deny that the “ Lord liveth,” would argue a brain as impene- trable as marble, and eyes as crystal: we sooner suspect that he is not a man, that he is out of his senses, than such an infidel. Some affected atheists I have heard of, that hope to be admired for eminent wits by it: but I doubt whe- ther any ever thought of it in earnest, and (if I may so say) conscientiously denied a Deity. But to deny Him in our lives, to have a heart of marble or adamant, ψυχὴν ἀπονε- κρουμένην, saith Arrian ¢, “a dead stupified soul,” οὐδὲν μέλει, it is so frequent amongst us, that it is not worth observing. He is but a puny in the devil’s camp that hath not a privy coat within him to secure his heart from any stroke that God or Scripture can threaten him with. Thus you see wherein this Christian infidelity consists, in the not rooting faith in the heart; in indulgence to those practices which directly contradict his doctrine. So that though every commission of sin be not incompatible with the habit of faith, so far as to denominate him an infidel ; yet is it from the not exercising of faith actually that I ever sin; and every man in the same degree that he is a sinner, so far is he an unbeliever. So that this conversible retro- gradous Sorites may shut up all. He that truly believes, assents in his heart to the goodness as well as the truth of Scripture: he that assents so in his heart, approves it ac- cording to its real excellency above all rivals in the world: he that thus approves, when occasion comes, makes an actual choice of God’s Word before all other most precious delights : he that actually makes the choice, performs uniform obedi- ence, without any respect of sins or persons: he that per- forms this obedience, never indulges himself in sin. And then e converso, backward, thus: he that indulges himself in > “Ay δὲ τίνος τὸ ἐντρεπτικὸν καὶ ai- sertat., lib. 1, ο. 5. § 8, ad init.] δῆμον ἀπονεκρωθῇ, τοῦτο ἔτι καὶ δύνα- ὁ [Arrian, ibid., § 4. ] μιν καλοῦμεν .---ἰ Arrian, Epicteti Dis- 1 Johniii.6. 4.00 SERMON XIX. sin, doth not uniformly obey the Word: he that doth not so obey, doth not actually make choice of it before all com- petitors: he that makes not this choice, approves it not ac- cording to its real excellency above all things in the world: he that doth not so approve, assents not to the absolute goodness of it in his heart: he that so assents not, doth not truly believe; therefore every indulgent sinner is an infidel. And then look about you and within you: whosoever say, “The Lord liveth,” and yet remain in your ways of sin, be you never so stout or proud-hearted, my prophet gives you the lie: if you are incensed, and swear that you are in the truth, and stand upon your reputation, his answer is man- nerly, but tart, “Surely you swear falsely ;” every indulgent sinner is an infidel.“ Whosoever sins, hath not seen Christ, neither known Him.” But amongst professors of the gospel there be a multitude of habitual sinners, ergo of infidels ; ὅπερ ἔδει πρῶτον δεῖξαι, the thing which in the first place we un- dertook to demonstrate. We now come to the next thing proposed, the root or foun- tain of this hypocritical faith; where we are to enquire how it comes about, that they which are so forward to profess, are so far from true belief. And higher in our search we cannot go than Adam’s fall; for the spring-head of all this infidelity— as for God’s absolute decree, in rejecting men’s persons, and then suffering and leading them to an acknowledgment of the truth of the gospel, only that they may be unexcusable, I will not be so vain or unseasonable to examine. Adam had once the tree of life to have eaten, and have been immortal; to have confirmed him and his posterity into an irreversible estate of happiness: but since his disobedient heart preferred the tree of knowledge before that of life, the tree of life hath never thrived currently with his progeny. All our care, and traffic, and merchandise, hath been for knowledge, never prizing or cheapening so poor a commodity as life. Ξύλον γνώσεως ἐστὶν ἐὰν παρανομῶμεν", x.T.r., “ All sin is from the tree of knowledge;” and that hath rooted it so deep, and given it so fair a growth within us. As for the tree of life, seeing then we would not feed on it, we were never since suffered to come within reach: the 4 [Clemens Alexandr. Strom., lib. iii. c. 17. § 104. p. 559. ed. Potter.] SERMON XIX. 4.01 cherubins and a flaming sword have fenced it round about ; Gen. iii. and that makes men grow so unproportionably into such °* monstrous shapes, vast, strong, swollen heads; and weak, thin, crazy bodies, like Pharaoh’s lean kine, lank, and very ill-favoured : men for the most part having brains to under- stand, and eyes to see, and tongues to profess; but neither hearts to apply, nor hands to practise, nor feet to walk the ways of God’s commandments: as one far spent in a con- sumption, who hath his senses perfectly enough, when he is not able to go. It is only the effectual grace of God—of which that other tree was but an emblem—which must give us life and strength to practise what we know. And this amongst us is so little cared for, finds such disesteem and slight observance when it appears, meets with such resolute, hardened, stubborn hearts, that it is a miracle if it ever be brought to submit itself to such coarse entertainment. And this is the first and main ground of this hypocritical faith, our corrupt, immoderate desires of knowledge, and neglect of grace. The second ground more evidently dis- cernible in us, is, the secret consent and agreement betwixt our carnal desires and divine knowledge; and the antipathy and incompatibleness of the same with true faith. The first pair dwell many times very friendly and peace- ably together, do not quarrel in an age, or pass an affront or cross word. Knowledge doth seldom justle or offer violences to the desires of the flesh; a man may be very knowing and very lewd; of a towering brain and a grovelling soul; rich in speculation, and poor in practice. But for the other pair, they are like opposite signs in the heaven, have but a vicissitude of presence or light in our hemisphere, never appear or shine together. Faith lusteth and struggleth against the flesh, and the flesh against faith. The carnal part is as afraid of faith, as the devil was of Christ: for faith being seated in the concurrence of the dictate of judgment, and—on the other side—the sway of the affections, the one must either couch or be banished at the other’s entrance ; and then it cries out in the voice of the devil, “ What have I to do with Thee?” or, as the words Mark i. 24. will bear, τί ἐμοὶ καὶ col; ‘“ What communion can there be betwixt me and Thee?” Thou precious grace of God, “ Art HAMMOND. dd Matt. ii. 3. 4.02 SERMON XTX. Thou come to torment and dispossess me before my time ?” O what a stir there is in the flesh, when faith comes to take its throne in the heart; as at the news of Christ’s incar- nation corporal, so at His spiritual, “ Herod the king is troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.” All the reigning Herod sins, and all the Jerusalem of habitual ruling lusts and affections, are in great disorder, as knowing that this new King abodes their instant destruction. It was Aristotle’s* observation, that the mathematics being an abstract knowledge, had nothing in them contrary to passions ; and therefore young men and dissolute might study and prove great proficients in them, if they had but a good apprehension; there was no more required: and that perhaps is the reason that such studies as these, history and geometry, and the like, go down pleasantliest with those which have no design upon books, but only to rid them of some hours, which would otherwise lie on their hands. The most studious of our gentry ordinarily deal in them, as imoffen- sive, tame, peaceable studies, which will never check them for any the most inordinate affections. But of morality, saith he, and practical knowledge, a young man or intem- perate is uncapable: you may make him con the precepts without book, or say them by rote, ἀλλ᾽ ov πιστεύει“, “ He cannot be said to believe a word of them;” his heart is so possessed with green, fresh, boisterous lusts, that he cannot admit any sober precepts any further than his memory. If you are in earnest with him to apply and practise what he reads, you exact of him beyond his years; he is not solemn enough for so sad severe employment; and therefore it is concluded that he is fit for any intellectual virtue, rather than prudence. This consists in a peaceable temper of the mind; an artist he may prove and never live the better ; suppose him one of youthful luxuriant desires, and never think he will be taught to live by rule, all the learning and study in books will never give him Aristotle’s moral pru- dence, much less our spiritual, which is by interpretation, faith. , And this is the second ground of infidelity amongst Christians, the competibility of knowledge, and incompeti- * Eth. vi. 9. f [Aristot., ibid. ] SERMON XIX. 4.03 bility of true faith, with carnal desires. The third is, the easiness of giving assent to generalities, and difficulty of par- ticular application. A common truth delivered in general terms is received without any opposition: should it be proposed, whether no- thing be to be done but that which is just? whether drunk- enness were not a vice? whether only an outside of religion would ever save a man? no man would ever quarrel about it. When thus Nathan and David discoursed, they were [2 Sam. both of one mind; the one could talk no more against un- aoe conscionable dealing than the other would assent to. If you propose no other problems than these, the debauchedest man under heaven would not dispute against you. But all quarrelling, saith the Stoic’, is περὶ τὴν ἐφαρμογὴν τῶν προλήψεων ταῖς ἐπὶ μέρους οὐσίαις, “about the application of general granted rules, to personal, private cases. ” The Jews, and Assyrians, and Egyptians, and Romans, are all agreed, that holiness is to be preferred above all things; but whether it be not impious to eat swine’s flesh and the like, which of them observes the rules of holiness most ex- actly, there the strife begins. Common general declamations against sin are seldom ever offensive ; and therefore the master of rhetorics® finds fault with them as dull, liveless, unprofitable eloquence, that no man is affected with. The cowardliest bird in the air is not afraid of the falcon, as long as she sees him soaring and never stoop: but when the axe that was carried about the wood, threatening all indifferently, shall be laid to the root of the tree, when Nathan shall rejoinder with a “thou art [2 Sam. the man,” and St. Paul come home to his Corinthians after et) his declamation against fornicators and idolaters with ‘ and 1 Cor. vi. such were some of you,” then their hearts come to the touch- stone; this is a trial of their belief: if they will forsake their sins, which before their judgment condemned at a dis- tance ; if they will practise the holiness and integrity which they were content to hear commended. That famous war of the Trojans and Iliads of misery, following it in Homer, were all from this ground. The two —_ _ 8 Πρόληψις προλήψει ov μόάχεται.--- » [Perhaps refers to Aristot. Rhet., Arr. Epict. Dissertat., lib. i. c. 22. ὃ 1. lib. ii. ς. 22.] pd2 Acts xxiv. 25. Jam. ii. 29, Acts xxvi. 28. 4.04 SWRMON X1X. great captains at the treaty agree very friendly that just dealing was very strictly to be observed by all men; and yet neither would one of them restore the pawn committed to his trust, nor the other divide the spoils: each as resolute not to practise, as both before unanimous to approve. There is not a thing more difficult in the world, than to per- suade a carnal man that that which concerns all men should have any thing to do with him ; that those promises of Christ which are confessed to be the most precious under heaven, should be fitter for his turn than this amiable, lovely sin, that now solicits him. That Scripture is inspired by God; and therefore in all its dictates to be believed and obeyed, is a thing fully consented on amongst Christians. We are so resolved on it, that it is counted but a dull barren question in the schools, a mam can invent nothing to say against by way of argument ; andif a preacher in a sermon should make it his business to prove it to you, you would think he either suspected you for Turks, or had little else to say. But when a particular truth of Scripture comes in balance with a pleas- ing sin, when the general prohibition strikes at my private lust, all my former assent to Scripture is vanished, I am hur- ried into the embraces of my beloved delight. Thus when Paul “ reasoned of temperance, righteousness, and judgment to come, Felix trembled.” His trembling shews that he assented to Paul’s discourse ; and as in the devils, it was an effect of a general belief; but this subject of temperance and judgment to come agreed not with Felix’s course of life. His wife Drusilla was held by usurpation; he had tolled her away from her husband, the king of the Emiseni, saith Josephus*, and therefore he could hear no more of it: he shifts and compliments it off till another time, and never means to come in such danger again to be converted, for fear of a divorce from his two treasures, his heathenism and his whore. Thus was Agrippa converted from the shoulders upward, which he calls “almost a Christian;” or as the phrase may be rendered, ἐν ὀλέγῳ, “a little way,” convinced as to the general truths in his brain; but the lower half, his heart and affec- tions, remained as heathenish as ever. k Antig. Jud., lib. xx. ο. 7. SERMON XIX. 4.05 And this is the third ground of practical unbelief, that generalities can be cheaply believed without parting from any thing we prize; the doctrine of the Trinity can be received, and thwart never a carnal affection as being an inoffen- sive truth. Christ’s sufferings and satisfaction for sin by the natural man may be heard with joy; but particular applica- tion is very difficult: that our obedience to every command of that Trinity must be sincere: that we must forego all, and hate our own flesh to adhere to so merciful a Saviour, and express our love to the most contemptible soul under heaven, as He hath loved us; that we must at last expect Him in majesty as a judge, whom we are content to hug and embrace in His humility as a Saviour: this is a bloody word, as Moses’ wife counted the circumcision too harsh and rough to be re- 3 ceived into such pampered, tender, fleshy hearts. The fourth ground is a general humour that is gotten in the world, to take care of nothing but our reputations: nor God, nor life, nor soul, nor any thing can weigh with it in the balance. Now it is a scandalous thing, a foul blot to one’s name, to be counted an atheist, an arrant infidel, where all are Christians; and therefore for fashion’s sake we will believe ; and yet sometime the devil hath turned this humour quite the contrary way, and made some men as ambitious of being counted atheists, as others of being Christians. It will shortly grow into a gentile garb, and part of courtship, to disclaim all religion in shew, as well as deeds. Thus are a world of men in the world, either professed atheists, or atheisti- cal professors, upon the same grounds of vainglory ; the one to get, the other to save their reputation in the world. Thus do many men stand up at the Creed, upon the same terms as gallants go into the field; that have but small maw to be killed, only to keep their honour, that they might not be branded and mocked for cowards. And yet certainly in the truth, these are the veriest dastards under heaven ; no worldly man so fearful of death, or pious man of hell, as these are of disgrace. The last ground I shall mention, and indeed the main of all, is, the subtlety and wiliness of the devil. He hath tried all his stratagems in the world, and hath found none like this for the undermining and ruining of souls, to suffer them [ Exod. iv. 6. ] Matt. xix. 2}, 406 SERMON XIX. to advance a pretty way in religion, to get their heads full of knowledge, that so they may think they have faith enough, and walk to hell securely. The devil’s first policies were by heresies to corrupt the brain, to invade and surprise Chris- tianity by force: but he soon saw this would not hold out long ; he was fain to come from batteries to mines, and sup- plant those forts that he could not vanquish. The fathers— and amongst them chiefly Leo!, in all his writing—within the first five hundred years after Christ, observe him at this ward, ut guos vincere ferro flammisque non poterat, cupiditati- bus irretiret, et sub falsa Christiani nominis professione cor- rumperet. We hoped to get more by lusts than heresies, and to plunge men deepest in a high conceit of their holy faith. He had learned by experience from himself, that all the bare knowledge in the world would never sanctify; it would per- haps give men content, and make them confident and bold of their estate ; and by presuming on such grounds, and pre- scribing merit to heaven by their “ Lord, Lord,” even “seal them up to the day of damnation ;” and therefore it is ordi- nary with Satan to give men the tether a great way, lest they should grumble at his tyranny, and prove apostates from him upon hard usage. Knowledge is pleasant, and books are very good company; and therefore if the devil should bind men to ignorance, our speculators and brain epicures would never be his disciples; they would go away sadly, as the young man from Christ, who was well affected with His service, but could not part with his riches. So then you shall have his leave to know and believe in God, as much as you please, so you will not obey Him; and be as great scholars as Satan himself, so you will be as profane. The heart of man is the devil’s palace, where he keeps his state; and as long as he can strengthen himself there by a guard and band of lusts, he can be content to afford the outworks to God, divine speculation, and never be disturbed or affrighted by any enemy at such a distance. Thus have you the grounds also whereupon true faith— which is best defined a spiritual prudence, an application of spiritual knowledge to holy practice—should be so often ''S. Leo. Mag. [cf. e.g. tom. 1, pp. 94, 1383, 134, 179. The express passage has net been found. } SERMON XIX. 407 wanting in men which are very knowing, and the fairest professors of Christianity. Now lest this discourse also should reach no further than your ears, lest that which hath been said should be only as- sented to in the general as true, not applied home to your particular practices, and so do you no more good than these general professions did here to the Jews, only to prove you perjured hypocrites, “swearing falsely, whilst you say the Lord liveth,” we will endeavour to leave some impression upon your hearts by closing all with application. And that shall be in brief meekly to desire you; and if that will not serve the turn, by all the mercies of heaven, and horrors of hell, to adjure you to examine yourselves on these two interrogatories, which my text will suggest to you, first, whether you are as good as the Jews here? secondly, whether you are not, the best of you, altogether as bad? For the first, the Jews here said the ‘“ Lord liveth,” were very forward to profess; and it were some, though but a low measure of commendation, for us to be no worse than Jews. Let there go a severe inquisition out from the royal majesty over the whole court, or at least from every particular man upon himself; and bring in an impartial verdict, whether there be not some amongst you, that are not come thus far as to say, “the Lord liveth.” Some are so engaged in a trade of misshapen, horrid, monstrous vices, have so framed and fashioned the whole fabric of their lives, without any blush or lineament of God in them, that they are afraid ever to mention Him in earnest, for fear of putting them out of their course ; they dare not believe too much of God, lest it should be their undoing; a little sense of Him would take off many of their tricks of sinning, and consequently spoil their thriving in the world; like Diana’s silversmith, “for by this Acts xix. craft they have their wealth.” The least glimpse of God in ** these men’s hearts, nay, one solemn mention of Him in their mouths, were enough to bring them into some com- pass, to upbraid their ways, and reprove their thoughts. Were these men taken to task according to the canon laws of our kingdom, and not suffered to live any longer amongst Christians, till they understood clearly the promise of their baptism, till they durst come and make the same vow in [ Ps. xix. 5.] Eph. ii, ΠΤ: 408 SERMON XIX. their own persons, before all the congregation, which in their infancy their sureties made for them; were our canon of confirmation duly put in execution, and every one, as soon as he were capable, either persuaded or forced to fit himself for the receiving of it,—as it is severely required by our ru- bric, though much neglected in the practice ;—I doubt not but there would be fewer sins amongst us, much more knowledge of God, and mentioning of His name, without the help of oaths and blasphemies, to which God now is in a kind be- holding that ever He comes into our mouths. But now men having a great way to go in sin, and nothing in the world to stop them, begin their journey as soon as they are able to go, and make such haste—hke the sun, or giant in the Psalmist—to run their course, are so intent upon the task the devil hath set them, that they can never stay to see or hear of God in their lives, which yet is legible and palpable in every syllable of the world. If they are so well brought up as to have learned their Creed and Catechism, they have no other use for it but to break jests, and swear by; and would soon forget God’s very name or attributes, did they not daily repeat them over—as schoolboys their parts,—and often comment on them by oaths and profanations; and these are ἄθεοι in the Apostle’s phrase, “ without God in the world.” Others there are of a prouder, loftier strain, ἀντίθεοι, and θεομάχοι, that pitch camp, and arm and fortify them- selves against God, that would fain be a forging some other religion, they are so weary and cloyed with this. Thus have I heard of some that have sought earnestly for an Alcoran, and profess an opinion that all true divinity lies there, and expect to be esteemed great wits, of a deep reach, for this supposal. Others that have not skill enough to un- derstand Turkism, yet have lusts enough to admire it, and the brave carnal paradise it promises; and if they cannot persuade themselves to believe in it, yet they fancy it nota- bly; and because they cannot expect to have it in another life, they will be sure of it in this. Hence do they advance to such a pitch of sensuality, as heathenism was never guilty of; their whole life is a per- petual study of the arts of death, and their whole souls an SERMON XIX. 409 holocaust or burnt sacrifice to their fleshly lusts. It were an horrid representation but to give you in a diagram the several arts that the god of this world hath now taught men to vilify and reproach the God of heaven. Professed athe- ism begins to set up; it comes in fashion, and then some courtiers must needs be in it. Profaning of Scripture, and making too cheap of it, was never so ordinary; that holy volume was never so violently and coarsely handled, even ravished and deflowered by unhallowed lips. It is grown the only stuff in request, and ordinariest garment to clothe a piece of scurrilous wit in, and the best of us can scarce choose but give it some applause. Beloved, there is not a sin in the world that sticks closer to him that once enter- tained it; the least indulgence in it is a desperate sign. It is called the “chair of scorners,” a sin of ease and pleasure: [Ps.i.1.] a man that uses it, that is once a merry atheist, seldom, if ever, proves a sad sober Christian. Julian, and many others, have gone scoffing to hell,—hke men whom custom of mock- ing hath made wry-mouthed,—scarcely composing themselves to a solemn countenance, till horror either of hell or con- science hath put smiling out of date. And if any of these sins are but crept in amongst you, it will be worthy our en- quiry and examination ;—and God grant your own impartial consciences may return you not guilty :—however this will but prove you no worse than Jews, for they here acknow- ledge God in their brain and tongues; they said, “The Lord liveth.” Your second interrogatory must be, whether whilst you thus profess, you do not also swear falsely? And then it is to be feared that every action of your lives will bring in an evidence against you. It were an accusation perhaps that you seldom hear of, to be challenged for hypocrites, to be turned puritans and pretenders to holiness: yet this is it my text must charge you with; professing of religion, and never practising it; assenting to the truth of Scripture in your brain, but not adhering to it in your hearts; believing in Christ, and yet valuing Him beneath the meanest sin you meet with. Look over your Creed, and observe whether your lives do not contradict every word in it; and is it not hypocrisy and perjury, or, if you will have it, high compli- 41.0 SERMON XIX. menting with God, to be thus profuse and prodigal in our professions, which we never mean to perform? Then is it to be called belief, when it is sunk down into our hearts, when it hath taken root in a well-tempered soil, and begins to spring above ground, and hasten into an ear. That which grows like moss on the tiles of an house, which is set no deeper than the fancy, will never prove either permanent or solid nourishment to the soul. It were a new hour’s work to shew every defect in our faith by our defections and deser- tions of God in our manners; yet if you will be in earnest with yourselves, and apply the grounds premised to your seri- ous examination, your meditations may throughly make up what here is likely to be omitted. One thing take home with you for a rule to eternity, that every indulgence in any sin is a sure argument of an infidel: be you never so proud and confident of your faith, and justifica- tion by it; be you never so resolute that the “ Lord liveth ;” yet if your obedience be not uniform, if you embrace not what you assent to, “surely you swear falsely.”? Your par- ticular failings I am not knowing enough to represent to you; your own consciences, if they be but called to, cannot choose but reflect them to your sight. Your outward profession and frequency in it, for the general is acknowledged; your cus- tom of the place requires it of you; and the example of piety that rules in your eyes cannot but extort it. Only let your lives witness the sincerity of your professions; let not a dead carcass walk under a living head, and a nimble active Chris- tian brain be supported with bed-rid, motionless heathen limbs. Let me see you move and walk, as well as breathe, that I may hope to see you saints as well as Christians. And this shall be the sum, not only of my advice to you, but for you, of my prayers: that the Spirit would sanctify all our hearts as well as brains; that He will subdue, not only the pride and natural atheism of our understandings, but the rebellions, and infidelity, and heathenism of our lusts; that being purged from any relics, or tincture, or suspicion of irreligion in either power of our souls, we may live by faith, and move by love, and die in hope; and both in life and death glorify God here, and be glorified with Him hereafter. SERMON XX. Luke xvii. 11. God, I thank Thee, that I am not as other men, extortioners, §c., or even as this publican. THAT we may set out at our best advantage, and yet not go too far back to take our rise, it is but retiring to the end of the eighth verse of this chapter, and there we shall meet with an abrupt speech, hanging like one of Solomon’s proverbs, without any seeming dependence on any thing before or after it: which yet upon enquiry will appear διοπετὴς, fallen down from heaven, in the posture it stands in. In the be- ginning of the eighth verse he concludes the former parable, “1 tell you that He will avenge them speedily ;” and then [Acts xix. abruptly, ‘‘ Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, shall 38] He find faith upon the earth?” And then immediately, verse 9, “ He spake another parable to certain that trusted in them- selves,” where this speech in the midst, “when the Son of Man comes,” &c., stands there by itself, like the Pharisee in my text, seorsim, apart, as an ἐμβόλιμον or intercalary day between two months, which neither of them will own, or more, truly like one of Democritus’ atoms, the casual concur- rence of which he accounted the principle and cause of all things. That we may not think so vulgarly of Scripture as to dream that any tittle of it came by resultance or casually into the world, that any speech dropped from His mouth unobserved, “that spake as man never spake,” both in respect of the matter of His speeches, and the weight and secret energy of all accidents attending them, it will appear on consideration, that this speech of His, which seems an ver. 9. ver. 10. 412 SERMON XX. ὑπερβάλλον or ὑπερβαῖνον, asupernumerary superfluous one, is indeed the head of the corner, and ground of the whole parable, or at least a fair hint or occasion of delivering it at that time. Not to trouble you with its influence on the parable going before concerning perseverance in prayer,— to which it is as an isthmus or fibula, to join it to what follows,—but to bring our eyes home to my present subject ; after the consideration of the prodigious defect of faith in this decrepit last age of the world, in persons who made the ereatest pretences to it, and had arrived unto assurance and security in themselves ; He presently arraigns the Pharisee, the highest instance of this confidence, and brings his righte- ousness to the bar, sub hac forma. There is like to be toward the second coming of Christ, His particular visitation of the Jews, and (then its parallel) Tis final coming to judgment, such a specious pompous show, and yet such a small pittance of true faith i the world, that as it is grown much less than a grain of mustard-seed, it shall not be found when it is sought; there will be such giantly shadows and pigmy substances, so much and yet so little faith, that no hieroglyphic can sufficiently express it, but an Egyptian temple gorgeously overlaid, inhabited within by crocodiles, and cats, and carcasses, instead of gods; or an apple of Sodom, that shews well till it be handled; a painted sepulchre, or a specious nothing; or which is the contraction and tachygraphy of all these, a Pharisee at his prayers. And thereupon Christ spake the parable, “There were two men went up into the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee,” &c. Concerning the true nature of faith, mistaken extremely now-a-days by those which pretend most to it, expulsed almost out of men’s brains as well as hearts, so that now it is scarce to be found upon earth, either in our lives or almost in our books, there might be framed a seasonable complaint in this place, were I not already otherwise embarked. By some prepossessions and prejudices infused into us as soon as we can con a catechism of that making, it comes to pass that many men live and die resolved that faith is nothing but the assurance of the merits of Christ applied to every man parti- cularly; and consequently of his salvation: that I must first SERMON XX. 413 be sure of heaven, or else I am not capable of it; confident of my salvation, or else necessarily damned. Cornelius Agrippa being initiated in natural magic, Paracelsus in mineral ex- tractions, Plato full of his ideas, will let nothing be done without the Pythagoreans, brought up with numbers per- petually in their ears, and the physicians poring daily upon the temperaments of the body; the one will define the soul an harmony, the other a xpdovs, saith Philoponus. And so are many amongst us, that take up fancies upon trust for truths, never laying any contrary proposals to heart, come at last to account this assurance as a principle without which they can do nothing; the very soul that must animate all their obedience, which is otherwise but a carcass or heathen virtue; in a word, the only thing by which we are justified or saved. The confutation of this popular error I leave to some grave learned tongue, that may enforce it on you with some authority; for I conceive not any greater hindrance of Christian obedience and godly practice among us, than this: for as long as we are content with this assurance as sufficient stock to set up for heaven, there is like to be but little faith upon the earth. Faith, if it be truly so, is hke Christ Him- self, when He was Emmanuel, God upon the earth, ἐνσαρκω- θεῖσα, an incarnate faith, cut out and squared into limbs and lineaments ; not only a spiritual invisible faith, but even flesh and blood, to be seen and felt, organized for action; it is to speak, and breathe, and walk, and run the ways of God’s commandments: an assent not only to the promises of the gospel, but uniformly to the whole word of God, commands and threats as well as promises. And this, not in the brain or surface of the soul, as the Romanist seats it, but in the heart, as regent of the hand and tongue in the concurrence of all the affections. Where it is not only a working faith, an obeying faith, but even a work, even obedience itself; not only a victorious faith, but even victory itself; “This is our Rom. i. 5; victory, even our faith :” to part with this as a πάρεργον, which 1 798}. + is our only business, is sure an unreasonable thesis. Any faith but this is a faith in the clouds, or in the air, the upper region of the soul, the brain; or at most but a piece of the heart ; a magical faith, a piece of sorcery and conjuring ; that will teach men to remove mountains, only by thinking they ver. 12. 4.14. SERMON XX. are able; but will never be taken by Christ for this faith upon the earth: if it do walk here, it is but as a ghost, it is even pity but it were laid. Let me beseech you meekly, but if this would not prevail, I would conjure you all in this behalf; the silly weak Christian to fly from this μορμολύ- κειον, and call for some light of their lawful pastors, to find out the deceit; and the more knowing illuminate Christian to examine sincerely and impartially by feeling and handling it throughly, whether there be any true substance in it or no. The Pharisee, looking upon himself superficially, thought he had gone on, on very good grounds, very unquestionable terms, that he was possessed of a very fair estate ; he brought in an inventory of a many precious works; “I fast, I tithe,” &e.; hath no other liturgies but thanksgivings, no other sacrifice to bring into the temple, but eucharistical; and yet how foully the man was mistaken! “God, I thank,” &c. The first thing I shall observe in the words is the τὸ Noy- κὸν, the rational importance of them, as they are part of a rhetorical syllogism, an example or parallel to shew that in the last days, though men think that there is a great deal, yet there is indeed like to be but little faith upon the earth. And the issue from thence is the Pharisee’s flattering favour- able misconceit of his own estate, and the parallel line to that, our premature deceivable persuasions of ourselves, that is ordinary among Christians. The second thing is the τὸ ῥητὸν, the natural literal im- portance of the words, and therein the concomitants or effects of those his misconceits. 1. Pride, 2. Censoriousness. Pride noted by his speech, “1 thank Thee that I am not;” then his posture, pluming up himself, “standing by himself he prayed ;” as the Syriac set the words, and many Greek copies, some by making a comma after πρὸς ἑαυτὸν, others by reading σταθεὶς καθ᾽ ἑαντὸν, “standing by himself ;” as Beza renders it, seorsim, “ apart ;” not as our English, he “stood and prayed thus with himself,” but as the words will likewise bear it, “he stood by himself” thus; this posture signifying a proud contemptuous beha- viour, whilst the publican stood crouching humbly and tremblingly behind. SERMON XX. 47 2. Censoriousness and insinuating accusations of other men’s persons, “even as this publican.” ΤῸ which we may add the occasion of all this, seeing the publican behind him, i. e. comparing himself with notorious sinners, he was thus proud and censorious. And of these in their order, as powerfully and effectually to your hearts, as God shall enable me. And first of the first, the Pharisee’s favourable misconceits of himself, and parallel to these, our deceivable persuasions of ourselves, <“God,.1 thank,’ .&c. The black sin that hath dyed the Pharisee’s soul so deep, as to become his characteristic inseparable property, a kind of agnomen, a perpetual accession to his name, is hypocrisy. The proper natural importance of which word signifies the personating or acting of a part, putting on another habit than doth properly belong to him. But by the liberty we ordinarily allow to words, to enlarge themselves sometimes beyond their own territories, to thrive and gain somewhat from their neighbours, it is come vulgarly to signify all that ambitious outside, or formality, the colour and varnish of religion, by which any man deceives either others or him- self; and accordingly there is a twofold hypocrisy, the first, deceiving others; the second, himself. That by which he im- poseth upon others is the sin we commonly declaim against, under that name, most fiercely, sometime by just reason, as having been circumvented by such glozes, sometime in a natural zeal to truth, preferring plain downright impiety, before the same transfigured by a varnish. Reatus impii pium nomen, his being counted innocent is an accession to his guilt. But then sometimes too, under this odious name we may wound sincere and pure devotion; as the primitive Christians were by the tyrants put in wild beasts’ skins that they may be torn in pieces; men may be deterred from all the least appearance of purity, for fear they should be counted hypocrites. However this first sort of hypocrisy may deserve its seasonable reprehension, this parable in my text doth not take it in; but insists mainly upon the other, that colour of piety by which a man deceives himself, and cheats and glozes with hisown soul. That first sort, were it not for some hurtful consequences, might for aught I can gainsay pass for an in- 416 SERMON XX. nocent quality ina sinner. For what great injury doth that man do to any other, or himself? what grand sin against God or the world, by desiring to seem better than he is; by labour- ing to conceal those sins in himself, which could not be known without dishonour to God, and scandal to his neighbour? It was a lawyer’s answer, being questioned whether it were law- ful for a woman to take money for prostituting herself, that indeed it was a sin to prostitute herself; but that being sup- posed, as in some kingdoms it 15 permitted, he thought it was no great fault to get her living by it. Not to justify his opinion, but apply it by accommodation : in like manner arraign an hypocrite, and muster up all the sins he hath committed in secret, and all these I will acknow- ledge worthy of condemnation, because sins: nay, if his end of concealing them be tocircumvent a well-believing neighbour, that shall be set upon his score also; but for the desire itself of keeping his sin from the eyes of men, so that he do not from the eyes of God, and His ministers upon occasion, for a cautiousness in any one not to sin scandalously, or on the house-top, take this by itself, abstracted from the sin it belongs to, and I cannot see why that should be either a part or aggravation of asin. There is nothing that deserves the tears, yea and holy indignation of a godly soul, more than the sight of an immodest boasting sinner, that makes his crimes his reputation, and his abominations his pride and glory. It is that which we lay to the devil’s charge in the times of heathenism ; that he strove to bring sin in credit by building temples, and requiring sacrifices to lust, under the name of Venus, Priapus, and the like; that incontinence might seem an act of religion, and all the profaneness in the world a piece of adoration. And it begins now to be revived in the world again, when bashfulness is the quality of all others most creditably parted with; and the only motive to the commission of some sins is, to be in the fashion, to be seen of men; when men put on affected errors, affected vanities, affected oaths, just as they do gay clothes, that they may be the better counted of: this indeed is a damnable hypocrisy, when men are fain to act parts in sin, that they are not naturally inclined to; and to force their constitutions, and even to offer violence to their own tender dispositions, that so they may SERMON XX. 417 not be scoffed at for punies, or precise persons, as Augustus’s daughter, which being admonished of a sin that beasts would never have committed, answered that that was the reason they omitted the enjoyment of so precious a delight, because they were beasts; as if innocence were more bestial than lust, and ignorance of some sins the only guilt. The horror and detes- tation that this sin strikes into me, makes me, I confess, will- ing almost to become an advocate of the first kind of hypo- crisy, whereby men retain so much modesty in their sins (I hope of weakness) as to be willing to enjoy the charitable men’s good opinion though undeserved. But for the second kind of hypocrisy, this cozening of a man’s own soul, this tiring and personating in the closet, this inventing of arts and stratagems to send himself com- fortably and believingly to the devil, this civil intestine treachery within, and against one’s-self; this is the grand imposture that here the Pharisee is noted for. An easiness and cheatableness that costs the bankrupting of many a jolly Christian soul. He, saith Plutarch”, that wants health, let him go to the physicians, but he that wants εὐεξία, a good durable habit of body, let him go to the γυμναστὰς, “the masters of exercise,” otherwise he shall never be able to con- firm himself into a solid firm constant health, called there- upon by Hippocrates® ἕξις ἀθλητικὴ, “the constitution of wrestlers ;” without which health itself is but a degree of sickness, nourishment proves but swellings, and not growth, but a tympany. Both these, saith he, philosophy will pro- duce in the soul, not only teaching men θεοὺς σέβεσθαι, --- where by the way he repeats almost the whole Decalogue of Moses, though in an heathen dialect,—to “ worship the gods,” &e., which is ὑγίεια ψυχῆς, “ the health of the soul,” but τόδε μέγιστον, that “which is above all,” μὴ περιχαρεῖς ὑπάρχειν μήτε ἐκλύτους, “not to be overjoyed or immoderately affected in all this.” This which he attributes to philosophy in gene- ral, is, saith Aristotle‘, an act of intellectual prudence, or sobriety, μειζόνων ἢ ἄξιος ἑαυτὸν μὴ ἀξιοῦν, “not to vouch- safe higher titles to himself than he is worthy of;” not to ® [De Liberis Educ., $10. tom. i. pt. xxiii. Med. Graci. ed. Kuhn. ] 1, p, 24. ed. Wyttenb. } a (Nic. Eth. iv. 7.] © { Aphorismi, tom. iii. p. 706; tom. HAMMOND. ge Rom. xii. [ Dan. iii. 25. ] Song of Three Children, ver. 10. 418 SERMON XX. think himself in better health than he is, which is not the dialect of a mere heathen, but the very language of Canaan, φρονεῖν εἰς TO σωφρονεῖν, the very word in Aristotle, which cannot be better expressed than by that περίφρασις, to have a moderate, sober, equal opinion of one’s own gifts; not to overprize God’s graces in ourselves, not to accept one’s own person or give flattering titles to one’s-self, in Job’s phrase. This Chrysostom ® calls ταπεινοφροσύνη, a word near kin unto the former, the meekness or lowliness of heart, ὅτων τις, K.T.X., ‘‘when a man having attained to a great measure of grace, and done great matters by it, and knoweth it too,” yet μηδὲν μεγὰ, “fancies no great matter of himself for all this.” As the Three Children in Daniel having received a miracle of graces, which affected even the enemies of God, yet were not affected with it themselves; enabled to be martyrs, and yet live. Or as the poet of Callimachus‘ that stood after he was dead; τί μ᾽ ἔπεμπες ἐς ἀθανάτους πολεμιστὰς; BadXo- μεν, οὐ πίπτουσι, τιτρώσκομεν, οὐ φοβέουσι: which is Nebu- chadnezzar’s phrase, walking “in the midst of the fire and yet they have no hurt.” Yet in their εὐχαριστικὸν, “ their song of praise,” all that they say of themselves is this, “and now we cannot open our mouths ;” for this, saith Chrysostom, “ we open our mouths that we may say this only, that it is not for us to open our mouths.” By this low modest interpreta- tion every Christian is to make of his own actions and gifts, you may guess somewhat of the Pharisee’s misconceits. For first, were he never so holy and pure, of never so spiri- tual angelical composition, yet the very reflecting on these excellencies were enough to make a devil of him. The angels, saith Gerson®, as the philosopher’s intelligences, have a double habitude, two sorts of employments natural to them; one upwards, in an admiration of God’s great- ness, love of His beauty, obedience to His will, moving as it were a circular daily motion about God, their centre,— as Boethius" of them, mentemque profundam circumeunt ;— another downward, of regiment and power in respect of all © Tom. v. p. 261. [This reference is f [Pantelius, ap. S. Maximum. Op., to Saville’s edition; to a homily on the tom. ii. p. 543, Anthol. Palat., tom. iii. Pharisee and Publican, which is taken Append. Epigr. 58. ed. Jacobs. | out of the fifth homily de Incomprehen- & Cf. Gerson. Tr. i. in Magnif. sibili Dei Natura, tom. i. p. 489, C. ed. h [See Consol. Philosophie, lib. iii. Ben. where the passage will be found.] Metrum ix. v. 16. p. 223, ed. Delphin.} SERMON XX. 419 belov, which they govern and move and manage. Now if it be questioned, saith he, which of these two be more honour- able,—-for the credit of the angelical nature I determine con- fidently, that of subjection pulchriorem et perfectiorem esse, quam secunda regitive dominationis, “it is more renown to be under God than over all the world besides;”’ as the service to a king is the greatest preferment that even a peer of the realm is capable of. And then if an angel should make a song of exultance to set himself out in the greatest pomp, he would begin it as Mary doth her Magnificat, “ For He hath [Luke i. regarded the low estate of His servant :” so that the blessed ell Virgin’s mention of her own lowliness, was not a piece only of modest devotion, but an ὕψος of expression, and high metaphysical insinuation of the greatest dignity in the world. And then let the Pharisee be as righteous as himself can fancy, come to that pitch indeed which the contemptuous Opinionative philosophers feigned to themselves, λέγοντες μὲν δεῖσθαι μηδενὸς, in Tatianus', which is in the Church of Laodicea’s phrase, “1 am rich, and am increased in spiritual Rev. iii. 17. wealth, and have need of nothing ;” or the fools in the Gos- pel, “I have store laid up for many years ;” nay, to St. Paul’s [Luke pitch, rapt so high, that the schools do question whether he τ !* were viator or comprehensor, a traveller, or at his journey’s end; yet the very opinion of God’s graces would argue him a Pharisee ; this conceiving well of his estate is the foulest mis- conceit. For if he be such a complete righteous person, so accomplished in all holy graces, why should he thus betray his soul, by depriving it of this ταπεινοφροσύνη, which the very heathens could observe so absolutely necessary; this humility and lowliness of mind, this useful and most inge- nuous virtue always to think vilely of himself; not to ac- knowledge any excellence in himself, though he were even put upon the rack. The philosophers that wrote against pride, are censured to have spoiled all by putting their names to their books. Modesty, like Dinah*, desiring never so little to be seen, is ravished. The sanctifying spirit that beautifies the soul, is an humbling spirit also, to make it unbeauteous i Contra Grecos, ὃ 25. [p. 265, A. k Gerson. Tr. 10. in Magnif. [Op., al calcem, Op., 5. Justini. Paris. tom. iv. p. 468, B.] 1742. ] Ee2 420 SERMON XX. inits own eyes. And this is the first misconceit, the first step in Pharisaical hypocrisy, thinking well of one’s-self on what ground soever ; contrary to that virgin grace, humility, which is a virtue required not only of notorious infamous sinners— for what thanks or commendation is it for him to be on the ground that hath fallen and bruised himself in his race? for him that is ready to starve, to go a begging ?—but chiefly and mainly of him that is most righteous; when he that knows a great deal of good by himself, μεγάλα κατορθώματα", a great deal of good success in the spirit, yet μηδὲν μέγα φαντάζεται, is not advanced a whit at the fancy of all this. The Pharisee’s second misconceit is a favourable overpriz- ing of his own worth, expecting a higher reward than it in proportion deserves. When looking in the glass he sees all far more glorious in that reflect beam than it is in the direct, all the deformities left in the glass, and nothing but fair re- turned to him, a rough harsh unpleasing voice smoothed, and softened, and grown harmonious in the echo: there is no such cheating in the world as by reflections. A looking-glass by shewing some handsome persons their good faces, and that truly, hath often ruined them by that truth, and be- trayed that beauty to all the ugliness and rottenness in the world; which had it not been known by them, had been en- joyed. But then your false glasses, what mischief and ruin have they been authors of! how have they given authority to the deformedest creatures to come confidently on the stage, and befooled them to that shame which a knowledge of their own wants had certainly prevented! What difference there may be betwixt the direct species of a thing, and the same reflected, the original and the transcript, the artificial famous picture of Henry the Fourth of France will teach you; where in a multitude of feigned devices, a heap of painted, fantastical chimeras, which being looked on right resembled nothing, being ordered to cast their species upon a pillar of polished metal reflected to the spectator’s eye the most lively visage of that famous king. He that hath not seen this piece of art, or hath not skill in catoptricks enough to understand the demonstrable grounds and reasons of it, may yet discern as much in nature, by the appearance of a 1S, Chrysost. [Hom. v. de Incompreh. Dei natura, tom. i. p. 489, C.] SERMON XX. 421 rainbow, where you may sce those colours reflected by the cloud, which no philosopher will assert to be existent there. And all this brings more evidence to the Pharisee’s indict- ment, and demonstrates his opinion of his own actions or merits to be commonly deceivable and false. He sees another man’s actions radio recto, by a direct beam, and if there be no humour in his eye, if it be not glazed with contempt or envy, or prejudice, he may perhaps see them aright. But his own he cannot see but by re- flection, as a man comes not to see his own eyes, but in the shadow, and at the rebound; whereupon Alcinous the Pla- tonic, calls this act of the soul, τῆς ψυχῆς πρὸς ἑαυτὴν διά- λογον, a dialogue of the soul with itself, and the knowledge that comes from thence, ἀναζωγράφησιν, a resemblance by shadowing. The soul understands, and wills its object ; this act of it by its species is cast upon the fancy, and from thence, as even now from the column of brass, or bell-metal, it is reflected to the understanding: and then you may guess what a fair report he is likely to receive, when a Pharisee’s fancy hath the returning of it. He that with his own clearest eyes could take a gnat for a taller unwieldier crea- ture than a camel, and thereupon strains at it, what would he do if he should come to his multiplying glass! He that when he sees a mote, and that radio recto, in other’s eyes, can mis- take it for a beam, how can he, think you, improve the least atom of good, when he is to look on it in himself! How will his fancy and he, the one a cheat from the beginning, the other full greedy of the bait, fatten and puff up a sacrifice that he himself hath offered! O how fair shall it appear, and ready to devour all the seven fat ones, though it be the thinnest of Pharaoh’s lean kine, lank and very ill favoured ! How shall the reflection of his beggarliest rags return to his eye the picture of a king! and the ordinariest vapour, or cloud of his exhaling, be decked over with all the beauty and variety of the rainbow! What Aristotle™ said of the Sophists, that they did φυλετικῶς ἐμφυσᾶν ἑαυτοὺς, though it be a puzzling place for the critics, this censor or Aristarchus in my text, will interpret by his practice; he blows up him- m [See Arist. Sophist. Elench. i. J. ] Matt. Xxili. 24, Wisd. xiii. ver. 12. 4.22 SERMON XX. self, as they were used to do their meat against a φυλετικὸν δεῖπνον", a tribune’s or a sheriff’s feast, that it may look the fairer, and not deceive others only, but himself; forgets what he has done, and now thinks it is his natural complexion: as the carpenter in the thirteenth of Wisdom; that piece of wood which himself had just now carved into an idol, he presently prays to and worships as a god: or as hars, that by telling a tale often at last begin to believe themselves; so hath he befooled himself into a credulity: the farthing alms he hath given shall by a strange kind of usury (yet not stranger perhaps than what he deals in daily) be fancied into a mountain of gold, and the bare calves of their lips become hecatombs. If he have abstained from flesh when the market would yield none, or forborne to eat a supper after a notorious feast, he will call this “ fasting twice in the week,” and avouch himself an obedient abstemious subject and Christian, though Good Friday be witness of his unchristian epicurism. If he afford the minister the tenth of his house- rent, an annual benevolence far below that that his dues would come to, which by taking of a jolly fine at first, is for ever after pared into but a larger sort of quit-rents,—though his extortion bring in no revenue to any but the devil and himself,—he will yet be confident with the Pharisee, “I pay tithes of all that I possess.” A pittance of virtue in a Pharisee is like the polypod’s head, to which Plutarch? compares poetry, hath some good, but as much or more ill in it also; sweet indeed and nutritive, saith he; and so is all virtue though simply moral, good wholesome diet for the soul, but withal ταρακτικὴ, it sends up vapours into the brain, and ends in whimseys and strange and troublesome dreams: the man fancies, I know not what, presently of himself; like learning in an ill-natured man, all about him are the worse for it; one moral virtue tires some- times the whole vicinity of natural good-disposed gifts: it were well perhaps for his ingenuity and modesty that he were not so virtuous, that one drop of water being attenuated into air hath taken up all the room in the bladder: it were © [Cf. Alexand. Aphrod. ad loc. in ire debeat, ὃ 1. p. 56. tom, i. pt. 1. ed. Schol. ed. Berl. } Wyttenb. | P [Quomodo Adolescens Poetas aud- SERMON XX. 423 as good for the heart to be shrivelled up, as thus distended, it must be squeezed again to make place for some more sub- stantial guest, and be emptied quite, that it may be filled. In brief, it is the small measure, and this only of airy, empty piety, that hath puffed up the man. As they saya little cri- tical learning makes one proud ; if there were more it would condensate and compact itself into less room. And generally the more there is within, the less report they give of themselves; as St. Matthew mentioning himself before his conversion, doth it distinctly, by the name of Mat- Matt. ix. 9. thew, and his trade sitting at the receipt of custom, “ Matthew the publican,” by that odious re-naming of sin,—whereas all the other Evangelists call him Levi, or the son of Alpheus,— [Mark ii. but leaves out the story of his own feasting of Christ,—only eee ‘©as Christ sat at meat in the house,’—which St. Luke sets Matt. ix. down exactly, “and Levi made hima great feast,” or as in the !°- history of St. Peter’s fall and repentance in the Gospel accord- ae ae ing to St. Mark ;—which the primitive Church agree that St. Peter had a hand in it ;—his denial is set down with all the aggravating circumstances, more than in all the rest put together, “he began to curse and swear, I know not this Mark xiv. man of whom you speak:” two Evangelists say only, he ΤΩΣ denied him the third time; to this St. Matthew adds, “ he xxii. 61; cursed and sware, saying, I know not the man.” But he in 4) a. his own witness, most exactly in aggravating the sin, “I know not this,’ &c. But when he comes to the mention of his repentance, when the two other say, ἔκλαυσε πικρῶς, he himself, or St. Mark from him, only ἔκλαιε, he wept; always speaking as much bad and as little good of them- selves as can be. A little windy opinionative goodness distempers the empty brain, it is charity must ballast the heart; and that is the grace, according to holy Maximius’ opinion 4, that all this while we have required, but not found in the Pharisee, and that is the reason that the brass sounds so shrill, and the cymbal tinkles so merrily. And this is the Pharisee’s second misconceit, his overprizing his own good deeds and graces. The third is, His opinion of the consistence and immutability of his 4 [Cf. Centena Capita de Caritate, i. § 47, &c. Op., tom. i. p. 400.] Ezek. xvi. (3, sq-] 424 SERMON XX. present estate, without any, either consideration of what he hath been, or fear what he may be again ; he hath learnt or rather abused so much Scripture, as that the yesterday and the morrow must care for themselves; Prometheus or Epi- metheus are profane heathen names to him; he is all in contemplation of present greatness; like the heathen gods, which are represented to have nothing to do but admire their own excellencies. “ I thank God that I am not,” &e. The Pharisee having a first-born’s portion from the hand of God, will not be rude or importunate with Him for new and fresh supplies; nor will he disparage himself so much as to suspect the perpetuity of his enjoyment. Καλὸς παρρησίας θησαυρὸς εὐγένεια. saith Plutarch’, “a man that is honour- ably and freely born hath a fair treasure of confidence,” and so a natural advantage of other men; but bastards and men of a cracked race, ὑπόχαλκον καὶ κίβδηλον ἔχοντες γένος, that have a “ great deal of copper or dross mixed” with their or and argent, ταπεινοῦσθαι πέφυκε, “ these men are born to be humble” and shamefaced. But amongst these con- templations he may do well to consider the Amorite his father, and his mother the Hittite, the pollutions and blood he was clothed with in the day that he was born, the accursed inheritance as well of shame as sin derived unto him. For then certainly he would never so plume himself in his pre- sent sunshine. If he have not gotten in the ὑπόκαυστον, among the Adamites in Epiphanius‘, and there set up for one of Adam’s sect before his fall, or the Valentinianst which called themselves the spirituals, and the seed of Abel, who indeed never had any natural seed we hear of. If he will but grant himself of the ordinary composition and race of men, come down from Adam either by Cain or Seth, I am sure he shall find sins past enough either in his person or nature to humble him, be he never so spiritual. And then for the time to come, Christ certainly was never so espoused to any soul, as to be bound to hold it for better for worse. That if he find aught in that spouse contrary to the vow of wedlock, he can azoréwrewv",—the word used in divorces τ [De Liberis Educandis, ὃ 2. ] t Td., lib. i. Her. 31. § 23. Op., tom. s [Epiphan., lib.ii. Heresis 32. Op., 1. p. 192, B, C, sq.] tom. i. p. 438. ] " (Cf. e.g. Demosth., p. 1562. 25.] SERMON XX. 425 amongst the Athenians on the husband’s part,—send the soul out of his house or temple; especially if she do ἀπολείπειν,--- the phrase used on the woman’s part,—if she leave or forsake the husband, if she draw back or subduce herself out of his Heb. x. 8. house, “by an evil heart of unbelief, openly depart from the Heb. iii. living God.” It is observed by the critics as an absurd Se ridiculous phrase in some authors, to call the emperors divi in their life-time, which, saith Rittershusius, when the pro- priety of the Roman tongue was observed, capitale fuisset, had been a grand capital crime. And as absurd no doubt is many men’s ἀποθέωσις and ἀπαθανατισμὸς, their canoniz- ing, securing and besainting themselves in this life, upon every slight premature persuasion that they are in Christ. That which Aphrodisius” on the Topics observes of the leaves of trees, may perhaps be too true of the spiritual estate and condition of men, that the vine, ard fig, and plane tree, which have thin broad leaves, and make the fairest show, φυλλο- ροοῦσι, do thereupon shed them presently : some few indeed, the olive, bay, and myrtle, which have narrow solid leaves, are able to keep them all the year long, ἀείφυλλα and ἀειθαλῆ, always green and flourishing. And God grant such laurels may for ever abound in this paradise, this garden of the land; that the children of this mother may environ her like olive plants round about her table; this perhaps you will count an high thing, to shed the leaf, but what think you of extirpation and rooting up? even this you shall hear de- nounced, and executed on those that cast a fair shadow, either as on degenerous or unprofitable trees; either for bad fruit, or none at all, “Cut it down, why cumbereth it the [Luke xiii. ground ?” el But to our purpose ; when St. Paul therefore resolves that Rom. viii. nothing should “ever separate him from the love of God,” [59 sin is there left out of the catalogue; be he never so pos- sessed of that inheritance, for aught he knows this very con- fidence may root him out again. His brethren the Jews thought their estate as irreversible as the Pharisee’s here; and upon as good grounds as he can pretend; the very pro- mise of God to Abraham’s seed indefinitely ; and yet by that time this parable was spoken, they can bring him word of Y Alex. Aphrod. in Top. Arist. [f. 63, Aldus. ] t(Corsx: 12; [ Matt. iv. 6.] 426 SERMON XX. the repeal of that promise, within a while sealed and con- firmed by their πανωλεθρία, their instant utter destruction ; a forerunner of which, if not the cause, was this confidence of their immutable estate. It was a fancy of the Stoics mentioned by Plutarch *, περὶ πάντα κατορθοῦν τὸν ἀστεῖον, that a “wise man could do no- thing amiss,” that all that he did was wise and virtuous. And they that will have men saved and damned by a stoical neces- sity, now-a-days, may borrow this fancy of the Stoics also; but Homer, saith he, and Euripides long since exploded it. T am sure St. Paul will fairly give any man leave that takes himself to be in a good estate now, to fear a bad before he die; to expect a tempest in a calm; or else he would not have been so earnest with him that “ thinks he stands, to take heed lest he fall.’ It was the confidence of a Turk, 1. 6. a Stoic revived, in Nicetas Chon., that said he knew they must overcome, on now for ever, as having got ἕξιν tod νικᾶν, an “habit of conquering :” and it was well if this assurance did not take the pains to lose it him again. It is the rheto- ric of discreet captains to their soldiers in Thucydides ¥, and other historians, to exhort them to fight on comfortably and courageously, as having overcome, in remembrance of their past victories as pawns and pledges of the future: but it is always on condition and presumptions of the same diligence and valour which formerly they shewed. And the same mili- tary encouragements and munition the fathers frequently furnish us with against our spiritual warfare, but all rather to increase our diligence than security, to set us to work on hope of success, not to nourish us in idleness in hope of a vic- tory. If we should suffer the devil from this proposition, “he will give His angels charge” that a child “of His shall not dash his foot against a stone,” and then that assumption, thou art the child of God, to conclude that thou canst not hurt thyself with a fall, he would straight back that with a mitte te deorsum, “ Cast thyself down,” to shew what thou canst do; and then if thou hast not another scriptum est to rejoinder, thou “shalt not tempt,”’—then this confidence is tempting of God,—I know not how thou wilt be able to * [De Audiend. Poetis, tom. vi. p. 89, Reiske.] ἡ [Cf e.g. Thucyd. ii, 89; vii. 66.] > ak ah SERMON XX. 4.27 escape a precipice, a bruise if not a breaking. The Valen- tinian having resolved himself to be πνευματικὸς 5, “ spiri- tual,” confessed indeed that other men must get some store of faith and works to help them to heaven, ἑαυτὸν δὲ μὴ δεῖσθαι Sia τὸ φύσει πνευματικὸν εἶναι. “But they had no need of either, because of their natural spiritualness ;” that which is spiritual cannot part with its spiritual hyposta- sis whatever it do or suffer; no more than gold by a sink can lose its lustre; or the sunbeams be defamed by the dung- hill they shine on. They commit all manner of impurity, saith he, and yet they are σπέρματα ἐκλογῆς, “seeds of the elec- tion ;” the seeds indeed, deep set in the earth, that take root downward, but never bear fruit upward ; they never spring at all except it be towards hell; nor sprout out any branch or stalk of works, unless it be of darkness. These forsooth have grace ἰδιόκτητον, as their “proper possessions,” all others but to use, and so it seemed, for they of all others made no use of it. There was another like fancy in the same Irenzus?, of Marcus and his followers, that by the ἀπολύτρωσις, a form of baptizing that they had, that they were become dépata τῷ κριτῇ, “invisible to the judge,” then if ever they were appre- hended it were but calling to the Mother of Heaven, and she would send the helmet in Homer, that they should presently vanish out of their hands. Thus have men been befooled by the devil to believe that their sacred persons could excuse the foulest acts, and as it was said of Cato, even “make crimes innocent ;” thus have some gotten the art of sinning securely, nay, religiously, as he that in our English history would put his neighbours in a course to rebel legally. But I hope all these fancies have nothing to do but fill up the catalogues in Ireneus and Epiphanius; I trust they shall never be able to transplant themselves into our brains or hearts. But pray God there be no credence of them scattered here and there among hasty, ignorant, over- weening Christians. A man shall sometimes meet abroad some reason to suspect it, yet it were pity to fear so far as to set to confute them. There may be indeed a state and condition of Christians, so well settled and rivetted by Christ 2 (S. Ireneus adv. Her., lib. i. 6. 6. ἀλλὰ διὰ τὸ φύσει πνευματικοὺς εἶναι. Op. tom.i,p.29, αὐτοὺς δὲ μὴ διὰ πράξεως, a (Id., lib. i. ¢. xiii, ibid. p. 64.] [ Psalm Ixxxix.34, ] Exod. xvii. [17.] ver. 16. [Luke xxii. 52] 428 SERMON XX. in grace, that their estate may be comfortably believed im- mutable, an election under oath, perhaps that mentioned by the Psalmist, “I have sworn by My holiness, I will not fail David ;” for spiritual blessings are frequently in Scripture conveyed along with temporal. But it is much to be doubted, that those men that have boldness to believe this of them- selves, have not ballast enough of humility and fear to make it good. Porphyry had so much divinity in him as to observe that καθάρσια were the only ἀποτρόπαια ἃ, that perpetual washings, and purgings and lustrations, were the only means to defend or deliver from evil, either to come or present; the only amulets and ἀλεξίκακα in the world; it is the rainbow in the heaven reflected thither from a cloud of tears below, that is, God’s engagement never again to drown the earth. But then there must be also another bow in the heart, that must promise for that, that it shall not be like a deceitful bow, go back again to folly, never again be drowned with swinish, bestial, filthy lusts. In the 17th of Exodus the Israelites prevailed against Amalek, and that miraculously without any sensible means; and verse 16 the promise is made for the future, that the “ Lord will fight with Amalek for ever ;” where by the way the LXX. put in ἐν κρυφαίᾳ χειρὶ, “God will fight against Amalek as it were under- hand,” by secret hidden strength; which addition of theirs —if it were inspired into the translators, as St. Augustin? is of opinion, all their variations from the Hebrew are θεόπνευ- στα, and so Canon—then happily that κρυφαία yelp may sig- nify some secret infusion of supernatural power into Moses’ hands; that there is promised, answerable to that same effu- sion of grace, to enable all the people of God in our fight with sin, the spiritual Amalek, by which grace Moses and the Christians have assurance to prevail. And this may be ground enough for a Christian; Christ hath prayed, and God promised that “your faith shall not fail.” But then all this while the story of the day will tell us on what terms this security of victory stood, if so be Moses continue to hold up his hands; noting 1. the power of prayer; 2. of obedience ; 3. of perseverance; and upon these terms even a Pharisee @ [De Abstin., lib. ii. § 44.] > [De Ciyit. Dei, xviii. ο. 43. Op., tom, vii. p. 525. ] SERMON XX. 429 may be confident without presumption; but if his hands be once let down; if he remit of his Christian valour—for so manus demittere signifies in agonistics—“ Amalek prevails.” Just as it fared with Samson, he had an inconceivable por- tion of strength, even a ray of God’s omnipotence bestowed on him, but this not upon term of life, but of his Nazarite’s vow, i. e. asthe LX XII. render it, εὐχὴ ἀφαγνίσασθαι ἁγνείαν Κυρίῳ, “a prayer as well as ἃ vow;” and that of separating or “hallowing purity and sanctity to the Lord ;” and his vow being broken, not only that of his hair, but with it that of his holy obedience, that piece of divinity presently vanished, and the Philistines deprived him of his eyes and life. And there- upon it is observable that which is in the Hebrew in perform- ing a vow, is rendered by the LXXII. μεγαλῦναι τὴν εὐχὴν, “to magnify a vow,” then is the vow or resolution truly great that will stand us in stead when it is performed. As for all others they remain as brands and monuments of reproach to us; upbraiding us of our inconstancy first, then of disobedi- ence; and withal as signs to warn that God’s strength is departed from us. I doubt not but this strength being thus lost, may return again before our death, giving a plunge, as it did in Samson when he plucked the house about their ears at last. But this must be by the growing out of the hair again, the renewing of his repentance and sanctity with his vow, and by prayer unto God, “ Lord God,” or as the LXXIL., Κύριε, Κύριε δυνάμεων, “ Remember me, I pray Thee, and strengthen me,” but for all this, it was said before in the 19th verse, his ‘‘ strength,” and in the 20th verse, the ‘ Lord was departed from him.” And so no doubt it may from us, if we have no better security for ourselves than the pre- sent possession, and a dream of perpetuity. For though no man can excommunicate himself by one rule, yet he may by another, in the canon law; that there be some faults excom- municate a man ipso facto; one who hath committed them, the law excommunicates, though the judge do not; you need not the application ; there be perhaps some sins and devils like the Carian scorpions which Apollonius and Antigonus* men- tion out of Aristotle’, which when they strike strangers, do ¢ [Antigonus, Hist. Mirab. c. 18. Apollonius, Hist. Comment., ο, xi. ap: Meursium, Op., tom. vii. p. 13. ibid., p. 157.] Exod. xvii. De Numb. vi. 9 a Numb. xv. Judg. xvi. ver. 22. ver. 21. ver. 19. ver. 20. [2 Cor. xii. 2] [1 Pet. ii, 2.) 430 SERMON XxX. them no great hurt, ἐπεχωρίους δὲ αὐτίκα ἀποκτείνουσι, “pre- sently kill their own countrymen ;” some devils perhaps that have power to hurt only their own subjects; as sins of weak- ness and ignorance, though they are enough to condemn an unregenerate man, yet we hope, through the merits of Christ into whom he is ingrafted, οὐ λίαν ἀδικοῦσι πατά- Eaves, ‘shall do httle hurt to the regenerate,” unless it be only to keep him humble, to cost him more sighs and pray- ers. But then, saith the same Apollonius‘ there, your Baby- lonian snakes that are quite contrary, do no great hurt to their own countrymen, but are present death to strangers ; and of this number it is to be feared may presumption prove, and spiritual pride; sins that the ἐπιχώριοι, the deyil’s natives, ordinary habitual sinners need not much to fear; but to the stranger, and him that is come from afar, think- ing himself, as St. Paul was, dropped out of the third heaven, and therefore far enough from the infernal country, it is to be feared I say, they may do much mischief to them. And therefore as Porphyry®* says of Plotinus in his life, and that for his commendation, that he was not ashamed to suck when he was eight years old, but as he went to the schools frequently diverted to his nurse; so will it concern us for the getting of a consistent firm habit of soul, not to give over the nurse when we are come to age and years in the spirit, to account ourselves babes in our virility, and be perpetually a calling for the dug, the “sincere milk of the word,” of the sacraments, of the Spirit, and that without any coyness or shame, be we in our own conceits, nay, in the truth, never so perfect, full-grown men in Christ Jesus. And so much be spoken of the first point proposed, the Pharisee’s flattering misconceit of his own estate; and therein implicitly of the Christian’s premature deceivable persuasions of himself; 1. thinking well of one’s-self on what grounds so- ever; 2. overprizing of his own worth and graces; 3. his opinion of the consistency and immutability of his condition, without either thought of what is past, or fear of what is to come. Many other misconceits may be observed, if not in the Pharisee, yet in his parallel the ordinary confident Chris- tian ; as 1. that God’s decree of election is terminated in their 4 Cap. 12. [ibid. ] 7 © [In vita Plotini, ὃ 3.] SERMON XX. 43] particular and individual entities, without any respect to their qualifications and demeanours: 2. that all Christian faith is nothing but assurance, a thing which I touched ἐν παρέργῳ, in the preface, and can scarce forbear now I meet with it again: 38. that the gospel consists all of promises of what Christ will work in us, no whit of precepts or prohibitions: 4. that it is a state of ease altogether and liberty, no whit of labour and subjection; but the Pharisee would take it ill if we should digress thus far, and make him wait for us again at our return. We hasten therefore to the second part, the TO ῥητὸν, or natural importance of the words, and there we shall find him standing apart, and thanking God only per- haps in compliment; his posture and language give notice of his pride, the next thing to be touched upon. Pride is a vice either 1. in our natures, 2. in our educa- tions, or 3. taken upon us for some ends: the first is a dis- ease of the soul, which we are inclined to by nature; but actuated by a full diet, and inflation of the soul, through taking in of knowledge, virtue, or the like ; which is intended indeed for nourishment for the soul, but through some vice in the digestive faculty, turns all into air and vapours, and windiness, whereby the soul is not fed but distended, and not filled but troubled, and even tortured out of itself. To this first kind of pride may be accommodate many of the old fancies of the poets and philosophers, the giants fighting with God, i.e. the ambitious daring approaches of the soul toward the unapproachable light, which cost the angels so dear, and all mankind in Eve, when she ventured to taste of the tree of knowledge. Then the fancy of the heathens mentioned by Athenagoras‘, that the souls of those giants were devils; that it is the devil indeed, that old serpent, that did in Adam’s time, and doth since animate and actuate this proud soul, and set it a moving. And Philoponus® saith that winds and tumours, i.e. lusts and passions, those trouble- some impressions in the soul of man, are the acceptablest sacrifices, the highest feeding to the devils; nay, to the very damned in hell, who rejoice as heartily to hear of the con- f [Legat. pro Christianis, p. 303.C. Comment. in Aristot. de Anima pref. (ad calcem op. S. Justini.) } prope fin. 8 [Refers probably to Philoponus, [ Ps. xlix. 14. ] 4.32 SERMON XX. version of one virtuous, or learned man to the devil, of such a brave proselyte, I had almost said, as the angels in heaven at the repentance and conversion of a sinner. This is enough I hope to make you keep down this boiling and tumultuous- ness of the soul, lest it make you either a prey, or else com- panions for devils ; and that is but a hard choice, nay, a man had far better be their food than their associates, for then there might be some end hoped for by being devoured ; but that they have a villainous quality im their feeding, they bite perpetually but never swallow, all jaws and teeth, but neither throats nor stomachs; which is noted perhaps by that phrase in the Psalmist, “ Death gnaweth upon the wicked ;” is perpetually a gnawing, but never devours or puts over. Pride in our education is a kind of tenderness and chill- ness in the soul, that some people by perpetual softness are brought up to, that makes them uncapable and impatient of any corporal or spiritual hardness; a squeasiness and rising up of the heart against any mean, vulgar or mechanical con- dition of men; abhorring the foul clothes and rags of a beggar, as of some venomous beast: and consequently as supercilious and contemptuous of any piece of God’s service, which may not stand with their ease and state, as a starched gallant is of any thing that may disorder his dress. Thus are many brought up in this city to a loathing and detesta- tion of many Christian duties, of alms-deeds, and instructing their families in points of religion ; of visiting and comfort- ing the sick, nay, even of the service of God, if they may not keep their state there; but specially of the public prayers of the Church, nothing so vulgar and contemptible in their eyes as that. But I spare you, and the Lord in mercy do so also. The third kind of pride is a supercilious affected haughti- ness, that men perhaps meekly enough disposed by nature, are fain to take upon them for some ends, a solemn censorious majestic garb, that may entitle them to be patriots of such or such a faction ; to gain a good opinion with some, whose good opinion may be their gain. Thus was Mahomet fain to take upon him to bea prophet, and pretend that it was dis- coursing with the angel Gabriel made him in that case, that his new wife might not know that he was epileptical, and so SERMON XX. 433 repent of her match with a beggar, and a diseased person. And upon these terms Turkism first came into the world, and Mahomet was cried up μέγιστος προφήτης, the greatest prophet, (to omit other witness,) as the Saracen fragments tell us, that we have out of Euthymius. Thus are imper- fections and wants, sometimes even diseases, both of body and mind, assumed and affected by some men to get autho- rity to their persons, and an opinion of extraordinary reli- gion; but rather perhaps more oil to their cruse, or custom to their trading. But not to flutter thus at large any longer, or pursue the commonplace in its latitude, the Pharisee’s pride here expresseth itself m three things; 1. his posture, standing apart ; 2. his manner of praying altogether by way of thanksgiving; 3. his malicious contemptuous eye upon the publican. The first of these may be aggravated against the schismatic that separates from the Church, or customs, but especially service and prayers of the Church. It is pride certainly that makes this man set himself thus apart, whereas the very first sight of that holy place strikes the humble publican upon the knees of his heart afar off; as soon as he was crept within the gates of the temple, he is more devout in the porch than the Pharisee before the altar. The second, against those that come to God in the pomp of their souls, commending themselves to God, as we ordinarily use the phrase, commending indeed not to His mercy, but accept- ance; not as objects of His pity, but as rich spiritual pre- sents ; not tears to be received into His bottle, but jewels for His treasure. Always upon terms of spiritual exultancy, what great things God hath done for their souls; how He hath fitted them for Himself; never with humble bended knees in acknowledgment of unworthiness with St. Paul, who cannot name that word, sinners, but most straight sub- sume in a parenthesis, of “ whom I am the chief.” And for the expression of the opinion he had of his own sanctity, is fain to coin a word for the purpose, ἐλαχιστότερος, a word not to be met with in all Greek authors again before he used it, “less than the least of the saints.” And Jacob in a like phrase, “I am less than all Thy mercies.” The Litany that begins and ends with so many repetitions importuning for mercy, even conjuring God by all powerful names of rich HAMMOND, Ff 1 Tim. i. 15. Eph. iii. 8. Gen. xxxii. 10. 434 SERMON XX. mercy that can be taken out of His exchequer, to “ have mercy upon us miserable sinners,” this is set aside for the pub- hiean,—the sinner’s liturgy,—nay as some say, for the profane people only, not to pray but to swear by. But this only as im transitu, not to insist on. The third expression of his pride is his malicious sullen eye upon the publican, and that brings me to the next thing proposed at first, the Pharisee’s cen- soriousness and insinuated accusations of all others. “1 am not as other men, extortioners, &..... or even as this publican.” It were an ingenious speculation, and that which would stand us in some stead in our spiritual warfare, to observe what hints and opportunities the devil takes from men’s natural inclinations to insinuate and ingratiate his tempta- tions to them ; how he applies still the fuel to the fire, the nourishment to the craving stomach ; and accommodates all his proposals most seasonably and suitably to our affections ; not to enlarge this καθόλου, in the gross, nor yet καθέκαστον, to each particular, you may have a δεῖξις or taste of it in the Pharisee. To an easy-natured man whose soul is relaxed, and has its pores open to receive any infection or taint, the devil presents a multitude of adulterers, drunkards, &c., thereby to distil the poison softly into him; to sweeten the sin and secure him in the commission of it, by store of companions: but to a Pharisee,—rugged, singular, supercilious person,—he pro- poseth the same object under another colour. The many adulterers, &c., that are in the world, not to entice, but to incense him the more against the sin; not to his imitation, but to his spleen and hatred: that seeing he can hope to gain nothing upon him by bringing him in love with their sin, he may yet inveigle him by bringing him in hatred with their persons; and plunge him deeper through uncharitableness, than he could hope to do by lust. He knows well the Phari- see’s constitution is too austere to be caught with an ordinary bait, and therefore puts off his title of Beelzebub, prince of flies, as seeing that they are not now for his game; but trolls and baits him with a nobler prey, and comes in the person of a Cato or Aristarchus, a severe disciplinarian, a grave censor, or, as his most satanical name imports, διάβολος, an accuser, SERMON XX. 4.35 and then the Pharisee bites presently. He could not expect to allure him forward, and therefore drives him as far back as he can; that so he may be the more sure of him at the rebound; as a skilful woodsman, that by windlassing pre- sently gets a shoot, which, without taking a compass and thereby a commodious stand, he could never have obtained. The bare open visage of sin is not lovely enough to catch the Pharisee, it must be varnished over with a show of piety; with a colour of zeal and tenderness in God’s cause, and then, the very devilishest part of the devil, his malice and uncharitableness, shall go down smoothly with him. And that this stratagem may not be thought proper to the meri- dian only where the Pharisee lived, Leo‘ within five hundred years after Christ, and other of the fathers, have observed the same frequently practised by the devil among the primi- tive Christians; ut quos vincere flamma ferroque non poterat, ambitione inflaret, virus invidie infunderet, et sub falsa Chris- tiani nominis professione corrumperet: that they whom per- secution could not affright, ambition may puff up, envy poison, and a false opinion of their own Christian purity betray to all the malice in the world. Thus have heretics and sectaries, in all ages, by appropriating to themselves those titles that are common to all the children of God, left none for any other, but of contumely and contempt: as soon as they fancy to themselves a part of the spirit of God, taken upon them the monopoly of it also. Thus could not the Valentinians* be content to be πνευματικοὶ themselves ; but all the world beside must be ψυχικὸς and ywixos, animal and earthly. It were long to reckon up to you the idioms and characters that heretics have usurped to themselves in opposition and reproach, and even defiance of all others; the Pharisee’s separati, Sadducee’s justi, Novatian’s καθαροὶ, puri, Messalian’s precantes. As if these several virtues, separation from the world, love of justice, purity, daily exer- cise of prayer, were nowhere to be found but amongst them. Even that judicious, learned, eloquent, yea and godly father Tertullian’, is caught in this pitfall; as soon as he began to relish Montanus’s heresy, he straight changeth his style, 1S. Leo Magn. [cf. supr. p. 406. ] ch. vi. ] k (S. Irenzeus cont. Heres., lib. i. ' (Tertull. De Jejun, ad init. ] Ff2 436 SERMON XX. nos spirituales, and all other orthodox Christians psychici, animal, carnal men. The devil could not be content that he had gained him to Montanism,—an heresy which it is con- fessed only a superlative care of chastity, abstinence, and martyrdom, brought him to,—but he must rob him of his charity too, as well as his religion. Not to keep any longer on the wing in pursuit of this censorious humour in the Pharisee and primitive heretics, the present temper and constitution of the Church of God will afford us plenty of observation to this purpose. Amongst other crimes with which the Reformation charge the Romanists, what is there that we so importunately require of them as their charity! that see- ing with the apostolical seat they have seized upon the keys of heaven also, they would not use this power of theirs so intemperately, as to admit none but their own proselytes into those gates, which Christ hath opened to all believers. For this cause, saith Eulogius™ in Photius, were the keys given to Peter, not to John or any other, because Christ foresaw Peter would deny Him, that so by the memory of his own failings, he might learn humanity to sinners, and be more free of opening the gates of heaven, because he him- self,—had it not been for special mercy,—had been excluded ; other Apostles, saith he, having never fallen so foully, τάχα ἂν ἀποτομώτερον αὐτοῖς διεκέχρηντο, “ might like enough have used sinners more sharply:” but it was not probable that Peter would be such a severe Cato; and yet there is not a more unmerciful man under heaven than he that now tyrannizeth in his chair. Spalatensis indeed, after his revolt from us, could ingeniously confess, that he could have ex-~ pected comfortably, and perhaps have been better pleased, to have been saved in the Church of England, with a thousand pound a year, as in the Roman with five hundred pound. But do not all others of them count this no less than heresy in him thus to hope? Cudsemius" the Jesuit denies the English m [ὅτι διὰ τοῦτο, φησὶν, οὔτε πρὸς Ἰωάννην, οὔτε πρὸς ἕτερόν τινα τῶν μα- θητῶν ἔφη ὁ σωτὴρ τό" καὶ δώσω σοι τὰς κλεῖς τῆς βασιλείας τῶν οὐρανῶν, καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς᾽ ἀλλ᾽ ἤ πρὸς Πέτρον, bs ἔμελλε τῷ τῆς ἀρνήσεως περιπίπτειν ὀλισθήματι, καὶ διὰ δακρύων καὶ μετανοίας ἀπονίπ- τειν τὸ ἁμάρτημα, ἵνα τῷ καθ᾽ ἑαυτὸν ὗπο- δείγματι πρὸς τοὺς ἐξαμαρτάνοντας φι- λανθρωπότερον διατίθοιτο" οἱ γὰρ ἄλλοι ἀπείραστοι γεγενηκότες, τάχα ἂν ἀπο- τομώτερον αὐτοῖς diexexpnvTo.—Hulo- gius ap. Photium, Biblioth., p. 1600. ed. Hoeschel. ] n [De desperata Calvini Causa, lib, ies Md SERMON XX. ᾿ 437 nation to be heretics, because they remain under a con- tinual succession of bishops. But alas! how few be there of them, which have so much charity to afford us! What fulmi- nations and clattering of clouds is there to be heard in that horizon! What anathematizing of heretics, i. 6. Protes- tants! what excommunicating them without any mercy, first out of the Church, then out of the book of life; and lastly, where they have power, out of the land of the living! And yet, would they be as liberal to us poor Protestants, as they are to their own stews and seminaries of all unclean- ness, then should we be stored with indulgences. But it was Tertullian’s® of old, that there is no mercy from them to be expected, who have no crime to lay against us but that we are true Christians. If they would but allow one corner of heaven to receive penitent humble Protestants, labouring for good works, but depending on Christ’s merit ; if they would not think us past hopes, or prayers, there might be possibly hoped some means of uniting us all in one fold. But this pre- cious Christian grace of charity being now so quite perished from off the earth, what means have we left us, but our prayers, to prepare or mature this reconciliation? Shall we then take heart also, and bring in our action of trespass? Shall we sit and pen our railing accusation in the form that Christ uses against the Pharisees, ‘‘ Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men, for you neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in?” This we might do upon better grounds, were we so revengefully disposed ; but we fear to incur our Saviour’s censure, “ And He turned and rebuked them, saying, Ye know not what manner of spirits ye are οἵ." We should much mistake our Christian spirit, if we should not in return to their curses, intercede with God in prayer for them; first, that He will bestow on them the grace of meekness or charity; then, sincerity and uprightness, without wilful blindness and par- tiality ; and lastly, to intercede for the salvation of all our souls together. And this is the only way St. Paul hath left us, “ by returning them good to melt them,” hoping and pray- ° [Cf. Tertull. Apoll., ο. 2.] Matt, xxiii. 18. Luke ix. 55. Rom. xii. 20. [ Prov. xxv. 16.} 458 SERMON XX. ing in the words of Solomon, that by long forbearing this great Prince of the West will be persuaded; and that our soft tongues may in time break the bone. But whilst we preach charity to them, shall we not betray partiality in our- selves, by passing over that uncharitable fire that is breaking out in our own chimneys? It were to be wished that this Christian grace, which is liberal enough of itself, would be entertained as gratefully as it is preached; we should not then have so many wx ‘22, “sons of fire” amongst us as we have; who being inflamed, some with faction, others with ignorant prejudice, others with doting on their own abilities, fall out into all manner of intemperate censures, 39m "27, ‘words of the sword,” all sharp contumelious invectives against all persons, or doctrines, or lives that are not ordered or re- vised by them. For what Photius? out of Josephus observes among others to have been one main cause or prognostic of the destruction of Jerusalem, the civil wars betwixt the &- λωταὶ and the σικάριοι, the zealots and the cut-throats, pray God we find not the same success amongst us. Whilst the zealots, saith he, fell on the sicarii, the whole body of the city, πικρῶς καὶ ἀνηλεῶς ἐσπαράττετο, “ was bitterly and unmercifully butchered betwixt them;” and under one of those two names all the people were brought to suffer their part in the massacre. I desire not to chill or damp you with unnecessary fears, or to suspect that our sims shall be so unlimited as utterly to outvie and overreach God’s mer- cies. But, beloved, this ill blood that is generally nourished amongst us, if it be not a prognostic of our fate, is yet an ill symptom of our disease. These convulsions and distortions of one member of the body from another as far as it can pos- sibly be distended, this burning heat, and from thence raving and disquietness of the soul, are certainly no very comfortable symptoms. When the Church and kingdom must be dicho- tomized, precisely divided into two extreme parts, and all moderate persons by each extreme tossed to the other with furious prejudice; must brand all for heretics or carnal per- sons that will not undergo their razor; and then, the con- trary extreme, censure and scoff at their preciseness that will not bear them company to every kind of riot ; these, beloved, P [Biblioth., p. 36. ed. Hoeschel. } SERMON XX. 439 are shrewd feverish distempers, pray God they break not forth into a flame. When the boat that goes calmly with the stream, in the midst of two impetuous rowers, shall be assaulted by each of them, for opposing or affronting each ; when the moderate Christian shall be branded on the one hand for preciseness, on the other for intemperance, on the one side for a puritan, on the other for a papist, or a re- monstrant ; when he that keeps himself from either extreme, shall yet be entitled to both; what shall we say is become of that ancient primitive charity and moderation? The use, beloved, that I desire to make of all this, shall not be to declaim at either ; but only by this compass to find out the true point that we must fail by. By this, saith Aristotle4, you shall know the golden mediocrity, that it is complained on both sides, as if it were both extremes; that may you define to be exact liberality, which the covetous man censures for prodigality, and the prodigal for covetousness. And this shall be the sum not only of my advice to you, but prayers for you; that in the Apostle’s phrase, “your moderation may be known unto all men,” by this livery and cognizance, that you are indited by both extremes. And if there be any such Satanical art crept in amongst us, of authorizing errors or sins on one side, by pretending zeal and earnestness against their contraries; as Photius’ observes that it was a trick of propagating heresies, by writing books entitled to the confu- tation of some other heresy; the Lord grant that this evil spirit may be either laid or cast out; either fairly led, or vio- lently hurried out of our coasts. I have done with the Pharisee’s censoriousness; I come now in the last place to the ground, or rather occasion of it ; his seeing the publican,—comparing himself with notorious sinners ; “ I thank Thee that,” &c. That verse which St. Paul cites out of Menander’s Thais, that “wicked communication corrupts good manners,” is grounded on this moral essay, that nothing raiseth up so much to good and great designs as emulation; that he that casts himself upon such low company, that he hath nothing to imitate or aspire to in them, is easily persuaded to give 4 Eth, ii, 7. τ [Biblioth., p. 399. ad med.; and p. 259. ad fin. } Phil. iv. 5. 1 Cor. xv. 33. 440 SERMON XX. over any further pursuit of virtue, as believing that he hath enough already, because none of his acquaintance hath any more: thus have many good wits been cast away, by falling unluckily into bad times, which could yield them no hints for invention, no examples of poetry, nor encouragement for any thing that was extraordinary. And this is the Phari- see’s fate in my text, that looking upon himself, either in the deceivable glass of the sinful world, or in comparison with notorious sinners, extortioners, adulterers, publicans, sets himself off by these foils, finds nothing wanting in himself, so is solaced with a good comfortable opinion of his present estate, and a slothful negligence of improving it. And this, beloved, is the ordinary lenitive which the devil administers tothe sharp unguiet diseases of the conscience, if at any time they begin to rage,—the only conserve that he folds his bit- terest receipts in, that they may go down undiscerned,—that we are not worse than other men; that we shall be sure to have companions to hell; nay, that we need not neither at all fear that danger; for if heaven gates be so strait as not to receive such sinners as we, the rooms within are like to be but poorly furnished with guests; the marriage feast will never be eaten, unless the lame and cripples in the street or hospital be fetched in to fill the table. But, beloved, the com- forts with which the devil furnisheth these men are,—if they were not merely feigned and fantastical,—yet very beggarly and lamentable, such as Achilles in Homer’ would have scorned, only to be chief among the dead, or princes and eminent persons in hell. We must set our emulation higher than so, somewhat above the ordinary pitch or mark. Let our designs fly at the same white that the skilfullest marks- men in the army of saints and martyrs have aimed at before us; that the ἀσκηταὶ, and ἀθληταὶ, and τροπαιοφόροι of the Church, the religious exercisers and champions and trophy- bearers of this holy martial field have dealt in. It is a poor boast to have outgone heathens and Turks in virtue and good works ; to be taller than the dwarfs, as it were, and pigmies of the world; we must not be thus content, but outvie even the sons of Anak, those tall, giantly, supererogatory under- 5 [Cf. Hom. Odyssey, xi. 491.] Le aee..eeerCr —— SERMON XX. 44] takings of the proudest, nay, humblest Romanists. O what a disgrace will it be for us Protestants at the dreadful day of doom! O what an accession not only to our torments, but our shame, and indignation at ourselves, to see the expecta- tion of meriting in a papist, nay, the desire of being counted virtuous in a heathen, attended with a more pompous train of charitable magnificent deeds, of constant magnanimous sayings, than all our faith can shew, or vouch for us! Shall not the Romanist triumph and upbraid us in St. James’s language, “Thou hast faith and I have works,” and all that Jam. ii. 18. we can fetch out of St. Paul not able to stop his mouth from going on, “shew me thy faith without thy works,” as our English reads it out of the Syriac and vulgar Latin, “ and I will shew thee my faith by my works?” It will be but a nice distinction for thee then to say, that works are to be separated from the act of justification, when they are found separated a supposito, from the person also. But not to digress ; the Pharisee seems here pretty well provided,—no extortioner, no adulterer, guilty of no injustice. And how many be there among you that cannot go thus far with the Pharisee! Some vice or other perhaps there is, that agrees not with your constitution or education ; drunkenness is not for one man’s turn, prodigality for another’s, and I doubt not but that many of you are as forward as the Pharisee to thank God, or rather require God to thank them, that they are not given to such or such a vice. But if you were to be required here to what the Pharisee undertakes, if you were to be arraigned at that severe tribunal, I say not concerning your thoughts and evil communications, but even the gross actual, nay, habitual sins; if a jury or a rack were set to enquire into you throughly, how many of you durst pretend to the Pharisee’s innocence and confidence, that you are not extortioners, unjust, adulterers! Nay, how many be there that have all the Pharisee’s pride and censoriousness, and all these other sins too into the vantage! Certainly there is not one place in the Christian world that hath more reason to humble itself for two or all three of these vices, than this city wherein you live. I am sorry I have said this, and I wish it were uncharitably spoken of me; but though it will not become me to have thought it of you, yet it will 442 SERMON XX. concern you to suspect it of yourselves, that by acknowledg- ing your guilts you may have them cancelled, and by judging i. yourselves, prevent being judged of the Lord. And here St. Chrysostom’s* caution will come in very seasonably toward a conclusion of all, that the publican’s sins be not preferred before the Pharisee’s works, but only before his pride. It is not his store of moral virtues that was like to prove the Pharisee’s undoing, but his overvaluing them; ταράττει οὐ Ta πράγματα, ἀλλὰ δόγματα, saith the Stoic", appliable to this also. It is not his imnocence that hath so encumbered him all this while, but his opinion of it. The fasting and the tithing must not be cast away, because the Pharisee was proud of them; this were a furious discipline which would down with all violently, that had ever been abused to idola- try or sin; or with him in Plutarch*, that because poetry had some ill consequences sometimes, would have the muses and their favourites dispatched into Epicurus’s boat. His counsel was more seasonable, that, to prevent drunkenness, appointed them to mix water with their wine, that the mad god might be allayed with a tame sober one; and that is the caution that I told you of, that you abstract the Pharisee’s works from his pride, and then borrow the publican’s humi- lity from his works; that you come to the temple of God with all the provision a Pharisee can boast of, and then lay it down all at the publican’s feet, and take up his miserere, his sighs, his dejection, his indignation at himself instead of it, then shall you be fit to approach to that templum miseri- cordie which Gerson speaks of, sine simulachro, &¢c., that had not a picture or image of a saint in it, no manner of ostenta- tion or show of works, non sacrificiis sed gemitibus, &c., not to be visited with sacrifices but sighs, not to be filled with triumphant ἐπινίκια, songs of rejoicing and victories, but with the calm and yet ravishing rhetoric of the publican, θεὸς ἱλάσθητί μοι [τῷ] ἁμαρτωλῷ, “Lord be merciful to me a sinner.” Even so, O Lord, deal Thou with us, according to Thy mercies; visit us with Thy salvation, draw us with Thy mercies, and enlighten us with Thy Spirit, Thy hum- bling Spirit to season us with a sense of our sins and un- t [De Incomprehens. Dei Natura, * [Quom. Adolesc. Poet. aud. de- Hom. v. Op., toin. i. p. 490, C.] beat., § 1. tom. vi. p. 53. ed. Reisk. ] u Arrian Epict. Dissert. [i. 19. 7.] SERMON XX. 44.3 worthiness ; Thy sanctifying Spirit to fill us here with all holy sincere requisite graces ; and in the Spirit of Thy power to accomplish us hereafter with that immarcessible crown of glory. Now to Hin, ἕο. SERMON XXI. Mart. ui. ὃ. Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Tart our preface may afford some light to our proceeding, that it may prepare the way and stand us in stead hereafter in our discourse of preparation, we will employ it to observe that natural progress and method of all things, which con- sists in steps and degrees: travelling on by those gists which nature hath set them from one stage to another, from a lower degree of perfection to an higher, built upon this ground of nature, that the first things are always least perfect, yet abso- lutely necessary to the perfection of the last: and in sum, so much the more necessary, by how much less perfect. Thus is the foundation more necessary to an house than the walls, and the first stone than the whole foundation, because the walls are necessary only to the setting on of the roof, not to the laying of the foundation; the foundation necessary both to the walls and roof, but not to the first stone; because that may be laid without the whole foundation: but the first stone necessary to all the rest, and therefore of greatest and most absolute necessity. The course of nature is delineated and expressed to us by the like proceedings and method of arts and sciences. So those general principles that are most familiar to us, are the poorest and yet most necessary rudi- ments required to any deeper speculation: the first stage of the understanding in its peregrination or travel into those foreign parts of more hidden knowledge is usually very short; and it is most requisite it should be so; for beginning at home with some κοιναὶ ἔννοιαι, and taking its rise at its own threshold, thereby it advances the length, and secures the success of the future voyage. Thus in politics hath the SERMON XXI. 4.4.5 body of laws from some thin beginnings under Lycurgus, Solon, Phaleas, and the like, by daily accessions and further growth at last increased into a fair bulk; every age perfect- ing somewhat, and by that degree of perfection making the matter capable of a further; so that the very politics them- selves, as well as each commonwealth, have been observed to have their infancy, youth, and manhood, the last of which is the only perfect state ; which yet this body had never attained to, had it not been content to submit itself to the imperfec- tion of the former. Thus also in practical philosophy there be some preambula operationis, some common precepts which must be instilled into us, to work a consistency in our tempers firm enough for the undertaking and performing all moral tasks. One excellent one Aristotle? learnt from Plato, in the second of the Ethics, χαίρειν τε καὶ λυπεῖσθαν ois δεῖ, a skill of ordering those two passions aright, joy and sorrow, an habit never to rejoice or grieve but on just occasion: which lesson we must con perfectly when we are young, and then with years an easy discipline will bring on virtue of its own accord. Lastly, in the transcendent knowledge of metaphysics, which Aristotle would fain call wisdom, it is the philosophers’ labour, which they were very sedulous in, to invent and set down rules to prepare us for that study: the best that Aristotle hath is in the third of Metaph., to examine and inform ourselves, περὶ ὧν ἀπορῆσαι Set πρῶτον, “which things are chiefly worth doubting of,’ and searching after: in which one thing if we would observe his counsel, if we would learn to doubt only of those things which are worth our knowledge, we should soon prove better scholars than we are. Jamblichus’, beyond all the rest, most to the purpose prescribes retiredness and contempt of the world, that so we might ταῖς διεξόδοις τοῦ νοῦ ζῆν, ever “live and be nourished by the excursions of the mind towards God;” where indeed he speaks more like a Christian than a Pythagorean, as if he had learnt Christ, to deny himself and the world, and follow Him, and intended to come to that pitch and ἀκμὴ which St. Paul speaks of, “The life which I now live in the flesh I Gal. ii. 20 live by faith,” &c. But to conclude this precognoscendum, 4 (Cf. Arist. Nic. Eth., lib. 11. 6, 2.] » (Arist. Metaph. B. ς. 1.1 ¢ Jambl. Protrept., pp. 36, 37. {1 Cor. xv. 46. | 440 SERMON XXI. there be throughout all works of nature and imitations of art some imperfect grounds on which all perfection is built ; some common expressions with which the understanding is first signed ; some ground-colours without the laying on of which no perfect effigies or portraiture can be drawn. Nay thus it is in some measure in spiritual matters also; we are men before we are Christians: there is a natural life and there is a spiritual life. And as in the resurrection, so also in the spi- ritual παλυγγενεσία of the soul, “ first that which is natural, and after that which is spiritual: and in the spiritual life there be also its periods, the infancy, the youth and virility of the spirit ; the first being most imperfect yet most neces- sary, and preparing the way to the last perfection. To bring all home to the business in hand; thus did it not befit the Saviour of the world to come abruptly into it; to put on flesh as soon as flesh had put on sin; the business was to be done by degrees, and after it had been a long time in working, for the final production of it, the fulness of time was to be ex- pected. The law had its time of pedagogy to declare itself, and to be obeyed as His usher for many years; and after all this, He appears not in the world till His Baptist hath pro- claimed Him; He makes not toward His court till His harbinger hath taken up the rooms. He comes not to in- habit either in the greater or lesser Jewry, the world or man’s heart, till the precursor hath warned all to make ready for Him; and this is the voice of the precursor’s sermon and the words of my text, “ Prepare ye the way of the Lord.” Instead of dividing the words 1 shall unite them, and after I have construed them to you, contrive that into one body which would not conveniently be dismembered. ‘Erowafew signifies to fit, to prepare, to make ready. “ Ye” are all those to whom Christ should ever come. “The ways of the Lord” are whatsoever is capable of receiving of Christ or His gospel, peculiarly the hearts of the elect. The form of speech, im- perative, notes the whole complexum to be one single duty required of all the Baptist’s and my auditors, sub hac forma, that every man’s heart must be prepared for the receiving of Christ, or, punctually to imitate the order of the words in my text, the preparation of the soul is required for Christ’s SERMON XXI. 4.4.7 birth in us. For there is in every elect vessel a spiritual ἐν- σάρκωσι», or “ mystical incarnation” of Christ, where the soul, like Mary, is first overshadowed by the Holy Ghost, then con- ceives, then carries in the womb, grows big, and at last falls into travail and brings forth Christ. My text goes not thus far to bring to the birth, neither will I. My discourse shall be happy if it may be His Baptist, His πρόδρομος in your hearts, to prepare them for His birth, which I shall endeavour to do, first, by handling preparation in general; 2. the prepa- ration here specified, of the soul; 3. in order to Christ’s-birth in us. And first of preparation in general; éro:ua€ere, “prepare ye,” or make ready. The necessity of this performance to any un- dertaking may appear by those several precedaneous methods in common life, which have nothing in themselves to ingra- tiate them unto us, but cost much toil and trouble, yet not- | withstanding are submitted to. If the earth would answer the farmer’s expectation without any culture or husbandry, he would never be so prodigal towards it. But seeing it hath proposed its fruitfulness under condition of our drudgery, we plough, and harrow, and manure, and drain, and weed it, or else we are sure to fare the worse at harvest. The variety of pre- parations in these low affairs was by Cato and Varro and Co- Jumella accounted a pretty piece of polite necessary learning. And a Christian, if he will apply their rules to his spiritual Georgics, the culture of his soul, shall be able to husband it the better; and by their directions have a further insight into those fallow grounds of his own heart, which the prophet [Hos. x. speaks of. It were a great, and perhaps unnecessary journey, 12 1 to trace over the whole world of creatures to perfect this ob- servation: almost every passage of nature will furnish you with an example. Hence is it that they that had nothing but natural reason to instruct them, were assiduous in this prac- tice, and never ventured on any solemn business without as solemn endeavours to fit themselves for the work they took in hand; those series of preparations before the ancient athle- tica, as anointing, and bathing, and rubbing, and dust, it were fit enough for a sermon to insist on the exercise which they prepared, for being reputed sacred and parts of their solemnest worship; and the moral of them would prove of Eph. vi. 12; 1 Cor. ix. 26. [ Acts xvii. 22.) 448 SERMON XXI. good use to discipline, and to bring us up to those spiritual agones mentioned in Scripture, as πάλη, Eph. vi. 12, πυγμὴ, 1 Cor. ix. 26, and in the same place δρόμος ἐν σταδίῳ, and its preparative ὑπωπιασμὸς, wrestling, cuffing, and run- ning, three of the five Olympian games adopted as it were into the Church, and spiritualized by the Apostle for our imitation. But to pass by these and the like as less apposite for our discourse, what shall we think? Was it superstition, or rather mannerliness, that made the Grecian priests so rub and wash and scour themselves before they would meddle with a sacrifice? δεισιδαιμονία it was, and that we construe superstition ; but indeed it signifies an awe and reverence to the deity they worship, and a fear and a care lest the unpre- paredness of the priest should pollute their sacrifice; as it is much to be feared that our holiest duties, for want of this care, are turned into sin; the vanities and faults of our very prayers adding to the number of those guilts we pray against, and every sacrifice, even of atonement itself, needing some ex- pation. To look awhile on the highest part, and as it were the sacraments of their religion, their Eleusinia sacra, resemb- ling in one respect Christian baptism, in another holy orders ; what a multitude of rites and performances were required of every one before his admission to them! For their μυστήρια being divided into two classes, the lesser or lower sort were preludia to the greater, or as the scholiast on Aristophanes 4 hath it more clearly to our purpose, προκάθαρσις καὶ Tpoay- νευσι5 TOV μεγάλων, “a premundation or presanctification” of them that sued to be admitted higher: as baptism, confir- mation, and a Christian education in the Church, fits us for the participations of those mysteries which the other sacra- ments present to us, so that it punctually notes that prepa- ration we here talk of: for before they were admitted to those grand τελεταὶ and ἐποπτεία, they were, saith Suidas, to spend a year or two in a lower form, undergo a shop of purga- tions, λοῦτρα, καθάρσεις, and many more; so that Tertullian ® could not without wonder and praise of their solemnities ob- serve tot suspiria epoptarum, et mulitam in adytis divinitatem. It was no mean toil nor ordinary merit that was required to 4 [ Plutarch. De Anditione. Op.,tom. Plut. v. 846.] vi. p. 170. Reiske. Schol. on Aristoph. e Tertull., lib. i. in. Valent. ad init. SERMON XXI. 449 make them capable‘ of these dyias τελεταὶ, as Aristophanes * calls them. The ground of all the ceremony we may observe to be the natural impurity which the heathens themselves acknowledge to be in every man, as may appear most dis- tinctly by Jamblichus ἢ, though they knew not clearly at what door it came in at; sure they were they found it there, and therefore their own reason suggested them that things of an excellent purity, of an inherent or at least an adherent sanc- tity, were not to be adventured on by an impure nature, ἀλλὰ μετὰ τινῶν καθαρμῶν, saith Clementi, till it had by some laborious prescribed means somewhat rid itself of its _ pollutions ; and this the barbarian did μόνῳ λούτρῳ, saith he, thinking the bare washing of the outward parts sufficient : but the Grecians, whom learning had made more substantial in their worship, required moreover an habituate temper of passions, longam castimoniam et sedatam mentem, that the in- ward calmness and serenity of the affections might perform the promises of the outward purity. In sum, when they were thus qualified and had fulfilled the period, or circle of their purgation required to their μύησις, they were at length ad- mitted intra adyta ad epoptica sacra, where all the mysteries of their theology were revealed to them. All which seems to me—as much as can be expected from their dim imperfect knowledge—to express the state of grace and saving know- ledge in the world; and also the office of ministering in sacred things, into which no man was thought fit to be received or initiated but he which had undergone a prenticeship of pur- gations: for although those Eleusinia of theirs, at a Chris- tian’s examination, would prove nothing but religious delu- sions, containing some prodigies of their mythical divinity; in sum, but grave specious puppets and solemn serious nothing ; yet hence it may appear that the eye of nature, though cheated in the main, taking that for a sacred mystery which was but a prodigious vanity, yet kept itself constant in its ceremonies ; would not dare or hope to approach abruptly to any thing which it could believe to be holy. Now shall we be more saucy in our devotions, and insolent in our approaches to f { Plutarch. ibid. bol. iv. J 8 [ Aristoph. Nub. 304. ] i [Clemens Alexandr. Strom., lib. v. » Protrept., [explanation of Sym- cap. 11. ὃ 71. p. 689.} HAMMOND, ag 450 SERMON XXI. either the throne of majesty or grace of our true God, than they were to the unprofitable empty τελεταὶ of their false? Shall we call the mannerliness of the heathen up in judg- ment against the Christian rudeness? It will be an horrid exprobration at the day of doom, when a neat, washed, re- spectful Gentile shall put a swinish, miry, negligent Christian to shame; such a one who never took so much care to trim himself to entertain the Bridegroom, as the heathen did to adore an empty gaud, a vain ridiculous bauble. Yet is not their example prescribed you as an accomplished pattern, as the pitch to aim at and drive no higher: but rather as a o77- λιτευτικὸν, a sarcasm or contumely engraved in marble to upbraid you mightily if you have not gone so far. All that they practised was but superficial and referring to the body, and therein the washing of the outsides; yours must be in- ward, and of the soul; which is the next word in the doc- trine, the specification of it by the subject noted im the text by τὴν ὁδὸν, “the way,” and expressed in the latter part of the subject of my proposition, the preparation of the soul. This preparation consists in removing those burdens, and wiping off those blots of the soul, which any way deface or oppress it; in scouring off that rust and filth which it con- tracted in the womb, and driving it back again as near in- tegrity as may be. And this was the aim and business of the wisest among the ancients, who conceived it possible fully to repair what was lost, because the privation was not total; and findig some sparks of the primitive flame still warm within them, endeavoured and hoped hard to enliven them. To this purpose a great company of them, saith St. Austin), puzzled themselves in a design of purging the soul per θεουργίαν, et consecrationes theurgicas, but all im vain, as Porphyry himself confesses ; ‘‘ No man,’’saith he, “ by this the- urgic magic could ever purge himself the nearer to God, or wipe his eyes clear enough for such a vision.” They indeed went more probably to work, which used no other magic or exorcism to cast out these devils, to clear and purge the soul, but only their reason, which the moralist set up and main- tained against θυμὸς and ἐπιθυμία, the two ringleaders of ἡ sensuality. To this purpose did Socrates, the first and wisest j [Cf 8. August. De Civit. Dei, lib. x. ¢. 9. Op., tom. vii. p. 245.] SERMON XXI. 451 moralist, furnish and arm the reasonable faculty with all helps and defensations that philosophy could afford it, that it might be able to shake off and disburden itself of those encum- brances which naturally weighed and pressed it downward, ut exoneratus animus naturali vigore in eterna se attolleret*: where if that be true which some observe of Socrates, that his professing to know nothing was because all was taught him by his δαιμόνιον, I wonder not that by others his daz- μόνιον is called θεὸς, and consecrated into a deity: for cer- tainly never devil bore so much charity to mankind, and treachery to his own kingdom, as to instruct him in the cleansing of his soul: whereby those strongholds of Satan are undermined, which cannot subsist but on a stiff and deep clay foundation. From these beginnings of Socrates, the moral- ists ever since have toiled hard at this task, to get the soul ἐκ γενέσεως, as Jamblichus! phrases it, out of that corruption of its birth, that impurity born with it, which the soul con- tracts by its conversation with the body, and from which, they say, only philosophy can purge it. For it is Philoponus’s™ observation, that that canon of the physicians, “ that the incli- nations of the soul necessarily follow the temper of the body,” is by all men set down with that exception implied, “ unless the man have studied philosophy,” for that study can reform the other, καὶ μὴ ἕπεσθαι ποιεῖν, “make the soul contemn the commands,” and arm it against the influences and poisons and infections of the body. In sum, the main of philosophy was to this purpose, to take off the soul from those corporeal dependencies, and so in a manner restore it to its primitive self; that is, to some of that divine perfection with which it was infused, for then is the soul to be beheld in its native shape, when it is stripped of all its passions. At other times you do not see the soul, but some froth and weeds of it; as the gray part of the sea is not to be called sea, ἀλλὰ τὰ φυκία ἃ περιβέβληται, “some scurf and foam and weeds that lie on the top of it.” So then to this spiritualizing of the soul, and recovering it to the simplicity of its essence, their main precepts were to quell and suppress τὸν ἐν ψυχῆ k [S. Augustin., De Civit. Dei, lib. m [ Philoponus, Comment. in Aristot. Viii. c. 3.] De Anima, on the words, ἔοικε δὲ τὰ τῆς 1 [Jambl. Protrept., c. iii. ] ψυχῆς πάθη.---1)6 A., lib. i. c. 1.) Gg2 4.52 SERMON XXI. δῆμον, as Maximus Tyrius" speaks, that turbulent, prachant, “common people of the soul,” all the irrational affections, and reduce it εἰς πολιτείαν, “into a monarchy or regal govern- ment,” where reason might rule lord and king. For when- soever any lower affection is suffered to do any thing there, saith Philoponus®, “we do not work like men but some other creatures.” Whosoever suffers their lower nutritive faculties to act freely, οὗτοι κινδυνεύουσιν ἀποδενδρωθῆναι, “these men are in danger to become trees :” that is, by these opera- tions they differ nothing from mere plants. So those that suffer their sensitive appetites, lust and rage, to exercise at freedom, are not to be reckoned men, but beasts; τότε μόνον ὡς ἄνθρωποι, x.T.X., “then only will our actions argue us men, when our reason is at the forge.” ‘This was the aim and busi- ness of philosophy, to keep us from unmanning ourselves, to restore reason to its sceptre, to rescue it from the tyranny of that most atheistical usurper, as Jamblichus calls the affec- tions; and from hence he which lived according to those pre- cepts of philesophy was said both by them and Clement, and the fathers, κατὰ νοῦν ζῆν, and in Austin, secundum intellectum vivere, to live according to the guidance of the reasonable soul. Which whosoever did, saith Plotinus, though by it in respect of divinity he was not perfect, yet at last should be sure to find a gracious providence, first to perfect, then to crown his natural moderate well-tempered endeavour, as Austin cites it out of him?. This whole course and pro- ceedings and assent of the soul, through these philosophical preparations to spiritual perfection, is summarily and clearly set down for us in Photius out of Isidorus’, philosophi- cally observed to consist in three steps, τὰ μὲν πρῶτα, «.7T.r. The first business of the soul is to call in those parts of it which were engaged in any foreign fieshly employ- ® Maximus Tyr. supr. p. 278. o [Plotinus, quoted by Philoponus, Comment. in Aristot. de Anima, f. 4. ed. Aldus. ] p [S. August. De Civit. Dei, lib. x. c. 29, addressing Porphyry: Uteris etiam hoc verbo apertius, ubi Platonis sententiam sequens, nec ipse dubitas, in hae vita hominem nullo modo ad perfectionem sapientiz pervenire, se- cundum intellectum tamen viventibus omne quod deest, providentia Dei et gra- tid, post hane vitam posse compleri. ] 4 [αὐτὴν δὲ τὴν ψυχὴν ἐν ταῖς ἱεραῖς εὐχαῖς πρὸς ὅλον τὸ θεῖον πέλαγος εἶναι, τὰ μὲν πρῶτα συναγειρομένην ἀπὸ τοῦ σώματος εἰς ἑαυτὴν, αὖθις δὲ ἐξισταμένην τῶν ἰδίων ἠθῶν, καὶ ἀναχωροῦσαν ἀπὸ τῶν λογικῶν ἐννοιῶν ἐπὶ τὰς τῷ νῷ συγ- γενεῖς, ἐκ δ᾽ αὖ τρίτων ἐνθουσιῶσαν καὶ παραλλάττουσαν εἰς ἀήθη τινὰ γαλήνην θεοπρεπῆ καὶ οὐκ avOpwriyny.—s. Isi- dorus Pel. ap. Phot. Biblioth., p. 350. Bekker. | SERMON XXI. 453 ment, and retire and collect itself unto itself: and then secondly, it learns to quit itself, to put off the whole natural man, ἴδια ἤθη, “its own fashions” and conceits: all the notions, all the pride of human reason, and set itself on those things which are nearest kin to the soul, that is, spiritual affairs; and then thirdly, ἐνθουσιᾷ καὶ παραλλάττει, it falls “into holy enthusiasms and spiritual elevations,” which it continues, till it be changed and led into the calm and serenity above the state of man, agreeable to the tranquillity and peace which the gods enjoy. And could the philosophers be their own scholars, could they exhibit that felicity which they describe and fancy, they might glory in their morality, and indeed be said to have prepared and purged the soul for the receipt of the most pure and spiritual guest. But cer- tainly their speculation outran their practice; and their very morality was but theorical, to be read in their books and wishes far more legible than in their lives and their enjoyments. Yet some degrees also of purity, or at least a less measure of impurity they attained to, only upon the expectation and desire of happiness proposed to them upon condition of performance of moral precepts; for all things being indifferently moved to the obtaining of their swmmum bonum ; all, I say, not only rational agents, ἀλλὰ καὶ φύσει κινούμενα ἀλόγως, as Andronicus saith on the Ethics’, “ which have nothing but nature to incite them to it;” the natural man may, upon a sight and liking of an happiness proposed on severe conditions, call himself into some degrees of moral temper, as best suiting to the performance of the means and obtaining of the end he looks for; and by this temper be said to be morally better than another, who hath not taken this course to subdue his passions. And this was evident enough among the philosophers, who were as far beyond the ordinary sort in severity of conversation, as depth of learning: and read them as profitable precepts in the example of their lives, as ever the schools breathed forth in their lectures. Their profession was incompatible with many vices, and would not suffer them to be so rich in variety of sins as the vulgar; and then whatsoever they thus did, an unregenerate Christian may surely perform in a far higher τ [Andronicus in his Paraphrase of the Nic. Ethies ad init. } 454 SERMON XXI. measure, as having more choice of ordinary restrainment from sin than ever had any heathen: for it will be much to our purpose to take notice of those ordinary restraints by which unregenerate men may be, and are curbed, and kept back from sinning; and these, saith Austin, God affords to the very reprobates, non continens in ira suas misericordias. Much to this same purpose hath holy Maximus® in those admirable sections, epi ayamns, where most of the restraints he speaks of are competible to the unregenerate, φόβος av- θρώπων, κιτιλ. 1. Fear of men. 2. Denunciation of judg- ments from heaven. 3. Temperance and moral virtues: nay, sometimes other moral vices, as κενοδοξία, “ vain-glory” or ostentation of integrity. 4. Natural impressions to do to others as we would be done to. 5. Clearness of judgment in discerning good from evil. 6. An expectation of a reward for any thing well done; lastly, some gripes and twinges of the conscience: to all add a tender disposition; a good Christian education; common custom of the country where one lives, where some vices are out of fashion; nay at last the word of God daily preached; not a love, but servile fear of it. These, I say, and the like may outwardly restrain un- regenerate men from riots; may curb and keep them in, and consequently preserve the soul from that weight of the mul- titude of sins which press down other men to a desperation of mercy. Thus is one unregenerate man less engaged in sin than another, and consequently his soul less polluted; and so in all likelihood more capable of the ordinary means of salvation, than the more stubborn habituate sinner; when every aversion, every commission of every sin doth more harden against grace, more alien and set at a greater distance from heaven: and this briefly we call a moral preparation of the soul; and a purging of it, though not absolutely from sin, yet from some measure of reigning sin, and disposing of it to a spiritual estate: and this is no more than I learn from Bradwardine in his lib. i. de causa Dei, ch. 37*. A servile fear, a sight of some inconvenience, and moral habit of virtue, and the like, multum retrahunt a peccato, inclinant ad opera bona, et sic ad charitatem, et gratiam, et opera vere grata preparant s [S. Maximus, Centena Capita de τ [Bradwardine, De Causa Dei, lib. Caritate, 11 §§ 23, 32.] i. δ. 37. ad fin. ] SERMON XXI. 4:55 et disponunt. And so I come to my last part, to shew of what use this preparation of the soul is, in order to Christ’s birth in us, “ The ways of the Lord.” I take no great joy in presenting controversies to your ears out of this place ; yet seeing I am already fallen upon a piece of one, I must now go through it; and to quit it as soon as I can, present the whole business unto you in some few pro- positions, of which some I shall only recite as conceiving them evident enough by their own light: the rest I shall a little insist on, and then apply and drive home the profit of all to your affections. And in this pardon me, for certainly I should never have meddled with it, had not I resolved it a theory that most nearly concerned your practice, and a speculation that would instruct your wills as well as your understandings. The propositions which contain the sum of the business are these. 1. No preparation in the world can deserve or challenge God’s sanctifying grace: “the Spirit bloweth where it list- eth,” and cannot by any thing in us be predetermined to its object or its work. 2. The Spirit is of power to work the conversion of any, the greatest, sinner; at one minute to strike the most obdu- rate heart and soften it, and out of the unnatural womb of stones, infinitely more unfruitful than barrenness and age had made the womb of Sarah, “to raise up children unto Abraham.” According to the ὑπόθεσις of Aristotle, νόσους ὑγιάζουσι πολλάκις ὅταν πολὺ ExoTH TLS", “ diseases are some- times cured when the patient is at the extremity or height of danger,” in an ecstasy and almost quite gone. 3. It is an ill consequence, that because God can and some- times doth call unprepared sinners, therefore it is probable He will deal so with thee in particular, or with unprepared men in general. God doth not work in conversion as a physical agent, to the extent of His power, but according to the sweet disposition and counsel of His will. 4. In unprepared hearts there be many professed enemies to grace, ill dispositions, ambition, atheism, pride of spirit, and, in chief, an habit in a voluptuous settled course of sinning, an indefatigable resolute walking after their own lusts. And “ Problem. 1. ὃ 2. Mat. xv. 26. Mat. xiii. qe John iii. 20. Mat. xiii. 58. 1 Cor. xiv. 22. 456 SERMON XXI. therefore there is very little hope that Christ will ever vouch- safe to be born in such polluted hardened souls. For it is Basil’s’ observation that that speech of the fool’s heart, “ There is no God,” was the cause that the Gentiles were given over to a reprobate sense, and fell headlong εἰς πάντα βδελύγματα, “into all manner of abominations.” Hence it is that Jobius in Photius* observes that in Scripture some are called “ dogs,” some “unworthy to receive the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven,” that some “hated the light” and came not to it, as if all those had taken a course to make themselves uncapable of mercy, and by a perfect hostility frighted Christ out of their coasts. In the liberal dispensation of miracles in the Gospel you would wonder to see Christ a niggard in His own country, yet so, in respect of other places, He was, and “ did not many miracles there, because of their unbelief,” not that their incredulity had manacled Him, had shortened His hand, or straitened His power, but that miracles, which when they met with a passive willingness, a contentedness in the patient to receive and believe them, were then the ordinary instru- ments of faith and conversion, would have been but cast away upon obdurate hearts; so that for Christ to have numbered miracles among His unbelieving countrymen no way prepared to receive them, had been an injurious liberality, and added only to their unexcusableness; which contradicts not the axiom of St. Paul, “ that some signs are only for unbelievers :” for even those unbelievers must have within them τὸ ἐπιτή- deLov τῆς ὑπακοῆς, “a proneness or readiness to receive them with belief,” καὶ εἰφοικίζεσθαι, x.7.rX. in Jobius’, to “ open to the spirit knocking” by those miracles, and improve them to their best profit. 5. Though God needs not, yet He requires moral prepara- tion of us, as an ordinary means to make us more capable of grace: for although according to St. Austin, Ne ipsa quidem justitia nostra indiget Deus: yet according to Salvian’s” limi- v [S. Basil. Proceem. de Judicio Dei. Op., tom. ii. p. 215, A, B.] x [Jobius ap. Photium in Biblioth., p- 627. ed. Hoeschel. | y [ἐκείνοις μέντοι ταῦτα προβάλ- λεσθαι, οἵ τὸ ἐπιτήδειον τῆς ὑπακοῆς ἀντιπαρέχονται καὶ τὴν ἀπ᾿ αὐτῶν ὠφέ- λειαν eisoixifovrat’ ὅσους δὲ τῶν ἀπί- στων ἑκουσίως πρὸς τὰ τῶν ἔργων ὕπερ- φυῆ τυφλώττοντας ἐπιστάμεθα, τούτοις ἡἣ τῶν σημείων προβολὴ ἀπρονόητόν τε καὶ μάταιον. ---ΦοὈϊιι5 ap. Phot. Biblioth., p- 202. Bekker. ] z [Sed Deus, inquis, non eget retribu- tione? Nihil minus quam ut non egeat. Non eget enim juxta potentiam suam, SERMON XXI. 457 tation, Hyget juxta preceptionem suam, licet non juxta poten- tiam: eget secundum legem suam, non eget secundum majes- tatem. We are to think that God hath use of any thing which He commands, and therefore must perform whatever He requires, and not dare to be confident of the end, without the observation of the means prescribed. It is too much bold- ness, if not presumption, to leave all to His omnipotent work- ing, when He hath prescribed us means to do somewhat our- selves. 6. Integrity and honesty of heart, a sober moral life, and Vid. Wisd. chiefly humility and tenderness of spirit; in sum, whatever ae degree of innocence, either study, or fear, or love, or natural disposition can work in us, some or all of which may in some measure be found in some men not yet regenerate, are good preparations for Christ’s birth in us ; so saith Clement? of phi- losophy, that it doth προπαρασκευάζειν, x.7.r., “make ready and prepare the way against Christ’s coming,” co- operate” with other helps that God hath given us; all with this caution, that it doth only prepare, not perfect ; facilitate the pursuit of wisdom to us, ov μέντοι ἀθηράτου οὔσης δίχα αὐτῆς, “which God may bestow on us without this means.” To this purpose hath Basil® a notable homily to exhort scholars to the study of foreign, human, especially Grecian learning, and to this end saith he, “that we prepare ourselves, εἰς τὰ ἄνω, to the heavenly spiritual philosophy.” In the like kind the fathers prescribe good works of charity, observing out of the nineteenth of St. Matthew, that the distribution of all " ἐν xix. their substance to the poor was a pre/udium in the primitive ae believers to the following of Christ, Prius vendant omnia quam sequantur : from whence he calls alms-deeds, exordia quasi et incunabula conversionis nostre. The like may be said, though not in the same degree, of all other courses, quibus carnalium sarcinarum impedimenta projicimus: for if these foremen- tioned preparations be mere works of nature in us, as some συνεργεῖν, “ sed eget juxta preceptionem suam, non eget secundum majestatem suam, sed eget secundum legem suam; et in se ipso quidem non eget, sed in multis eget: non guerit in se munificen- tiam, sed in suis querit; et ideo non eget quidem juxta omnipotentiam, sed eget juxta misericordiam; non eget Deitate pro semetipso, sed eget pietate pro nobis.—Salvian. ady. Avaritiam, lib. iv. § 140.] 4 Clement. Alex. Strom., lib. i. ¢. 5; and ο. vi. § 365. PP 331. ad fin.—337. » [S. Basil. Serm. de legend. libris Gentilium. on , tom. ii. Ὁ. 173.] Acts x. 2. Mat. i. 19. 458 SERMON XXI. would have them, then do they naturally incline the subject for the receiving of grace when it comes, and by fitting, as it were, and organizing the subject, facilitate its entrance ; or if they be works of God’s restraining preventing grace, as it is - most orthodoxly agreed on, then are they good harbingers for the sanctifying Spirit ; good comfortable symptoms that God will perfect and crown the work which He hath begun in us. 7. God’s ordinary course, as far as by events we can judge of it, is to call and save such as are thus prepared. Thus to instance in a few of the first and chiefest. It was appointed by God that she only should be vouchsafed the blessed office of dignity of being the θεοτόκος, “Christ’s Mother,’ who was πασῶν πάσαις ἀρεταῖς ὑπερανελθοῦσα, saith he in Photius®, “fuller of virtues than any else of her sex could brag of.” In hike manner, that the rest of the family, Christ’s father and brethren, in account, on earth, should be such whose virtues had bestowed a more eminent opinion, though not place upon them amongst men; so was Joseph and his sons δικαιοσύνῃ διαλάμποντες, “ famous for very just men,” James the brother of the Lord ἐκ κοιλίας ἅγιος, “holy from the womb,” (as Eusebius cites it*,) called by the Jews ὀβλίας, saith he out of Hegesippus, which he interprets περιοχὴ τοῦ λαοῦ; καὶ δικαιο- σύνη", “the stay of the people and justice itself.” In brief; if a Cornelius be to be called from Gentilism to Christianity, ye shall find him in the beginning of his character, “to be a devout man and one that feared God with all his house, gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway : one cut out as it were εἰς ἀπαρχὴν ἔθνων, “to be the first-fruit of the Gentiles.” Now though none of these virtues can be imputed to nature in the substance of them, but acknowledge a more supernatural spiritual agent in them, yet are they to be reckoned as preparations to Christ’s birth in them, because they did precede it: for so in respect of His real incarnation in the world, the type of His spiritual in the soul, Mary was a virtuous pure virgin before the Holy Ghost overshadowed her, Joseph a just man before the Holy Ghost appeared to him, James holy from the womb, and Cornelius capable of all « [ἔδει μητέρα Θεοῦ ἐπὶ γῆς γένεσθαι': Biblioth., p. 641. (ed. Hoeschel.) ] τῆν πασῶν πάσαις ἀρεταῖς ὑπερανελθοῦ- 4 [Euseb. Eccles. Hist. ii. 23. | σαν exadecev.i—Jobius ap. Photium * Photius, ibid. SERMON XXI. 459 that commendation for devotion and alms-deeds, Acts x. 2, Acts x. 2. before either Christ was preached to him in the thirty-seventh ver. 37. or the Holy Ghost fell on him in the forty-fourth verse. ver. 44, 8. The conversion of unprepared, hardened, blasphemous sinners, is to be accounted as a most rare and extraordinary work of God’s power and mercy, not an every day’s work, like to be bestowed on every habituate sinner; and there- fore it is commonly accompanied with some evident note of difference to point it out for a miracle. Thus was Paul called from “the chief of sinners” to the chief of saints, but 1 Tim. i. with this mark, that “Christ Jesus might shew forth all long- !® {10:1 suffering,” &c., which was “in him first,” and perhaps last, in that degree ; that others in his pitch of blasphemies might not presume of the like miracle of mercy. And, indeed, he that is thus called must expect what Paul found, a mighty tempest throughout him, three days at least without sight or nourishment, if not a παράλυσις or λυιποψυχία, “a swoon, a kind of ecstasy” of the whole man, at this tumultuary driving out of this high, rank, insolent, habituate body of sin. It is observed, that when the news of Christ’s birth was brought by the “wise men,” the city was straight in an uproar; “ Herod was much troubled, and all Jerusalem with Mat. ii. 3. him,” for it seems they expected no such matter, and therefore so strange and sudden news produced nothing but astonish- ment and tumult ; whilst Simeon, “ who waited for the con- rLuke ii. solation of Israel,” makes no such strange business of it ; 2%] takes Him presently into his embraces, and familiarly hugs Him in his arms, having been before acquainted with Him by his faith. Thus will it, at Christ’s spiritual ἐνσάρκωσι; be in an unprepared heart, His reigning Herod sins, and all the Jerusalem and democracy of affections, a strang> tumult of repining, old habituate passions will struggle fiercely, and shake the whole house before they leave it. If a strong man be to be dispossessed of house or abode, without warning, a hundred to one he will do some mischief at his departure, and draw at least some pillar after him: when as a prepared Simeon’s soul lays hold as soon as he hears of Him, is already organized, as it were, for the purpose, holds out the arms and bosom of faith, and at the first minute of His appearance takes Him into his spiritual embraces. This very prepara- 4.60 SERMON XXI. tion either had denied the strong man entrance, or else binds his hands, manacles that blind Samson, and turns him out in peace, and then the Spirit enters into that soul—which itself or its harbingers have prepared—in a soft still wind, in a still voice, and the soul shall feel its gale, shall hear its whispering, and shall scarce discern, perhaps not at all ob- serve, the moment of its entrance. Lastly, by way of corollary to all that hath been said, though God can, and sometimes doth, call blasphemous sin- ners ; though nothing in us can facilitate God’s action to Him; though none of our performances or His lower works in us, can merit or challenge His sanctifying grace; though, in brief, all that we can do is in some respect enmity to grace ; yet certainly there is far more hope of the just, careful, moral man, which hath used all those restraints which are given him, that he shall be called and saved ; of such a one we are to judge far more comfortably, and expect more con- fidently, than of another more habituate sinner, negligent of the commands of either God or nature. And this I con- ceive I have in some measure proved through each part of the former discourse, and so I should dismiss it and come to application, but that I am stayed and thwarted by a contrary proposition maintained by a sort of our popular preachers, with more violence than discretion, which I con- ceive to be of dangerous consequence, and therefore worth opening to you. In setting down the pitch that an unre- generate man may attain to, and yet be damned, some of our preaching writers are wont duly to conclude with this peremptory doctrine, that of a mere moral man, though never so severe a censor of his own ways, never so rigid an exactor of all the precepts of nature and morality in himself; yet of this man there is less hope, either that he shall be converted or saved, than the most debauched ruffian under heaven. The charity and purity of this doctrine you shall judge of, if you will accompany me awhile, and first observe that they go so far with the mere moral man, and drive him so high, that at his depression again, many a regenerate man falls with him under that title; and in issue, I fear, all will prove mere moralists in their doom, which do fall short of that de- gree of zeal, which their either faction or violent heats pre- SERMON XXI. 461 tend to; and so as Tertullian‘ objects to the heathen, ex- postulating with them why they did not deify Themistocles and Cato as well as Jove and Hereules, Quot potiores viros apud inferos reliquistis ὃ They leave many an honester man in hell, than some of those whom their favour or faction hath besainted. Secondly, observe to what end or use this doctrine may serve, but as an allay to civil honesty in a commonwealth, and fair, just dealing, which, forsooth, of late is grown so luxuriant, the world is like to languish and sink, it is so overburdened with it: and on the other side an encourage- ment to the sinner in his course, an engagement in the pur- suit of vice to the height and ἀκμὴ, as the pitch and cue which God expects and waits for; as they conclude on these grounds, because He looked upon Peter not till the third denial, and then called Paul when he was most mad against the Christians : as if the-nearest way to heaven were by hell- gates, and devils most likely to become saints; as if there were merit in abominations, and none in the right way to Christianity, but whom atheism would be ashamed of ; as if, because “the natural man understands not,” &c., all relics [1 Cor. ii. of natural purity were solemnly and pro forma to be aban- !*] doned to make us capable of spiritual. It is confessed that some have been and are thus converted, and by an ecstasy of the spirit snatched and caught lke firebrands out of the fire; and though some must needs find their spiritual joys _ infinitely increased, ἐκ παραλλήλου, by that gall of bitter- ness, from which they were delivered, and are therefore more abundantly engaged to God, as being not the objects only, _ but the miracle of His mercy: but yet for all this shall one or two variations from the ordinary course, from the ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολὺ, be turned into a ruled case? Shall the rarer ex- amples of Mary Magdalen or a Saul prescribe and set up? Shall we sin to the purpose, as if we meant to threaten God that it were His best and safest course to call us? Shall we abound in rebellions, that grace may superabound? God [Rom. νι. pardon and forbid. 1: Thirdly, consider the reason of their proposition, and you shall judge of the truth of it, and besides their own fancies f [Tertull. Apol. § 11.] Rom. xii. 3. 462 SERMON XXI. and resolution to maintain them, they have none but this, “the mere moral man trusts in his own righteousness, and this confidence in the arm of flesh is the greatest enemy to sanctifying grace, which works by spiritual humihty.” To which we answer distinctly, that the foresaid pride, trust or confidence, is neither effect nor necessary adjunct of moral- ity, but an absolute defection from the rules thereof; and therefore whatsoever proceeds either as an effect, or conse- quent from pride or confidence, cannot yet be imputed to morality at all, or to the moral men per se, no more than the thundering or lightning is to be imputed to my walking, because it thunders whilst I walk ; or preaching to my stand- ing still, because whilst I stand still I preach; οὐ yap διὰ τὸ βαδίζειν ἤστραψεν, ἀλλὰ συνέβη τοῦτο; saith Aristotle in the first Post. c. 48, “It doth not lighten because I walk, but that is an accident proceeding from some other cause.” ΤῸ strive against the motions of the Spirit, and so to render conversion more difficult, is an effect perhaps of pride or trust, but yet is not to be imputed to morality, though the moral man be proud or self-trusting, because this pride or self-trusting is not an effect, but an accident of morality ; and therefore their judgment should be able to distinguish and direct their zeal against the accidental vice, not the essential innocent virtue, against pride, not morality. Be- sides, this pride is also as incident to him who is morally evil; nay, either supposes or makes its subject so, being formally a breach of morality. For that σωφροσύνη belonging to the understanding, which is, “not to think more highly” on one’s own worth than he ought, ἀλλὰ φρονεῖν εἰς τὸ σω- φρονεῖν, do we not find it commended and dilated on by Aristotle", μειζόνων ἢ ἄξιος, x. τ. λ., “ not to overprize his own worth,” or to expect an higher reward than it in pro- portion deserves? So that he that trusts in his morality for heaven, doth eo nomine offend against morality, according to that of Salvian, hoc ipsum genus maxime injustitie est, si quis’ se justum presumat ; and indeed Aristotle and Seneca could say as much: and so then the accusation is unjust and con- tumelious ; for to a moral man if he be truly so, this pride or confidence is incompatible: for do we not find that ὁ [Aristot. Post. Anal., lib. i. c. 4.] h (Arist. Nic. Eth., lib. iv. e. 7.] SERMON XXI. 4.63 treble humility, ταπεινοφροσύνη, of the heart, πραότης, of the tongue, μακροθυμία, of the actions, handled also and Eph. iv. 2. prescribed by the philosophers? In sum, that which in all moral precepts comes nearest pride or highmindedness, is that μεγαλοψυχία, part of which is “setting value on one’s- self.” But if you observe, this goes no further than τὰ ἔξω ἀγαθὰ, “honour or worldly pomp:” as for the immortal blessedness of the soul, it was a thing infinitely above the pitch of their hope or confidence: the most perfect among them never pretended any jus meriti to it, and if they did, they had by so much the less hopes to attain to it. Now if it be supposed, as I fear is too true, that our moral men fall far short of the ancient philosophers, if they be now-a-days confident and trust in their works for salvation, then they do not make good their name; they are only so ὁμονύμως and καταχρηστικῶς, “ abusively and notionally.” And yet even these equivocal moral men seem to me in as good, if not better case, than the other term of comparison, the careless negli- gent debauched men. For upon their grounds is it not as easy for the converting spirit to enter and subdue one Luci- fer, one proud devil in the heart, otherwise pretty well quali- fied, as to deal with a whole legion of blasphemous, violent, riotous, railing, ignorant devils? I-have done all with the confutation of this loose groundless opinion, which if it were true, would yet prove of dangerous consequence to be preached, in abating and turning our edge, which is of itself blunt and dull enough toward goodness : nay, certainly it hath proved scandalous to those without ; as may appear by that boast and exultancy of Campian' in his eighth rea- son, where he upbraids us Englishmen of our abominable Lutheran, licentious doctrine,—as he calls it,—quanto scele- ratior es, tanto vicinior gratie: and therefore I do not repent that I have been somewhat large in the refuting of it; as also because it doth much import to the clearing of my dis- course ; for if the mere moral men be furthest from heaven, then have I all this while busied myself, and tormented you with an unprofitable, nay, injurious preparation, whereas I should have prescribed you a shorter easier call, by being ex- i Campian. [Rationes decem ob- Academicis Anglis.:—Rat. viii. ad fin. lati certaminis in causa fidei reddite apud Whitakeri Responsionem. | 464 SERMON XXI. tremely sinful, according to these two aphorisms of Hippo- crates*, ai ἐπ᾽ ἄκρον, x.T.r., “The strongest bodies are in greatest danger,” and εἰς τὰ ἔσχατα, the ἀκμὴ and “ height of a disease is the fittest opportunity for a miraculous cure.” But beloved, let us more considerately bethink ourselves, let us study and learn and walk a more secure probable way to heaven; and for those of us which are yet unregenerate, though we obtained no grace of God but that of nature and reason, and our Christianity to govern us, yet let us not con- temn those ordinary restraints which these will afford us: let us attend in patience, sobriety, and humility and prayers, the good time and leisures of the spirit; let us not make our reasonable soul, our profession of men, of Christians, ashamed of us; let not the heathen and beasts have cause to blush at us; let us remain men till it may please Him to call us into saints, lest being plunged in habitual confident sinning, that hell and Tophet on earth, the very omnipotent mercy of God be in a manner foiled to hale us out again; let us improve, rack, and stretch our natural abilities to the highest ; that although, according to our thirteenth article, “we cannot please God,” yet we may not mightily provoke Him. Let every man be in some proportion to his gifts, Christ’s Baptist and forerunner and harbinger in himself, that when- soever He shall appear or knock, He may enter, lodge, and dwell without resistance. Lastly, after all thy preparations, be not secure; if the Bridegroom will not vouchsafe to rest with you, all your provision is in vain; all the morality, and learning, and gifts, and common graces, unless Christ at last be born in us, are but embryos, nay abortives, rude, imper- fect, horrid, νήπιοι καί εἰσιν οἱ φιλόσοφοι, “ that philosopher dies in his nonage in whom Christ was never born.” The highest reach of years and learning is but mfancy with- out the virility and manhood of the spirit, by which we are made perfect men in Christ Jesus. Wherefore above all things in the world let us labour for this perfection; let us melt and dissolve every faculty and spirit about us in pur- suit of it, and at last seal, and bless, and crown our endea- vours with our prayers; and with all the rhetoric, and means, k [ Aphorismi, tom. iii. pp. 706, 708. Medici Greci, tom. xxiii. ed. Kiihn.] SERMON XXI. 465 and humility, and violence of our souls, importune and lay hold on the sanctifying Spirit, and never leave till He hath blessed and breathed on us. O Thou mighty, controlling, holy, hallowing Ghost, be pleased with Thine effectual work- ing to suppress in us all resistance of the pride of nature, and prepare us for Thy kingdom of grace here, and glory hereafter. Now to Him which hath elected us, hath created and re- deemed us, &c. HAMMOND, Hh SERMON XXII. JOHN vil. 48. Have any of the Pharisees believed on Him ? Ir is observable from history with what difficulty religion attempts to propagate and establish itself with the many ; what countenance and encouragement it hath required from those things which are most specious and pompous in the world; how it hath been fain to keep its dependencies and correspondencies, and submit to the poor condition of sus- taining itself by those beggarly helps which the world and the flesh will afford it. Two main pillars which it relies on are power and learning, the camp and the schools, or in a word, authority of great ones and countenance of scholars; the one to force and extort obedience, the other to msinuate belief and assent; the first to ravish, the second to persuade. One instance for all: if we would plant Christianity in Turkey, we must first invade and conquer them, and then convince them of their follies; which about an hundred years ago Cleonard proposed to most courts of Christendom, (and to that end himself studied Arabic,) that princes would join their strength, and scholars their brains, and all surprise them in their own land and language, at once besiege the Turk and his Alcoran, put him to the sword, and his religion to the touchstone; command him to Christianity with an high hand, and then to shew him the reasonableness of our commands. Thus also may we complain, but not wonder that the Reformation gets ground so slow in Christendom, because the forces and potent abettors of the papacy secure SERMON XXII. 407 them from being led captive to Christ; as long as the pope is riveted so fast in his chair, and as long as the rulers take part with him, there shall be no doubt of the truth of their religion; unless it please God to back our arguments with steel, and to raise up kings and emperors to be our cham- pions, we may question, but never confute his supremacy. Let us come with all the power and rhetoric of Paul and Barnabas, all the demonstrations of reason and Spirit, yet as long as they have such topics against us, as the authority of the rulers and Pharisees, we may dispute out our hearts, and preach out our lungs, and gain no proselytes; all that we shall get is but a scoff and a curse, a sarcasm and an ana- thema, in the words next after my text, ‘This people which know not the law are cursed,” there is no heed to be taken to such poor contemptible fellows. To bring all home to the business of the text, let Christ come with all the enforce- ment and violence and conviction of His Spirit, sublimity of His speech and miracles, all the power of rhetoric and rheto- ric of His power, so that all that see or hear, bear witness that never man spake as this Man, yet all this shall be accounted but a delusion, but an enchantment of some seduced wretches, unless the great men or deep scholars will be pleased to countenance them. And it is much to be feared they are otherwise possessed, and rather than this shall not be followed, Christ shall be left alone; rather than they shall speak in vain, the Word itself shall be put to silence: and if they which were appointed to take and bring Him to judgment shall be caught by Him they came to apprehend, and turn their accusations into reverence, the Pharisees will not be without their reply, they are doctors in the law, and therefore for a need can be their own advo- cates: then answered the Pharisees, “ Are ye also deceived, have any of the rulers and Pharisees believed on Him?” Concerning the infidelity of the rulers in my text, as being not so directly appliable to my audience, I shall forbear to speak. My discourse shall retire itself to the Pharisee, as being a professor of learning, brought up at the university in Jerusalem, and God grant his vices and infidelity be not also academical. The words we shall divide not into several parts, but con- Hh 2 ver, 49. 468 SERMON XXII. siderations, and read them either as spoken by the Pharisee, or recorded by the Evangelist. In the first we have the τὸ λογικὸν, the rational force of them, as they are part of an argument, that they which believed in Christ were deceived, sub hac forma ;—he that would judge of the truth of his life, is to look which way the greatest scholars are affected, and then, though in that case it concluded fallaciously, yet the argument was probable, and the point worth our discussion ; that the judgment of learning and learned men is much to be heeded in matters of religion. In the second we have the τὸ φυσικὸν and τὸ ῥῆμα, the rational sense of the words being resolved, as affirmative in- terrogations are wont, into a negative proposition, “ Have any,” &c. The Pharisees did not believe on Him; 1. 6. the greatest scholars are not always the best Christians. And first of the first, the authority of learning and learned men in matters of religion, noted from the logical force of the words, “ Have any,” &c. Amongst other acts of God’s providence and wise economy of all things, there is not one more observable than the suc- cession of His Church, and dispensation of His most precious gifts attending it; you shall not in any age find the flourish- ing of learning severed from the profession of religion; and the proposition shall be granted without exception: God’s people were always the learnedest part of the world. Before the flood we are not so confident as to define and set down the studies and proficiency in all kinds of knowledge amongst those long-lived ancients; how far soever they went, belongs little to us. The deluge made a great chasm betwixt us, and it would be hard for the liveliest eyes to pierce at such distance through so much water; let those who fancy the two pillars?, in which all learning was engraven, the one of brick, the other of marble, to prevent the malice either of fire or water, please themselves with the fable, and seem to have deduced all arts from Adam. Thus far it is agreed on, that in those times every father bemg both a priest and a king in his own family, bestowed on his son all knowledge both secular and sacred, which himself had attained to: Adam by tradition instructing Seth, and Seth Enoch, in all knowledge 4 [Josephus Antiq. Jud., lib, i, ο. 2, ὃ 3.] SERMON XXII. 4.69 as well as righteousness. For it is Josephus’s® observation, that whilst Cain and his progeny employed themselves about wicked and illiberal inventions, grovelling upon the earth, Seth and his bore up their thoughts as well as eyes towards heaven, and observed the course and discipline of the stars; wherein it was easy to be exquisite, every man’s age shewing him the several conjunctions and oppositions and other appearances of the luminaries, and so needing no successors to perfect his observations. Hence Philo® calls Abraham ἄνδρα μετεωρολογικὸν, and says his knowledge in astronomy led him to the notice of a Deity, and that his sublime speculation gave him the name of Abram, a high exalted father, before his faith had given the better com- pellation of Abraham, father of many nations: hence from him, 1. Chaldea, 2. Egypt, 3. Greece, came all to the skill they brag of; so that Proclus made a good conjecture, that the wisdom of the Chaldeans was Θεόδοτος καὶ θεοπαράδο- τος, “a gift of some of the gods,” it coming from Abraham, | who was both a friend and in a manner an acquaintance of | the true God, and far ancienter and wiser than any of their false. In sum, all learning as well as religion was pure and classical only among the Hebrews, as may appear by Moses in his ἑξάμερον, the only true natural philosophy that ever | came into the world; so that even Longinus‘, which took the story of the creation to be a fable, yet commends Moses’ | expression of it, “ Let there be light, and there was light,” [Gen.i. 3.] for a speech admirably suited to a god, for the greatest ὕψος or sublimity that any rhetorician could strain for. And Demetrius Phalereus* commends the Pentateuch to Ptolemy, ws φιλοσοφωτέραν καὶ ἀκέραιον, K.7.r., “as the most philosophical, accurate discourse he had ever heard of.” And if by chance any scraps or shreds of knowledge were ever scattered among the Gentiles, they certainly fell from the Chaldeans’ table: from whence in time the poor beg- garly world gathered such basketsful, that they began to feed full, and be in good liking, and take upon them to be richer than their benefactors, and Athens at last begins b [Ibid., §§ 2, 3.] above, p. 300. ] ¢ [Philo Jud., De Abrahamo, p. 361, ὁ [Demetr. Phal. ap. Enseb. Pre- "ἢ par. Evang., lib. viii. 3. p. 351, b.] 4 [Longinus, De Sublim., quoted 470 SERMON XXII. to set up as the only university in the world. But it is Austin’s observation‘, that it was in respect of Christ, and for the propagation of the Church, that learning was ever suf- fered to travel out of Jewry. Christ was to be preached and received among the Gentiles, and therefore they must be civilized beforehand, lest such holy things being cast abruptly before swine, should only have been trampled on: or as Moses’ books falling among the poets, have been only distorted into fables, turned also into prodigies, metamor- phoses, and mythical divinity. Cum enim prophete, &c., “under Abraham and Moses, whilst the learning and the sermons of the prophets were for Israel’s use, the heathen world was as ignorant as irreligious ;” but about Romulus’ time, when the prophecies of Christ, which belonged also to the Gentiles, were no longer whispered, but proclaimed by the mouth of Hosea, Amos, Isaiah, Micah, and Jonas from the reign of Uzziah to Hezekiah, kings of Judah, then also began learning to flourish abroad among the nations, to dilate itself over the world: Greece began to hearken after wisdom, and brag of its σοφοὶ, Thales and the like, wt fontes divine et humane sapientie pariter erupisse videantur, that then secular knowledge might dare to shed itself among the nations, when Christ began to be revealed, the expectation of the Geutiles. It were an infinite discourse to present unto you the like proceedings through all ages, the continual marriages, the combinations, and never any divorce betwixt learning and religion. The fathers before mentioned are large in drawing it down to our hands in tables of collateral descent throughout all generations ; and I hope the present state of the world will sufficiently avouch it. For what is all the beggarly skill of the Arabians in physics and the mathe- matics, all the cabalisms of the Jews; in sum, all the rather folly than wisdom, that either Asia or Africa pretend to? what hath all the world beside that dare look a Christian in the face? I doubt not but this corner of Europe where we live, may challenge and put to shame, nay upbraid the igno- rance of the learnedest Mahometan, and be able to afford some champions which shall grapple with the tallest giant, with the proudest son of Anak that Italy can boast of. I will ‘ [S. Augustin. De Civit. Dei, lib, xviii. c, 27.] SERMON XXII. 471 hope and pray, and again dare to hope, that as all Europe hath not more moderation and purity of religion than this kingdom, so it never had a more learned clergy; never more encouragement for learning from religion; never more ad- vantages to religion from learning. But all this while we hover in the air, we keep upon the wing, and talk only, καθ- ὄλου, at large and in thesi: we must descend lower to the καθέκαστον and hypothesis here; where heed is to be taken to the Pharisee, to the doctor, in my text. The disciples were but fishermen and mechanics, illiterate enough, and yet a word of theirs shall more sway mine assent, and rule my faith, than the proudest dictates out of Moses’ chair. And thus indeed are we now-a-days ready to repose as much trust in the shop as in the schools, and rely more on the authority of one lay-professor, than the sagest elders in theirs or our Israel. Learning is accounted but an ostentatious comple- ment of young scholars, that will never bring the pastor or his flock the nearer to the way toward heaven. But to recal our judgments to a milder temper, we are to learn from Clemens®, that although the wisdom of God, and doctrine of the gospel, be αὐτοτελὴς καὶ ἀπροσδεὴς, able to maintain, and fence, and authorize itself, yet even philosophy and secular learning is of use, nay necessity, to defeat the treacheries, and sophisms, and stratagems of the adversary : and although the truth of Scripture be the bread we live on, the main staff and stay of our subsistence ; yet this exoterical learning, τὰ θύραθεν μαθήματα, as Sophronius calls them, this προπαίδεια of the schools, must be served in ὡς mapowy- ματα Kal τραγήματα, as cates and dainties to make up the banquet; nay they are not only for superfluity, but solid and material uses. It was a custom of old, saith Dionysius Hali- carnensis", to build cities, συνεχεῖς ἐπὶ τοῖς ὄρεσι, never far from some hill, or mountain, that beside the natural strength, the hold from the foundation, they may receive some security and safeguard from so stout and tall a neigh- bour: thus will it stand us upon, so to build our faith upon a rock, that we may also have some shelter near us to fence and fortify our fabric, when the wind or tempest shall arise. ® [Clemens Alexand. Strom., lib. i. cap. 20. § 100. p. 377.] h [Dionys. Halicarn, Hist., lib. i. c. 9. } 4.72 SERMON XXII. Had not Peter, indeed, and the rest at Christ’s call left their ignorance with their nets and trades, had they not been made scholars as well as disciples, all trades promiscuously might justly have challenged and invaded the pulpit, and no man denied to preach that was able to believe. But you are to know that their calling was an inspiration, they were furnished with gifts as well as graces; and whatever other learning they wanted, sure I am they were the greatest lin- guists in the world. Yea, the power and convincing force of argument, which the heathen observed in Peter‘, made them get the oracles to proclaim that he had learnt magic from his Master. ΤῸ drive the whole business to an issue, in brief, take it in some few propositions. 1. There is not so great a dependence betwixt learning and religion in particular persons, as we have observed to be in ages and countries: so that though plenty of knowledge be a symptom or judiciary sign, that that Church where it flourishes is the true Church of God, yet it is no necessary argument, that that man where it in special resides, is the sincerest Christian ; for upon these terms is the wisest man, the scribe, the disputer of the world, the loudest braggers of Jews or Grecians are found guilty of spiritual ignorance, as the last part of our discourse shall make evident. 2. Matters of faith are not ultimo resolubilia in principia rationis, therefore not to be resolved any further than the Scriptures; they are not to beg authority from any other science; for this is the true metaphysics, ἀρχικωτάτη Kat ἡγεμονικωτάτη, the mistress and commandress of all other knowledges, which must perpetually do their homage to it, as servants always to attend and confirm its proposals, never to contradict it, as Aristotle hath it/, 3. Though faith depend not upon reason, though it subsist entirely upon its own bottom, and is then most purely faith when it relies not on reason, and adheres wholly to the αὐτο- πιστία of God’s word, yet doth the concurrence, and agree- ment, and evidence of reason add much to the clearness, and beauty, and splendour of it: takes away all fears and jealou- 5108, and suspicious surmisings out of the understanding, and i [S. August. De Civit. Dei, lib. xviii. c. 53. ] [ Aristot. Metaph. B. ¢. ii.] SERMON XXII. 473 bestows a resolution and constancy on it. For faith, though in respect of its ground, God’s word, it be most infallible, yet in its own nature is, as the philosopher defines it, a kind of opinion, and in our human frailty subject to demurs, and doubts, and panic terrors, for fear it be false grounded, and therefore Aristotle saith of it, that it differs from knowledge ὡς νοσώδης ὑγιεινοῦ, “as a sickly man from a strong,” it is very weak and aguish, subject to sweats and colds, and hourly distempers: whereas the evidence and assurance of sense and reason added to it, bestows a full health and strength upon it, an ἀθλητικὴ ἕξις, a perfect state that it shall never be forced or frighted out of. In brief, where reason gives its suffrage, it unveils faith, and to adherence superadds evidence, and teaches us to feel, and touch, and handle what before we did believe; to gripe, and hold, and even possess what before we apprehended: and these are believers in a manner elevated above an earthly condition, initiated to the state which is all vision, where every thing is beheld γυμνὸν (Heb. iv. καὶ τετραχηλισμένον, “naked and displayed,” as the entrails 15] of a creature cut down the back; or with “ open face, behold- 2 Cor. iii. ing as in a glass.” 25: 4. There be some difficulties in religion at which an illite- rate understanding will be struck in a maze; some depths of mystery where an elephant can scarce tread water, a lamb must not hope to wade; many above the apprehensions of the most capacious brain, where reason being not able to ex- press, must be content to shadow and describe in some rude lines what it cannot perform in portraiture: and here, I say, learning, though it cannot reach, yet can heave up and point at; profit, though not perfect us; help us to some images and resemblances, to conceive that which we cannot fully com- prehend: so saith Philoponus*, will mathematical abstractions facilitate the simplicity of God’s essence to our understand- ings, the lucid nature of the sun express the brightness of his glory, and the mysterious numbers of the Pythagoreans re- present the Trinity to our fancies. And thus doth Zoroaster in Patricius', philosophari de Deo, subdue, as it were, divinity * [Philoponusin Aristot. De Anima, 1593. from Psellus’ Expositio Dogma- f. 2. (Aldus.) ] tum que sunt apud Assyrios. ’ Patricius, [ Zoroaster, p. 6. Venice. 474 SERMON XXII. to reason, and raise up reason to join issue with divinity, and by his πατρικὸς βύθος ἐκ τρίων συγκείμενος τριάδων, “ that paternal depth made of three threes,” comprise all the secrets of the Godhead. But besides these secrets of the upper cabinet, these supernatural depths, there are others secunde altitudinis, and as Halicarnensis™ calls those which are above the reach of all but philosophers, φυσικὰ θαύματα, and Aristo- tle® θαυμαζόμενα κατὰ φύσιν, “ natural miracles,” which none but scholars can attain to. And these I hope shall never be discussed upon a shopboard, or enter into any brain that is not before well ballast with weight and substance at the bottom: I need not name them to you, you may know them by this, that when they come into an empty brain, they breed winds, and turn all into vertigoes and dizziness. There be yet further lights of a third magnitude, which yet every one hath not eyes to gaze on, and of this condition are almost all the speculations in divinity; nay, the ordinariest truth in a catechism can scarce be forced into a vulgar understand- ing; his brain is not set that way, and many of our subtlest worldlings have mistaken the Virgin Mary for an angel, and the Apostles’ Creed, where only they find mention of her, for a prayer: and then you cannot imagine what stead a little learning would stand these men in, what even miracles it would work upon them. 5. It is but necessity and exigence of nature that those which are the weak should apply themselves for help and directions to those that are stronger; the child in a cradle must be put to a nurse, which may give it suck till it be able to eat, and for a while bear it in her arms, that it may be taught to go. There be in nature, saith Aristotle® in his Mechanics, many wants; she performs not all our needs, and therefore engines were invented to supply defects. Thus is art a machina or invention, πρὸς τὰς τοιαύτας ἀπορίας βοη- θοῦν μέρος, to furnish us with those abilities which nature was a niggard in: and therefore to deprive ourselves of this guidance when it is offered, is μονόφθαλμον τυφλοῦν», to put out an eye of his that hath but one in all, which was of old m [πρᾶγμα κρεῖττον λόγον Tots ἀθεά- » [Aristot. Mechanica. ad init. ] τοις ὧν 7 φύσις δρᾷ, καὶ θαυμάτων ovde- ° [Id., ibid. } vos devTepoy.—Dionys. Halicar., lib. i. P (Id. Rhet. i. cap. 7. ad fin.] cap. lod. ad fin. ] SERMON XXIL. 475 a great aggravation to the injury in the Rhetoric, indeed to leave ourselves desperately blind. Περὶ πυθαγορείων aved φω- τὸς μὴ λάλει, in Jamblichus4, in matters of religion we must not so much as speak, nay, not think without a candle; we shall want the guidance of some teacher to direct every such word out of our mouths, or thought into our hearts. An ignorant man must not have leave so much as to meditate on God without a guide; for he is mad, say the philosophers’, and then every thought of his will be a kind of delirium or frenzy. “It is the law of nature,” saith the historian’, ἄρχειν ἡττόνων τοὺς κρείττονας, “that superiors should have a kind of sovereignty over all that are inferior to them,” a magiste- rium and command over them, to rule and order them; and this superiority and sovereignty hath the learned pastor, or generally the scholar, over all ignorant men, be they never so rich or potent ; and whosoever denies or scorns thus to obey, I say not, is to be slain—as the law was in the ancient wars —axpitws, without an assizes, but to be condemned of much peevishness and more stupidity, and his punishment is, let him fall into his own hands, i.e. be ruled by a fool or mad- mau. 6. Much of the speculative part of religion may be had from a Pharisee as well as a disciple. Christ Himself bears witness of him, that he was orthodox in matters concerning the law: ‘They sit in Moses’ chair, and therefore whatsoever they bid you, that observe and do.” They err indeed in pre- scribing their additions to duty, as divine command, but the chief obliquity was in their lives: they were heretics, nay apostates from their doctrine, and therefore “do not after their works, for they say and do not.” If I am resolved of such a man’s abilities in learning, but see him a scandalous liver, I will borrow of his gifts, and pray God to increase his graces. In matters of spiritual joy and sorrow, I will, if I can, be counselled by an heart which once was broken, that I may see how he recovered, and repair my breaches by a pattern; and yet even these things may be learnt from him which never had them but in his speculation; as the phy- siclan may cure a disease, though himself was never sick of it. 4 Jamblichus, [De Vita Pythagore, 122. p. 94. ed. Potter. ] cap. xxiii. § 105. ] " [Dionys. Haliear., lib. i. c. 5. ] "(Clemens Alexand. Protrept. ὃ Mat. xxiii. 3. ver. 4. [Job ix. 28. ] 2 Pet. iii. 3. 476 SERMON XXII. But for the ordinary theories of religion, I will have patience to receive instructions from any one, and not examine his practices, but in modesty, and in submission, and humility receive the law at his mouth. But all this with caution, ὡς ἡγεμόνι, ov δεσπότῃ, “as to a guide, not a monarch” of my faith ; rule he shall my belief, but not tyrannize over it. I will assent to my teacher till I can disprove him, but adhere, and anchor, and fix myself on the Scripture. 7. In matters of superstruction, where Scripture lays the foundation, but interpreters, i.e. private spirits, build upon it, some gold, some stubble, &c., and I cannot judge or discern which is firmliest rooted on the foundation; I will take the philosopher’s counsel in the first of his Rhetoric ἡ, and observe either ti παλαιοὶ or πρόσφατοι, be guided either by the ancientest, if they have shewed themselves in the cause, or else men alive, which be best reputed of for integrity and judgment: I shall scarce trust the honestest man you can commend to me, unless I have some knowledge of his parts; nor the learnedest you can cry up, unless I can believe some- what in his sincerity. 8. All the contradictions and new ways of my own brain opposite or wide from the current of the learned, I must suspect for a work of my own fancy, not entitle them to God’s Spirit in me. Verebar omnia opera mea, saith Job, whatever a man can call his own, he must be very cautious and jealous over it. For it is no less than atheism which the scorners of the last age are to fall upon by “walking after their own lusts.” And thus was the Pharisee’s practice here, who makes use of his own authority to deny Christ; it was the Pharisees that said, “ Have any of the Pharisees believed on Him?” There is not a more dangerous mother of here- sies in the midst of piety than this one, that our fancy first assures us that we have the Spirit, and then that every fancy of ours is theopneust, the work of the Spirit. There are a multitude of deceits got altogether here; 1. We make every idle persuasion of our own the evidence of God’s Spirit, then we join infallibility to the person, being confident of the gift; then we make every breath of our nostrils, and flame that can break out of our hearts, an immediate effect of the τ (Arist. Rhet., lib. 1. ο. 15. § 13.] mae i Til Ὁ SERMON XXII. 477 Spirit, and fire which hath spiritually enlivened us, and then we are sure it is authentical; and all this while we never examine either the ground or deductions from it, but take all upon trust from that everlasting deceiver, our own heart, which we ought to sit upon, and judge of by proofs and wit- nesses, by comparing it with other men’s dictates, probably as godly, perhaps more learned, but certainly more impartial judges of thee, than thou canst be of thyself. | Lastly, if the word of God speak distinctly and clearly ; enforce, as here by miracles done before all men to their astonishment and redargution, then will I not stay my belief to wait on or follow the learnedest man in the world: when Christ Himself speaks to my eyes, the proudest, eminentest Pharisee in earth or hell, nay if any of their sect have crowded into heaven, shall not be able to charm my ear or lay any clog upon my understanding. So that you see the Pharisee’s argument in that case was sophistical,—the matter being so plain to them that they needed no advice, ‘“ His Jonn ν. 36. works bore witness of Him,”—yet in the general it holds pro- bable, and learning remains a goed guide. still, though an ill master in matters of religion; ὅπερ ἔδει δεῖξαι, the first thing we undertook to demonstrate. And this we should draw down yet lower to our practice, _ and that variously, but that almost every proposition insisted on hath in part spoken to your affections, and so prevented store of uses. This only must not be omitted ; for scholars to learn to set a value on their precious blessing which God hath vouchsafed them above all the world beside, to bless God in- finitely that they understand and conceive what they are com- manded to believe; this I am sure of, there is not a greater or more blessed privilege, besides God’s Spirit, which our hu- man condition is capable of, than this of learning, and spe- cially divine knowledge, of which Aristotle" himself witness- eth, ἀμείνων δὲ οὐδεμία, “none is better than it.’ As long as we have no evidence or demonstration from that which yet it most nearly concerns us to rely upon, we cannot enjoy, without an immediate supernatural irradiation, a tranquillity and consistency of spirit; we cannot peremptorily have re- solved ourselves that we have built upon the rock; every u [Aristot. Metaph, A, ¢. 2, prope finem. ] Luke xxiv. 22. 478 SERMON XXII. temptation proves a discouragement to us, many horrors take hold of us, and sometimes we must needs fall to that low ebb, not far from despair, which the Apostles were in, “ We had trusted,” but now we know not what to think of it, “that this was He that should have redeemed Israel.” But to see all the articles of my faith ratified and confirmed to my understanding, to see the greatest treasure and inheritance in the world sealed and delivered to me in my hand, written in a character and language that I am perfectly skilled in; O what a comfort is this to a Christian soul! O what a fulness of joy to have all the mysteries of my salvation transcribed out of the book of the Lord, and written in my heart, where Τ can turn and survey, and make use of them, as much and as often as I will! nay, where I have them without book, though there were neither father nor Bible in the world, able out of my own stock to give an account, nay, a reason of my faith, before the perversest papist, heathen, or devil. This serves me instead of having lived, and conversed, and been acquainted with Christ. By this I have my fingers put into the print of the nails, and my hands thrust into His side, and am as sure as ever Thomas was; I see Him as pal- pably as he that handled Him, that He is my “ Lord and my God.” It was observed by the philosopher* as an act generally prac- tised among tyrants to prohibit all schools and means of learn- ing and education in the commonwealth, μήτε παιδείαν, μήτε σχολὰς, μήτε συλλόγους σχολαστικοὺς, “to suffer neither learning, nor schools, nor common meetings,” that men being kept blind might be sure to obey, and tyrannical commands through ignorance be mistaken for fair government. And thus did Julian interdict the Christians all manner of literature, and chiefly philosophy, “ for fear,” saith Nazianzen’, “they should be able to grapple with the heathen,” and cut off Goliah’s head with his own weapon. The continuance of these arts of spiritual tyranny you may observe, in the prescribed stupi- dity and commanded ignorance of the laity through all Italy. All which must call for a superlative measure of thanks to be expressed, not in our tongues and hearts only, but in our x [ Aristot. Polit., lib. v. ο. 11.] y §. Gregor. Nazianz. [Oratio iv. §§ 4, 5. Op., tom. i. pp. 79, Ὁ. 80, A.] SERMON XXIT. 479 lives and actions; from us I say, who have obtained not only a knowledge of His laws, but almost a vision of His secrets, and forasmuch as concerns our eternal bliss, do even see things as they were acted, have already comprehended in our reason—not only in our faith—the most impossible things in nature; the breadth and length and depth and height of the conceived, incarnate, and crucified God; and if all that will not serve our turn, but we must press into His cabinet secrets, invade the Book of Life, and oversee and divulge to all men abscondita Domini Dei nostri,—then are God’s mercies unworthily repaid by us, and those indulgences which were to bestow civility upon the world, have only taught us to be more rude. In sum, the realest thanks we can perform to God for this inestimable prize, is modestly and softly to make use of it; 1. To the confirming of others’ faith, and 2. to the expressing of our own. For, 1, he is the deepest scholar, saith the philosopher, who is διδασκαλικώτερος, “best able to teach” other men what himself conceives’: and then, 2, he hath the habit most radicated who hath pressed it down into his heart, and there sowed a seed which shall increase and fructify, and spread, and flourish, laden with the fruits of a lively faith. He is the truest scholar that hath fed upon learning, that hath nourished, and grown, and walked, and lived in the strength of it. And till I see you thrive and bestir yourselves like Christians, I shall never envy your learning: the Pharisees were great scholars, well seen in the prophets, and it is much to be suspected could not choose but find Christ there, and acknowledge Him by His miracles ; they saw Him plain enough, and yet not a man would be- lieve on Him:—my second part—the greatest scholars are not always the best Christians. It is observable in the temper of men, that the cowardly are most inquisitive; their fears and jealousies make them very careful to foresee any danger, and yet for the most part they have not spirit enough to encounter, and they are so stupid and sluggish that they will not get out of its way when they have foreseen it: the same baseness and timor- ousness makes them asort of men most diligent at a distance to avoid, and near hand most negligent to prevent. Thus 2 σημεῖυν εἰδότος δύνασθαι biddoKew.—[ Arist. Metaph. A. c. 1.7 { Deut. xxix. 29. ] Dan. iii. 5. ver. 25. 480 SERMON XXII. in Dan. iii. 5, Nebuchadnezzar dreams and is affrighted, and a proclamation is made for all the wisdom of the world to come in and consult and sit upon it, and give their verdict for the interpretation of the dream, and when he had at last got the knowledge of it by Daniel, that his fears were not in vain, that the greatest judgment that ever was heard of was within a twelvemonth to fall on him, then, as though he had been a beast before his time, without all understanding, he goes and crowns himself for his slaughter. Just when, according to the prophecy, he was to suffer, then was he walking in his pride; whilst he was ignorant, he was sensible of his danger, and now he sees it before his eyes, he is most prodigiously blind. “ At the end of twelve months, when his ruin was at hand, he walked in the palace of the kingdom of Babylon, and the king spake and said, Is not this great Babylon that I have built,” &c. In brief, he that was most earnest to understand the dream, is most negligent of the event of it, and makes no other use of his knowledge of God’s will, but only more knowingly and wilfully to contemn it. And this generally is the state of corrupt nature, to keep a distance and a bay betwixt our knowledge and our wills, and when a truth hath fully conquered and got possession of our understanding, then to begin to fortify most strongly, that the other castle of the soul, the affections, may yet remain impregnable. Thus will the devil be content to have the outworks and the watch-tower taken, so he may be sure to keep his treasure within from danger: and will give us leave to be as great scholars as himself, so we will continue as pro- fane. And so we are like enough to do for all our know- ledge; for wisdom, saith Aristotle*, is terminated in itself, οὐδεμιᾶς yap ἐστι γενέσεως, “it neither looks after, nor pro- duces any practical good,” saith Andronicus”, οὐ yap τέλος ἔχει πρακτὸν ἀγαθὸν, nay, there is no dependence betwixt knowing and doing; as he that hath read and studied the ἀθλητικὰ may perhaps be never the better wrestler, nor the skilfullest physician the more healthy ; experience and trial must perfect the one, and a good temperature constitute the other. A young man may be a good naturalist, a good geometer, nay a wise man, because he may understand @av- a {Aristot. Nic, Ethic., lib. vi. c. 13.] " [ Andronicus, Paraphr. in loc. ] SERMON XXII. 48] μαστὰ, χαλεπὰ, δαιμόνια “, “ wonders, depths,” nay, ‘“ divine matters,” but he will never be φρόνιμος, “prudent” or actually virtuous, i.e. a good moralist: τὰ μὲν οὐ πιστεύου- σιν οἱ veol, ἀλλὰ λέγουσιν“, moral precepts they cannot be said to believe, they have not entered so far, they float only in their memories, they have them by heart, they say them over by rote, as children do their catechism, or Plato’s scholars (saith Plutarch) his depths of philosophy; they now recite them only, and shall then understand them, when they come of age, when they are staid enough to look into the meaning of them, and make use of them in their practice. The mathematics, saith Aristotle’, having nothing to do with the end or chief good that men look after, never any man brought good or bad, better or worse into a demonstra- tion; there is no consultation or election there, only plain downright diagrams, necessary convictions of the under- standing. And therefore for these mere speculations, which hover only in the brain, the youngest wit is nimblest ; for δεινότης", “ sharpness of apprehension” is a sprightfulness of the mind, and is there liveliest where there be most spirits: but prudence and active virtue requires an habituate tem- per of passions, a staidness of the mind, and long trial and experience of its own strength, a constancy to continue in virtue in spite of all foreign allurements or inward dis- tempers. And the ground of all this is, that those things that most encumber the will and keep us from practice, do nothing clog or stop the understanding; sensuality or pleasure hinders us not from knowing ὅτι τὸ τρίγωνονϑ, «.T.X., that a “‘triangle hath three angles equal to two right ones,” and the like. Nay the most insolent tyrannizing passions which domineer over us, which keep us in awe, and never suffer us to stir, or move, or walk, or do any thing that is good, will yet give us leave to understand as much as we would wish; they have only fettered our hands and feet, have not blinded our eyes ; as one shut up in the tower from the conversation of men, may be yet the greatest proficient in speculation ; ¢ [Aristot. Nic. Eth., lib. vi. c. 7. ] his paraphrase on the words σκεπτέον 4 [Ibid., c. 9.1 δὲ πάλιν καὶ περὶ τῆς apeTijs.—Ethic. ΕἸ ΕΝ ΓΘ. B. ὁ...2.} Nic. vi. 13. ] Γ [φυσικὴ ἐπιτηδείοτης τῆς ψυχῆς. So 6. (Arist. Eth. Nic., lib. vi. ς. ὅ.] δεινότης is defined by Andronicus in HAMMOND. 11 1 Cor. i. 21. 489 SERMON XXII. the affections being more gross and corporeous,—from thence called the heels of the soul,—and so easily chained and fet- tered ; but the understanding most pure and spiritual, and therefore uncapable of shackles, nay, is many times most free and active, when the will is most dead and sluggish. And this may be the natural reason that even Aristotle! may teach us why the greatest scholars are not always the best Christians,—the Pharisees well read in the prophets, yet backwardest to believe,—because faith which constitutes a Christian is a spiritual prudence, as it is best defined, and therefore is not appropriate to the understanding; but, if they be several faculties, is rather seated in the will; the objects of faith being not merely speculative, but always apprehended and assented to sub ratione boni, as being the most unvaluable blessings which ever we desired of the Lord, or can require. The speculative part of divine wisdom may make us δαίμονας, “ intelligent spirits,” nay, possibly do it in the worst notion, render us “ devils.” Real practical know- ledge only,—prudence,—will make angels, ministering spirits unto God, teach us to live and be better than we did. So then, in the first place, learning doth neither make nor sup- pose men Christians: nay, secondly, it doth per accidens many times hinder, put a rub in our way, and keep us from being Christians. Philoponus and Synesius—miracles of learning—were therefore hardest to be converted, they were so possessed and engaged in peripatetical philosophy, that however they might be persuaded to the Trinity, they will not believe the resurrection. It was too plain a contradic- tion to philosophical reason ever to enter theirs. Thus in the 1 Cor. i. 21, “the world by wisdom knew not God :” they so relied on their reason, and trusted in it for all truths, that they concluded every thing impossible that would not concur with their old principles. But this resistance which reason makes is not so strong but that it may easily be sup- pressed, and therefore Synesius was made a bishop before he explicitly believed the resurrection, because they were con- fident that he which had forsaken all other errors, would not long continue perverse in this, and so good a Christian in other things, οὐκ ἄν οὐκ ἐλλαμφθείη, could not choose [περιττὰ μὲν καὶ θαυμαστὰ, K.7.A.—Arist. Eth. Nic,, lib. vi. c. 7. ] SERMON XXII. 483 but be illuminated in time, in so necessary a point of faith : and indeed so it happened in them both. But there are other more dangerous engines, more insidious courses which learning uses to supplant or undermine belief ; other stratagems to keep us out of the way, to anticipate all our desires or inclinations or thoughts that way-ward; and these are spiritual pride and self-content. Men are so elevated in height of contemplation, so well pleased, so fully satisfied in the pleasures and delights of it, that the first sort scorn to submit or humble themselves to the poverty and disparage- ment of believing in Christ; the second are never at leisure to think of it. For the first, spiritual pride, it is set down as a reason that “the natural man receives not the things of 1 Cor. ii. the spirit,” receives them not, i.e. will not take them, will oe not accept of them, though they are freely given him; “for they are foolishness unto him,” i. e. so his proud brain reputes them. The pride of worldly wisdom extremely scorns the foolishness of Christ, and consequently is infinitely opposite to faith, which is wrought by special humility. Secondly, for self-content: σοφοὶ μὴ δεόνται φίλων, saith Heraclitus in Hesychius*, “ Wise men need no friends,” they are able to subsist by themselves without any help ; they will have an happiness of their own making, and scorn to be beholding to Christ for a new inheritance, they are already so fully possessed of all manner of contents. Let any man whisper them of the joys of the new Jerusalem, of the Inter- cessor that hath saved, of the way thither and made it pass- able, of all the privileges and promises of our adoption, they will hear them ὡσεὶ λῆρα, “as old wives’ fables;” they have the fortunate islands too, their exactest tranquillity and serenity of mind in a perpetual contemplation, and all the golden apples in paradise shall not tempt or alarm them out of it. It is strange to see when such a man is called, what ado there is to get him out of his dream, to hale him out of his study to the church, how sleepy, and drowsy, and lethar- gical he is in matters of religion; how soon a little devotion hath tired him out, that could have pored over a book incessantly all his life long, and never thought thus to have been inter- * [This is a dictum of Theodorus, Hesychius, De Claris Viris, s. y. Theo- surnamed “A@eos. τοὺς δὲ σοφοὺς αὐτάρ. dorus; ap. Meursium, Op., tom. vii. kes ὑπάρχοντας, μὴ δεῖσθαι piAwy.— p. 253. | E12 Rom. vii. 18. 484 SERMON XXII. dicted the delights of human learning, thus to have been plucked and torn from the embraces of his Athenian idol. His conversion is much unlike another man’s; that which calls others into compass seems to let him loose, thrusts him abroad into the world, teaches him to look more like a man than ever he meant, makes him a member of the common- wealth that was formerly but an anchorite, and forces him to walk and run the way of God’s commandments, that had once decreed himself to a chair for ever. In brief, there is as little hopes of one that indulges himself, and gives him- self up to the pride and contents of any kind of learning, of him that terminates knowledge either in itself or else in the ostentation of it, as of any other that is captived to any one single worldly or fleshly kind of voluptuousness. This of the brain, in spite of the philosopher, is an intemperance, as well as that of the throat and palate, and more dangerous, be- cause less suspected, and seldomer declaimed against; and from this epicurism, especially of the soul, good Lord de- liver us. Not to heap up reasons of this too manifest a truth,— would God it were not so undeniable,—take but this one more, of the unsufficiency of learning never so well used to make a man a Christian. Let all the knowledge in the world, profane and sacred, all the force and reason that all ages ever bragged of, let it concur in one brain, and swell the head as big as his was in the poem, that travailed of Minerva: let all Scriptures and fathers join their power and efficacy, and they shall never by their simple activity pro- duce a saving faith in any one; all the miracles they can work are only on the understanding; the will, distinctly taken, is above their sphere or compass; or if their faculties are not distinguished, “and to will is present with me,” as well as to understand, yet they can produce only an absolute simple general will, that is, an assent and approbation of the abso- lute goodness of the thing proposed, not a resolute will to abandon all other worldly purposes to perform that which I will. Knowledge and right apprehension of things may con- vince me first of the history, that all that is spoken of or by Christ, is true, and then of the expedience to apply all His merits to my soul, but when 1 see all this cannot be done SERMON XXII. 485 without paying a price, without undoing myself, without pawning all that I have, my learning, my wealth, my de- lights, my whole worldly being, without self-denial, then the general assent, that absolute will, is grown chill and dead; we are still—whatever we believe—but infidels; all the arti- cles of the Creed thus assented to are not enough to make us Christians. So that the issue of all is,—all knowledge in the world cannot make us deny ourselves, and therefore all knowledge in the world is not able to produce belief ; only the Spirit must breathe this power into us of breathing out ourselves, He must press our breasts, and stifle, and strangle us; we must give up the natural ghost, He must force out our earthly breath out of our earthly bodies, or else we shall not be enlivened by His spiritual. Thus have you reasons of the common divorce betwixt knowledge and faith, i. 6. the no manner of dependence betwixt them in nature. Secondly, the open resistance in some points be- twixt reason and Scripture. Thirdly, the more secret reluc- tancies betwixt the pride and contents of learning and the Spirit. And lastly, the insufficiency of all natural know- ledge, and transcendency of spiritual, so that he “ cannot know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” I should now in very charity release you, but that there is one word behind of most important necessity to a sermon, and that is of ap- plication ; That laying to our hearts the important documents of the text, our righteousness and faith may exceed that of the Pharisees’, our preaching and walking may be like that of Christ’s, “in power and as having authority, and not as the scribes,” and we not content with a floating knowledge in the brain, do press and sink it down into our inferior facul- ties, our senses and affections, till it arise in a full harvest of fruitful, diligently working faith. It was Zenophanes’! fancy, ὅλον ὁρᾶν Θεὸν, and that God was all eyes and all ears, but breathed not, there was no use of that in Him; and so is it with us, who are always exercising our know- ledge, powers to see and hear whatever is possible; but for any breath of life in us, any motion of the Spirit, we have no use of it: it is not worth valuing or taking notice of, ! [ Xenophanes apud Diogen. Laert. ix. ὃ 19.] {1 Cor. 11. 14.] Mat. v. 20. Mat. vii. 29. Numb. xi. 5. 450 SERMON XXII. nothing so vulgar and contemptible in them that have it, nothing of which we examine ourselves so slightly, of which we are so easily mistaken, so willingly deceived, and nothing that we will be content to have so small a measure of. A little of it soon tires us out, it is too thin, airy, diet for us to live upon, we cannot hold. out long on it; like the Israel- ites, soon satiated with their bread from heaven, nothing comparable to their old food that Nilus yielded them. “We remember the fish that we did eat in Egypt, but now our soul is dried away, there is nothing but this manna before our eyes ;” as if that were not worth the gathering. Pythagoras could say, that if any one were to be chosen to pray for the people, to be made a priest, he must be a virtuous man, ὡς θεῶν τούτοις TposexovTwy, in Jamblichus, “ because the gods would take more heed to his word™:” and again, that “many things might be permitted the people, which should be interdicted preachers".” It was the confirmation of his precepts by his life and practice, σύμφωνος βίος", that made Italy, μέγας EdXas, all the country, his school?, and all that ever heard him his disciples. Nothing will give such au- thority to our doctrine, or set such a value on our calling, asa religious conversation. He that takes such a journey, as that into holy orders, must go on, ἀμεταστρεπτὶ, according to his fifteenth Symbolum, must not return to his former sins as well as trade, saith Jamblichus1: the falling into one of our youthful vices, is truly a disordering of ourselves, and a kind of plucking our hands from the plough. A physician, saith Hippocrates’, must have colour and be in flesh, εὔχροός τε καὶ εὔσαρκος, of a good promising healthy complexion, and then men will guess him a man of skill, otherwise the patient will bid the physician heal himself, and having by his ill look a prejudice against his physic, his fancy will much hinder its working. You need no application; he again will tell you, that the profession suffers not so much by any thing as by rash cen- sures, and unworthy professors. In brief, our very know- ledge will be set at nought, and our gifts scoffed at, if our lives do not demonstrate that we are Christians as well as m De Vita Pyth., c. xi. 4 [Protrept. Symbol. xv.] » Tbid., c. xxiv. τ [De Medico; ad init., tom. i. p. 56. 9 Τυϊα., ¢) xxx Kihn. | P Tbid., c. vi. SERMON XXII. 487 scholars. No man will be much more godly for hearing Seneca talk of providence, nor be affected with bare words, unless he see them armed and backed with power of him that utters them. Consider but this one thing, and withal, that my doctrine is become a proverb, and he is a proud man that can first draw it upon a scholar, his learning and his clergy make him never the more religious. O let our whole care and carriage, and the dearest of our endeavours, strive and prevail to cross the proverb, and stop the mouth of the rashest declaimer. That comedy of Aristophanes took best, which was all spent in laughing at Socrates, and in him involved and abused the whole condition of learning ; though ’ through Alcibiades’ faction it miscarried and missed its ap- plause once or twice, yet when men were left to their humour, it was admired and cried up extremely. Learning hath still some honourable favourers which keep others in awe with their countenance; but otherwise nothing more agreeable to the people than comedies or satires, or sarcasms dealt out against the universities: let us be sure that we act no parts in them ourselves, nor perform them before they are acted. Let us endeavour that theirs may be only pronunciations, a story of our faults as presented in a scene, but never truly grounded in any of our actions. One woe we are secure and safe from, “ Woe be to you when all men shall speak Luke vi. well of you;” we have many good friends that will not let 7° this curse light on us. O let us deliver ourselves from that catalogue of woes which were all denounced against the Pharisees for many vices, all contained in this accomplished piece, “ Ye say but do not.” And seeing all our intellectual iat xxiii. excellencies cannot allure, or bribe, or woo God’s Spirit to overshadow us, and conceive Christ, and bring forth true and saving faith in us; let all the rest of our studies be ordered in a new course; let us change both our method and our tutor, and having hitherto learnt God from our- selves, let us be better advised, and learn ourselves from God. Let us all study all learning from the spring or fountain, and make Him our instructor, who is the only author worth our understanding, and admit of no inter- preter on Him but Himself. The knowledge of God shall be our vision in heaven, O let it be our speculation on 488 SERMON XXII. earth. Let it fill every conceit or fancy that we at any time adventure on. It is πάσης πραγματείας τελεσιούρ- γημα, the last work in which all the promises, all our pos- sible designs are accomplished: O let us in part anticipate that final revelation of Him, lest so sudden and so full a brightness of glory be too excellent for the eyes of a saint: and labour to comprehend here, where the whole comfort of our life is, what we shall then possess. And if all the stretches, and cracking, and torturing of our souls will prevail, the dissolving of all our spirits, nay, the sighing out of our last breath will do any thing, let us join all this even that God hath given us, in this last real service to ourselves, and expire whilst we are about it, in praying, and beseeching, and importuning, and offering violence to that blessed Spirit, that He will fully enlighten and inflame us here with zeal as well as knowledge; that He will fill us with His grace here, and accomplish us with His glory hereafter. Now to Him that hath elected us, hath created us, and redeemed us, &c. SERMON XXIII. Marr. x. 15. It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city. Tue whole new covenant consists of these two words, Christ and faith; Christ bestowed on God’s part, faith required on ours; Christ the matter, faith the condition of the covenant. Now to bring or present this faith before you, as an object for your understandings to gaze at, or to go further, to dissect—and with the diligence of anatomy instruct—in every limb, or joint, or excellency of it, were but to recall you to your catechism, and to take pains to inform you in that which you are presumed to know. The greater danger of us is, that we are behind in our prac- tice; that we know what faith is, but do not labour for it ; and therefore the seasonablest work will be on our affec- tions, to produce, if it were possible, this precious virtue in our souls, and to sink and press down that floating know- ledge which is in most of our brains, into a solid weighty effec- tual faith, that it may begin to be ἔργον πίστεως, “a work of [1 Thess. faith,” which was formerly but a fancy, dream, and apparition. * 5:1 To this purpose to work on your wills, no rhetoric so likely as that which is most sharp and terrible, no such physic for dead affections as corrosives, the consideration of the dismal, hideous, desperate estate of infidels here in my text; and that both in respect of the guilt of the sin, and degree of the punishment proportioned to it, and that above all other sinners in the world, “It shall be more,” &c. Where you ver. 4. may briefly observe, 1. the sin of infidelity, set down by its ver. 14, Mat. xi. 14. John i, 12. John i. 22. 4.90 SERMON XXIII. subject, that city which would not receive Christ being preached unto it ; 2. the greatness of this sin, expressed by the punishment attending it; and that either positively, it shall go very sore with it, and therefore it is to be esteemed a very great sin, implied in the whole text; or else comparatively, being weighed with Sodom and Gomorrah in judgment, it shall be more tolerable for them than it: and therefore it is not only a great sin, but the greatest, the most damning sin in the world. And of these in order plainly, and to your hearts rather than your brains, presuming that you are now come with solemn serious thoughts to be edified, not instructed, much less pleased or humoured. And first of the first: the sin of infidelity, noted in the last words, “ that city.” To pass by those which we cannot choose but meet with, 1. a multitude of ignorant infidels, pagans and heathens ; 2. of knowing but not acknowledging infidels, as Turks and Jews; we shall meet with another order of as great a latitude, which will more nearly concern us; a world of believing in- fidels, which know and acknowledge Christ, the gospel and the promises, are as fairly mounted in the understanding part as you would wish, but yet refuse and deny Him in their hearts, apply not a command to themselves, submit not to Him, nor desire to make themselves capable of those mercies which they see offered by Christ in the world; and these are distinctly set down in the verse next before my text, “ Who- soever shall not receive you,” i.e. entertain the acceptable truth of Christ and the gospel preached by you, as it is inter- preted by the fortieth verse, “ He that receiveth you, receiveth Me,” i.e. believes on Me, as the word is most plainly used, Matt. xi. 14; “If you will receive it,” i. 6. if you will believe it, “ this is Elias which was for to come.” And Johni.12; “To as many as received Him,—even to them that believe in His name.” For you are to know that faith truly justifying is nothing in the world but the receiving of Christ. Christ and His sufferings and full satisfaction was once on the cross tendered, and is ever since by the gospel and its ministers offered to the world: and nothing required of us but a hand and a heart to apprehend and receive: and to “as many as received Him, He gives power to become the sons of God.” So that faith and infidelity are not acts properly de- SERMON XXIII. 491 termined to the understanding, but indeed to the whole soul, and most distinctly to the will, whose part it is to receive or repel, to entertain or resist Christ and His promises, “ the [Heb. xii. Author and Finisher of our salvation.” Now this receiving Ae of Christ is the taking or accepting of the righteousness of Christ, and so making it our own, as Rom. i. 17, being rightly Rom. i. 17, weighed, will enforce. Read and mark, δικαιοσύνη yap Θεοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ ἀποκαλύπτεται ἐκ πίστεως εἰς πίστιν, thus ἐν ἀυτῳ “init,” or by it, the gospel, mentioned in the former verse ; d:- καιοσύνη Θεοῦ ἐκ πίστεως, “the righteousness of God by faith,” as Rom. 111. 22, 1. e. the not legal but evangelical righteousness, Rom. iii, which only God accepts, directly set down, Phil. iii. 9, “that en wh righteousness which is through faith of Christ, the righte- ousness which is of God by faith ;” ἀποκαλύπτεται εἰς πίστιν “is revealed to faith,” is declared that we might believe; that finding no life or righteousness in ourselves, we may go out of ourselves, and lay hold on that which is offered us by Christ; and this you will find to be the clearest meaning of these words, though somewhat obscured in our English reading of them. Now the accepting of this righteousness is an act of ours following a proposal or offer of Christ’s, and consummating the match or bargain between Christ and us. Christ is offered to us as an husband in the gospel; we enquire of Him, observe our own needs, and His excellencies and riches to supply them, our sins and His righteousness; and if upon advice we will take Him, the match is struck, we are our be- loved’s, and our beloved is ours; we are man and wife, we have taken Him for our husband, and with Him are entitled to all His riches: we have right to all His righteousness, and enjoy by His patent all the privileges, all the promises, all the mer- cies of the gospel. But if, the offer being thus made by God to give us His Son freely, we stand upon terms,—we are too rich, too learned, too worldly-minded, too much in love with the praise of men, i. e. fixed upon any worldly vanity, and re- John xii. solve never to forego all these, to disclaim our worldly liberty, ing our own righteousness, and to accept of so poor an offer as a Christ; then are we the infidels here spoken of, “ we will John v. 40. not come to Him that we might have life.’ When He is held out to us, we will not lay hold on Him, we have some conceit of ourselves, and therefore will not step a foot abroad John v. 44. [ Acts v. 2.] Rom. i. 28. 4.92 SERMON XXIII. to fetch His righteousness home to us. And indeed if any worldly thing please you; if you can set a value upon any thing else, if you can entertain a paramour, a rival, a compe- titor in your hearts, if you can “receive the praise of men, how can you believe?” So that, in brief, infidelity consists in the not receiving of Christ with a reciprocal giving up of our- selves to Him, in the not answering affirmatively to Christ’s offer of Himself, in the not taking home and applying Christ to our souls. And this is done, either by denying to take Him at all, or by taking Him under a false person, or by not performing the conditions required or presumed in the making of the match. They that deny to take Him at all, are the pro- fane, negligent, presumptuous Christians, who either never hearken after Him, or else are so familiar with the news as to underprize Him: have either never cheapened heaven, or else will not come to God’s price; like Ananias and Sapphira, per- haps offer pretty fair, bring two parts of their estate and lay them at the Apostles’ feet, but will give no more; fall off at last for a trifle, and peremptorily deny Christ if they may not have Him on their own conditions. Some superfluities, some vanities, some chargeable or troublesome sins, perhaps, they can spare, and those they will be inclinable to part withal; but if this will not serve, Christ must seek for a better chapman, they stand not much upon it, they can return as contentedly without it as they came. And this arises from a neglect and security, a not heeding or weigh- ing of God’s justice, and consequently undervaluing of His mercies. They have never felt God as an angry Judge, and therefore they now scorn Him as a Saviour: they have lived at such ease of heart, that no legal terror, no affrightments, or ghastly representations of sin can work upon them: and if the reading of the law, that killing letter, have been sent by God to instruct them in the desperateness of their estate, to humble these libertine souls to the spirit of bondage, and so school them to Christ, they have eyes, but see not, ears, but hear it not, they are come to this νοῦς ἀδόκιμος, “a repro- bate sense,” or as it may berendered, “ an undiscerning mind,” not able to judge of that which is thus read and proposed to it; or again a sense without sense, not apprehensive of that which no man that hath eyes can be ignorant of; nay, in SERMON XXIIt. 493 Theodoret’s phrase, νοῦς ἀντίτυπος, an heart that will rever- berate any judgment or terror, receiving no more impression from it than the anvil from the hammer, violently return it again, smoothed somewhat over perhaps by often-beating, but nothing softened. Nay if the law ery too loud, and by an inward voice preach damnation in their bowels, and re- solve to be heard before it cease; then do they seek out some worldly employment to busy themselves withal, that they may not be at home at so much unquietness: they will charm it with pleasures, or overwhelm it with business, as Cain, when his conscience was too rough and rigid for. him, went out from the presence of the Lord, and as it is Gen.iv. 16. observed, “built cities,’ got some of his progeny to invent ver. 17. music, perhaps to still his tumultuous raving conscience, ver. 21. that the noise of the hammers and melody of the instru- ments might outsound the din within him, as in the sacri- fices of Moloch, where their children, which they offered in an hollow brazen vessel, could not choose but howl hideously, they, had timbrels and tabrets perpetually beating,—where- upon Tophet, where these sacrifices were kept, is by gram- marians deduced from »)n tympanum*,—to drown the noise 2 Kings of the children’s cry ; these, I say, which will not be instructed **#- 10. in their misery, or bettered by the preaching of the law, which labour only to make their inward terrors insensible, to skin, not cure, the wound, are infidels in the first or highest rank, which deny to take Him at all, will not suffer themselves to be persuaded that they have any need of Him; and therefore let Him be offered for ever, let Him be pro- claimed in their ears every minute of their lives, they see nothing in Him worth hearkening after; and the reason is, they are still at home, they have not gone a foot abroad out of themselves, and therefore cannot lay hold on Christ. He that never went to school to the law, he that was never sen- sible of his own damned estate, he that never hated himself, ov μὴ δέξεται, ‘ will never receive,’ never accept of Christ. Secondly, some are come thus far to a sense of their estate, and are twinged extremely, and therefore fly presently to the gospel; hearing of Christ, they fasten, are not patient of so much deliberation as to observe whether their hands be empty ; 4 Selden, De Diis Syriis. Syntagma i. cap. 6. [Op.; tom. ii, p. 314. ] 4.94: SHRMON XXIII. they are in distress, and Christ must needs save them sud- denly ; they lay hold as soon as ever they hear a promise, and are resolved to be saved by Christ, because they see otherwise they are damned. And these take Christ indeed, but under a false person; either they take the promises only, and let Christ alone, or take Christ the Saviour, but not Christ the Lord ; are willing to be saved by Him, but never think of serving Him; are praying for ever for heaven and glory, but never care how little they hear of grace; the end they fasten on, the covenant they hug and gripe with their embraces, but never take the condition of repentance and obedience ; this is not for their turn; they abstract the cheap and pro- fitable attributes of Christ, His priestly office of satisfaction and propitiation, but never consider Him as a King; and so, in a word, lay hold of the estate before they have married the husband, which they have yet no more right to than a mere stranger; for the communicating the riches of a hus- band being but a consequence of marriage, is therefore not yet made over till the marriage—which is the taking of the husband’s person—be consummate. And this, I say, is a second degree of infidelity, somewhat more secret and less discernible, when by an error of the person, by taking Christ the Saviour for Christ the Lord, or His promises abstracted from His person, we believe we shall be saved by Him, but deny to be ruled; desire to enjoy all the privileges, but sub- tract all the obedience of a subject. In the third place, they which have accepted and received the true person of Christ as a Master, as well as a Jesus, they which have taken Him on a resolved vow of performing this condition of homage and obedience, are not im event as good as their engagements; when they think the match is fast, and past danger of recalling, when they seem to have gotten a firm title to the promises, and are in a manner en- tered upon the goods and estate of their husband, they do begin to break covenant, and either wholly subtract, or else divide their love ; they married Him for His wealth, and now they have that, they are soon weary of His person; they came with the soul of an harlot, looking only what they should get by Him, and now they have many other old acquaintances they must needs keep league with; their self-denial, their SERMON XXIII. 495 humility, their vows of obedience were but arts and strata- gems that want and necessity put them upon, and now they have got their ends, all those are soon out-dated; they have faith and so are justified, and sure of their estate, and so now they may sin securely, “there is no condemnation to them, | Rom. viii. they are in Christ,” and all the sins, nay, all the devils in al the world shall never separate them. And this is a sanctified religious piece of infidelity in men, which think they have made sure of the main, and so never think of the consec- taries ; they have faith, and so it is no matter for good works ; the lease is sealed, the wedding solemnized, and then never dream or care for covenants. And these men’s fate is like to be the same spiritually, which we read of Samson’s bodily strength; he vowed the vow of a Nazarite, and as long as he kept unshaven no opposition could prevail against him ; but as soon as he broke his vow, when he had let his mistress [Judg. xvi. cut his locks, his strength departed from him. All the pro- ὍΝ mises and privileges of our being in Christ are upon con- dition of our obedience, and our vow being broken, the devil and the Philistines within us will soon deprive us of our eyes and life. Whatsoever livelihood we presume we have in Christ, we are deceived, we are still “dead in trespasses [Eph. ii. and sins.” Thus do you see the three degrees of infidelity ~ frequent amongst Christians, 1. a not taking Him at all, 2. a mistaking of His person; 3. a breaking of the covenants : now that you may abhor and fly from, and get out of each of them by a lively faith, my next particular shall warn you, ‘the greatness of this sin, and that first positively in itself, “it shall be very intolerable for that city.” Faith may be conceived in a threefold relation, either to men, the subjects of it, and those sinners ; or 2. to Christ, and His sufferings, the objects of it, with all the effects, remission of sins, and salvation attending it; or 3. to God the Father, the author and commander of it, as the only condition an- nexed to all His promises. And consequently infidelity, ἐκ παραλλήλου, shall be aggravated by these three depths or degrees, each adding to its exceeding sinfulness. As faith respects its subject, and that a sinful, miserable one, engaged and fixed in an unremediable necessity of sin- ning and suffering for ever; so is it the only means upon -- 15} 4.96 SERMON XXIII, earth, nay in the very counsel of God, able to do us any help; all the arts and spiritual engines even in heaven be- sides this are unprofitable. Nay, the second covenant now being sealed, and God for ever having established the rule and method of it; I say, things thus standing, God Himself cannot be presumed to have mercy upon any one but who is thus qualified; it being the only foundation on which our heaven is built, the only ground we have to hope for any thing, as is manifest by that place, being rightly weighed, Heb. xi. l. ‘* Now faith is the substance of things hoped for,” where the Greek phrase, ὑπόστασις ἐλπιζομένων, signifies the ground or foundation of every of those things which can be the ob- ject of a Christian’s hope. So that where no ground-work, no building; if no faith, no hope, no possibility of heaven. If the devil could have but stolen this jewel out of the world, he had shut up heaven gates eternally, and had left it as empty of saints as it is full of glory, not capable of any flesh but what Christ’s hypostatical union brought thither. And this is no more than I conceive the learned mean by neces- sitas medii, that faith is necessary as a means, i. e. there is no means besides of power, either absolutely or ex hypothesi, of itself or on supposition of God’s covenant, to bring us to heaven. Nothing is of force besides in reason to prepare, or morally accommodate; and God hath not promised to accept in mercy of any thing else. For whereas the promises are sometimes made to repentance, sometimes to obedience, as, whosoever repenteth shall be saved, and the like; you are to know, that it is on this ground of the necessary union of these graces, that where one of them is truly and sincerely, there the rest are always in some degree, there being no example of penitence or obedience in any subject which had Heb. xi. 6. not faith also. ‘“ For he that comes to God must believe that He is,” &c. And he that heartily believes He is, and is “a rewarder of them that seek Him,” will not fail to search, pursue, and follow after Him. So that, though the promises are made promiscuously to any one which hath either of these graces, yet it is upon supposal of the rest; if it be Gal, v. 6, made of faith, it is in confidence that “faith works by love,” Jam. ii, 22, and as St. James enforces it, “is made perfect by works.” So that, in the first place, infidelity is sufficiently aggravated SERMON XXIII. 497 in respect of the subject; it being a catholic destroyer, an intervenient that despoils him of all means, all hope, all pos- sibility of salvation: finding him in the state of damnation, it sets him going, suffers him not to lay hold on any thing that may stay him in his precipice; and in the midst of his shipwreck, when there be planks and refuges enough about him, hath numbed his hands, deprived him of any power of taking hold of them. In the second place, in respect of Christ and His suffer- ings, the objects of our faith, so faith is in a manner the soul of them, giving them life and efficacy, making things which are excellent in themselves prove so in effect to others. Thus the whole splendour and beauty of the world, the most accu- rate proportions and images of nature are beholding to the eye, though not for their absolute excellency, yet for both the account and use that is made of them; for if all men were blind, the proudest workmanship of nature would not be worth the valuing. Thus is a learned piece cast away upon the ignorant, and the understanding of the auditor is the best commendation of a speech or sermon. In like manner, those infinite unvaluable sufferings of Christ, if they be not believed in, are but, as Aristotle” saith of divine knowledge, “a most honourable thing, but of no manner of use ;” if they be not apprehended, they are lost. Christ’s blood if not caught up in our hearts by faith, but suffered to be poured out upon the earth, will prove no better than that of Abel, “crying for judgment from the ground ;” that which is spilt Gen. iv. 10, is clamorous, and its voice is toward heaven for vengeance ; only that which is gathered up, as it falls from His side, by faith will prove a medicine to heal the nations. So that in- fidelity makes the death of Christ no more than the death of an ordinary man, “in which there is no remedy,” οὐκ ἔστιν Wisd. ii. 1. ἴασις, “there is no cure,” no physic in it ; or as the same word is rendered, “no pardon,” no remission wrought by it, a bare Eccles, going down into the grave, that no man is better for. It **¥4) ὅ. doth even frustrate the sufferings of Christ, and make Him have paid a ransom to no purpose, and purchased an inherit- ance at an infinite rate, and no man the better for it. Again, Christ is not only contemned, but injured, not only slighted, > [Metaph., A. c. 2.] HAMMOND. Kk Luke i. 74. Luke i. 74. 1 Cor. y. 20. 498 SERMON XXIII. but robbed, He loses not only His price and His thanks, but His servant, which He hath bought and purchased with His blood. For redemption is not an absolute setting free, but the buying out of an usurper’s hands, that he may return to his proper lord; changing him from the condition of a captive to a subject. He which is ransomed from the galleys is not presently a king, but only recovered to a free and tolerable service: nay generally, if he be redeemed, he is 60 nomine a servant, by right and equity his creature that redeemed him, according to the express words, “that we being delivered might serve Him.” Now a servant is a possession, part of one’s estate, as truly to be reckoned his as any part of his inheritance. So that every unbeliever is a thief, robs Christ not only of the honour of saving him, but of one of the members of His family, of part of His goods, His servant; nay, it is not a bare theft, but of the highest size, a sacrilege, stealing an holy instrument, a vessel out of God’s temple, which He bought and delivered out of the common calamity to “serve Him in holiness,” to be put to holy, special services. In the third place, faith may be considered in reference to God the Father, and that 1. as the author or fountain of this theological grace ; 2. as the commander of this duty of believ- ing; and either of these will aggravate the unbeliever’s guilt, and add more articles to his indictment. As God is the author of faith, so the infidel resists, and abandons, and flies from all those methods, all those means, by which God ordi- narily produces faith; all the power of His Scriptures, all the blessings of a Christian education, all the benefits of sacred knowledge; in sum, the prayers, the sweat, the lungs, the bowels of His ministers, in Christ’s stead “ beseeching you to be reconciled,” spending their dearest spirits, and even praying and preaching out their souls for you, that you would be friends with God through Christ. All these, I say, the infidel takes no notice of, and by his contempt of these inferior graces, shews how he would carry himself even towards God’s very Spirit, if it should come in power to con- vert him, he would hold out and bid defiance, and repel the omnipotent God with His omnipotent charms of mercy: he that contemns God’s ordinary means, would be likely to re- SERMON XXIII. 4.99 sist His extraordinary, were there not more force in the means than forwardness in the man: and thanks be to that con- trolling, convincing, constraining Spirit, if ever he be brought to be content to be saved. He that will not now believe in Christ when He is preached, would have gone very near, if he had lived then, to have given his consent, and joined his suffrage in crucifying Him. A man may guess of his incli- nation by his present practices, and if he will not now be His disciple, it was not his innocence, but his good fortune, that he did not then betray Him. It was well he was born amongst Christians, or else he might have been as sour a professed enemy of Christ as Pilate, or the Pharisees: an unbelieving Christian is, for all his livery and profession, but a Jew or heathen, and the Lord make him sensible of his condition. Lastly, consider this duty of faith im respect of God the Father commanding it, and then you shall find it the main precept of the Bible. It were long to shew you the ground of it in the law of nature, the obscure, yet discernible men- tion of it in the moral law, both transcendently, in the main end of all, and distinctly, though not clearly, in the first commandment; he that hath a mind to see may find it in Pet. Baronius, de prestantia et dignitate divine legis. It were as toilsome to muster up all the commands of the Old Tes- tament, which exactly and determinately drive at belief in Christ; as generally, in those places, where the Chaldee Paraphrase reads instead of God, God’s Word, as, “ fear not, Abraham, for I am thy shield,” say they, ‘‘ My Word is thy shield,” which speaks a plain command of faith; for not to fear is to trust; not to fear on that ground, because God’s word, ὁ Adyos, “the Word,” Christ, is one’s shield, is nothing John i, 1. in the world but to believe, and rely, and fasten, and depend on Christ. Many the like commands of faith in Christ will the Old Testament afford, and the New is nothing else but a perpetual inculcating of it upon us, a driving and calling, en- treating and enforcing, wooing and hastening us to believe. In which respect the schools call it also necessary neces- sitate precepti, a thing which though we should be never the better for, we are bound to perform. So that though faith were not able to save us, yet infidelity would damn us, it being amongst others a direct breach of a natural, a moral, Kk2 500 SERMON XXIII. nay, an evangelical commandment. And so much for the danger of infidelity considered positively in relation to the subject whom it deprives of heaven; the object, Christ and His offers in the Gospel, which it frustrates; and lastly the author and commander of it, God the Father, whom it resists, disobeys, and scorns. You will perhaps more feelingly be affected to the loathing of it, if we proceed to the odious and dangerous condition of it, above all other sins and breaches in the world, which is my third part, its comparative sinful- ness, “‘ It shall be more tolerable,” ἕο. And this will appear, if we consider it, 1. in itself; 2. in its consequences. In itself it is fuller of guilt, in its con- . sequences fuller of danger, than any ordinary breach of the Heb. x. 38. ver. 39. 2 Mace. vi. 12. Gal. ii. 12. moral law. In itself, so it is 1. the greatest aversion from God,—in which aversion the schoolmen place the formalis ratio, the very essence of sin—it is the perversest remotion and turning away of the soul from God, and getting as far as we can out of His sight, or ken, the forbidding of all manner of commerce or spiritual traffic, or correspondence with God, as may appear by that admirable place, Heb. x. 38, “ The just shall live by faith; but if any man draw back, my soul hath no pleasure in him ;” and ver. 39, “ We are not of them which draw back unto perdition, but of them that do believe to the saving of the soul.” Where the phrase of drawing back opposed here to faith and believing, is in the original ὑποστολὴ, ἃ cowardly, pusillanimous subducing of one’s-self, a getting out of the way, a not daring to meet, or approach, or accept of Christ when He is offered them; the same with συστολὴ among the physicians, a contraction of the soul, a shrivelling of it up, a sudden correption and depression of the mind, such as the sight of some hideous danger is wont to produce, so 2 Macc. vi. 12, συστέλλεσθαι, x. τ. λ., to be discouraged, and to forsake the Jewish religion, because of the calamities. So is the word used of Peter, ὑπέστελ- he καὶ ἀφώριζεν ἑαυτὸν, φοβούμενος, x.T.r., “he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those that were of the cir- cumcision.” The infidel, I say, draws back, withdraws and sneaks out of the way, as if he were afraid of the mereies of ᾿ his Saviour, as if it were death to him to be so near salva- tion; as if Christ coming to him with the mercies of the SERMON XXIII. 501] gospel, were the mortalest enemy under heaven, and there were no such mischief to be done him as his conversion. This indeed is an aversion in the highest degree, when we fly and draw back from God when He comes to save us, when the sight of a Saviour makes us take our heels. Adam might well hide himself when God came to challenge him about his disobedience; the guilty conscience being afraid of revenge, may well slink out of His presence with Cain. Gen. iv. 16, But to tremble and quake at a proclamation of mercy, when God “draws with cords of a man,” a powerful phrase expressed Hos. xi. 4. in the next words with “the bands of love; when He loveth us, and calls His Son out for us, then to be “bent to back- sliding,” in the seventh verse, to draw back when He comes to embrace, this is a stubbornness and contraction of the soul, a crouching of it in, a συστολὴ or ὑποστολὴ, that neither nature nor reason would be guilty of: an aversion from God, which no other sin can parallel, and therefore of all other most intolerable in the first place. 2. Infidelity gives God the he, and denies whatever God proclaims in the gospel. The reason or ground of any one’s belief, the objectum formale quo, that, by assenting to which I -come to believe, is God’s veracity; the confidence that God speaks true, the relying on His word, is that which brings me to lay hold on Christ ; and therefore the infidel is down- right with God; he will not take His word, he will never be persuaded that these benefits of Christ’s death that are offered to all men, can ever do him any good. Let God call him to accept them, he will never come; his surly, resolute carriage is in effect a contradicting of whatever God hath affirmed, a direct thwarting, a giving the lie to God and His Evangelists : and this is an aggravation not to be mentioned without reve- rence or horror, the most odious affront in the world; the Lord be merciful to us in this matter. Next, this sin is a sin of the most dangerous consequences of any. 1. It produces all other sins; and that positively, by doubting of His justice, aud so falling into adulteries, blas- phemies, and the like, in security and hope of impunity; by distrusting of His providence and mercy, and so flying to covetousness, murmuring, tempting, subtlety, all arts and [Eph. ii. 20.] John iii. 18. Ecclus. xx. 25. 1 Cor. xv. 17. 502 SERMON XXIII. stratagems of getting for our temporal estate, and ordinary despair in our spiritual: then privatively, depriving us of that which is the mother and soul of our obedience and good works, I mean faith, so that every thing for want of it is turned into sin, and thereby depopulating the whole man, making him nothing in the world but ruins and noisomeness, a confluence of all manner of sins, without any concomitant degree of duty or obedience. 2. It frustrates all good exhortations, and forbids all man- ner of superstructions which the ministers are wont to labour for in moving us to charity, and obedience, and joy, and hope, and prayer, by not having laid any foundation where- on these must be built; any of these set or planted in any infidel heart will soon wither: they must have a stock of faith whereon to be grafted, or else they are never likely to thrive. As Galba’s wit was a good one, but it was unluckily placed, ill-seated, there was no good to be wrought by it. The proudest of our works or merits, the perfectest morality wilf stand but very weakly, unless it be founded on that foundation whose corner-stone is Christ Jesus. 3. It leaves no place in the world for remedy: he that is an idolater, a sabbath-breaker, or the like; he that is arraigned at the law, and found guilty at that tribunal, hath yet an advocate in the gospel, a higher power to whom he may appeal to mitigate his sentence: but he that hath sinned against the gospel, hath no further to go, he hath sinned against that which should have remitted all other sins; and now he is come to an unremediable estate, to a kind of hell, or the grave of sin, from whence there is no recovery. There is not a mercy to be fetched in the world but out of the gospel, and he that hath refused them is past any further treaty: “He that believeth not is condemned already ;” his damnation is sealed to him, and the entail past cutting off; it is his purchase, and now wants nothing but livery and seizin ; nay, it is his patrimony, ἀπώλειαν ἐκληρονόμησεν, he is as sure of it, as of any pennyworth of his inheritance. And the reason is implied, “If Christ be not risen, you are yet in your sins:” there is no way to get out of our sins but Christ’s resurrection, and he that believeth not, Christ is not risen to him: it were all one to him if there SERMON XXIII. 503 had never been a Saviour; and therefore he remains in his old thraldom; he was taken captive in Adam, and hath never since had any other means to restore him: the ransom that was offered all, he would none of, and so he sticks unredeemed, he is yet in his sins, and so for ever like to continue. And now he is come to this state, it were superfluous further to aggravate the sin against him; his case is too wretched to be upbraided him, the rest of our time shall be employed in providing a remedy for him, if it be possible, and that must be from consideration of the disease, in a word and close of application. The sin being thus displayed to you with its consequences, O what a spirit should it raise in us! O what a resolution and expression of our manhood, to resist and banish out of us this “evil heart of unbelief !’? What an hatred should it Heb. iii. work in our bowels, what a reluctancy, what an indignation, as what a revenge against the fruit of our bosom, which hath so long grown and thrived within us, only to our destruction ! which is provided as it were to eat our souls, as an harbinger to prepare a place within us for the worm in hell, where it may lie and bite and gnaw at ease eternally! It is an ex- amination that will deserve the most precious minute of our lives, the solemnest work of our souls, the carefulest muster of our faculties, to shrift and winnow, and even set our hearts upon the rack, to see whether any fruit or seed of infidelity lurk in it; and in a matter of this danger to prevent God’s inquest by our own, to display every thing to ourselves, just as it shall be laid open before God in judgment, γυμνὸν καὶ Heb. iv. 13. τετραχηλισμένον, naked and discernible as the entrails of a creature cut down the back, where the very method of nature in its secrecies is betrayed tothe eye. I say, to cut ourselves up, and to search into every cranny of our souls, every wind- ing of either our understanding or affections; and observe whether any infidel thought, any infidel lust be lodged there: and when we have found this execrable thing which hath brought all our plagues on us, then must we purge, and cleanse, and lustrate the whole city for its sake: and with more ceremony than ever the heathen used, even with a superstition of daily, hourly prayers, and sacrificing ourselves to God, strive and struggle, and offer violence to remove this 2 Kings xxiii. 12. John xviii. iL Ps, ὉσΣ. ἢ: [Is. Ixv. 2. ] John xix. 19. 2 Cor. v. 20. 504 SERMON XXIII. unclean thing out of our coasts ; use these unbelieving hearts of ours, as Josiah did the altars of Ahaz, “ break them down, beat them to powder, and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron ;” that Cedron which Christ passed over when He went to suffer, even that brook which “Christ drank of by the way.” And there indeed is there a remedy for infi- delity, if the infidel will throw it in. If he will put it off, be it never so dyed in the contempt of Christ’s blood, that very blood shall cleanse it: and therefore In the next place, let us labour for faith; let not His hands be stretched out any longer upon the cross to a faithless and stubborn generation. It were a piece of igno- rance that a scholar would abhor to be guilty of, not to be able to understand that inscription written by Pilate in either of three languages, “ Jesus of Nazareth, King.” Nay for all the Gospels and comments written on it, both by His disciples and His works, still to be non-proficients, this would prove an accusation written in marble, nay, an ex- probration above a στηλιτευτικόν. In a word, Christ is still offered and the proclamation not yet outdated, His sufferings in the Scripture proposed to every one of you to lay hold on, and His ministers sent as ‘“ ambassadors beseeching you to be reconciled,” and more than that, in the Sacrament of the Eu- charist, His body and blood set before our eyes to be felt and gazed on, and then even a Didymus would believe; nay, to be divided amongst us, and put in our mouths, and then who would be so sluggish as to refuse to feed on Him in his heart ? For your election from the beginning to this gift of faith, let that never raise any doubt or scruple in you, and foreslow that coming to Him; this is a jealousy that hath undone many, in a resolvedness that if they are not elected, all their faith shall prove unprofitable. Christ that bids thee repent, believe,and come unto Him, is not so frivolous to command im- possibilities, nor so cruel to mock our impotence. Thou mayest believe, because He bids: believe, and then thou mayest be sure thou wert predestinated to believe; and then all the de- crees in the world cannot deny thee Christ, if thou art thus resolved to have Him. If thou wilt not believe, thou hast re- probated thyself, and who is to be accused that thou art not SERMON XXIII. 505 saved? But if thou wilt come in, there is sure entertainment for thee. He that begins in God’s counsels, and never thinks fit to go about any evangelical duty, till he can see his name writ in the Book of life, must not begin to believe till he be in heaven; for there only is that to be read radio recto. The surer course is to follow the Scripture; to hope comfortably every one of ourselves, to use the means, apprehend the mer- cies, and then to be confident of the benefits of Christ’s suf- fering: and this is the way to make our election sure, to read it in ourselves radio reflexo, by knowing that we believe, to resolve that we are elected; thereby “we know that we are 1 John iii, past from death to life, if we love the brethren.” And so is !* it also of faith; for these are inseparable graces. So Psalm Ps. xxv. xxv. 14; Prov. iii. 32, God’s secret and His covenant, being eta taken for His decree, is said to be “with them that fear Him,” and to be “shewed to them,” i. 6. their very fearing of God is an evidence to them that they are His elect, with whom He hath entered covenant. Our faith is the best argument, or κριτήριον, by which to make a judgment to God’s decree concerning us. I say, if we will believe God hath elected us; it is impossible any true faith should be refused upon pretence the person was predestined to destruction; and if it were possible, yet would I hope that God’s decrees—were they as absolute as some would have them—should sooner be softened into mercy, than that mercy purchased by His Son, should ever fail to any that believes. The bargain was made, the covenant struck, and the immutability of the Persian laws are nothing to it, that “ whosoever believeth in Him should John iii. not perish, but have everlasting life.’ Wherefore, in brief, !* let us attend the means, and let what will or can come of the end; Christ is offered to every soul here present to be a Jesus, only do thou accept of Him, and thou art past from death to life; there is no more required of thee, but only to take Him; if thou art truly possessor of Him, He will justify, He will humble, He will sanctify thee; He will work all reforma- tion in thee: and in time seal thee up to the day of re- demption: only be careful that thou mistakest not His per- son; thou must receive Him, as well as His promises; thou must take Him as a Lord and King, as well as a Saviour, and be content to be a subject, as well as a saint. He is [Ps. xev. 8.] Pe: ii. 12: 506 SERMON XXIII. now proclaimed in your ears, and you must not foreslow the audience, or procrastinate ; “ To-day if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” He holds Himself out on purpose to you, and by the minister woos you to embrace Him: and then it nearly concerns you not to provoke so true, so hearty, nay, even so passionate a friend: if He be not kissed He will be angry. Lastly, if in this business of believing so vul- garly exposed, there yet appear some difficulties in the prac- tice, to be overcome before it prove a possible duty: if self- denial be incompatible with flesh and blood; if delights and worldly contentments, if an hardened heart in sin, and a world of high imaginations, refuse to submit or humble themselves to the poverty of Christ; if we cannot empty our hands to lay hold, or unbottom ourselves to lean wholly on Christ, then must we fly, and pray to that Spirit of power, to subdue, and conquer, and lead us captive to itself, to in- struct us in the baseness, the nothingness, nay, the dismal, hideous wretchedness of our own estate, that so being spiri- tually shaken and terrified out of our carnal pride and secu- rity, we may come trembling and quaking to that throne of grace, and with the hands of faith, though feeble ones, with the eye of faith, though dimly, with a hearty sincere resign- ing up of ourselves, we may see and apprehend, and fasten, and be united to our Saviour: that we may live in Christ, and Christ in us, and having begun in the life of grace here, we may hope and attain to be accomplished with that of glory hereafter. “Now to Him which hath elected us,” &c. SERMON XXIV. Acts xvi. 30. And the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men every where to repent. Tue words in our English translation carry somewhat in the sound, which doth not fully reach the importance of the original, and therefore it must be the task of our preface not to connect the text, but clear it; not to shew its dependence on the precedent words, but to restore it to the integrity of itself, that so we may perfectly conceive the words, before we venture to discuss them; that we may ὑποτυπῶσαι πρῶτον, ὕστερον ἀναγράφειν, as Aristotle* phrases it, “ first represent them to you in the bulk, then describe them particularly in their several lineaments.” Our English setting of the words seems to make two propositions, and in them a direct opposi- tion betwixt the condition of the ancient and present Gen- tiles ; that God had winked at, 1. 6. either approved, or pitied, or pardoned the ignorance of the former heathens, but now was resolved to execute justice on all that did continue in that was heretofore pardonable in them, on every one every where that did not repent. Now the original runs thus, TOUS μὲν οὖν χρόνους THY ἀγνοίας ὑπεριδὼν ὁ Θεὸς, τὰ νῦν παραγγέλλει, κ-τ.λ., that is, in a literal construction, “God therefore passing over the times of ignorance, as if He saw them not, doth now command all men every where to re- pent.” Which you may conceive thus, by this kind of vulgar ἀνάβασις, or sensible proceeding in God. God always is, essentially and perfectly, every one of His attributes, wisdom, justice, mercy, &c., but yet is said at one time to be peculi- a (Eth. Nicom., i. c. 7. ] 508 SERMON XXIV. arly one attribute, at another time another, i.e. to be at one time actually just, at another time actually merciful, accord- ing to His determination to the object. As when God fixes His eyes upon a rebellious people, whose sins are ripe for His justice, He then executes His vengeance on them as on Sodom: when He fixes His eyes upon a penitent, believing people, He then doth exercise His mercy, as on Nineveh. Now when God looks upon any part of the lapsed world on which He intends to have mercy, He suffers not His eye to be fixed or terminated on the medium betwixt His eye and them, on the sins of all their ancestors from the beginning of the world till that day; but having another account to cal] them to, doth for the present, ὑπεριδεῖν, ὑπερβλέπειν, ὑπερορᾷν, “look over all them,” as if they were not in His way, and imputing not the sins of the fathers to the children, fixeth on the children, makes His covenant of mercy with them, and commandeth them the condition of this covenant, whereby they shall obtain mercy, that is, “every one every where to repent.” So that in the first place, ὑπεριδὼν παρ- ἀγγέλλει must not be rendered by way of opposition, “ He winked then, but now commands,” as if their former igno- rance were justifiable, and an account of knowledge should only be exacted from us. And in the second place, ὑπεριδὼν, a word read but this once in all the New Testament, must be rendered, not “ winking at,” but “looking over,” or not in- sisting upon; as when we fix our eyes upon a hill we suffer them not to dwell on the valley on this side of it, because we look earnestly on the hill. Nowif this be not the common Attical acception of it, yet it will seem agreeable to the pen- ning of the New Testament, in which whosoever will observe, may find words and phrases which perhaps the Attic purity, perhaps grammar, will not approve of. And yet I doubt not but classic authorities may be brought where ὑπεριδεῖν shall signify, not a winking, or not taking notice of, but a looking further, a not resting in this, but a driving higher, for so it - is rendered by Stephanus, ad ulteriora oculos convertere, and then the phrase shall be as proper as the sense, the Greek as authentical as the doctrine, that God looking over and not insisting upon the ignorance of the former heathen, at Christ’s coming entered a covenant with their successors, the condi- EEE | | | SERMON XXIV. 509 tion of which was, “that every man every where should repent.” And this is made good by the Greek Scholia of the New Testament, οὐ τοῦτό φησιν", «.7.r., “that is spoken, not that the former heathen should be unpunished, but that their successors to whom St. Paul preached, if they would repent, should not be called to an account of their ignorance,” should not fare the worse for the ignorance of their fathers; and at this drives also Chrysostom®, out of whom the scholiasts may seem to have borrowed it, their whole ἐξήγησις being but ἔκλεκτα, gleanings out of the fathers before them. I might further prove the necessity of this interpretation if it were re- quired of me: and thus far I have stayed you to prove it, because our English is somewhat imperfect in the expression ‘of it. Avo κύβοι οὐκ εἰσὶ κύβος, saith Aristotle, “Two cubes are not a cube,” but another figure very different from it: and indeed our English translations by making two proposi- tions of this verse, have varied the native single proposition in that regard, and made it unlike itself, which briefly—if I can inform myself aright—should run thus, by way of one simple enunciation; ‘God therefore not insisting on, but looking over those times of ignorance, doth now command all men every where to repent ; of which those three lines in Leo’s* fourth sermon de Passione Domini are a just para- phrase, Nos sub veteris ignorantie profunda nocte pereuntes, in patriarcharum societatem, et fortem electi gregis adoptavit. So then the words being represented to you in this scheme or single diagram, are the covenant of mercy made with the progeny of ignorant heathens, upon condition of repentance, in which you may observe two grand parallel lines, 1, the ignorance of the heathen, such as in the justice of God might have provoked Him to have pretermitted the whole world of succeeding Gentiles: 2, the mercy of God, not imputing their ignorance to our charge, whosoever every where to the end of the world shall repent. And first of the first, the ignorance of the heathen in these words, τοὺς μὲν οὖν χρόνους, “the times,” &c. > [Gicumenius Ennarrat in loc. et Op., tom. ix. p. 291. C, D.] Op., tom, i. p. 139. Paris. 1631. ] 4 [S. Leo. Serm. lv. de Passione © [In Acta Apostol. Hom. xxxviii, Domini, iv. cap. 5. Op., tom.i. p. 210.] 510 SERMON XXIV. If for the clearing of this bill we should begin our inquest at Japhet the father of the Gentiles, examine them all by their gradations, we should in the general find the evidence to run thus; 1. that they were absolutely ignorant, as igno- rance is opposed to learning; 2. ignorant in the affairs of God, as ignorance is opposed to piety or spiritual wisdom ; 3. ignorant supinely, perversely, and maliciously, as it is op- posed to a simple or more excusable ignorance. Their absolute ignorance or ἀπαιδευσία, their want of learning is at large proved by St. Austin xviii. de Civ. Dei, Eusebius Prepar. x., Clemens in his Protrep. and others, — some of whose writings to this purpose—because it is easier for my auditors to believe me in gross, than to be troubled with the retail—is this, that the beginnings of learning in all kinds was among the Jews, whilst the whole heathen world be- sides was barbarously ignorant ; that Moses appointed masters among the tribes, γραμμάτων εἰςαγωγεῖς, which initiated the youth of Israel] in all kind of secular learning; or if you will believe Patricius® and his proofs, that Shem erected, and after- wards Heber enlarged, scholas doctrinarum, schools or semi- naries of learning, where learning was professed and taught ; that Abraham, as Eusebius cites Nic. Damascenus! for it, was excellent in the mathematics, and dispersed and communi- cated his knowledge in Chaldea, from whence the Egyptians, and from them the Grecians came to them; that Enoch was probably judged by Polyhistor® to be that Atlas to whom the heathen imputed the beginning of astronomy; that in the sum, all learning was primitive among the Hebrews, and from them, by stealth and filching, some seeds of it sown in Phenicia, Egypt, and at last in Greece. For they make it plain by computation, that Moses,—who yet was long after Enoch, and Shem, and Heber, and Abraham, all in confesso great scholars,—that Moses, I say, was fifteen hundred years ancienter than the Greek philosophers, that all the learning that is found and bragged of amongst the Grecians—whose ignorance my text chiefly deals with, St. Paul’s discourse here being addressed to the Athenians—was but a babe of a © Zoroaster, p. 4. s [Ap. Euseb., ibid., lib. ix. p. 419 τ [Nicol. Damascenus, ap. Euseb., d.]_ Prepar. Evang., lib. ix. p. 417 d.] ————— eet > ee ee ee 18 ὦ. = -Ὶ- SERMON XXIV. 511 day old in respect of the true antiquity of learning: that all their philosophy was but scraps, ἀποσπασμάτια, which fell from the Jews’ tables; that in their stealth they were very imprudent, gleaned only that which was not worth carrying away, οὐδὲν ἢ πρὸς Θεὸν, ἢ πρὸς σώφρονα βίον, x.T.r., stuffed their sacks, which they carried into Egypt to buy food, only with some unprofitable chaff, with empty speculations that would puff up, not fill or nourish the soul, but brought no valuable real commodity away with them, whereby they might improve their knowledge, or reform their manners; upon which two grounds, 1. the vanity and unprofitableness of their learning ; 2. the novelty of it in respect of the Hebrews from whom they stole it afar off; they are not thought worthy of the title of scholars; and forall the noise of their philosophy, are yet judged absolutely ignorant, as ignorance is opposed to learning. In the second place, for their ignorance in the affairs of God, their own author’s examination will bring in a sufficient evidence. If you will sort out the chiefest names of learned men amongst them, you will there find the veriest dunces in this learning. The deipnosophists, the only wits of the time, are yet described by Athenzus to employ their study only how to get good cheer a free cost, ἀοιδοὶ αἰὲν ἄκαπνα θύο- μεν ἢ, they fed deliciously, and yet were at no charge for the provision; and amongst them you shall scarcely find any knowledge or worship of even their heathen gods, but only in drinking, where their luxury had this excuse or pretence of religion, that it was δεῖγμα τῆς δυνάμεως τοῦ Θεοῦ ἀγαθοῦ, “an experiment of the power of that good God” which had provided such a creature as wine for them to abuse; which perhaps a drunken Romish casuist stole from them, where he allows of drinking supra modum, ad glorificandum Deum, §c., “to the glorifying of God,” creator of so excellent a creature, which hath the effect in it of turning men into beasts. So that it seems by the story of them in brief, that the deipnosophists, men of the finest, politest conceits, as Ulpianus Tyrius, Calliphanes, and the like in Athenzeus, in the multitude of the Grecian gods had but one deity, and that was their belly, which they worshipped religioso luxu, » [ Lib. i. c. 14. p. 8 E. ed. Casaub. ] 512 SERMON XXIV. not singing, but eating and drinking praises to his name; to this add the Sophistz, Protagoras, Hippias, and the like great boasters of learning in Socrates’s time, and much followed by the youth, till he persuaded them from admiring such unprofitable professors, and these are observed by Plu- tarch, to be mere hucksters of vainglory; getting great store of money and applause from their auditors, ἀργύριον καὶ οἴημα, “silver and popularity,” but had no manner of profit- able learning to bestow upon them, as Plutarch dooms them in his Platonic Questions‘, and Socrates in his Dialogues in confutation of them; and certainly by their very profession it is plain that these men had no God to know or worship, except their gain. But not to insist on these or other their professors of more curious, trim, polite learning, as their philosophers, grammarians, and rhetoricians, it will be more seasonable to our text to examine St. Paul’s auditors here, the great speculators among them: 1. the deepest philoso- phers, and there where you expect the greatest knowledge you shall find the most barbarous ignorance ; in the midst of the πολυθεότης of the Grecians, the philosophers (saith Clement *, and it is plain by their writings,) finding out and acknowledging in private this multitude of gods to be a pro- digious vanity, and infinitely below the gravity and wisdom of their profession, took themselves off from this unreason- able worship, and almost each of them in private worshipped some one God. And here you would think that they jumped with the Jews of that time, in the acknowledging an unity: but if you mark them you shall find that they did not reform the popular atheism, but only varied it into a more rational way. Thales would not acknowledge Neptune, as the poets and people did, but yet he deifies the water as Clement! ob- serves: another scorned to be so senseless as to worship wood or stone, and yet he deifies the earth, the parent of them both, and as senseless as them both; and does at once cal- care terram et colere, “tread on the earth with his feet, and adore it with his heart.” So Socrates,—who by bringing in morality was a great refiner and pruner of barren philosophy,— i [Platonice Questiones, Quest. i. 5. sq.] Op., tom. x. p. 160. Reiske. } ' [Id., Ibid. ] {Clemens Alex. Protrept., cap. SERMON XXLY. 5138 absolutely denying the Grecian gods, and thence called ἄθεος, is yet brought in by Aristophanes™, worshipping the clouds, ὦ δέσποτ᾽ ἀὴρ, x.7-r., and by a more friendly historian described addressing a sacrifice to Asculapius", being at the point of death. So that in brief, the philosophers, disliking the vulgar superstition, went to school, saith Clement?, to the Persian magi, and of them learnt a more scholastic atheism. The worship of those venerable elements, which because they were the beginnings out of which natural bodies were com- posed, were by these naturalists admired and worshipped instead of the God of nature. From which a man may plainly judge of the beginning and ground of the general atheism of philosophers, that it was a superficial knowledge of philosophy, the sight of second causes and dwelling on them, and being unable to go any higher. For men by nature being inclined to acknowledge a Deity, take that to be their God which is the highest in their sphere of know- _ ledge; or the supremum cognitum which they have attained to ; whereas if they had been studious, or able by the depend- ence of causes to have proceeded beyond these elements, they might possibly, nay, certainly would have been reduced to piety and religion, which is εὐσέβεια, θεοσέβεια, “the know- ledge and worship of God ;” but there were many hindrances which kept them grovelling on the earth, not able to ascend this ladder. 1. They wanted that οἰκεία εὐεξία τῆς ψυχῆς, which Aphrodisiensis’ on the Topics speaks of, that kindly, fami- liar good temper, or disposition of the soul, καθ᾽ ἣν εὑρετική τε ἀληθοῦς καὶ κριτική ἐστι; “ by which the mind is able to find out-and judge of truth ; they wanted either that natural har- mony, or spiritual concord of the powers of the soul, by which it is able to reach those things which now in corrupt nature are only spiritually discerned. For it is Clement’s4 Chris- tian judgment of them, that the Gentiles being but bastards, not true-born sons of God, but aliens from the common- [Eph. ii. wealth of Israel, were therefore not able to look up toward 12: the light, (as it is observed of the bastard-brood of eagles,) or m Nub. 264. P (Alex. Aphrodis. in Aristot. To- » (Cf. Plato, Phzed. ad fin.} pica, f. 17.] * [Clemens Alex. Protrept., § 64. p. 4 [Clemens Alex. Protrept., ch. x. 57, ed. Potter. | § 92. p. 75. ed. Pott. j HAMMOND. 1: l 514 SERMON XXIV. consequently to discern that inaccessible light, till they were received into the covenant, and made τέκνα φῶτος γνήσια, true proper “children of light.” A second hindrance was the grossness and earthiness of their fancy, which was not able to conceive God to be any thing but a corporeous sub- stance, as Philoponus observes in his Scholia on the books de anima", ὅταν θέλωμεν, κιτιλ. “ When we have a mind to betake ourselves to divine speculation,” our fancy comes in, καὶ θόρυβον κινεῖ, “raises such a tempest” in us, so many earthly meteors to clog and over-cloud the soul, that it can- not but conceive the Deity under some bodily shape, and this disorder of the fancy doth perpetually attend the soul, even in the fairest weather, in its greatest calm and serenity of affections, ὅταν σχολὴν, K.T.r., Saith Plato, even when the soul is free from its ordinary distractions, and hath provided itself most accurately for contemplation. Philoponus in this place finding this inconvenience, fetches a remedy out of Plotinus for this rarifying and purifying of the fancy, and it is the study of the mathematics, ἀγέσθωσαν νέοι, x.7.r., “ Let young men be brought up in the study of the mathematics,” to some acquaintance with an incorporeous nature; but how unprofitable a remedy this study of the mathematics was, to the purpose of preparing the soul to a right conceit of God, I doubt not but he himself afterwards found, when he turned Christian, and saw how far their mathematical and metaphysical abstractions fell below those purest theolo- gical conceits, of which only grace could make him capable. So that in brief their understanding being fed by their fancies, and both together fattened with corporeous phan- tasms, as they increased in natural knowledge, grew more hardened in spiritual ignorance, and as Clement® saith of them, were like birds crammed in a coop; fed in darkness and nourished for death: their gross conceits groping on in ob- scurity, and furnishing them only with such opinions of God, as should increase both their ignorance and damnation. That I bé not too large and confused in this discourse, let us pitch upon Aristotle, one of the latest of the ancient philoso- phers, not above three hundred and forty years before Christ, * [Philoponus, Comment. in Aristot. 5. [Clemens Alex. Protrept., ch. x. De Anima, ff. 1, 2. ed. Aldus. ] § 113. p. 87. (ad fin.) Potter. | SERMON XXIV. 515 who therefore seeing the vanities, and making use of the helps of all the Grecian learning, may probably be judged to have as much knowledge of God as any heathen ; and indeed the Cologne divines had such an opinion of his skill and ex- pressions that way, that in their tract of Aristotle’s Salvation, they define him to be Christ’s precursor in naturalibus, as John Baptist was in gratuitis. But in brief, if we examine him, we shall find him much otherwise, as stupid in the affairs of 1. God, 2. the soul, 3. happiness, as any of his fel- low Gentiles. If the book περὶ κόσμου were his own legiti- mate work, a man might guess that he saw something, though he denied the particular providence of the Deity, and that he acknowledged His omnipotence, though he would not be so bold with Him as to let Him be busied in the producing of every particular sublunary effect. The man might seem somewhat tender of God, as if being but newly come acquainted with Him he were afraid to put Him to too much pains, as judging it μηδὲ καλὸν, K.T.r., “neither comely nor befitting the majesty of a God to interest Himself in every action upon earth +” It might seem areverence and awe which made him provide the same course for God, which he.saw used in the courts of Susa and Ecbatana, where the king, saith he, lived invisible in his palace, and yet by his officers, as through prospectives and otacoustics, saw and heard all that was done in his domini- ons. But this book being not of the same complexion with the rest of his philosophy, is shrewdly guessed to be a spu- rious issue of later times, entitled to Aristotle and translated by Apuleius, but not owned by its brethren, the rest of his books of philosophy ; for even in the Metaphysics "—where he is at his wisest—he censures Xenophanes for a clown for look- ing up to heaven, and affirming that there was one God there, the cause of all things, and rather than he will credit him he commends Parmenides for a subtle fellow, who said nothing at all, or I am sure to no purpose. Concerning his knowledge of the soul, it is Philoponus’ * observation of him, that he persuades only the more under- standing, laborious, judicious sort to be his auditors in that τ [Pseud-Aristot. De Mundo, c. 6.1 1. cap. 1. ad init. Cf. also Schol. on the " [Aristot. Metaph. A. c, ὅ.} Categories, p. 36. b. ed. Berlin. ] * (Cf. Com. in Aristot. de Anima, lib. Tale? 516 SERMON XXIV. subject, τοὺς δὲ ῥᾳθυμοτέρους ἀποτρέπει, K.T.r., but de- horts men of meaner vulgar parts, less intent to their study, from meddling at all with this science about the soul, for he plainly tells them in his first de anima, it is too hard for any ordinary capacity, and yet in the first of the Metaphysics’ he defines the wise man to be one who besides his own accu- rate knowledge of hard things, as the causes of the soul, &c., is also able to teach any body else, who hath such an habit of knowledge, and such a command over it, that he can make any auditor understand the abstrusest mystery in it. So then out of his own words he is convinced to have had no skill, no wisdom in the business of the soul, because he could not explain nor communicate this knowledge to any but choice auditors. The truth is, these were but shifts of pride, and ambitious pretences to cloak a palpable ignorance, under the habit of mysterious, deep, speculation: when, alas, poor man ! all that which he knew, or wrote of the soul, was scarce worth learning, only enough to confute his fellow ignorant philoso- phers, to puzzle others, to puff himself; but to profit, instruct, or edify none. In the third place, concerning happiness, he plainly be- wrays himself to be a coward, not daring to meddle with divinity. For’ being probably given to understand, or rather indeed plainly convinced, that if any thing in the world were, then happiness must likely be θεόσδοτος, “the gift of God” bestowed on men, yet he there staggers at it, speaks scepti- cally, and not so magisterially as he is wont, dares not be so bold as to define it: and at last does not profess his igno- rance, but takes a more honourable course, and puts it off to some other place to be discussed. Where Andronicus Rho- dius’ Greek paraphrase tells us he meant his tract περὶ προ- νοίας, “about Providence :” but in all Laertius’ catalogue of the multitude of his writings we find no such title, and I much suspect by his other carriages, that the man was not so valiant as to deal with any so unwieldy a subject as the providence would have proved. Sure I am he might, if he had hada mind to it, have quitted himself of his engagements, and seasonably enough have defined the fountain of happiness y [Aristot. Metaph. A.c. 2.] * (Id., Eth. Nicom., lib. i. ὁ. 10.] SERMON XXIV. 517 there, in Ethics, but in c, 11* it appears that it was no pre- termission, but ignorance; not a care of deferring it to a fitter place, but a necessary silence where he was not able to speak. For there mentioning happiness and miserableness after death,—where he might have shewed his skill if he had any,—he plainly betrays himself an arrant naturalist in de- fining all the felicity and misery “to be the good or ill proof of their friends and children left behind them,” which are to them being dead, happiness or miseries, ἄλλ᾽ οὐκ αἰσθανο- μένοις, “of which they are not any way sensible.” By what hath been spoken it is plain that the heathen never looked after God of their own accord, but as they were driven upon Him by the necessity of their study, which from the second causes necessarily lead them in a chain to some view of the first mover, and then some of them, either frighted with the light, or de- spairing of their own abilities, were terrified and discouraged from any further search; some few others sought after Him, but, as Aristotle saith the geometer doth after a right line”, only, ὡς θεατὴς τἀληθοῦς, “as a contemplator of truth,” but not as the knowledge of it is any way useful or condu- cible to the ordering or bettering of their lives; they had an itching desire to know the Deity, but neither to apply it as arule to their actions, nor to order their actions to His glory. For generally whensoever any action drove them on any subject which intrenched on divinity, you shall find them more flat than ordinary, not handling it according to any manner of accuracy, or sharpness, but only ἐφ᾽ ὅσον οἰ- κεῖον τῇ μεθόδῳ, “ only as much use or as little as their study in the search of things constrained them to,” and then for the most part they fly off abruptly, as if they were glad to be quit of so cumbersome a subject. Whence Aristotle observes °, that the whole tract de causis was obscurely and inartificially handled by the ancients, and if sometimes they spake to the purpose, it was as unskilful, unexercised fencers τύπτουσι κα- Aas πληγὰς, they lay on, and sometimes strike a lucky blow or two, but more by chance than skill, sometimes letting fall from their pens those truths which never entered their understand- ings, as Theophilus ad Autolycum* observes of Homer and ἃ (Ibid. lib. 1. ο. 1 1.1 « [Id., Metaph. Δ. c. 4.7 » (Ibid., lib. ic. 7.] 1 [ἤτοι yap of ποιηταὶ, Ὅμηρος δὴ καὶ 518 SERMON XXIV. Hesiod, that being inspired by their muses, i.e. the devil, spake according to that spirit lies and fables, and exact atheism, and yet sometimes would stumble upon a truth of divinity, as men possessed with devils did sometimes confess Christ, and the evil spirits being adjured by His name, came out and confessed themselves to be devils. Thus it is plain out of the philosophers and heathen discourses, 1. of God, 2. the soul, 3. happiness, that they were also ignorant, as ignorance is opposed to piety or spiritual wisdom, which was to be proved by way of premise in the second place. Now in the third place, for the guilt of their ignorance, that it was a perverse, gross, malicious, and inexcusable igno- rance, you shall briefly judge. Aristotle * being elevated above ordinary in his discourse about wisdom, confesses the know- ledge of God to be the best knowledge and most honourable of all, but of no manner of use or necessity ; ἀναγκαιότεραι, x.T.r., “no knowledge is better than this, yet none more un- necessary,” as if the evidence of truth made him confess the nobility of this wisdom, but his own supine, stupid, perverse resolutions made him contemn it as unnecessary. But that I may not charge the accusation too hard upon Aristotle above others, and take as much pains to damn him as the Cologne divines did to save him, we will deal more at large, as Aristotle prescribes his wise men‘, and rip up to you the in- excusableness of the heathen ignorance in general: 1. by the authority of Clemens’, who is guessed to be one of their kind- est patrons in his προτρεπτικὸς, where having cited many testi- monies out of them, concerning the unity, he concludes thus, εἰ yap, «.7.r., “Seeing that the heathen had some sparks of the divine truth,” some gleanings out of the written word, and yet make so little use of it as they do, they do, saith he, “ shew the power of God’s word to have been revealed to them, and accuse their own weakness that they did not improve it to the end for which it was sent ;” that they increased it not into a saving knowledge; where (by the way) the word weakness is used by Clement by way of softening, or mercy, as here the Apostle useth ignorance, when he might have said impiety. Ἡσίοδος, ὥς φασιν, ὑπὸ μουσῶν ἐμπνευ- e ΓΑτβίοί. Metaph. A. ο. 2.] σθέντες, φαντασίᾳ καὶ πλάνῃ ἐλάλησαν, f f Ibid. καὶ ov καθαρῷ πνεύματι, ἀλλὰ TAGY@.— [Clemens Alex. Protrept., ¢, vii. Theophilus 11. 8. [ad cale. S. Justini, ὃ 74. p. 64. ] p. 354, C. Paris. 1742.] SERMON XXIV. 519 For sure if the accusation run thus, that the word of God was revealed to them, and yet they made no use of it, as it doth here in Clemens, the sentence then upon this must needs con- clude them, not only ἀσθενεῖς, “ weak,” but perverse contem- ners of the light of Scripture. Again, the philosophers them- selves confess that ignorance is the nurse, nay, mother of all im- piety: πάντα ὅσα πράττουσιν)", x.T.X., “whatsoever an ignorant man or fool doth, is unholy and wicked necessarily ;” ignorance being μανίας εἶδος, “a species of madness,” and no madman being capable of any sober action ; so that if their ignorance were in the midst of means of knowledge, then must it be perverse; if it had an impure influence upon all their actions, then was it malicious and full of guilt. 2. Their chief ground that sustained and continued their ignorance, proves it to be not blind but affected, which ground you shall find by the heathen objection in Clemens’, to be a resolution not to change the religion of their fathers. It is an unreasonable thing, say the heathens, which they will never be brought to, to change the customs bequeathed to them by their ancestors. From whence the father solidly concludes, that there was not any means in nature which could make the Christian religion contemned and hated, but only this pestilent custom, of never altering any customs or laws, though never so unreasonable ; ov yap ἐμισήθη, K.T.r., “it is not possible that ever any na- tion should hate and fly from this greatest blessing that ever was bestowed upon mankind,” to wit, the knowledge and wor- ship of God, unless being carried on by custom they resolved to go the old way to hell, rather than to venture on a new path to heaven. Hence it is that Athenagoras * in his Treaty with Commodus for the Christians, wonders much that among so many laws made yearly in Rome, there was not one enacted μὴ στέργειν τὰ πάτρια κἄν γέλοια ἢ), “ that men should forsake the customs of their fathers, which were any way absurd.” From whence he falls straight to their absurd deities’, as if it being made lawful to relinquish ridiculous customs, there would be no plea left for their ridiculous gods. So Eusebius™, » [Clemens Alex. Protrept., c. xii. init., ὃ 1.] § 122. p. 94. Pott.] 'TIbid., § 1.] i [Ibid., 6. x. ad init., p. 73. ad fin. m (Eusebius Prep. Evang., lib. ii. Tertull. Apol. ] p. 74. C.] * [ Athenag. Leg. pro Christianis, ad Acts xvii. 18. Acts xvi. PHIIE 520 SERMON XXIV. Prep., lib. 11., makes the cause of the continuance of super- stition to be, that no man dared to move those things which ancient custom of the country had authorized; and so also in his fourth book", where to bring in Christianity was accounted κινεῖν τὰ ἀκίνητα, “to change things that were fixed,” καὶ πολυπραγμονεῖν, K.T.r., “and to be pragmatical,” friends of innovation ; and so it is plain they esteemed St. Paul, and hated him in that name, as an innovator, because he preached unto.them “Jesus and the resurrection,” Acts xvii. 18. So Acts xvi. 21, St. Paul is said to teach “ customs which were not lawful for them to receive nor observe, being Romans,” because, saith Casaubon out of Dio, it was not lawful for the Romans to innovate any thing in religion, for saith Dio®, “this bringing in of new gods will bring in new laws with it.” So that if—as hath been proved—their not ac- knowledging of the true God was grounded upon a perverse resolution not to change any custom of their fathers, either in opinion or practice, though never so absurd, then was the ignorance—or as St. Paul might have called it, the idolatry — of those times, impious, affected ; not a natural blindness, but a pertinacious winking; not a simple deafness, but a resolved stubbornness not to hear the voice of the charmer; which we might further prove by shewing you, thirdly, how their learn- ing or πολυμαθία, which might be proved an excellent prepa- rative to religion, their philosophy, which was to them as the law to the Jews, by their using of it to a perverse end, grew ordinarily very pernicious to them. 4. How that those which knew most, and were at the top of profane knowledge, did then fall most desperately headlong into atheism; as Hippo- crates observes, that ἀθλητικὴ ἕξις, and St. Basil”, that ἡ ἐπ’ ἄκρον εὐεξία, “the most perfect constitution of body,” so of the soul, is most dangerous, if not sustained with good care and wisdom. 5. How they always forged lies to scandal the people of God, as Manetho the famous Egyptian historian saith, that Moses and the Jews were banished out of Egypt, διὰ λέπραν, “because of an infectious leprosy” that over- spread the Jews, as Theophilus@ cites it, and Justin out of bid., lib. iv. p. 130. C.] hom. ix. Op., tom. i. p. 83. D.] sf. supr., p. 380. ] a Theophilus ad Autolye., lib. iii. n [1 ο [ ( Ρ [S. Basil. Cf. e.g. In Hexameron, ὃ 21. [p. 392. E, sq. ad cale. S. Just.} SERMON XXIV. 521 Trogus", and also Tacitus; and the primitive Christians were branded and abomined by them for three special faults which they were little likely to be guilty of: 1. Atheism, 2. Eating their children, 3. Incestuous, common using of women, as we find them set down and confuted by Athenagoras in his Treaty or Apology’, and Theophilus‘, ad Autol. το. 6. By their own confession, as of Plato to his friend, when he wrote in earn- est, and secretly acknowledging the unity which he openly denied against his conscience and the light of reason in him; and Orpheus the inventor of the πολυθεότης, pro- fessing and worshipping three hundred and sixty-five gods all his life-time, at his death left in his will ἕνα εἶναι θεὸν ", that, however he had persuaded them all the while, there was indeed but one God. And lastly, how these two affections in them, admiration and gratitude; admiration of men of extraordinary worth, and gratitude for more than ordinary benefactions done either to particular men or nations, were the chief promoters of idolatry; making the heathens worship them as gods, whom they were ac- quainted with, and knew to be but men, as might be proved variously and at large. If I could insist upon any or each of these, it would be most evident, what I hope now at last is proved enough, that the ignorance of those times was not sim- ple, blind ignorance, but malign, perverse, sacrilegious, affected, stubborn, wilful*, I had almost said, knowing ignorance in them; which being the thing we first promised to demonstrate, we must next make up the proposition which is yet imper- fect, to wit, that ignorance in these heathen, in God’s jus- tice, might have provoked Him to have pretermitted the whole world of succeeding Gentiles, which I must dispatch only in a word, because I would fain to descend to applica- tion, which I intended to be the main, but the improvident expense of my time hath now left only to be the close of my discourse. The ignorance of those times being of this composition, both τ [Justin. xxxvi. 2. Tacit. Hist.v.3.] πέντε θεοὶ, ods αὐτὸς ἐπὶ τέλει τοῦ βίου 5. |Athenag. Leg. pro Christianis, ἀθετεῖ, ed ταῖς διαθήκαις αὐτοῦ λέγων § 3. ἕνα εἶναι Oedbv.—bid., lib. iii. § 2. p. ‘ [Theophilus ad Autolyc, lib. iii, 381 C.] δὲ +, 5. p. 382. E, sq. ] x [S. Chrysost. in Matt. Hom. i. ὃ “ [ἢ Ὀρφέα οἱ τριακόσιοι ἑξήκοντα 5. Op., tom. vii. p. 10 sq.] Acts x. ver. 16. ver. 15. ver. 34. ver. 45. Eph. iii. 9, 10. 522 SERMON XXIV. in respect of the superstition of their worship, which was per- verse, as hath been proved, and the profaneness of their lives, being abominable even to nature—as might farther be shewed —is now no longer to be called ignorance, but profaneness, and a profaneness so epidemical over all the Gentiles, so in- bred and naturalized among them, that it was even become their property, radicated in their mythical times, and by con- tinual succession derived down to them by their generations. So that if either a natural man with the eye of reason, or a spiritual man by observation of God’s other acts of justice, should look upon the Gentiles in that state which they were in at Christ’s coming, all of them damnable superstitious, or rather idolatrous in their worship ; all of them damnable pro- fane in their lives; and which was worse, all of them peremp- torily resolved, and by a law of homage to the customs of their fathers necessarily engaged to continue in the road of damnation; he would certainly give the whole succession of them over as desperate people, infinitely beyond hopes or probability of salvation. And this may appear by St. Peter in the tenth of the Acts, where this very thing, that the Gen- tiles should be called, was so incredible a mystery, that he was fain to be cast into a trance, and to receive a vision to interpret it to his belief: and a first or a second command could not persuade him “to arise, kill, and eat,” that is, to preach to Gentiles ; he was still objecting the τὸ κοινὸν καὶ ἀκάθαρτον, “the profaneness and uncleanness of them.” And at last, when by the assurance of the Spirit, and the heathen Cornelius’s discourse with him, he was plainly convinced, what otherwise he never dreamt possible, that God had a design of mercy on the Gentiles, he breaks out into a phrase both of acknowledgment and admiration, “ Of a truth I per- ceive,” &c.; and that you may not judge it was one single doctor’s opinion, it is added, “ And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost.” Nay, in the third to the Ephesians, verse 10, it is plain that the call- ing of the Gentiles was so strange a thing, that the angels themselves knew not of it till it was effected. “For this was the mystery which from the beginning of the world had been hid in God, which was now made known by the SERMON XXIV. 525 Church to principalities and powers.”’ The brief plain mean- ing of which hard place is, that by St. Paul’s preaching to the Gentiles, by this new work done in the Church, to wit, the calling of the Gentiles, the angels came to understand somewhat which was before too obscure for them, till it was explained by the event, and in it the manifold wisdom of God. And this proposition I might prove to you by many topics ; 1. by symptoms that their estate was desperate, and their disease ὀλέθριον κάρτα λίαν, “very, very mortal ;” as that God, when He would mend a people, He punisheth them with afflictions, when He intends to stop a current of impetuous sinners, He lays the axe to the root, in a πανω- λεθρία or total subversion of them; but when His punish- ments are spiritual, as they were here, when He strikes nei- ther with the rod nor with the sword, but makes one sin the punishment of another, as unnatural lust of idolatry and the like; when He leaves a nation to itself, and the very judg- ment laid upon them makes them only less capable of mercy ; then is it much to be feared that God hath little mercy in- tended for that people, their desertion being a forerunner of judgment without mercy. 2. I might prove it ab exemplo, and that exactly with a nec datur dissimile in Scripture, that the nine monarchies which the learned observe in Scripture, were each of them destroyed for idolatry, in which sin the heathen now received to mercy, surpass all the precedent world, and for all their many destructions, still uniformly continued in their provocation. ‘These and the like argu- ments I purposely omit, as conceiving St. Peter’s vision mentioned before out of the tenth of the Acts sufficiently to clear the point, and therefore judging any further en- largement of proofs superfluous, I hasten with full speed to application. And, first, from the consideration of our estate, who being the offspring of those Gentiles, might in the justice of God have been left to heathenism, and in all probability, till St. Peter’s vision discovered the contrary, were likely to have been pretermitted eternally ; to make this both the motive and business of our humiliation; for there is such a Christian duty required of us, for which we ought to set apart some tithe, or other portion of time, in which we are to call our- 524 SERMON XXIV. selves to an account for all the general guilts, for all those more catholic engagements that either our stock, our nation, the sins of our progenitors back to the beginning of the world, nay, the common corruption of our nature hath plunged us in. To pass by that ranker guilt of actual sins,—for which I trust every man here hath daily some solemn assizes to arraign himself,—my text will afford us yet some further indictments; if seventeen hundred years ago our father were then an Amorite, and mother an Hittite, if we being then in their loins, were inclosed in the compass of their idolatry ; and as all in Adam, so besides that we again in the gentilism of our fathers, were all deeply plunged in a double common damnation ; how are we to humble ourselves infinitely above measure; to stretch, and rack, and torture every power of our souls to its extent, thereby to enlarge and aggravate the measure of this guilt against ourselves, which hitherto perhaps we have not taken notice of? There is not a better μαλακτικὸν in the world, no more powerful medicine for the softening of the soul, and keeping it in a Christian tenderness, than this lading it with all the burdens that its common or private condition can make it capable οἵ; this tiring of it out, and bringing it down into the dust in the sense of its spiritual engagements. For it is impossible for him, who hath fully valued the weight of his general guilts, each of which hath lead enough to sink the most corky, vain, fluctuating, proud, stubborn heart in the world; it is impos- sible, I say, for him either wilfully to run into any actual sins, or insolently to hold up his head in the pride of his in- tegrity. This very one meditation, that we all here might justly have been left in heathenism, and that the sins of the heathens shall be imputed to us their children, if we do not repent, is enough to loosen the toughest, strongest spirit, to melt the fiintiest heart, to humble the most elevated soul, to habituate it with such a sense of its common miseries, that it shall never have courage or confidence to venture on the danger of particular rebellions. 2. From the view of their ignorance or impiety, which was of so heinous importance, to examine ourselves by their in- dictment, 1. for our learning; 2. for our lives; 3. for the life of grace in us. 1. For our learning, whether that be not mixed SERMON XXIV. 525 with a great deal of atheistical ignorance, with a delight, and acquiescence, and contentation in those lower elements, which have nothing of God in them; whether we have not sacri- ficed the liveliest and sprightfulest part of our age and souls in these philological and physical disquisitions, which if they have not a perpetual aspect and aim at divinity, if they be not set upon in that respect, and made use of to that purpose, κάρ- ta βλάπτει, saith Clement ¥, their best friend, they are very hurtful and of dangerous issue; whether out of our circle of human heathen learning, whence the fathers produced pre- cious antidotes, we have not sucked the poison of unhallowed vanity, and been fed either to a pride and ostentation of our secular, or a satiety or loathing of our theological learning, as being too coarse and homely for our quainter palates ; whether our studies have not been guilty of those faults which cursed the heathen knowledge, as trusting to our- selves, or wit and good parts, like the philosophers in Athe- nagoras *, οὐ παρὰ Θεοῦ, x.T.X., “ not vouchsafing to be taught by God” even in matters of religion, but every man con- sulting, and believing, and relying on his own reason; again, in making our study an instrument only to satisfy our curiosity, ὡς τἀληθοῦς θεαταὶ, only as speculators of some unknown truths, not intending or desiring thereby either to promote virtue, good works, or the kingdom of God in ourselves, or which is the ultimate end—which only commends and blesses our study or knowledge—the glory of God in others. 2. In our lives, to examine whether there are not also many relics of heathenism, altars erected to Baalim, to Ce- res, to Venus, and the like; whether there be not many amongst us whose god is their belly, their back, their lust, their treasure, or that ἄγνωστος θεὸς, that earthly unknowr god (whom we have no one name for, and therefore is called at large) the god of the world; whether we do not with as much zeal, and earnestness, and cost, serve and wor- ship many earthy vanities which our own fancies deify for us, as ever the heathen did their multitude and shoal of gods; and in brief, whether we have not found in ourselves the sins, Y [Cf Strom. i. c. 6. § 36. p. 337. ed. Pott. ] * Athenag. Legat. pro Christianis. [ὃ 7. p. 285. A.] 526 SERMON XXIV. as well as the blood of the Gentiles, and acted over some or all the abominations, set down to judge ourselves by, Rom. i. from the 21st verse to the end. Lastly, for the life of grace in us, whether many of us are not as arrant heathens, as mere strangers from spiritual illu- mination, and so from the mystical commonwealth of Israel, as any of them; Clemens ?*, Strom. 11. calls the life of your un- regenerate man a heathen life, and the first life we have by which we live, and move, and grow, and see, but understand nothing; and it is our regeneration by which we raise our- selves ἐξ ἐθνῶν, “ from being still mere Gentiles :”” and Tati- anus », further, that without the spirit we differ from beasts only κατ᾽ ἔναρθον φωνὴν, “by the articulation of our voice.” So that in fine, neither our reason, nor Christian profession, distinguisheth us either from beasts or Gentiles, only the Spirit is the formalis ratio by which we excel and differ from the heathen sons of darkness. Wherefore, I say, to conclude, we must in the clearest calm and serenity of our souls make a most earnest search and inquest on ourselves, whether we are yet raised out of this heathenism, this ignorance, this un- regeneracy of nature, and elevated any degree im the estate of grace; and if we find ourselves still Gentiles, and—which is worse than that—still senseless of that our condition, we must strive, and work, and pray ourselves out of it, and not suffer the temptations of the flesh, the temptations of our nature, the temptations of the world, nay, the tempta- tions of our secular, proud learning, lull us one minute longer in that carnal security, lest after a careless unregene- rate natural life, we die the death of those bold, not vigilant, but stupid philosophers. And for those of us who are yet any way heathenish, either in our learning or lives; which have nothing but the name of Christians to exempt us from the judgment of their ignorance; “O Lord, make us in time sensible of this our condition, and whensoever we shall hum- ble ourselves before Thee, and confess unto Thee the sinful- ness of our nature, the ignorance of our ancestors, and every man the plague of his own heart, and repent and turn, and pray toward Thy house, then hear Thou in heaven Thy dwell- * (Clemens Alex. Strom., lib. ii. ο. 13. p. 459. ] » Or. ο. Grecos, ὃ 15. [p. 256. D. ad eale. S. Just. ] SERMON XXIV. δ27 ing-place, and when Thou hearest forgive; remember not our offences, nor the offences of our heathen fathers, neither take Thou vengeance of our sins, but spare us, O Lord, spare Thy people whom Thy Son hath redeemed, and Thy Spirit shall sanctify, from the guilt and practice of their rebellions.” Now to God, who hath elected us, hath, &c. SERMON XXV. Acrs xvii. 30. And the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth alt men every where to repent. * Tuxy which come from either mean or dishonoured progeni- tors, will desire to make up their fathers’ defect by their own industry, φιλοκινδυνότεροι γίνονται, saith Leo in his Tactics 4, will be more forward to undertake any valiant enterprize, to recover that reputation, which their ancestors’ cowardice and unworthy carriage forfeited. So doth it nearly concern the son of a bankrupt to set upon all the courses of thrift, and stratagems of frugality, to get out of that hereditary poverty in which his father’s improvidence had engaged him. Thus is it also in the poverty and bankrupt estate of the soul; they who come from prodigal ancestors, which have em- bezzled all the riches of God’s mercy, spent profusely all the light of nature, and also some sparks out of the Scriptures, and whatsoever knowledge and directions they meet with, either for the ordering of their worship, or their lives, spent it all upon harlots, turned all into the adoring of those idol- gods, wherein consists the spiritual adultery of the soul; those I say who are the stems of this ignorant, profane, idolatrous root, ought to endeavour the utmost of their powers, and will, in probability, be so wise and careful as to lay some strict obligations on themselves, to strive to some perfection in those particulars which their ancestors failed in; that if the Gentiles were perversely blind, and resolutely, peremptorily ignorant, then must their progeny strive to wipe off the guilt and avoid the punishment of their δ [Leo Imperator, Tactica, cap. ii. § 24. ap. Meursium. Op., tom. vi. p. 549. ] SERMON ΧΧΥ. 529 ignorance. Now this ignorance of theirs being not only by Clemens and the fathers, but by Trismegistus in his Paema.i- der”, defined to be μέθη καὶ ἀσέβεια καὶ ὕπνος ἄλογος, “a profaneness, an irrational sleep, and drunkenness of the soul ;” in sum, an ignorance of themselves and of God, and a stupid neglect of any duty belonging to either; this ignorance being either in itself or in its fruits κακία τῆς ψυχῆς “, “the wicked- ness of the soul,” and all manner of transgression; the only way for us, the successors of these ignorant Gentiles, to repair those ruins, to renew the image of God in ourselves, which their idolatrous ignorance defaced, must be to take the oppo- site course to them, and to provide our remedy anti-parallel to their disease, i.e., in respect of their simple ignorance, to labour for knowledge; in respect of the effects of their ignorance, idolatry, profaneness, and all manner of wicked- ness, to labour for piety and repentance; briefly, if their ignorance of God was an heinous sin, and virtually all kind of sin, then to esteem repentance the greatest knowledge, to approve and second the force and method of St. Paul’s argu- ment, to prescribe ourselves whatever God commands. For so here in this chapter, having discoursed over their igno- rance, he makes that a motive of our repentance, and that backed with a special item from God, who now “commands every man every where to repent.” We have heretofore divided these words, and in them handled already the ignorance of the ancient heathen, which in the justice of God might have provoked Him to have pretermitted the whole world of succeeding Gentiles. We now come to the second part, the mercy of God, not imputing their igno- rance to our charge, whosoever every where to the end of the world shall repent. And in this you must consider, first, God’s covenant made with the Gentiles, or the receiving them into the Church, deduced out of these words, “but now commands,” for all to whom God makes known His commands, are by that very cognizance known to be parts of His Church; and with all these He enters covenant, He > [ὦ λαοὶ, ἄνδρες γηγενεῖς, of μέθῃ 110. ii. prope finem. καὶ ὕπνῳ ἑαυτοὺς ἐκδεδωκότες, καὶ τῇ © Pomander, lib. iv. [p. 10; ap- ἀγνωσίᾳ τοῦ θεοῦ, νήψατε, παύσασθε pendedtothe Nova De Universis Phi- κραιπαλῶντες, θελγόμενοι ὕπνῳ ἀλόγῳ.) losophia of Patricius. Venice, 1593. | — Hermes Trismegistus, Pcemander, HAMMOND, Mm 530 SERMON XXV. promiseth salvation upon performance of the condition re- quired by His commands—repentance. Secondly, the con- dition itself, in the last words, “to repent.” And then lastly the extent of both; the latitude of the persons with whom this covenant is made, and from whom this condition is ex- acted, ‘all men every where.” And first of the first, the covenant made with the Gentiles, or the receiving them into the Church, noted in these words, “ but now commands,” &e. It is observable in our common affairs, that we do not use to lay our commands on any but those who have some relation to us; a king will not vouchsafe to employ any in any pecu- liar service but those whom he hath entertained, and by oath admitted into his court. And it is the livery by which one is known to belong to such a family, if he be employed in either common or special service by the master of it. To express it more generally, they are called natural members of a kingdom, who are tied to obedience to all laws or cus- toms national, who are engaged in the common burdens as well as privileges, the services as well as benefits of a sub- ject. The ecclesiastical canons are meant and exhibited only to those, who are either in truth or profession parts of the Church; the Turk or infidel professed is not honoured so much as to be bound to them. The orders and peculiar laws of a city or country are directed to those who are either cives or civitate donatt ; and our oaths and obligations to these, or these local collegiate statutes, argue us, dvaxpitixas, to be members of this or that foundation. Now to whomsoever these laws and commands do belong, whosoever is thus en- tertained and admitted into services, is partaker also of all advantages which belong to a member of a family; and is by covenant to receive all emoluments in as ample a man- ner as any other of his quality. And this, briefly, is the state of the Gentiles here in the text, who, in that God commands them here to repent—which is the law and condition of the New Testament—are judged upon these grounds to be re- ceived into the covenant of the New Testament; and conse- quently made members of the Church. For as once it was an argument that only Jewry was God’s people, because they only received His commands, and the heathen had not know- ledge of His laws; so now was it as evident a proof that the SERMON XXV. 531 heathen were received into His Church, 1. 6. into the number of those whom He had culled out for salvation, because He made known His ordinances to them, entertained them in His service, and commanded them “ every one every where to repent.” Appian“ observes in his procem to his History, that the Romans were very coy in taking some nations into their dominions ; they could not be persuaded by every one to be their lords; he saw himself many ambassadors from the bar- barians, who came solemnly to give themselves up to the Roman greatness, ambitious to be received into the number of their dominions, καὶ οὐ δεξάμενον βασιλέα, “and the king would not receive such low unprofitable servants.” It was esteemed a preferment, which it seems every nation could not attain to, to be under the Roman government, and commanded by the Roman laws; and there were many reasons, if we may judge by the outside, why the Gentiles should not be hkely to obtain this privilege from God, to be vouchsafed His commands. For 1. they had been neazled 5 up in so many centuries of ignorance, they had been so starved with thin hard fare, under the tyranny of a continued superstition, which gave them no solid nourishment, nothing but husks and acorns to feed on, that they were now grown horrid and almost ghastly, being past all amiableness or beauty, és οὐδὲν χρήσιμοι, “ good for nothing” in the world. We 866 in histories that perpetual wars hinder tillage, and suffer them not to bestow that culture on the ground which the subsistence of the kingdom requires. Thus was it with the Gentiles in the time of their θεομάχία, their hostility with God; they generally bestowed no trimming or culture on the soul, either to improve or adorn it; and then, receiving no spiritual food from God, all passages being shut up by their idolatry, they were famished into such a meagreness, they were so ungainly and crest-fallen, that all the fat kine of Egypt according to Pharaoh’s dream, all heathen learning could not mend their looks, they were still for all their philosophy, like the lean kine that had devoured the fat, yet thrived not on it; they were still poor and ill- 4 [ Appian, Hist. Rom. Prefat. § 7. tle,no doubt. The same in Cheshire W., tom. i. p. 8. ed. Schweigh. ] and in other counties probably.--Moor’s ὁ [Neezle, Imsinuating oneself into Suffolk Words and Phrases, p. 246. So something snug or desirable—fromnes- neezing for nesting. Ibid. } Mm 2 Gen. xli. 19. John xviii. 21. Matt. xx. 19. 532 SERMON XXV. favoured, “such as were not to be seen in all the land of Jewry for badness.” 2. They had engaged themselves in such a course that they could scarce seem ever capable of being received into any favour with God. Polybius* observes it as a policy of those which were delighted in stirs and wars, to put the people upon some inhuman, cruel practice, some killing of ambas- sadors, or the like feat, which was unlawful even amongst enemies, that after such an action the enemy should be in- censed beyond hope of reconciliation. So did Asdrubal in Appian‘ use the captive Romans with all possible cruelty, with all arts of inhumanity, flayed them, cut off their fingers, and then hanged them alive; to the end, saith he, that thereby he might make the dissensions of Carthage and Rome ἀδιάλλακτα, not possibly to be composed, but to be prosecuted with a perpetual hostility. This was the effect of Ahitophel’s counsel to Absalom, that he should lie with his father’s concubines; and this also was the devil’s plot upon the Gentilés, who, as if they were not enough enemies unto God for the space of two thousand years’ idolatry, at last resolved to fill up the measure of their rebellions, to make themselves, if it were possible, sinful beyond capability of mercy; and to provoke God to an eternal revenge, they must needs join in crucifying Christ, and partake of the shedding of that blood, which hath ever since so dyed the souls, and cursed the successions of the Jews. For it is plain, 1. by the kind of His death, which was Roman; 2. by His judge, who was Cesaris rationalis, by whom Judza was then governed ; or, as Tacitus saith in the 15th of his Annals §, Czsar’s procurator ; all capital judgments being taken from the Jews’ Sanhedrim, as they confess, “it is not lawful for us to put any one to death ;” 3. by the prophecy, “ They shall deliver Him to the Gentiles;” by these, 1 say, and many other arguments, it is plain that the Gentiles had their part and guilt in the crucifying of Christ, and so by slaying of the Son, as it is in the parable, provoked and deserved the im- placable revenge of the Father. And yet for all this, God enters league, and truce, and peace with them, thinks them worthy to hear and obey His laws; nay, above the estate of € [Polyb. i. 70.] cis, c. cxviii. ed. Schweigh.] ὁ * | Appian, lib. viii; De Reb. Puni- & Tacitus, Annal. xv. [c. 44.] SERMON XXV. bod servants, takes them into the liberty and free estate of the gospel, and by binding them to ordinances as citizens, ex- presseth them to be civitate donatos cewlesti, within the pale of the Church, and covenant of salvation. ‘They which are overcome and taken captives in war, may by law be possessed by the victor for all manner of servitude and slavery, and therefore ought to esteem any the hardest conditions of peace and liberty as favours and mercies, ἐν χάριτι καὶ δω- ped λαμβάνειν, saith Marcus in Polybius"; they which are conquered must acknowledge themselves beholden to the victor, if he will upon any terms allow them quarter or truce. Thus was it above all other sinners with the Gentiles of that time; after two thousand years’ war with the one God, they were now fallen into His hands, ready to receive the sorest strokes, to bear the shrewdest burdens He could lay on them; had it not been then a favour above hope, to be re- ceived even as hired servants, which was the highest of the prodigal’s ambition? had it not been a very hospitable car- Luke xv. riage towards the dogs, as they are called, to suffer them to Rees =a lick up those “ crumbs which fell from the children’s table ?” 26. Yet so much are God’s mercies above the pitch of our ex- pectation or deserts, above what we are able or confident enough to ask or hope, that He hath assumed and adopted these captives into sons. And as once by the counsel of God Jacob supplanted Esau, and thrust him out of his birth-right, so now by the mercy of God, Esau hath supplanted Jacob, and taken his room in God’s Church and favour; and instead of that one language of the Jews, of which the Church so long consisted, now is come in the confusion of the Gentiles, Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and the Babel of tongues. And Acts ii. 9. as once at the dispersion of the Gentiles by the miracle of a punishment, they which were all of one tongue could not un- derstand one another, so now at the gathering of the Gen- Gen. xi. 9. tiles by a miracle of mercy’, they which were of several tongues understood one another, and every “nation heard the Apo- Acts ii. 6. stles speak in their own language;” noting thereby, saith Austin, that the Catholic Church should be dispersed over all nations, and speak in as many languages as the world » [Polybius, lib. i. c. 31. ὃ 6.] apud S, Leonis Opera, tom. ii. p. 225. ' S. Leo Magn. [vide librum de Vo- This treatise is more probably to be as- catione omnium Gentium, Jib. ii, c.xiv. signed to 5. Prosper. | Hos. i. 11. Isa. liv. 1. 10, Acts x. 534 SERMON XXV. hath tongues. Concerning the business of receiving the Gentiles into covenant, St. Austin is plentiful in his 18th book de Civit. Dei*, where he interprets the symbolical writ- ing, and reads the riddles of the prophets to this purpose, how they are called “the children of Israel,” as if Esau had robbed Jacob of his name as well as inheritance; that they are declared by the title of “barren and desolate,” whose fruitfulness should break forth, surpass the number of the children of the married wife!. To this purpose doth he en- large himself to expound many other places of the prophets, and among them the prophecy of Obadiah, from which— Edom by a pars pro toto signifying the Gentiles—he expressly concludes their calling and salvation™; but how that can hold in that place, seeing the whole prophecy is a denunciation of Obad. ver. judgments against Edom, and it is expressly read, “ For thy violence against thy brother Jacob, shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut out for ever;” how, I say, from that place, amongst others, this truth may be deduced, I leave to the revealers of revelations, and that undertaking sort of peo- ple, the peremptory expounders of depths and prophecies. In the meantime we have places enough of plain prediction he- yond the uncertainty of a guess, which distinctly foretold this blessed catholic truth, and though Peter had not marked or remembered them so exactly, as to understand that by them the Gentiles were to be preached to, and no longer to be ac- counted profane and unclean, yet it is more than probable that the devil, a great contemplator, and well seen in prophecies, observed so much; and, therefore, knowing Christ’s coming to be the season for fulfilling it, about that time drooped and sen- sibly decayed; lost much of his courage, and was not so ac- tive amongst the Gentiles as he had been; his oracles began to grow speechless, and to slink away beforehand, lest tarrying still they should have been turned out with shame. Which one thing, the ceasing of oracles, though it be by Plutarch”, and some other of the devil’s champions, referred plausibly to the change of the soil, and failing of enthusiastical vapours and exhalations; yet was it an evident argument that at k [S. Aug. De Civit. Dei, lib. xviii. = [Ibid., cap. 31.] cap. 28. Op., tom. vii. p. 509. ] » [Plutarch., de Defectu Oracul., * [Ibid., cap. 29.] Op., tom. vii. p. 704, sq. Reisk. ] SERMON XXV. 530 Christ’s coming Satan saw the Gentiles were no longer fit for his turn, they were to be received into a more honourable service under the living God, necessarily to be impatient of the weight and slavery of his superstitions, and therefore it concerned him to prevent violence with a voluntary flight, lest otherwise he should with all his train of oracles have been forced out of their coasts; for Lucifer was to vanish like lightning, when the “light to lighten the Gentiles” did but pucks ii, begin to appear; and his laws were outdated when God would © once be pleased to command. Now that, in a word, we may more clearly see what calling, what entering into covenant with the Gentiles, is here meant by God’s commanding them, we are to rank the commands of God into two sorts, 1, com- mon catholic commands, and these extend as far as the visible Church; 2, peculiar commands, inward operations of the Spirit, these are both privileges and characters, and properties of the invisible Church, i.e. the elect, and in both these re- spects doth He vouchsafe His commands to the Gentiles. In the first respect God hath His louder trumpets, σάλπιγγος Matt. xxiv. φωνὴν μεγάλην, which all acknowledge who are in the noise oF of it, and that is the sound of the gospel, the hearing of which constitutes a visible Church. And thus at the preach- ing of the gospel, εἰς πάντα ἔθνη, all the heathens had know- ledge of His laws, and so were offered the covenant if they would accept the condition. For however that place, Acts 1. Acts i. 25. 25, be by one of our writers of the Church wrested, by chang- ing—that I say not, by falsifying—the punctuation, to wit- ness this truth, I think we need not such shifts to prove that God took some course by the means of the ministry and apostleship, to make known to all nations under heaven, 1. 6. to some of all nations, both His gospel and commands; “the Rom. x. sound of it went through all the earth,” Rom. x. 18, cited out 18 of Psalm xix. 4, though with some change of a word, their Ps. xix. 4. “sound” in the Romans, for their “line” in the Psalmist— caused by the Greek translators, who either read and rendered nbyp for np, or else laid hold of the Arabic notion of the word, the loud noise and clamour which hunters make in their pur- suit and chase. So Mark xiv. 9, “This Gospel shall be Mark xiv. preached throughout the world ;” so Mark xvi. 15, “to every δὲ ΣΎ ΤΟ: Tatt. δ creature ;” Matt. xxiv. 14, “in all the world,” and many the 14. ie: Acts ii. 39. 536 SERMON XXV. like, as belongs to our last particular to demonstrate. Besides this, God had in the second respect His vocem pedissequam, which the prophet mentions, a voice attending us to tell us of our duty, to shew us the way, and accompany us therein. And this, I say, sounds in the heart, not in the ear, and they only hear and understand the voice, who are partakers as well of the effect as of the news of the covenant. Thus in these two respects doth He command—by His word in the ears of the Gentiles, by giving every man every where knowledge of His laws; and so in some Latin authors ὃ mandare signifies to give notice, to express one’s will, to declare or proclaim; and thus, secondly, doth He command by His Spirit in the spirits of the elect Gentiles, by giving them the benefit of adoption ; and in both these respects He enters a covenant with the Gentiles—which was the thing to be demonstrated—with the whole name of them at large, with some choice vessels of them more nearly and peculiarly ; and this was the thing which by way of doctrine we collected out of these words, “but now commands.” Now that we may not let such a precious truth pass by unrespected, that such an important speculation may not float only in our brains, we must by way of application ~ press it down to the heart, and fill our spirits with the com- fort of that doctrine, which hath matter for our practice, as well as our contemplation. For if we do but lay to our thoughts, 1. the miracle of the Gentiles’ calling—as hath been heretofore and now insisted on—and 2. mark how nearly the receiving of them into covenant concerns us their successors, we shall find real motives to provoke us to a strain and key above ordinary thanksgiving. For as Peter spake of God’s promise, so it is in the like nature of God’s command—which is also virtually a promise—it belonged not to them only, but it is “to you and your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” From the first, the miracle of their calling, our gratitude may take occasion much to enlarge itself. It is storied of Brasidas in the fourth of Thucydides”, that imput- ing the victory which was somewhat miraculous to some more than ordinary human cause, he went presently to the temple loaded with offerings, and would not suffer the gods ° Justin, lib. xxiv. cap. 2. P [ Thucyd. iv. 116.] SURMON XXV. 537 to bestow such an unexpected favour on him unrewarded ; and can we pass by such a mercy of our God without a spiri- tual sacrifice, without a daily anthem of magnificats and hal- lelujahs ? Herodotus 4 observes it is as a proverb of Greece, that if God would not send them rain, they were to famish ; for they had, said he, no natural fountains, or any other help of waters, ὅτε μὴ ἐκ τοῦ Διὸς μοῦνον, but what God from above sent. So saith Thucydides" in the fourth of his His- tory, there was but one fountain within a great compass, and that none of the biggest. So also was Egypt, another part of the heathen world, to be watered only by Nilus, and that being drawn by the sun, did often succour them and fatten the land, for which all the neighbours fared the worse; for when Nilus flowed the neighbouring rivers were left dry, saith Herodotus’. You need not the mythology ; the philo- sophers, as well as soil of Greece, had not moisture enough to sustain them from nature; if God had not sent them water from heaven, they and all we Gentiles had for ever suffered a spiritual thirst. Egypt and all the nations had for ever gasped for drought, if the sunshine of the gospel had not by its beams called out of the well which had no bucket, ζῶν ὕδωρ, “living or enlivening water.” But by this John iv. 6. attraction of the sun, these living waters did so break out upon the Gentiles, that all the waters of Jewry were left dry, as once the dew was on Gideon’s fleece, and drought on all Judg. vi. the earth besides. And is it reasonable for us to observe this °” miracle of mercy, and not return even a miracle of thanks- giving? Can we think upon it without some rapture of our souls? Can we insist on it, and not feel a holy tempest within us, a storm and disquiet, till we have some way dis- burdened and eased ourselves, with a pouring out of thanks- giving? That spirit is too calm, that I say not stupid, which can bear and be loaded with mercies of this kind, and not take notice of its burden; for besides those peculiar favours bestowed on us in particular, we are, as saith Chrysostom ¢, in our audit of thanksgiving, to reckon up all the τὰ κοινῇ ywopeva, “all those common benefactions of which others 4 [ Herod. ii. 13.] t [S. Chrysost. in Acta Apostol. Ho- r [Thucyd. iv. 20. mil. xxxviii, Op., tom. ix. p. 292, C.] s [ Herod. ii. 25.] Acts xiv. 13. 538 SERMON XXV. partake with us ;” for it is, saith he, an ordinary negligence in us to recount God’s mercies as we confess our sins, only in gross, with an ἁμαρτωλοί ἐσμεν, καὶ εὐηργέτησε Θεὸς, “we are great sinners, and God hath abounded in mercies to us ;” never calling ourselves to a strict retail either of our sins or His mercies; and this neglect, saith he, doth deprive us of a great deal of spiritual strength. For 1. the recounting of the multitude of God’s mercies to us formerly might give us con- fidence of the continuance of them, according to St. Cyprian, donando debet, God’s past blessings are engagements and pawns of future. 2. It is, saith he, of excellent use, πρὸς τὸ οἰκειοῦν, “ to bring us acquainted” and familiar with God, and infinitely increaseth our love to Him, and desire of perform- ing some manner of recompense. Which one thing made the heathen of old so love and respect their benefactors, that they worshipped them, and would not suffer any common real benefaction to be done them without an ἀποθέωσις to the author of it, as might be proved through all ancient writ- ings; for on these grounds was it that they would needs sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas. In the second place, if we consider how nearly it concerns us, that if they had been pretermitted, we to the end of the world might probably have lived in the same darkness, that we now hold our right to heaven by the covenant made to them, that those com- mands belong also to us and our children, then we must in some reason of proportion thank God liberally for that call- ing of the Gentiles, as we cannot choose but do for our pre- sent adoption, and enlarge our thanksgiving not for our own only, but for that first justification, sanctification, and salva- tion of the Gentiles. And this effusion of our souls in thanks will prove of good use to us, both to confirm our confidence, and keep us in a Christian temper of humility and cheerful obedience. And therefore I thought good to present it to you in the first place as a duty of no ordinary moment. 2. If God hath commanded, and consequently expects our obedience; if these commands concern us, and contain in them all that belongs to our salvation ; if they are, as hath been proved, God’s covenant with the Gentiles; then, not to be wanting to ourselves, but earnestly to labour and provide that no one circumstance of them may be without its peculiar SERMON XXV, 539 profit and advantage to our souls. Polybius from the war betwixt the Numidians and Uticenses observes, that if a vic- tory gotten by the captain, be not by the soldiers prosecuted to the utmost, it likely proves more dangerous than if they had never had it ; if the king, saith he, take the city", of δὲ πολλοὶ Sia προστήρημα ῥαθυμοῦντες, “and the multitude overjoyed with the news, begin to grow less earnest in the battle,” a hundred to one but the conquered will take notice and heart from this advantage, and, as the Uticenses did, make their flight a stratagem to get the victory. Thus 15 it in those spiritual combats, where God is our leader, our com- mander, our conqueror against the devil’s host; if we of His command, the oi πολλοὶ, the many who expect our part in the profit of the victory, do not prosecute this conquest to the utmost, to the utter discomfiting and disarming of our fu- gitive enemy; if we should grow secure upon the news, and neither fear nor prevent any further difficulties, we may be in more danger for that former conquest, and as it was or- dinary in story, by that time we have set up our trophies, ourselves be overcome. I might prescribe you many courses, which it would concern you to undertake for the right man- aging of this victory, which this our commander hath not by His fighting, but by His very commanding, purchased us. But because my text requires haste, and I go on but slowly, I must omit them, and only insist on that which is specified in my text, repentance, which drives to the condition of the covenant, the matter of the command which comes next to be discussed. The word “repent” may in this place be taken in a double sense; 1. generally for a sorrow for our sins, and on that a disburdening of ourselves of that load which did formerly press down the soul; for a sense of our former ill courses, and a desire to fit ourselves for God’s service; for an hum- bling ourselves before God, and flying to Him as our only succour; and so it well may be called the condition of God’s covenant with us, that which God requires at our hands under the gospel; for it was the first word at the first preach- ing of the gospel by John Baptist, “ Repent, for the king- Matt. iii. 2. dom of God is at hand,” which, saith the text, was in effect, ἃ Polybius, [lib. i. c. 74. § 10.] ver, 3. Matt. xxvi. 70. 540 SERMON XXY. “ Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.” So that, briefly, this “repent” is a straightening and rectify- ing all crookedness, every distortion of the soul, and thereby a preparing of it for the receiving of Christ and embracing His gospel. 2. In a nearer relation to the first words of the verse, repentance is taken more especially by way of opposi- tion, for a mending and forsaking of that which of old was the fault and guilt of the Gentiles, a reforming of every thing which was either formally or virtually contained in their ignorance; and what that is you shall briefly judge. It is observed by interpreters, that doing or suffering, action or passion, are expressed in Scripture by the word knowing; soto know sin is to commit sin, to know a woman, and the like. So Peter to the maid, “1 know not what thou sayest,’” i.e. 1 am not guilty of the doing what thou im- putest to me. According to which Hebraism, to know God and His laws is to worship Him, and perform them; and, consequently, to be ignorant of both is neither to worship God nor practise any thing which His laws command; and so, knowledge shall contain all piety and godly obedience, or love of God’s commandments, as God is said to know those whom He loves; and ignorance, all profaneness and neglect, yea, and hatred either of God or goodness. According to which exposition are those two sayings, the one of Hermes * in his tenth book called νοῦς ἡ τριςκακία τὸ ἀγνοεῖν τὸν Θεὸν, “ the ignorance of God is all manner οὗ sin;” the other of Pastor in Clemens’, μετάνοια σύνεσις μεγάλη; “ repentance is a great piece of knowledge or wisdom.” So that, briefly, the recovering of the soul to the pure knowledge of God and goodness, the worshipping, loving, and obeying of God, is the thing here meant byrepentance; which yet we may press into a nearer room, into one single duty, the directing all our actions to His glory; for this is in effect to worship, to obey, to love God, to worship for obedience’ sake, because he commands it, to obey Him for love’s sake, because we desire He should be glorified in our obedience. And this is the excellency and perfection of a Christian, infinitely above the reach of the proudest moralists; this is the repentance of a x [Hermes Trismeg. (ut supr.) lib. x. y [Herme Pastor (i. 4, ΕΞ .) ut ἃ ad fin. ] Clem. Alex. Strom. ii. 12. p. 458 ire SERMON XXV. 541 Christian, whereby he makes up those defects which were most eminently notorious in the heathen; this is the impression of that humbling spirit, which proud heathen nature was never stamped with, for it was not so much their ignorance in which they offended God,—though that was also full of guilt, as hath been proved,—as their misusing of their know- ledge to ungainly ends, as either ambition, superstition, or for satisfying their curiosity, as partly hath, and for the pre- sent needs not further to be demonstrated. Only for us, whom the command doth so nearly concern of repenting for and reforming their abuses, how shall we be cast at the bar, if we still continue in the same guilt! The orderly com- position of the world, saith Athenagoras’, the greatness, com- plexion, figure, and harmony of it, are πρὸς θεοσέβειαν ἐνέ- χυρα ἡμῖν, “engagements to us and pawns to oblige us to a pious worship of God.” For what Philoponus observes of the doctrine of the soul, is in like manner true of all kind of learning, εἰς ὅλον τὸν βίον τείνει δόγματα ταῦτα, “they ex- tend and have an influence over all our conversation ;᾽ and if they be well studied, and to purpose, leave their characters and impressions in our lives as well as our understandings ; and from thence arose the Gentiles’ guilt, who did only enrich their intellectual part with the knowledge and contempla- tion of them, no whit better their lives, or glorify God which made them. But for us, whose knowledge is much elevated above their pitch, who study and ordinarily attain to the un- derstanding of those depths which they never fathomed, the reading of those riddles which they never heard of, the ex- pounding of those mysteries which they never dreamt of; for us, I say, who have seen a marvellous light, thereby only to enlighten our brains and not our hearts, to divert that precious knowledge to some poor, low, unworthy ends; to gather nothing out of all our studies which may advance God’s kingdom in us, this is infinitely beyond the guilt of heathenism; this will call their ignorance up to judgment against our knowledge, and in fine make us curse that light which we have used to guide us only to the chambers of death. Briefly, there was no one thing lay heavier upon the Gentiles than the not directing that measure of knowledge z [ Athenag. Legat. pro Christianis, § 4. [p. 283, A.] 542 SERMON XXV. they had to God’s glory and a virtuous life ; and nothing more nearly concerns us Christians to amend and repent of. For the most exquisite knowledge of nature, and more specially the most accurate skill in theological mysteries, if it float only in the brain, and sink not down into the heart, if it end not in reformation of erroneous life, as well as doctrine, and glorify- ing God in our knowledge of Him, it is to be reputed but a glorious, specious curse, not an enriching, but a burdening of the soul, durum Tholosanum, an unlucky merchandise, that can never thrive with the owner, but commonly betrays and destroys all other good affections and graces in us. Socrates was the first that brought morality into the schools, ideogue ad hominum salutem natus est, said an old philosopher”; and that made the oracle so much admire him for the wisest man in the world. At any piece of speculation the devil durst challenge the proudest philosopher amongst them; but for a virtuous life he despaired of ever reaching to it; this set him at a gaze, this posed and made a dunce of him, and forced him to proclaim the moralist the greatest scholar under hea- ven; οἴησις ἱερὰ νόσος, saith Hesychius® περὶ σοφῶν, the “making use of knowledge to ambition or puffing up, is a dan- gerous desperate disease,’ and pray God it be not ἱερὰ also in its other sense, a disease that attends our holiest specula- tions, even our study of divinity. For as Arrian® saith of those who read many books and digest none, so is it most true of those who do not concoct their πολυμαθία, and turn it into spiritual nourishment of the soul, ἐμοῦσι καὶ ἀποπέπ- τουσι, they vomit it up again, and are never the better for it ; they are oppressed with this very learning, as a stomach with crudities, and thereby fall many times εἰς στρόφους καὶ καταρ- ροίας, into vertigoes and catarrhs, the first of which disorders the brain, and disables it from all manner of action; or if the more classical notion of the word take place, it disaffects the bowels, entangles and distorts the entrails, and, as St. Paul complains on this occasion, leaves without natural affection, a §. Augustin., De Civitate Dei, lib. his Nova De Universis Philosophia. viii. cap. 3, &c. [Op., tom. vii. p.191.] Venice, 1593.] Ὁ [Verum Socrates, caritate patriz ¢ [Hesychius, s. v. Heraclitus, ap. ardens, et, ut Proclus ait, ad hominum Meursium. Op., tom. vii. p. 249.] salutem natus, &c. Patricius in his 4 [Arrian., Epicteti Dissertat., lib. i. Plato Exotericus, p. 43, appended ἰο ο. 26. § 16.) SERMON XXV. 543 and then, 2, by the defluxion of the humours on the breast, clogs and stifles the vital parts, and in fine brings the whole man to a φθίσις, or corruption of all its spiritual graces. Thus have you at once the doctrine and the use of my second part, the nature of that repentance which is here meant in oppo- sition to the Gentiles’ fault, which we have shewed to be the directing of our knowledge to a sober pious end, God’s glory and our own edification, together with the danger and sinful- ness attending the neglect of these ends, both which are sufli- cient motives to stir you up, to awake and conjure you to the practice of this doctrine. To which you may add but this one more, that even some of the heathen were raised up by the study of the creatures to an admiration of God’s excellency, which was a kind of glorifying His power, and those Philo- ponus® calls τελείους φυσιολόγους, “perfect exact natural- ists ;’ who from physical causes ascend to divine. Witness Galen‘, de Usu Partium, where from the miraculous struc- ture of the foot, he falls off into a meditation and hymn of God’s providence, δημιουργήσαντος ἡμᾶς ὕμνον ἀλήθινον, “a psalm or holy elogy of Him that hath so wonderfully made us.” So Hermes, in his first book of piety and philosophy, makes the only use of philosophy to return thanks to the Creator as to a good father and profitable nurse, which duty he professes himself resolved never to be wanting in; and after, in the latter end of his fifth book ἢ, he makes good his word, breaking out into a kind of holy rhythm, ποῦ δὲ βλέ- πων εὐλογήσω σε, ἄνω, κάτω, ἔσω, K.T.X. The like might be shewed in some measure out of others, more classic heathen writers, which may briefly serve to upbraid our defects, and aggravate our offence, if we with all our natural and spiri- tual light go on yet in learning, as travellers in peregrina- tion, only either as curious inquisitors of some novelties, which they may brag of at their return, or else having no other end of their travel but the journey itself, without any care to direct our studies to the advancement either of God’s glory in other, or grace’s kingdom in ourselves. For this is the thing no doubt here aimed at, and the performance of it e [Philoponus, Comment. in Aris- 8. [Herm. Trismeg., De Pietate et tot. de Anima, Pref. in lib, i, ad fi- Philosophia, lib. i. ad init., p. 4.] nem. | h [Id., ibid., lib. v. ad finem. ] f Galen, De Usu Part., lib. iii. c. 6. Mark xvi. 15. 1 Cor. ii. 4. Gen. viii. 11. 544 SERMON XXVv. as strictly required of us Christians, and that not some only of us, but as many as the commandment is here given to, “every man every where.” So I come to my last particular, the extent and latitude of the persons with whom this cove- nant is made, and from whom this condition is exacted, “ All men every where.” Now the universality of the persons reflects either to the preceding words, commands, or to the subsequent, the mat- ter of these commands, repentance. From the first, the point is, that God’s commands were made known by the preaching of the gospel to “all men every where.” From the second, that the repentance here meant is necessary to every man that will be saved. For the first, it hath been already proved out of Scripture, that the vocal articulation of God’s commands, the sound and preaching of the gospel, hath gone out into all the world, and that not universis, but singulis, directed and promulged at least to every creature, the whole Gentile world has title to it. Now for the spiri- tual efficacy of this voice, the “demonstration of the Spirit and of power,” hath not this also waited on the voice, and in some kind or other evidenced itself in the like extensive lati- tude? Yes, no doubt; for there being two effects of the preach- ing of the word, either converting or hardening, either dis- solving the wax, or stiffening the clay, you shall im every man be sure to meet with one of them. For the conversion; what a multitude came in at the first noise of it, primo mane, as soon as ever the Sun of righteous- ness began to dawn. In the ancient sea-fights they had their λεμβάδια, little hight ships, πρωτόπλοι, saith Xenophon’, zpe- mot, Kal σκοποὶ, say Thucydides* and Polybius', which they sent out as spies in the night, or at day-break, to bring word how the seas were cleared; that so they might dare to make use of the first opportunity to go out with their whole navy. Thus was Job and some few other Gentiles before the Gospel, and Cornelius at the dawning of it, sent before in a manner, ut lembi ante classem, to spy and bring word whether the Gentiles might enter and be received ; and these returning to them like Noah’s dove “ with an olive-leaf in her mouth,” as a i [Xenophon, Hist. Grec., lib. v. κα [ Thucydides, lib. vi. c. 44. 46.] cap. 1. ὃ 27.] ' [ Polybius, lib. 1, c. lin. § 8.1 SERMON XXV. 5A5 token of peace and safety to all that would venture, then did the whole navy and troop follow, then did the τὸ πλέον καὶ οἱ πολλοὶ, “the many,” the rout, the common people of the world, out of all nations and conditions some, hasten and run and crowd for a part in this salvation, and “the glory of the Lord was revealed, and all flesh saw it together,” as it is Isa. xl. 5. in the phrase of the prophecy, or in the words of the story, *“there were daily added to the Church such as should be [eet ii. saved.” Look but on the doctor of the Gentiles, as he sits in his chair in Tyrannus’ school, and you shall find that at Acts xix. 9. that one lecture—which indeed was two years long—all the lesser Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. The three thousand souls which were added to the Acts ii. 4. Church at St. Peter’s sermon, was a sufficient hour’s work, and a thing so admired by the wise men of the Gentiles, that they imputed it magicis Petri artibus et veneficis carminibus, saith Austin™, to some incantations and magical tricks which Peter used. And they got the dying oracle to confirm it with some supposititious verses, to the purpose forged by them; that the Christian religion was raised by Peter’s witcheraft, and by it should last three hundred and sixty- five years, and then be betrayed and vanish". But had these same Gentiles in this humour of malice and prejudice seen a third part of the Roman world, all the proconsular Asia, converted by one Paul’s disputations, they would certainly have resolved that ail the sorcery of hell or Chaldza could never have yielded such miraculous enchantments. And this the sons of Sceva had experience of, who with all their Acts xix. exorcisms, and the name of Jesus added to them, could not ae yet imitate the Apostles in any one miracle; but the devil was too hard for them, wounded, overcame, prevailed against them. Briefly, it was more than the magic either of men or devils, which so convinced the artificers of hell, that they “brought out their books and burnt them openly ;” which Acts xix. beside the price of their most profitable skill, were rated at !® 50,000 pieces of silver, which is computed to be about £6,250. “So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed,” and [ver. 20.] the first effect of it, conversion, was miraculously manifest, though not on all, yet on many of all people every where. m S. Aug. De Civ, Dei, lib. xviii. c. 53. [Op., t. vii. p. 536, E, F.) lla 07] HAMMOND. Nn Acts xix. 9. 546 SERMON XXV. Now for the other effect of it, the hardening of obdurate atheists, look on Acts xix. 9, where it is plain, that for all Paul’s logic and rhetoric, “ disputing and persuading for the space of three months,” many were hardened and believed not. They had within them νοῦν ἀντίτυπον, as Theodoret calls it, a heart that would reverberate either precept or in- struction, and make it rebound against the hand that sent it; πνεῦμα παχυνόμενον, as Philoponus® phrases it in his first - book de anima, their spirits fattened and incrassated within them, stalled up and fed to such a brawniness, that neither the understanding nor the affections were capable of any im- pression, and so their condition proved like that of the anvil, which by many strokes is somewhat smoothed but no whit softened; all they got by one day’s preaching was to enable them the better to resist the second. Every sermon of a Paul or Peter was but an alarum to set them on their guard of defence, to warn them to cast up some more trenches and bulwarks, to fortify themselves stronger against any possible invasion of God’s Spirit ; according to that of the Egyptian Hermes?, speaking περὶ δυνάμεως ἱερῶν λόγων, which is in a Christian phrase the “power of the Scripture ;” they have, saith he, this property in them, that when they meet with evil men, μᾶλλον παροξύνουσιν εἰς κακίαν, “they do more sharpen and egg them on to evil.” Thus was the preaching of the word to all men every where attended with some effects or other, according to the materials it met with, never re- turned unprofitably, but either was the power of God to sal- vation unto all that believed, or the witness of God to con- demnation to those which were hardened. Now if this precious receipt administered to all find not in all the hike effect of recovering, yet from hence is neither the physic to be underprized nor the prescriber; the matter is to be im- puted sometimes to the weakness and peevishness of the patient, ὡς ἀδυνατέειν Ta προστασσόμενα ὑπουργέειν, “ that he cannot or will not perform the prescriptions,” sometimes τὴν δύναμιν αἰτιᾶσθαι τοῦ πάθεος, “the fault is to be laid on the stubbornness and stoutness of the disease,” which turns ° [Philoponus, Comment. in Aristot. tate et Philosophia, p. 5. 4. i. ad de Anima, Pref. in lib. 1. ad finem. ] finem. ] p [Hermes Trismegistus, De Pie- SERMON XXV. 547 every medicine into its nourishment, and so is not abated but elevated by that which was intended to assuage it, as Hippocrates defines it medicinally in his book περὶ teyvijs. So then by way of use, if we desire that these commands, this covenant offered to all men every where, may evidence itself to our particular souls in its spiritual efficacy, we must with all the industry of our spirits endeavour to remove those hinderances, which may any way perturb, or disorder, or weaken it in its working in us; προκατασκευάσθω σοι pa- λαγμάτων γένεα, K.T.r., Saith Hippocrates", you must furnish yourself beforehand with a shop of several softening plasters, and take some one of them as a preparative before every ser- mon you come to, that coming to church with a tender, mollified, waxy heart, you may be sure to receive every holy character, and impression, which that day’s exercise hath provided for thee, lest otherwise, if thou shouldst come to church with an heart of ice, that ice be congealed into erystal, and by an ἀντιπερίστασις, the warmth of God’s word not abate, but increase the coldness of a chill frozen spirit, and finding it hard and stubborn, return it obdurate. O what a horrid thing is it that the greatest mercy under heaven should by our unpreparedness be turned into the most exquisite curse that hell or malice hath in store for us! that the most precious balm of Gilead should by the malig- nity of some tempers be turned into poison; that the leaves which are appointed for the healing of the nations should meet with some such sores, which prove worse by any re- medy; that the most sovereign μαλακτικὸν, or lenitive, in the world, should only work to our obduration, and the preaching of the word of mercy add to the measure of our condemnation! This is enough to persuade you by an horror into some kind of solicitude to prepare your souls to a capa- bility of this cure, to keep yourselves in a Christian temper, that it may be possible for a sermon to work upon you, that that breath which never returns in vain may be truly gospel, happy in its message, may convert not harden you; to which purpose you must have such tools in store which the physi- 4 [Cf. Hippocrates, rep) rexv7js, tom. ® (Hippocrates, περὶ εὐσχημοσύνης, i, p. 12. Medici Greci, tom, xxi. ed. tom.i. p. 73. Καὶ μη. ut supr. | Kiihn. J Nn 2 ¢ Acts xix.4. 548 SERMON XXV. cian’ speaks of, ὄργανα, καὶ μηχανὰς, καὶ σίδηρον, “ imstru- ments of spiritual surgery,” to cut and prune off all luxuriant cumbersome excrescences, all rankness and dead flesh, which so oppress the soul, that the virtue of medicine cannot search to it. And for this purpose there is no one more necessary, of more continual use for every man every where, than that which here closeth my text, “ repentance.” And so I come to the second respect, the universality of the persons, as it refers to the matter of the command, re- pentance, every man every where to repent. And here I should shew you that repentance, both gene- rally taken for a sorrow for sin, containing in it virtually faith also,—so the baptism of repentance is interpreted, Acts xix. 4, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, say- ing unto the people,that they should believe,” &c.,—and more especially in this place taken for the directing of our know- ledge to practice, and both to God’s glory, as hath been shewn, is and always was necessary to every man that will be saved. For according to Aristotle’st rule, κατὰ παντὸς, noting both an universality of subject and circumstance, is a degree of necessity; and therefore repentance being here commanded, πᾶσι πανταχοῦ, is to be judged a condition necessary to every man who answers at the command, i.e. who expects his part in the covenant of salvation; this, I say, I might prove at large, and to that purpose vindicate the writings of some of the fathers, especially of Clemens, who, I am almost confident, is groundlessly cited for bestow- ing salvation on the heathen, without exacting the condition of faith and repentance, which now it were superfluous to insist on. 2. Urge it both to your brains and hearts, and by the necessity of the duty, rouse and enforce, and pursue you to the practice of it. But seeing this catholic duty is more the inspiration of the Holy Ghost than the acquisition of our labours, seeing this fundamental cardinal gift comes from the supreme donor, seeing nature is no more able spiritually to re-enliven a soul than to animate a carcass, our best endea- vour will be our humiliation, our most profitable directions will prove our prayers, and what our frailty cannot reach to, our devotions shall obtain. * Hippocrates, [ibid., p. 72.] t [ Aristot. Post. Anal., lib. i. c. 4.) SERMON ΧΧΥ. 549 And let us labour and pray, and be confident, that God which hath honoured us with His commands will enable us to a performance of them, and having made His covenant with us, will fulfil in us the condition of it ; that the thunder- ing of His word being accompanied with the still voice of His Spirit, may suffer neither repulse nor resistance; that our hearts being first softened, then stamped with the Spirit, may be the images of that God that made them; that all of us every where endeavouring to glorify God in our know- ledge, in our lives, in our faith, in our repentance, may for ever be glorified by Him, and through Him, and with Him hereafter. Now to Him that hath elected us, hath created, re- deemed, ce. Ezek. xvi. 6. SERMON XXVI. Rom. 1. 26. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections. In this most accurate Epistle that ever the pen of man could lay title to, in which all the counsels, and proceedings, and methods of God in the work of our salvation are de- scribed, our Apostle in his discourse goes on the same way that God is said to do in His decree; lays the foundation of it as low and deep as possible, begins with them as it were in massa, and though they were already Romans and Christians, yet before he openeth heaven gates to them, and either teaches or suffers them to be saints, he stays them awhile in the con- templation of their impurity, and damned neglected estate of the stock they come from; looks upon them as “ polluted or trodden down in their own blood,” as the phrase is. He ploughs and harrows, and digs as deep as possible, that the seed which he meant to sow might be firm rooted, that their heaven might be founded in the centre of the earth, and their faith being secured by the depth of its foundation, might in- crease miraculously both in height and fruitfulness. Thus in the latter part of this first chapter doth he shew them the estate and rebellions, and punishment of their heathen an- cestors, that the unregenerate man may in that glass see his picture at the length, the regenerate humble himself in a thankful horror, overjoyed, and wondering to observe him- self delivered from such destruction. And that all may be secured from the danger of the like miscarriage, he sets the whole story of them distinctly before their eyes. 1. How the law and light of nature was sufficient to have instructed them into the sight and acknowledgment of God, and therefore that they could not pretend want of means to direct them to ‘ SERMON XXVI. 551 His worship. 2. That they contemned and rejected all the helps and guidances that God and nature had afforded them ; and that therefore, 3. God had deserted, and given them up unto the pride, and luxury, and madness of their own hearts, all “vile affections ;” for this is the force of the illation, they abused those instructions which God had printed in the creature to direct them, and therefore He will bestow no more pains on them to so little purpose; their own reason convinced them there was but one God, and yet they could not hold from adoring many, and therefore He will not be troubled to rein them in any longer; for all His ordinary restraints they will needs run riot, and “for this cause God gave them up to vile affections.” So that in the text you may observe the whole state and history of a heathen, natural, unregenerate life, which is a progress or travel from one stage of sinning to another, beginning in a con- tempt of the light of nature, and ending in the brink of hell, all vile affections. For the discovery of which we shall survey, 1. The law or light of nature, what it can do; 2. The sin of contemning this law or light, both noted in the first words, “ for this cause,” that is, because they did reject that which would have stood them in good stead; 3. The effect or punishment of this contempt, sottishness leading them stupidly into all vile affections; and lastly, the inflicter of this punishment and manner of inflicting of it, “God gave them up ;” and first of the first, the law and light of nature, what it can do. To suppose a man born at large, left to the infinite liberty of a creature, without any terms or bounds, or laws to cir- cumscribe him, were to bring a river into a plain, and bid it stand on end, and yet allow it nothing to sustain it; were to set a babe of a day old into the world, and bid him shift for a subsistence; were to bestow a being on him only that he may lose it, and perish before he can ever be said to live. If an infant be not bound in, and squeezed, and swathed, he will never thrive in growth or feature, but as Hippocrates saith of the Scythians, for want of girdles, run all out into breadth and ugliness. And therefore it cannot agree either with the mercy or goodness of either God or nature to create 4 (Hippocrates, De aére, locis et aquis, tom. i. p. 559. ] 552 SERMON XXVI. men without laws, or to bestow a being upon any one with- out a guardian to guide and manage it. Thus, lest any creature for want of this law any one moment should imme- diately sin against its creation, and no sooner move than be annihilated ; the same wisdom hath ordered that his very soul shall be his law-giver, and so the first minute of its essence should suppose it regular. Whence it is that some atheists in Theophilus ad Autolycum”, which said that all things were made by chance and of their own accord, yet affirmed that when they were made they had a God within them to guide them, their own conscience, and in sum affirmed, μόνον εἷναι Θεὸν συνείδησιν, “that there was no other God in the world.” Aristotle’ observes that in the creatures which have no reason phantasy supplies its place, and does the bee as much service to perform the business of its kind as reason doth in the man. Thus further in them whose birth in an uncivilized country hath deprived of any laws to govern them, reason supplies their room, λόγος φύσει νόμος, saith Arius Didymus4, “reason is naturally a law,” and hath as sovereign dictates with it, pronounceth sentence every minute from the tribunal within, as authoritatively as ever the most powerful Solon did in the theatre. There is not a thing in the world purely and absolutely good, but God and nature within commends and prescribes to our practice; and would we but obey their counsels and commands, it were a way to innocence and perfection that even the Pelagians never dreamt of. Τὸ speak no further than will be both profitable and beyond exception, the perfectest law in the world is not so perfect a rule for our lives as this ἔμφυτος καὶ φυσικὸς νόμος, as Methodius® calls it, “this law of nature born with us,” is for these things which are subject to its reach. Shall I say Scripture itself is in some respect inferior to it? I think I shall not prejudice that blessed volume, for though it be as far from the least spot or suspicion of imperfection as falsehood, though it be true, perfect, and righteous alto- gether, yet doth it not so evidence itself to my dull soul; it υ Theophil. ad Autolyc., lib. ii.§ 4. 15. p. 817, D.] ἶ [ Ad calc, 5. Just. M., p. 349, D.] 6 [Ap. Photium, Biblioth., p. 915. ¢ (Arist. Metaph. A.c. 1.] ed. Hoeschel. ] ἃ [Euseb, Prep. Evang., lib. xv. c. * SERMON XXVI. 5538 speaks not so clearly and irrefragably, so beyond all contra- diction and demur to my atheistical understanding, as that law which God hath written in my heart. For there is a double certainty, one of adherence, another of evidence, one of faith, the other of sense; the former is that grounded on God’s word, more infallible because it rests on divine autho- thority, the latter more clear, because I find it within me by experience. The first is given to strengthen the weakness of the second, and is therefore called βεβαιότερος λόγος, “a 2 Pet. i. 19. more firm sure word ;” the second given within us to explain the difficulties and obscurities of the first, αὐτοπταὶ γεννη- θέντες, we “saw it with our eyes:” so that Scriptures being ver. 16. conceived into words and sentences, are subject either not to be understood or amiss; and may either be doubted of by the ignorant, or perverted by the malicious. You have learnt so many words without book, and say them minutely by heart, and yet not either understand or observe what you are about; but this unwritten law, which no pen but that of nature hath engraven, is in our understandings, not in words but sense, and therefore I cannot avoid the intimations; it is impossible either to deny or doubt of it, it being written as legible in the tables of our hearts, as the print of humanity in our foreheads. The commands of either Scripture or emperor may be either unknown or out of our heads, when any casual opportunity shall bid us make use of them; but this law of the mind is at home for ever, and either by inti- mation or loud voice, either whispers or proclaims its com- mands to us; be it never so gagged it will mutter, and will be sure to be taken notice of when it speaks softliest. To define in brief what this law of nature is, and what offices it per- forms in us, you are to know that at that grand forfeiture of all our inheritance,—goods truly real and personal,—all those primitive endowments of soul and body upon Adam’s rebel- lion, God afterwards, though He shined not on us in His full image and beauty, yet cast some rays and beams of that eternal light upon us; and by an immutable law of His own counsel hath imprinted on every soul that comes down toa body, a secret, unwritten, yet indelible law, by which the creature may be warned what is good or bad, what agreeable, what hurtful to the obtaiming of the end of its creation. Now Rom. i. 21 554 SERMON XXVI. these commands or prescriptions of nature, are either in order to speculation or practice, to increase our knowledge or direct our lives. The former sort I omit, as being fitter for the schools than pulpit to discourse on, I shall meddle only with those that refer to practice, and those are either common, which they call first principles, and such are in every man in the world equally, e¢ secundum rectitudinem et notitiam, saith Aquinas‘; every one doth both conceive them in his understanding what they mean, and assent to them in his will, that they are right and just, and necessary to be performed ; and of this nature are the worship of God and justice amongst men; for that lumen super nos signatum, in Bonaventure’s® phrase, that “ light which nature hath sealed and imprinted on our souls,” is able to direct us in the know- ledge of those moral principles, without any other help re- quired to persuade us; or else they are particular and proper to this or that business, which they call conclusions drawn out of these common principles; as when the common prin- ciple commands just dealing, the conclusion from thence commands to restore what I have borrowed, and the like. And these also if they be naturally and directly deduced, would every man in the world both understand and assent to; did not some hinderance come in, and forbid or suspend either his understanding or assent. Hinderances which keep him from the knowledge or conceiving of them, are that con- fusion and chaos, and black darkness, I had almost said that Tophet and hell of sensual affections, which suffers not the light to shew itself, and indeed so stifles and oppresses it, that it becomes only as hell fire, not to shine but burn, not to enlighten us what we should do, but yet by gripes and twinges of the conscience to torment us for not doing of it. And this hinderance the Apostle calls the vanity of imagi- nations by which a foolish heart is darkened. Hinderances which keep us from assenting to a conclusion in particular which we do understand, are sometimes good ; as, first, a sight of some greater breach certain to follow the performance of this; so though I understand that I must restore every man his own, yet I will never return a knife to one that I see re- £ S. Thom, Aq. Summa 1™* 2* qu. 5. §. Bonaventura, in lib. ii. Sentent. 94, [art. 4. ] Dist. 39. Art. 3. quest. 2. [conclus. ] —— —plant thyself > [Evagrii Hist, Eccl., lib.i. c. 18. Ε΄. H. iii. p. 265.] HAMMOND. Qaqg Jam. i. 6. 94 SERMON XXVII. continually in a pillar, with thy eyes, and words, fixed and shot up perpetually towards heaven. If there be not a spirit within thee to give light to the eyes, to add sighs and groans to the voice, all this that thou hast done is nothing but as a blind man’s pretensions to sight, and a dumb man’s claim to speech ; and so im like manner in all our duties which the world and carnal men set a price on. And the reason is, be- cause every spiritual seeming work done by a natural man is not truly so; it is nothing less than that which it is said to be; his prayers are not prayers, lip-labour perhaps, but not devotion; his serving of God is formality, not obedience ; his hope of heaven, not a hope but a fancy. If God, or Satan, a judge, or a tempter, should come to reason with him about it, he would soon be worsted, never be able to maintain his title to it. In brief, the fairest part of a natural man, that which is least counterfeit, his desire and good affections to spiritual thngs— which we call favourably natural desires of spiritual obedi- ence—these I say, are but false desires, false affections. 1. They have no solidity or permanency in the will, only fluid and tran- sitory, some slight sudden wishes, tempests and storms of a troubled mind, soon blown over: the least temptation will be sure to do it. They are like those wavering prayers without any stay of faith, Jam. i. 6, “like a wave of the sea driven by the wind and tossed.” 2. That being which they have is counter- feit, they are not that which they are taken for. We are wont to say that acts are distinguished by their objects; he sees truly which judges the thing to be that that it is; it is true deed that another man sees, he that takes blue for green, but he does not see truly; so also he only willeth a good thing that wills that in it which is truly good. Now the natural man, when he is said to choose spiritual things, as heaven, happiness, and the like, he desires not a spiritual, but a carnal thing; in desir- ing heaven, he desires somewhat that would free him from misery in happiness, a natural or moral good, that would be acceptable to any creature under heaven: and so a Turk will desire paradise, and that very impatiently, in hope that he shall have his fill of lust there. Generally you may mark that in such desires of spiritual things, it is some carnality that moves unregenerate men: somewhat it is that may SERMON XXVII. 595 please the flesh, and then it is not the spiritual but the car- nal part of it that is their object, which they woo and make love to; which you may judge of by this, that they are fre- quent and importunate in their wishes for glory, seldom or never for grace—though that also may be wished for carnally, to make us more renowned and better esteemed in the world. For the most part, I say, they desire glory, for that will make them happy, and out of danger of worldly misfortunes ; re- mission of sins, for these lie heavy on their consciences, and give them many a twinge that they would fain be eased of ; but seldom petition for grace, as if holiness without other conveniences or gains, were not worth the having. And this arises from hence, that our love of Christ grows by sending out and fastening our affections on Him as an object fittest for our turns, that will advantage us most; but not by re- ceiving in His image and shape into our souls; this indeed would make us not only love, but imitate Him, and having once tasted, long after Him; this would sanctify our souls, whereas the other doth but only satisfy our greedy affections. By what hath been said it is plam enough—though it might be much more amplified—that grace is of absolute necessity to performance of any holy work acceptable to God: that without it, whatsoever is done in spiritual matters is carnal, not indeed spiritual, but equivocally and absurdly so called. The natural man’s desires of heaven are not desires of heaven: his faith, no faith: his believing of the Scripture, infidelity ; because he doth not apply them particularly to himself to obey them. In sum, when he prays, hopes, or gives alms, he does somewhat indeed, and it is well done of him; but he doth not truly either pray, or hope, or give alms; there is some carnality in them that hath poisoned them, and quite altered the complexion, the constitution, and inward qualities of the work. And then indeed how impatient should every Christian be of this cologuintida within him? There is mors in olla, as the prophet once spake, that is, death in the pot, that so infects and kills 2 Kings iv. every thing that comes out of it. How should we abhor, a and loathe, and detest this old leaven that so besours all our actions; this heathenism of unregenerate carnal nature, which makes our best works so unchristian? To insist longer Qaq2 [ Gal. vi. 15.] 15. xXxvi. 6. 596 SERMON XXVII. upon this, were but to increase your thirst, not to satisfy it: to make you sensible of that marasmus and desperate drought that hath gone over your souls, but not to help you to any waters for the cure: that shall come next, as the last work of this exercise to be performed, in a word. Having learnt what this new creature is, and how ab- solutely necessary to a Christian, O let us not defer one minute longer to examine our estates, whether we are yet renewed or no, and by the acts which we daily perform, observe whether the sanctifying habit be as yet infused into our souls. If the grounds of our best duties, that which moves us in our holiest actions, be found upon search to be but carnal; if a careful religious education, custom of the place which we live in, fear of human laws, nay, perhaps a good, soft, tender disposition, and the like, be the things that make thee love God, and perform holy duties, and not any inward principle of sanctity within thee: I counsel thee to think better of thine estate, and consider whether the like motives, had it so happened that thou hadst been born and brought up in Turkey, might not have made thee wor- ship Mahomet. I would be sorry to be rigid; 1 fear thou wilt find they might: well then, a new course must be taken, all thy former heathen, carnal, or at best, good moral life, all thy formal performances, the best of thy natural desires must be content to be ranked here with circumcision, and uncir- cumcision availing nothing; there is no trust, or confidence to be placed on these Egyptian staves “of reed.” And then, if thou wilt not live heartless for ever, if ever thou meanest to move or walk, or do any thing, you must to that Creator of spirits and lover of souls, and never leave soliciting till He hath breathed another breath into your nostrils, another soul into your soul: you must lay yourself at His feet, and with all the violence and rhetoric, and humility, that these wants will prompt thee to, and woo, and importune the Holy Spirit to overshadow thee, to conceive all holy graces spiritually in thee: and if thou canst not suddenly receive a gracious an- swer, that the Holy Ghost will come in unto thee, and lodge with thee this night, yet learn so much patience from thy beggarly estate, as not to challenge Him at thy own times, but comfortably to wait His leisure. There is employment SERMON XXVIL. 597 enough for thee in the while to prepare the room against His coming, to make use of all His common graces, to cleanse and reform thy foul corruptions, that when the Spirit comes it may find thee swept and garnished. All the outward means which God hath afforded thee, He commands thee to make use of, and will require it at thy hands in the best measure, even before thou art regenerate ; though thou sin in all thy unregenerate performances, for want of inward sanctity, yet it is better to have obeyed imperfectly than not at all: the first is weakness, the other desperate presumption ; the first, material, partial obedience, the second, total disobedience. Yet whilst thou art preparing, give not over praying; they are acts very compatible; thou mayest do them both toge- ther. Whilst thou art a fortifying these little kingdoms within thee, send these ambassadors abroad for help, that thou mayest be capable of it when it comes. But above all things be circumspect, watch and observe the Spirit, and be perpetually ready to receive Its blasts; let It never have breathed on thee in vain; let thine ear be for ever open to Its whisperings: if It should pass by thee either not heard, or not understood, it were a loss that all the treasures upon earth could not repair, and for the most part you know It comes not in the thunder. Christ seldom speaks so loud now-a-days as he did to Saul. It is in a soft, still voice, and I will not promise you that men that dwell in a mill, that are perpetually engaged in worldly, loud employments, or that men asleep shall ever come to hear of it. The sum of all my exhortation is, after examination, to cleanse, and pray, and watch; carefully to cleanse thyself, incessantly to pray, and diligently to watch for the Sun of righteousness, when He shall begin to dawn, and rise, and shine in thy heart by grace. And do thou, O Holy Lord, work this whole work in us, prepare us by Thy outward, perfect us by Thy inward graces: awaken us out of the darkness of death, and plant a new seed of holy light and life in us: infuse into our heathen hearts a Christian habit of sanctity, that we may perform all spiritual duties of holiness; that we may glorify Thee here by Thy Spirit, and be glorified with Thee by Thy Christ hereafter. Now to Him that hath elected us, hath, &c. Acts xix. {1 Kings mix, 12%] Mat. ii. 16. Wisd. ii. 1. SERMON XXVIII. 2 Per. ii. ὃ. Scoffers walking after their own lusts. Tuat we may take our rise luckily, and set out with the best advantage, that we may make our preface to clear our passage to our future discourse, and so spend no part of our precious time unprofitably, we will by way of imtroduction examine what is here meant, 1, by scoffers, 2, by walking after their own lusts. And first, scoffers here do not signify those whom confidence joined to a good natural wit, hath taught to give and play upon every man they meet with, which in a moderate use is called εὐτραπελία, “ facetiousness,” in an immoderate, scurrility*. But scoffers here are of a more special stamp, those who deal out their scoffs only on God and religion. The word in the original (ἐμπαίζειν) signifies to mock, to abuse, and that either in words, and then it is ren- dered “ scoffing;” or in our actions, when we promise any man to perform a business, and then deceive his expectation, and then it is rendered “deluding.” So when Herod saw he was mocked, ὅτε ἐνεπαίχθη, that he was “ deluded” by the magi- cians. So that in the first primitive sense, scoffers must signify those who either laugh at God, or else delude Him in not performing what He expects, and they by their pro- fession promised. In the secondary notion, to scoff is by way of argument to oppose any truth contumeliously or bitterly, as Solomon begins his discourse of the atheists’ scoffs, “The ungodly said, reasoning with themselves ;” and these are said to set their mouth against heaven, managing disputes, which have both sting and poison in them; the first to wound and overthrow the truth spoken of, the other to infect the auditors with a contrary opinion. And these a [ Aristot. Eth. Nic. iv. 8.] SERMON XXVIII. 599 rational scoffs, for which Socrates anciently was very famous, are ordinarily in form of question, as in the Psalmist often, “Where is now their God?” 1. 6. certainly, if they had a God, [Ps. xlii, He would be seen at time of need, He would now shew Him- oe 10; self in their distress. In which they do not only laugh at the ¢xv- 2.) Israclites for being such fools as to worship Him that will not relieve them, but implicitly argue, that indeed there is no such God as they pretend to worship. And just in this man- ner were the scoffers in my text, who did not only laugh, but argue, saying, “ Where is the promise of His coming?’ per- ver. 4. suading themselves, and labouring to prove to others, that what is spoken of Christ’s second coming to judgment was but a mere dream, a μορμολύκειον, a bugbear, or fable to keep men in awe, and therefore laugh at it, as the Athenians did at the resurrection, Acts xvii. 3; ‘ and when they heard of the resur- [Acts xvii. rection of the dead, some mocked,” &c., i.e. disputed sarcasti- 52 cally ἃ Πα contumeliously against it, that certainly there was no such matter. And thus also is the same word used of those which jomed their reason and malice to disprove Christ’s omnipotence, where they reviled and mocked Him, saying, He saved others, Himself He cannot save.” In which [Matt. speech the bitterest part of the scoff was the reason there ον 52] used, plausible enough amongst ignorant Jews, that surely if He had any power, He would make use of it for Himself. Thirdly, to scoff is sometimes without words or actions to shew a contempt or neglect of any body. So Herod’s mock- ing of Christ is set as an expression that He did not think Him worthy talking with, “He set Him at nought, and [Luke mocked Him, and sent Him back to Pilate ;? He would not ™* 1.1 vouchsafe to take notice of Him, nor to be troubled with the examination of so poor, contemptible a fellow, And so in Aristotle», not to know a man’s name, not to have taken so much notice of him, as to remember what to call him, is reckoned the greatest neglect, the unkindest scoff in the world, and is ordinarily taken very tenderly by any one who hath deserved any thing at our hands. So that in brief—to gather up what we have hitherto scattered—the scoffers here meant, are those, who promising themselves to God’s service, do delude Him when He looks to find them amongst His » [ Aristot. Rhet., lib. ii. ο. 2. § 26.] Ps. x. 4. Mat. xxiv. 600 SERMON XXVIII. servants, i. 6. remain errand ° atheists under a Christian pro- fession, who by letting loose either their wits to profane jests, or their reason to heathenish conceits and disputings, or their actions to all manner of disobedience, demonstrate that indeed they care not for God, they scarce remember His name, neither is He in all their thoughts. In the next place, walking after their own lusts, is giving themselves liberty to follow all the directions of corrupt pol- luted nature, in entertaining all conceits and practices which the pride of their understandings and rankness of their affec- tions shall propose to them in opposition to God. And this without any reluctancy or twinge of conscience, walking on as securely and confidently as if it were indeed the night highway. So that now you have seen the outside of the text, and looked it over in the gross, it is time to survey it more par- ticularly in its parts, and those are two: 1. The sin of atheism, and the subjects in which it shews itself, “There shall come in the last days scoffers.” 2. The motive and impellent to this sin, a liberty which men give themselves, to walk after their own lusts. And first of atheism, and the subjects in whom it shews itself, “Tn the,” &c. Where you may note that the words being in a form of a prophecy, do note a sort of people which were to come, in respect of St. Peter who writes it; and though in its first aspect it refer to the period of the Jewish nation, and de- struction of Jerusalem, takes in the parallel state of things under the last age, and dotage, and declination of the world. Accordingly we see at the 24th of St. Matthew, the prophecy of both, as it were interwoven and twisted into each other; so that what St. Peter saith shall be, we may justly suspect is fulfilled amongst us, his future being now turned into a pre- sent, his prophecy into a story. In the Apostles’ times, when Christianity was in the cradle, and wanted years and strength to move and shew itself in the world, there were but very few that would acknowledge it; many sects of philosophers, who peremptorily resolved themselves against this profession, joined issue with the Apostles in assiduous disputation, as we may find in the 17th of the Acts. Amongst those the © | Errand or errant, an early way of spelling arrant. ] SERMON XXVIII. 601 Epicureans did plainly deny that there was any God that governed the world, and laugh at any proof that Moses and the prophets could afford for their conviction. And here a man might think that his prophecy was fulfilled in his own days, and that he needed not to look beyond that present age for store of scoffers. Yet so it is, that the infidelity which he foresaw should in those last ages reign confidently in the world, was represented to him in a larger size and uglier shape than that of the present philosophers. The Epicurean unbelief seemed nothing to him, being compared to this Christian atheism, where men under the vizard of religion and profession of piety, are in heart arrant heathens, and in their fairest carriages do indeed but scoff, and delude, and abuse the very God they worship. Whence the note is, that the profession of Christianity is mixed with an infinite deal of atheism, and that, in some degree, above the heathenism of the perversest philosophers. There were in St. Peter’s time Epicureans, and all sects of scoffers at Christianity, and yet the scoffers indeed, the highest degree of atheism, was but yet heaving; it would not rise and shew itself till the last days. It is worth observing what variety of stratagems the - devil hath always had to keep us in defiance with God, and to nourish in us that hostility and enmity against heaven, which is so deep and predominant im himself. He first set them a work to rebel and fortify themselves against God, and make themselves, by building of a tower, so impregnable that God Himself could not be able to disperse them. Afterwards, Gen. xi. when by the punishment and defeating of that design, the world was sufficiently instructed that no arm of flesh, no bodily strength could make resistance against heaven; when the body could hold out in rebellion no longer, he then in- structs the inward man, the soul, to make its approaches, and challenge heaven. Now the soul of man consisting of two faculties, the understanding and the will, he first deals with the understanding, and sets that up against God in many monstrous fashions; first, in deluding it to all manner of idolatrous worship, in making it adore the sun, the moon, and the whole host of heaven, which was a more generous kind of idolatry. Afterwards, in making them worship dogs and cats, onions and garlic, for so did the Egyptians; and this Gen. iii. 15. 602 SERMON XXVIII. was a more sottish stupid affection ; a man would wonder how the devil could make them such fools. Afterward he wrought still upon their understanding, in making them—under pre- tence of two laudable qualities, admiration and gratitude, ad- miration of any kind of virtue, and gratitude for any good turn —to deify and worship as gods any men which had ever done, either their nation, or private persons, any important good or favour. So that every heros, or noble, famous man, as soon as he was dead, was worshipped. It were long to shew you the variety of shifts in this kind, which the devil used to bring in the πολυθεότης of the Gentiles, i.e. their worship- ping of many gods. In brief, this plot lasted thus till Chris- tianity came into the world, and turned it out of doors, and at Christ’s resurrection all the gods of the heathen expired. However, the devil still stuck close to that faculty of the soul which he had been so long acquainted with, I mean the understanding, and seeing through the whole world almost the doctrine of Christ had so possessed men, that he could not hope to bring in his heathen gods again, he therefore hath one design more on the understanding; seeing it is resolved to believe Christ in spite of heathenism, he then puzzles it with many doubts about this very Christ it is so possessed with. He raises up, in the first ages of the Church, variety of heresies concerning the union of His natures, equality of His person with the Father, and the like: and rung as many changes in men’s opinions as the matter of faith was capable of. There was no truth almost in Chris- tianity, but had its heretic to contradict and damn it. Now since at last, reason and truth, and the power of Scripture having outlived in a good degree fundamental error in opinion, hath almost expulsed the devil out of the head—or upper part of the soul, the understanding—his last plot is on the heel, i.e. the will and affections; and that he hath bruised terribly, according to that prophecy, Gen. iti. 15. He deals mainly on our manners, and strives to make them, if it be possible, sinful beyond capability of mercy. And this design hath thrived with him wonderfully; he hath wrought more opposition against God, more heresy against Christ in our lives than ever he was able to do in our doctrine. In a kingdom, where the custom of the country and education SERMON XXVIII. 603 hath planted purity of faith in the understanding, he there labours to supplant and eradicate charity and devotion in the will, and crucifies Christ more confidently in our corrupt heathenish practices than ever the Jews did in their incre- dulity. And on this plot he hath stuck close, and insisted a long while, it being the last and most dangerous stratagem that the policy of hell can furnish him with, to corrupt, and curse, and make abominable a sincere belief by an atheistical conversation. And this doth prove in general, that it is the devil’s aim, and from thence probably the Christian’s curse, to have more hostility against God in our wills, and so to be more horrible atheists, than ever the heathen had in their understandings. Now that we may the more distinctly discover the Christian atheist, who is very orthodox in his opinion, very heretical in his practice; we will observe how every part of his life, every piece of his conversation doth directly contradict his doctrine, and pluck down and deface the very fabric of godliness, expunge those very notions of piety, which reason and Scripture hath erected in the soul. And first, He is in his knowledge sufficiently catechised in the know- ledge of Scripture, and is confident that all its dictates are to be believed, and commands practised. But if you look to find this assent confirmed by his practice, and expressed in his carriage, you are much mistaken in the business. Is he such a fool as to order his life according to the rigour of them? No, no doubt, it is not one man’s work to believe the Scrip- ture and obey it. Suppose I should tell you that there are but a few of you that read Scripture to that purpose, that observe any edict of piety or virtue only because the Scrip. ture hath commanded it, There be many restraints that keep unregenerate men from sinning; a good disposition, re- ligious education, common custom of the place or times where we live, human laws, and the like; and each or all of these may curb our forwardness, and keep us in some order. But who is there amongst us, that being tempted with a fair, lovely, amiable vice, which he may commit without any re- gret of his good nature, scandal to his former carriages, fear or danger of punishment, either future or present, or any other inconvenience: who is there, I say, that from the 1 ἐπιπολῆς. Mark v. 17. 604 SERMON XXVIIL. mere awe and respect that he bears to Scripture, retires and calls himself off from that sin which he had otherwise fallen into? If I should see all manner of conveniences to sin in one scale, and the bare authority of the Scriptures in the other quite outweighing all them with its heaviness, I should then hope that our hearts were catechised, as well as our brains, in the acknowledgment of this truth, that Scripture is to be believed and obeyed. But I much fear me, if I should make an enquiry in every one of our hearts here single, the greatest part of the jury would bring in an eyi- dence of guilt, that in any our most entire obediences some other respect casts the scales; and this is one piece of di- rect atheism, that though our understandings affirm, yet our will and affections deny that Scripture is for its own sake to be obeyed. Secondly, our brains are well enough advised in the truth of the doctrine of God’s essence and attributes, our under- standings have a distinct conceit of awe and reverence, to an- swer every notion we have of God; and yet here also our con- versation hath its postures of defiance, its scoffs and arts of reviling, as it were, to deface and scrape out every of these notions out of our wills, and to persuade both ourselves and others, that that knowledge doth only float’ in our brains, but hath no manner of weight to sink it deep into our hearts. To glance at one or two of these; we believe, or at least pre- tend we do so, the immensity} i.e. the ubiquity and omni- presence of God, that He indeed is every where, to fill, to see, to survey, to punish; and yet our lives do plainly proclaim, that in earnest we mean no such matter; we shut up our hearts against God, and either as the Gadarenes did Christ, being weary of His presence, fairly entreat, or else directly banish Him out of our coasts, because He hath been or is like to be the destruction of some swine, 1. 6. bestial affec- tions in us. And in sum, those bodies of ours, which He hath marked out for His temples, we will scarce allow Him for His inn to lodge with us one night. Again, can we ex- pect to be credited when we say we believe the ubiquity aud omnipresence of God, and yet live and sin as con- fidently as if we were out of His sight or reach? Do we behave ourselves in our outrages, in our luxury, nay, even SERMON XXVIII. 605 in our gravest devotions, as if God were within ken? Without all doubt, in every minute almost of our lives we demonstrate that we doubt either of His omnipresence to see, or else His justice to punish us: for those very things which we dare not to venture on in the sight of an earthly magistrate that may punish us, nay, of a spy that may com- plain of us, nay, of an enemy that will upbraid us, nay, of a friend that will check and admonish us; we never doubt, or demur, or delay to practise in private, or the dark, where still God is present to oversee and punish. And if this be not a scoffing, a deluding, a mere contemning of God, to do that without any fear or regret in His sight, which we never offer to attempt before a man, nay, a friend, I know not what may be counted atheism. In like manner, we ac- knowledge God to be αὐτάρκης, “all-sufficient ;” and if we should be examined in earnest, we would confess that there is no ability in any creature to bestow or provide any good thing for us; and yet our will here also hath its ways and arguments of contradiction. Our whole life is one continued confutation of this piece of our faith; our tremblings, our jealousies, our distrusts, our carefulness, our worldly provi- dence and importunate carking, our methods and _strata- gems of thrift and covetousness, and the whole business of our lives in wooing, and soliciting, and importuning every power of nature, every trade and art of the world, to succour, to assist, and provide for us, are most egregious evidences that we put no trust or confidence in God’s all-sufficiency, but wholly depend and rely upon the arm of flesh, both to raise and sustain us. This very one fashion of ours, in all our distresses, to fly to and call upon all manner of second causes, without any raising or elevating our eyes or thoughts toward God, from whom cometh our help, plainly shews that God [2 Sam. still dwells abroad in tents: we have seen or heard of Him, τ ®! but have not yet brought Him home into our hearts, there to possess, and rectify, and instruct our wills, as well as our understandings. Thirdly, the whole mystery of Christ articulately set down in our Creed we as punctually believe, and to make good our names, that we are Christians in earnest, we will challenge and defy the fire and fagot to persuade us out of it; and Lev. xix. 7. 606 SERMON XXVIII. these are good resolutions, if our practices did not give our faith the lie, and utterly renounce at the church door what- soever we professed in our pews. This very one thing, that He which is our Saviour, shall be our Judge, that He which was “crucified, dead, and buried, sits now at the right hand of God, and from thence shall come to judge the world ;” this main part, yea, sum of our belief, we deny and bandy against all our lives long. If the story of Christ coming to judgment, set down in the 25th of Matthew after the 30th verse, had ever entered through the doors of our ears to the inward closets of our hearts, it is impossible but we should observe and practise that one single duty there required of us. Christ there as a Judge exacts and calls us to account for nothing in the world, but only works of mercy, and according to the satisfaction which we are able to give Him in that one point, He either entertains or repels us; and therefore our care and negligence in this one business, will prove us either Christians or infidels. But alas! it is too plain, that in our actions we never dream either of the judg- ment or the arraignment; our stupid neglect of this one duty argues us not only unchristian but unnatural. Besides our alms-deeds, which concern only the outside of our neigh- bour, and are but a kind of worldly mercy, there are many more important, but cheaper works of mercy, as good counsel, spiritual instructions, holy education of them that are come out of our loins, or are committed to our care, seasonable reproof, according to that excellent place, “Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart, but in any wise reprove him :” a care of carrying ourselves that we may not scandal, or injure, or offer violence to the soul and tender conscience of him that is flexible to follow us into any riot. These and many other works of mercy in the highest degree, as con- cerning the welfare of other men’s souls, and the chief thing required of us at the day of judgment, are yet so outdated in our thoughts, so utterly defaced, and blotted out in the whole course of our lives, that it seems we never expect that Christ in His majesty as a Judge, whom we apprehend, and embrace, and hug in His humility as a Saviour. Beloved, till by some severe hand held over our lives, and particu- larly by the daily study and exercise of some work of mercy SERMON XXVIIT. 607 or other, we demonstrate the sincerity of our belief; the saints on earth and angels in heaven will shrewdly suspect, that we do only say over that part of our Creed, that we believe only that which is for our turn, the sufferings and satisfactions of Christ, which cost us nothing, but do not pro- ceed to His office of a Judge, do not either fear His judg- ments, or desire to make ourselves capable of His mercies. Briefly, whosoever neglects or takes no notice of this duty of exercising works of mercy, whatsoever he brags of in his theory or speculation, in his heart either denies or contemns Christ as Judge, and so destroys the sum of his faith; and this is another kind of secret atheism. Fourthly, our Creed leads us on to a belief and acknowledg- ment of the Holy Ghost; and it is well we have all conned His name there, for otherwise I should much fear that it would be said of many nominal Christians, what is reported of the Ephesian disciples, “They have not so much as heard Acts xix. whether there be an Holy Ghost or no.” But not to suspect 2 so much ignorance in any Christian, we will suppose in- deed men to know whatsoever they profess, and enquire only whether our lives second our professions, or whether indeed they are mere infidels and atheistical, in this business con- cerning the Holy Ghost. How many of the ignorant sort which have learnt this name in their Catechism or Creed, have not yet any further use to put it to, but only to make up the number of the Trimity, have no special office to ap- point for Him, no special mercy, or gift, or ability to beg of Him in the business of their salvation, but mention Him only for fashion’s sake, not that they ever think of preparing their bodies or souls to be temples worthy to entertain Him, not that they ever look after “the earnest of the Spirit”’ in their 2 Cor. i. hearts! Further yet, how many better learned amongst us do not yet im our lives acknowledge Him in that epithet annexed to His title, the Holy Ghost, i. 6. not only eminently in Himself holy, but causally, producing the same quality in us, from thence called the sanctifying and renewing Spirit! how do we for the most part fly from, and abandon, and resist, and so violently deny Him, when He once appears to us in this attribute! When He comes to sanctify us, we are not patient of so much sourness, so much humility, so much 608 SERMON XXVIII. non-conformity with the world, as He begins to exact of us; we shake off many blessed motions of the Spirit, and keep ourselves within garrison, as far as we can out of His reach, lest at any turn He should meet with, and we should be converted. Lastly, the most ordinary morally qualified, tame Christians amongst us, who are not so violent as to profess open arms against this Spirit, how do they yet reject Him out of all their thoughts! How seldom do mary peaceable orderly men amongst us, ever observe their wants, or importune the assistance of this Spirit! In sum, it was a shrewd speech of the fathers‘, which will cast many fair outsides at the bar for atheists, “ that the life of an unregenerate man is but the life of an heathen,” and that it is our regeneration only that raises us up ἐξ ἐθνῶν, from being still mere Gentiles. He that believes in his Creed the Person, nay, understands in the schools the attributes and gifts of the Holy Ghost, and yet sees them only in the fountain, neither finds nor seeks for any effects of them in his own soul; he that is still unre- generate, and continues still gaping and yawning, stupid and senseless in this his condition is still, for all his Creed and learning, in effect an atheist. And the Lord of heaven give him to see, and endeavours to work, and a heart to pray, and His Spirit to draw and force him out of this condition. Fifthly, not to cramp in every article of our Creed into this discourse, we will only insist on two more. We say therefore that we believe “the Forgiveness of Sins,” and it is a blessed confidence, that all the treasures in the world cannot equal. But do ourselves keep equipage, and hand in hand accom- pany this profession? Let me catechise you a while. You believe the forgiveness of sins, but I hope not absolutely, that the sufferings of Christ shall effectually clear every man’s score at the day of judgment: well then, it must be meant only of those that by repentance and faith are grafted into Christ, and shall appear at that great marriage in a wedding-garment, which shall be acknowledged the livery and colours of the Lamb. But do our lives ever stand to this explication and restriction of the article? Do they ever expect this beloved remission by performing the condi- 4 Clemens Alcx. Sirom., p. 281. [ut supr.] SERMON XXVIII. 609 tion of repentance ? Do we ever go about to make ourselves capable of receiving this mercy conditionally offered us? Nay, do we not by our wilful stupidity, and pertinacious con- tinuing in sin, nullify in respect of us all that satisfaction of Christ, and utterly abandon those means which must bring home this remission to us? The truth is, our faith runs only on general terms, we are willing to lay all our sins on Christ’s shoulders, and persuade ourselves somewhat slightly and coldly, that He will bear them in the root and in the fruit, in the bullion and in the coin, in the gross and in the retail, 1. 6. both our original and our actual transgressions : but we never take any course to rest satisfied that we in particular shall participate of this happiness. This requires the humiliation of the whole man, the spirit of bondage for a while, afterwards a second purity and virginity of the soul recovered by repentance, and then a soberly grounded faith and confidence, and an expressing of it by our own forgiving of others. And till this piece of our Creed be thus explained and interpreted in our conversation, we remain but confident atheists, not able to persuade any body that hears us that indeed we believe what we profess. Sixthly and lastly, “the Resurrection of the Body,” and its consequent, “ Everlasting Life,” is the close of our faith, and end, and prop, and encouragement, and consummation of our hope; and yet we take most pains of all to prove our- selves infidels in this; our whole carriage, both in the choice and observance of our religion, shew that we do not depend on it, that we put no confidence in the resurrection. If we went on this assurance, we should contemn any worldly en- couragement, and make the same thing both the object and end of our service. We should scorn to take notice of so poor a thing as profit or convenience is, in a matter of so high importance, knowing and expecting that our reward shall be great in heaven. This one thought of a resurrec- tion, and an infinite reward of any faithful undertaking of ours, would make us disdain, and almost be afraid of any temporal recompense for our worship of God, for fear it should, by paying us beforehand, deprive us of that everlast- ing one. We should catch and be ambitious of that ex- pression of devotion, which were most painful and least pro- HAMMOND. ΤΥ Hos. x. 11. [ Deut. xxv. 4. ] 77 610 SERMON XXVIII. fitable as to worldly advantage: and yet we in the stupidity of atheistical hearts are so improvidently covetous, so hasty and impatient in our religion, that unless some present gain allure and draw us, we have no manner of life, or spirit, or alacrity to this, as we count it, unprofitable service of God. The least encumbrance in the world will fright us from the greatest forwardness, and nimbleness, and activity in re- ligion: and the least appearance of promotion, or other like encouragement, will produce and raise in us these affections and expressions of zeal, which the expectation of the resur- rection could never work in us. Our religion is somewhat like that of the Samaritans, before Christ’s time, either Jews or heathens, according as their king Antiochus would have them*; after Christ’s time were perpetually either Jews or Christians, according as the Romans, their new lords and masters, either threatened or granted privilege to the Jews. If there were any thing to be gotten by the profession, they would be as solemn Christians as any. So when the Goths and Vandals overrun Italy, and—whether upon good affec- tion or compulsion from God, I know not—spared them that fled to the basilica in Rome‘, the place where the Christians exercised; then, 1 say, they which formerly persecuted the Christians, now bore them company very friendly to their churches, and to save their lives fled to the temple for a refuge, which before they abomined; and made use of Christianity for their safeguard, which they would not own for their religion, and hurried to that sanctuary for their lives, which they would not visit for their souls. The condi- tion of our religion is like that which is upbraided to Ephraim, “ Ephraim is like an heifer that loveth to tread out the corn.” It was prohibited by the law to muzzle the ox or heifer that treadeth out the corn; it was allowed them to feed as long as they did the work, and that made Ephraim love the toil so well, because that at the very time he performed the labour, he enjoyed the fruit of it; had, as we say, his wages in his hand; had some present emolument that would ingratiate his work to him; was not left to such a tedious expectation, € Josephus, Antiq. Jud., lib. xii. c. ‘ (Cf. S. August. De Civit. Dei, lib. 5. [vol. i. p. 538. ed. Huds.] et lib. xi. i.e. 1. Op., tom. vii. init. ] c. 8. [§ 6. p. 504. ] SERMON XXVIII. 611 to so long a date as to wait for his reward till the resurrec- tion: those were too hard terms for him, he could not endure to be tied so long up to the empty rack, or feed upon the bit. And thus hasty are we in the exacting of our reward for our service of God: we will never set our hands to it, unless we may make our conditions: we are resolved not to be such fools, as to serve God for nought, to spend the quickest of our spirits in a sour crabbed ‘profession, and expect our thanks at doomsday, This plainly demonstrates, that however our theory be possessed, our practice places no trust, no confidence, no assurance in that part of our Creed, the resurrection. Again, it was an excellent argument to persuade doubtful Christians in the youth and nonage of the Church, of the certainty of the resurrection, that religious men, and those whom undoubtedly God loved, were full of sufferings in this world, and lived and died many of them without any expression of God’s favour to them, which made them certaimly to conclude, that no doubt God hath some other course to exhibit Himself in the riches of His mercy to them; and seeing there was no hope but in another world, ‘Verily there should be a reward for the righteous, doubtless ees viii. there is a God that judgeth the earth ;” and by this argument τι we may try ourselves for the sincerity of our faith in this business. If we can be patient to endure afflictions here, and not complain or grumble for a respite and deliverance, but keep all our hopes to be accomplished, defer all our happiness to be performed to us at the resurrection, and though God kill us, yet trust im Him, and be able to see [Job xiii. through death, in a trust “that our Redeemer lives, and that }* 1 Job xix. with these eyes we shall behold Him,” then may we cheer up, 25. and persuade ourselves on good grounds that our hearts and lives do assent to the resurrection, which our tongues brag of: ‘Take no heaviness to heart, but drive it away and Ecclus. remember the end.” But if this consideration cannot digest 3**¥"* the least oppression of this life, cannot give us patience for the lightest encumbrance, but for all our Creed we still fly out into all outrages of passion and ecstacies of impatience, we plainly betray ourselves men of this present world, whose happiness or misery is only that which is temporary, and before our eyes, are not able by the perspective of faith to Rr2 {1 Thess. iv. 13.] [ Ps. xlix. 20. { Luke xvi. 9.] 612 SERMON XXVIII. behold that which easily ‘we might, all our wants relieved, all our injuries revenged, all our wounds bound up in the day of the resurrection: but all our life long we repine and grumble, and are discontented as men without hope; and whilst we do thus, what do we but act the part of these atheists here in my text, scoffing and saying, “‘ Where is the promise of His coming,” in the next verse to my text. This very impatience and want of skill in bearing the brunts of this our warfare, is but a piece of cowardly atheism, either a denying or mocking at the resurrection. Every sigh is a scoff, every groan a gibe, every fear a sly art of laughing at the stupidity of those who depend upon the fulfilling of the promise of His coming. Lastly, say we what we will, we live as if there were no resurrection, as Sadducees, if not as atheists; all our designs look no further than this life, all our contrivances are defeated and frustrate in the grave; we manage ourselves with so little understanding, that any spectator would judge by our actions that it is no injury to compare us to the beasts that perish and never return again. Certainly if we had any design upon heaven or another life, we would here make some provision for it, “ make ourselves friends of our unrighteous mammon, that when we fail, they may receive us into everlasting habitations,” i.e. use those good things that God hath given us with some kind of pro- vidence, that they may stand us in stead when we have need of them, 1. 6. not only as instruments to sin—for that is to get us more enemies—but as harbingers to be sent before us to heaven. It was a bitter sarcasm of the fool to the abbot on his death-bed, that the abbot deserved his staff, as bemg the verier fool of the two, that being straight to die, to remove his tent to another world, he had sent none of his household-stuff before him. The truth is, we live generally as men that would be very angry, much displeased if any should persuade us there were a resurrection, the very mentioning of it to us might seem to upbraid our ordinary practices, which have nothing but the darkness of death and silence of the grave to countenance them. I may justly say that many ignorant heathens, which were confident there was nothing beyond this life, expected certainly with death to be annihilated, and turn again into a perpetual SERMON XXVIII. 613 nothing; yet either for the awe they bore to virtue, or fear of disgrace after death, kept themselves more regularly, lived more carefully than many of us Christians. And this is an horrid accusation, that will lie very heavy upon us, that against so many illuminated understandings the igno- rance of the Gentiles should rise up in judgment, and the learned Christian be found the most desperate atheist. I have been too large upon so rigid a doctrine as this, and I love and pray God I may always have occasion to come up to this place upon a more merciful subject: but I told you even now out of Lev. xix. 17, that it was no small work of mercy, it was the most friendly office that could be per- formed any man, to reprehend, and as the text saith, “not to suffer sin upon thy neighbour,” especially so sly a covert lurk- ing sin as this of atheism, which few can discern in them- selves. I shall now come to application, which because the whole doctrine spoke morally to your affections, and so in a manner prevented uses, shall be only a recapitulation and brief knitting up of what hitherto hath been scattered at large. Seeing that the devil’s policy of deluding, and bewitching, and distorting our understandings, either with variety of false gods, or heresies raised upon the true, is now almost clearly out-dated, and his skill is all bent to the deforming of the will, and defacing the character of God, and the ex- pression of the sincerity of our faith in our lives; we must deal with this enemy at his own weapon, learn to order our munition according to the assault, and fortify that part most impregnably, toward which the tempest binds and threatens. There is not now so much danger to be feared from the in- road of heretics in opinion as in practice, not so much atheism to be dreaded from the infidelity of our brains, as the heathenism and gentilism of our lusts, which even in the midst of a Christian profession deny God even to His . face. And therefore our chiefest frontiers and fortifications must be set up before that part of the soul, our most careful watch and sentinel placed upon our affections, lest the devil enter there and depopulate the whole Christian, and plant the atheist in his room. To this purpose we must examine what seeds are already sown, what treachery is a working Lev. xix. ive (Ps, x. 4. ] 014 SERMON XXVIII. within; and no doubt most of us at the first cast of the eye shall find great store, unless we be partial to ourselves, and bring in a verdict of mercy, and construe that weakness, which indeed signifies atheism. When upon examination we find our lives undermining our belief, our practices denying the authority of Scripture, and no whit forwarder to any Christian duty upon its com- mands; when we find God’s essence and attributes reviled and scoffed at in our conversation, His omnipresence con- temned by our confidence in sinning, and argued against by our banishing God out of all our thoughts, His all-suffi- ciency doubted of by our distrusts, and our scorn to depend upon it; when we perceive that our carriages do fall off at this part of our belief in Christ, that He shall come again to be our Judge, and by our neglect of those works, espe- cially of mercy, which He shall then require of us, shew that indeed we expect Him not, or think of Him as a Judge, but only as a Saviour; when we observe our wills resisting the gifts, and falsifying the attribute, whilst our Creed confesses the person of the Holy Ghost, and see how little, how nothing of the sanctifying Spirit, of the earnest of our re- generation is in our hearts, and we still stupidly senseless of the want; when we believe forgiveness of sins, and that only upon condition of repentance, and yet abhor so much as to hear or think of the performing of it, or to make good that mercy to others which ourselves challenge of God; lastly, when we prove to ourselves, and all the world beside, by our requirmg of a present reward for all our goodness, and ruling our religion to our earthly profit, by our impa- tience of any affliction, by our heathenish neglect, and stu- pidity, and riot, that we do not in earnest look for the re- surrection to life; when, I say, by a just, but exact survey and inquest, we find these so many degrees of secret atheism in us, then must we shrift, and purge, and cleanse, and rinse our souls from these dregs of heathenism; then must we humble ourselves below the dust, and not dare to look the veriest Gentile in the face, till we have removed this plague from us. And do Thou, O Lord, assist our endeavours, and by the violence of Thy Spirit force and ravish us in our lives, as well as belief, to a sincere acknowledgment and expres- SERMON XXVIII. 615 sion of every minute part of that religion which is purely Christian, that we may adore Thee in our hearts as well as our brains, and being sanctified throughout, from any tinc- ture, or colour, or suspicion of irreligion in either power of our soul, we may glorify Thee here, and be glorified by Thee hereafter. Now to Him which hath elected us, hath, &c. SERMON XXIX. 2 Per. ui. 3. Scoffers walking after their own lusts. Tr is an excellent observation of Aristotle’s, that rich men are naturally most contumelious, most given to abuse and de- ride others, which he expresses thus, in the seventh of his Poli- tics*; ἡ δὲ THs εὐτυχίας ἀπόλαυσις Kal TO σχολάζειν μετ᾽ εἰρή- νης, ὑβριστὰς ποιεῖ μᾶλλον. The contentment which they enjoy in the continuance of their worldly happiness, the per- petual rest, and quiet, and tranquillity, which their plenty bestows on them, makes them contemn and despise the estate of any other man in the world; upon this conceit, saith the same Aristotle”, (ὅτε ὑπερέχειν φαίνονται.) that their hap- piness is elevated infinitely above the ordinary pitch; that whatever contentments any other sort of people can glory or delight in, is but some imaginary, slight, poor happiness that men are fain to solace themselves withal, to keep them from melancholy, all far enough below the size of their felicity, which all agreeable circumstances have conspired to make exactly complete. Hence is it that you shall ordinarily observe the rich man, in this confidence of his opinion, that no man is happy but himself, either contemn or pity the poverty, and improvidence, and perhaps the sottishness of such spirits, that can rejoice or boast in the possession of wisdom, knowledge, nay, even of God’s graces; no object is more ridiculous in his eye, than either a scholar or a Christian, that knows not the value of riches: for saith Aristotle, 6 πλοῦ- Tos οἷον τιμή τις ἐστὶ τῆς ἀξίας τῶν ἄλλων, διὸ φαίνεται πάντα ὦνια εἶναι αὐτοῦ, “ Money is reckoned the price of all things * [Aristot. Polit., lib. vii. ο. 15.] > [ Aristot. Rhetor., lib. ii. ο. 16.} SERMON XXIX. 617 else,” that which can easily purchase whatever else we can stand in need of ; and therefore the rich man, if he could think learning and religion worth any thing, having his money by him (which is in effect every thing) thinks he can call for them when he pleases. In the mean, he hath more wit than to forsake his pleasures, and go to school to the Stoic, to divest himself of his robes, and put on the sourness, the rigid, sad behaviour which the profession of wisdom or Christianity requires. He is better pleased in his present pomp, than to go and woo that misery and ruggedness, which the severity of discipline looks for. Let silly beggars boast of the contents of wisdom or hopes of heaven, at mihi plaudo domi‘, his coffers at home are better companions than all the melancholy of books, or sullen solaces of the spirit. He hath learnt by experience, that he ought to pity and contemn these fictions of delight which the poets fetch from the Fortunate Islands to delude, and cozen, and comfort beggars: his glory, and pride, and riches, are happiness indeed, and whatever else the poverty of the world can boast of, are objects not of his envy but his scorn. What we have hitherto noted to you concerning the rich man is appliable on the same grounds to any sort of people which have fixed upon any worldly content, and resolved upon some one object, beside which they will never value or prize any thing. Thus the epicure or voluptuous man, who hath set up his idol lust, to whom he owes all his sacrifice, and from whom he expects all his good fortune, that hath fixed his pillars, and cast his anchor, and is peremptorily constant in his course, that he is resolved for ever to walk in; this man, I say, being possessed with an opinion of the happiness which he is placed in, like the sun in his pride, rejoices to run his course, and scorns any contrary motion that he meets or hears of; and only observes the ways of virtue and religion, to hate and laugh at them; and the further he walks, the deeper he is engaged in this humour of self-content, and contempt of others, of security, and scoffing. For this is the force and implicit argument co- vertly contained in the close of these words, “There shall come in the last days scoffers,” &c.; i.e. this resolution to [ Horat. Sat. i. 1. 65.] [Wisd. 11, 21.] 618 SERMON XXIX. walk on in their own lusts hath brought them to this pitch of atheism, to scoff and deride both God and goodness. “There shall,” &c. We have heretofore divided these words, and in them observed and handled already the sin of atheism, together with the subjects in which it works, Christians of the last times, noted from this prophetic speech, “There shall come in the last days scoffers.” We now come to the second par- ticular, the motive or impellent to this sin, a liberty which men give themselves, and a content which they take to walk after their own lusts. The second chapter of the Wisdom of Solomon is an ex- cellent description of the atheist: and though it be of apo- cryphal authority, yet it is of most divine canonical truth. I could find in my heart, nay, I can scarce hold from read- ing and paraphrasing the whole chapter to you; it is so solid, so strong, so perfect a discourse upon this theme, it contains so many strains of atheistical reason in opposition to godliness, and the root, and growth, and maturity of this tree of knowledge and death, that the clear understanding of that one place might suffice without any enlargement of proofs or expressions. But for brevity sake, and on promise that you will at your leisure survey it, I will omit to insist on it: only in the end of the twenty-first verse, after all the expressions of their atheistical counsels, you have the rea- son, or motive, or first worker of all, “ for their own wicked- ness hath blinded them ;” their stupid perseverance in those dark ways, in that black Tophet on earth, habituate custom of sinning, had so thickened their sight, had drawn such a film over their eyes, that in the judgment of divine affairs they were stark blind: they could see nothing in all the mystery of godliness which was worth embracing, and there- fore had no employment but to walk on after their own lusts, and to scoff at those that were so foolishly friendly to them as to call them out of their way: they were well enough acquainted with their own paths, they could walk them blindfold, and therefore had more wit than forsake the road for a nearer by-way. The issue of all is this, that a voluptuous course of life is a great promoter and advancer of atheism: there had never been so many scoffers in the Chris- SERMON XXIX. 619 tian world, had there not been also those that were resolute to walk after their own lusts. In the first verse of the Psalms, there be steps and rounds, and gradations of a sinner specified; 1. Walking in the coun- sel of the ungodly; 2. Standing in the way of sinners; 3. Sitting in the seat of the scorner: the two first beg de- grees in his motion, several stages of his journey to this ἀκμὴ, or top pitch of sinning in the last. Walking in the counsel of the ungodly is the first entrance to his course ; and he that hath such a rise as this, hath a great advantage of all other sinners; he will perform his race with speed, and come sud- denly to his goal. This deliberate walking in the ways, and with the companions and contrivers of ungodliness, this par- taking and prosecuting of the counsels, the enjoying this, familiarity with sin, proves a strong engagement to continue and persevere, and delight in its acquaintance. Yet because walking is a laborious motion, and will tire the sinner in time, he is fain to betake himself to an easier posture, and that is standing in the way of sinners, continuing in a still, sober, quiet, stupid tranquillity of sinning, standing like a Mercury’s post in the midst of a road, never removed or stirred an inch, though never so justled by the passengers. Let all the contrary virtues never so thwart and cross him, he hath fixed his station, and neither force nor allurements shall make him move. Yet because standing also is a painful posture, with which the valiantest legs will at last be numbed, if not tired, he hath in the last place his chair of ease and state, and here he sets up his rest, here he sins with as much majesty as delight: 1. in cathedra, as a seat of greatness, lording it, and sinning imperiously, commanding every spec- tator to follow his example of scoffing at God and goodness : 2. in cathedra, as a seat of authority, sinning doctorally, and magisterially, by his practice defining the lawfulness of these scoffs, even setting up a school of atheism: and 8. in cathedra, as a seat of rest, and ease, and pleasure, which he is resolved never to rise out of, which he hath reposed himself in, that he may laugh at ease, and without any pains or trouble or charges blaspheme God for ever. And for the most part indeed he proves as bad as his resolution, having once given himself this licence of laughing at and deriding 620 SERMON XXIX. religion, he seldom ever recovers himself to a sober counte- nance; like men whose custom of scoffing hath made wry- mouthed, he lives and continues, and for the most part dies scoffing. He comes as it were laughing into hell, and seldom forsakes this habit of profaneness, till horror hath put smiling out of date. There is not a sin in the world that sits closer to him which hath once entertained it, and he that is once a merry atheist, seldom, if ever, proves a sad sober Christian. He is seated in his chair of scorning, and contemns the mercy of that Spirit that should take him out of it. Thus you see, that walking in the steps, and standing in the way, 1. 6. fol- lowing the commands of their own lusts, they are soon arrived to the pitch of atheists, to the chair of scorners, and then there is but little preferment more that they are capable of, unless they will strive with Lucifer for pre-eminence in hell, or else challenge Rabshakeh to rail, or Julian to blaspheme. But this is the highest degree of scoffers, and I hope the devil hath but few such valiant, bold, forward champions in the world, since Julian or Lucian’s time. And therefore I hope I have pricked no man’s conscience here whilst I have spoke of them; but I have formerly proved that there be some lower, tamer, secret degrees of atheism, which every man may chance to spy in some angle or corner of his soul, some implicit arti- ficial ways of scoffing, or abasing God, which most of us are guilty of; and it will be worthy our pains to shew how these seeds are warmed, and cherished, and animated by a licen- tious life. Hippocrates‘ observes of the Scythians that they do not swathe themselves, nor bind in their loins with any kind of girdle, but go with their bodies very loose, that they may ride the easier, which is the only exercise they use: and from hence, saith he, they grow so corpulent and fleshy, so broad and bulky, that they are both ugly and unwieldy, an eye-sore to others and cumbersome to themselves: these accessions, which in other people extend themselves proportionably in length and breadth, in height as well as bulk, in them grow all into thickness; so that you shall see a pigmy in stature as big as a giant inthe girt. Thus is it with those whose affec- tions are not ruled, and restrained in order, and within limits, are not swathed and kept in, have not some set terms of tem- 4 Hippocrates, de Aqua, Aere et Loco. [ut supr. ]} SERMON XXIX. 621 perance, and other virtues, beyond which they suffer not themselves to fly out. If, I say, these affections within us be by the owners left ungirt to their own freedom, they will never grow upward toward heaven; they will still be dwarf- ish, of small growth in religion; but yet like those Scythians, they will run into a strange bulk and corpulence, into some unwieldy misshapen forms of atheism, or the like. Certainly they will grow into a greater breadth than the reasonable soul will be able to manage; unless the spirit vouchsafe to come down, and contract and call it into bounds, it will in- crease beyond all proportion, beyond all acknowledgment of God orreligion. We are used to say in nature, that all moist things are apt to be contained in other terms, but hardly in their own; the water is easily cooped up in a glass or bucket, where there are boundaries to keep it in, but being let loose on a table or a floor, it flies about and never stays again till it meet with some ocean or hollow place which may inclose, and bestow the consistency on it which it has not of itself. Thus you may see a river, whilst it is kept within the chan- nel, go on in its stream and course very soberly and orderly, but when it hath overswelled the banks which before kept it in, then doth it run about the pastures, scorns to be kept within any compass. Thus is it with the soul of man; if it be ordered within terms and bounds, if it have a strict hand held over it, if it be curbed and brought to its postures, if it have reason and grace, and a careful tutor to order it, you shall find it as tame a creature as you need deal with; it will never straggle or stray beyond the confines which the spirit hath set it; the reason is, because though it be in itself fluid and moist, and ready to run about like water, yet Deus firmavit aquas, “ God Gen. i. 7. hath made a firmament betwixt the waters,” as He did Gen. i. 7,1.e. He hath established it, and given it a consistency, that it should not flow or pour itself out beyond its place. But if this soul of man be left to its own nature, to its own fluid, wild, incontinent condition, it presently runs out into an ocean, never stays, or considers, or consults, but rushes head- long into all inordinacy; having neither the reins of reason nor God to keep it in, it never thinks of either of them, and unless by chance, or by God’s mercy, it fall into their hands, it is likely to run riot for ever. Being once let loose, 622 SERMON XXIX. it ranges, as if there were neither power on earth to quell nor in heaven to punish it. Thus do you see how fiuid, how in- constant the soul is of its own accord, how prone it is, how naturally inclined to run over like a stream over the banks, and if it be not swathed, and kept in, if it be left to the licen- tious condition of itself, how ready is it to contemn both rea- son and God, and run headlong into atheism. Nay, we need not speak so mercifully of it, this very licentiousness is the actual renouncing of religion, this very “ walking after their own lusts,” is not only a motive to this sin of scoffing, but the very sin itself. A false conception in the womb is only a rude, confused, ugly chaos, a mere lump of flesh, of no kind of figure or resemblance, gives only disappoitment, danger, and torment to the mother. It is the soul at its entrance which defines, and trims, and polishes into a body, that gives it eyes, and ears, and legs, and hands, which before it had not distinctly and severally, but only rudely altogether with that mass or lump. ‘Thus is it with the man, till religion hath entered into him as a soul to inform and fashion him; as long as he lives thus at large, having no terms, or bounds, or limits to his actions, having no form, or figure, or certain motion defined him, he is a mola, a mere lump of man, an arrant atheist ; you cannot discern any features or lineaments of a Christian in him; he hath neither eyes to see, nor ears to hear, nor hands to practise any duty that belongs to his peace. Only it is religion must take him up, must smooth and dress him over, and according to its etymon must 7e- ligure, swathe and bind up this loose piece of flesh, must animate and inform him, must reduce him to some set form of Christianity, or else he is likely after a long and fruitless travel to appear a deformed monstrous atheist. But not to deal any longer upon similes, lest we seem to confound and perplex a truth by explaining it, I told you the licentious, voluptuous life was itself perfect heathenism. For can you imagine a man to be any but a Gentile, who hath abandoned all love, all awe, all fear, all care of God—any one of which would much contract and draw him into compass—who hath utterly put off every garb of a Christian, who hath enjoyed the reins so long, that now he is not sensible, or at least SERMON XXIX. 623 contemns the curb or snaffle if he be but checked with it, gets it in his teeth and runs away with it more fiercely. The heathen are noted not so much that they worshipped no god at all, but that they worshipped so many, and none of them the true. Every great friend they had, every delight and pleasure, every thing that was worth praying for, straight proved their god, and had its special temple erected for its worship. So that do but imagine one of them every day worshipping every god whom he acknowledged, in its several oratory, spending his whole life, and that too little too, in running from one temple to another, and you have described our licentions man posting on perpetually to his sensual de- votions, worshipping, adoring, and sacrificing every minute of his life, to some idol-vanity, and bestowing as much pains and charges in his profane, heathenish pleasures, as ever the Gentiles did on their false gods, or the most superero- gating papist on their true. We are wont to say in divinity “, and that without an hy- perbole, that every commission of sin is a kind of idolatry, an incurvation, and bending down of the soul to some creature, which should always be erect, looking up to heaven, from whence it was infused, like water naturally inclined to climb and ascend as high as the fountain, or head from whence it sprang. And then certainly a licentious life is a perpetual idolatry, a supineness, and proneness, and incurvation of the soul to somewhat that deserves to be called an idol, i. 6. either in St. Paul’s acceptation of it, nothing—“ an idol is 1 Cor. viii. nothing,” or else, in the most honourable signification, only = an image, or some rude likeness or representation of God. We are the image of God ourselves, and whatsoever is below us, is but an imperfect draught of Him, containing some linea- ments, some confused resemblances of His power which created them, have no being of their own, but only as shadows which the light doth cast. And therefore every love, every bow, every cringe which we make to any creature, is the wooing and worshipping of an image at best, in plain terms of an idol, nothing. What degree then of idolatry have they attained to, who every minute of their lives bow down and worship, make it their trade and calling for ever * Wiggers in 14" secunde, quest. 1. art. 5. p. 27, 28. [ Mat. vi. 24. | 624 SERMON XXIX. to be a soliciting some pleasure or other! some exquisite piece of sensuality to bless and make them happy, which have no other shrines to set up, but only to their own lust, to which they do so crouch, and creep, and crawl, that they are never able tg stand upright again: like those trees which the papists talk of, which by bowing to our Lady’s house, when in walks by the wood toward Loretto, have ever since stood stooping. Thus do you see how the latter part of my text hath overtook the former: the walking after his own lusts becomes a scoffer, the licentious man proceeded atheist, and that with ease, his very voluptuous life is a kind of atheism; and the reasons of this are obvious, you need not seek or search far for them. For first, this walking in their own lusts, notes an habit gathered out of many acts; he hath walked there a long while, and therefore now hath the skill of it, walks on con- fidently, and carelessly, without any rub or thought of stop- ping. And contrary to this, the worship of God, of which atheism is a privation, is an holy, religious habit of piety and obedience. Now we know two contrary habits cannot consist or be together in the same subject. An habit and its opposite privation are incompatible, light and darkness at the same time, though they may seem to meet sometimes as in twilight ; but for two opposite positive habits, never any man’s conceit was so bold or fantastical as to join them; you cannot ima- gine one, but you must remove the other. You may suppose a man distempered or weak, which is a privation of health, and yet suppose him pretty healthy, as long as his natu- ral strength is able to overcome it; but can you suppose a man in a violent fever actually upon him, and yet still ima- gine him in perfect health? Thus is it with a sinner, who hath given himself over to the tyranny and impotency of his lusts, he hath utterly put off all degrees, all sparks of any habit of religion, according to that of our Saviour, “you cannot serve God and mammon,” where mammon signifying in a vast extent the god of this world, imports all lusts, all earthly vanities, which any habituate sinner deifies. Secondly, every habit notes a delight, an acquiescence, and joy, in enjoying of that which through many actions, perhaps some brunts and rubs, he hath at last arrived to. Now this i is ee i i ee a ee SERMON XXIX. 625 delight and contentation, that it may be complete, is impa- tient of any other encumbrance, which at any time may come in to interrupt or disorder it. If any thing so happen, it is never quiet, till it have removed it. The scholar that hath all his life laboured, and at last attained to some habit of knowledge, and then resolves to enjoy the happiness and fruits of learning, in the quiet and rest of a perpetual con- templation, is impatient if any piece of ignorance cross or thwart him in his walk, he will to his books again, and never rest till he hath overcome and turned it out. Thus doth the sensual man, being come to the ἀκμὴ, and pitch, and entered into the paradise of his worldly joys, if he do but meet with any jar, if he feel any pluck or twinge from his conscience, any grudge or compunction of the spirit within him, any spark or heat, or warmth of religious fear in his breast, he will never rest till he hath abandoned it, he is impatient of such a qualm of godliness, he must needs put it over, he is sick at heart till he hath disgorged himself of this choler, and then returns securely godless to his walk, having banished God out of all his thoughts. Thus shall you see the atheist [Ps. x. 14.] on his humour, for want of some compunction at home, grumble at every godly man or action which they saw in the street. In the 2nd of Wisdom at the 14th; “He is Wisd. ii. grievous unto us to behold, he was made to reprove our 1 thoughts ;” and they do not return to their content, they are not pleased again, till they have gotten him into their inquisition, to examine him with despitefulness and_tor- ture. Thus do they abhor, and stifle, and strangle every ver:.19. godly action in others, or motion in themselves, because the holiness of the one is an exprobation to their profaneness, and the other was a pang of conscience, made, as it were on purpose, by God to reprove their thoughts. Thirdly, this walking in the text, though it be with some motion, yet it is a slow one, a kind of walking in one’s sleep, or that of amelancholy man, that can walk till he be wet through, and not mark that it rained. I say, it notes here an heavy, drowsy, unactive habit, expressed by the Psalmist by sitting in a chair, as we shewed you; it notes a kind of churlish reso- luteness, to walk on, whatever come in his way; he is grown even a passive to his lusts, he doth not so much act as suffer HAMMOND- ss Ecclus. xxii. 8, 626 SERMON XXIX. them, he walks on snorting in his road; do what you can, you shall neither tw nor wake him. Now this slow, drowsy, unactive habit begets a kind of numbness in him, a sluggish, sullen stupidity over all his faculties, that even a spur or goad cannot rouse him ; all the pores, as it were, and passages, and entries to the soul are so stopped and bunged up, all his affections are grown so gross and brawny, so hardened and incrassate, that no air or breath from heaven can pierce it. He that tells him of religion, or God, or virtue, is as he that waketh one from a sound sleep; he that telleth such a fool a tale of wisdom, speaketh to one in “a slumber, and when he hath told his tale, he will say, What is the matter?” Thus do you see; 1. the repugnance and inconsistence of a voluptuous life and religion; 2. the delight; 3. the stupidity of this habit; each of which have made a place for the libertine, and set him in the chair of the scorner. And all this while methinks I have but talked to your ears; now that your hearts and affections may partake of the sound, that the softer waxy part of you may receive some impression from this discourse, let us close all with an application. And, first, from the guilt and dangerous condition of a licen- tious life, to labour by all means possible to keep out of it. He that is once engaged in it, goes on with a great deal of content, and in the midst of his pleasures on the one side, and carnal security on the other, his understanding, and will, and senses are lulled into a lethargy, nay, the very fancy in him is asleep, which in other sleeps is most active; he never imagines, never dreams of any fear or danger, either God or devil. Oh what a lamentable woeful estate is it to be thus sick beyond a sense of our disease, to be so near a spiritual death, and not so much as feel our weakness! Oh what an horrid thing it were to pass away in such a sleep, and never observe ourselves near death, till Satan hath arrested beyond bail, to sleep on and snort, as men without dread or danger, till the torments of hell should awake us! You cannot ima- gine how easy a thing it is for an habituate sinner to fall into the devil’s paws before he thinks of it, as a melancholy man walking in the dark may be drowned in a pit, and no man hear him complain that he is fallen. Again, we are wont to say that custom is another nature, SERMON XXIX. 627 and those things which we have brought ourselves up to, we can as ill put off, as our constitution or disposition. Now those things which spring from the nature of any thing, are inseparable from the subject ; banish them as oft as you will, usque recurrent’, they will return again as to their home, they cannot subsist any where else, they dwell there. So wallow- ing in the mire being a condition natural to the swine, can never be extorted from them: wash them, rince them, purge them with hyssop, as soon as ever they meet with mire again, they will into it. Their swinish nature hath such an in- fluence on them, that all care or art cannot forbid or hinder this effect of it. So that a customary sinner, who hath as it were made lust a part of his nature, hath incorporated pro- faneness, and grafted it into his affections, can as hardly be rid of it, as a subject of his property ; it is possible for fear, or want of opportunity sometime to keep him in, and make him abstain: the loadstone may lie quiet, whilst no iron is within ken, or it may be held by force in its presence ; but give it materials and leave to work, and it draws inconti- nently. So for all his temporary forbearance, upon some either policy or necessity, the habituate sinner hath not yet given over his habit. Leave him to himself, give him room and opportunity, and he will hold no longer. If he be once advanced to this pitch of sin to be walking after his own lusts, he may possibly be driven back with a storm or thunder; but he will hardly give over his walk, he will forward again as soon as ever the tempest is over. Nay farther, even when he wants objects and opportunities, he will yet shew his condition, he will betray the desire and good affection he bears to his old lusts; his discourse or fashions argue him incontinently bent, even when he is at the stanchest. As Aristotle® observes of the fearful man, that even when no formidable object is near, he falls into many frights: so the voluptuous man’s fancy is perpetually possessed with the meditation of his own ways, when some disease or necessity will not let him walk. In brief, unless this second nature be quite taken out of him, and another holy spiritual nature created in its room, unless a stronger come [Luke xi. and bind this devil and dispossess him of it, he hath small 71:1 f (Hor. Epist. i. 10. 24.] ® [ Arist. de Anima, lib. i. ο, 1.] ss2 628 SERMON XXIX. hopes of getting himself out of his dominion and tyranny ; there is a great deal more stir in the converting of one customary sinner, than of a thousand others; it is not to be accomplished without a kind of death and resurrection, without a new creation of another nature. So that (if we should judge of God’s actions by our own) the Spirit should seem to be put to more pains and trouble with this one habituate, than in the ordinary business of converting many a tamer sinner. This is enough by the desperateness of the cure to move you to study some art, some physic of preven- tion, lest when it is grown upon you, it be too late to enquire for remedies. How should we dare to entertain and natu- ralize such an evil spirit within us, which if ever he be ravished out of us again, cannot without tearing, and torturing, and rending even our whole nature in pieces! If we must needs be sinful, yet let us keep within a moderation, let us not so follow the devil’s works, as to transubstantiate ourselves into his nature; let us not put off our manhood with our in- tegrity, and though we cannot be saints, let us keep our- selves men. It is a degree of innocence not to be extremely wicked, and a piece of godliness not to be atheists. Our lust is an infinite thing, said a philosopher, (ἀπέραντος ἐπι- θυμία, Jamblichus *,) and he that walks after it hath an end- less journey: there is no hope that he that hath so far to go, will ever have leisure to sit still. And therefore I say, if we must needs sin, yet let us not engage ourselves to sin for ever: if our being men lays a necessity of sinning on us, let our care to stay whilst it is possible for us, prove that we do not sin like devils, whose sin is their glory, and their resolution peremptory, never to give over sinning; and so may ours seem, and in all likelihood prove to be, if we give ourselves liberty to walk after our own lusts. Secondly, if our lusts be such dangerous paths to walk in, and this in that very respect as they are our own in oppo- sition to God’s commands; if they are the straight direct way to atheism, nay atheism itself: then what care and circum- spection is required at every setting down of our feet, at every entrance on any action, lest there be a serpent in the way, some piece of profaneness in every enterprise we enter h [Jamblichus Protrept, c. xvii. ] SERMON XXIX. 629 on of ourselves! How ought we to fear, to suspect, and balk any way that is our own! For where it is atheism to walk, there surely it is a sin to tread: and where we have once ventured to tread, we shall be shrewdly tempted to walk ; every step we have safely taken being an encouragement to a second. Verebar omnia opera mea, saith Job, “I feared all my works:”’ whatever action I could entitle myself to, me- thought there was some danger in it, I was afraid it was not right as it should be, I should never be able to justify it. This is an excellent trial of all our serious deliberate actions, to mark whether they are our own or no, whether we went about them on our own heads, without our war- rant or directions from God: if we did, it is much to be doubted there is some poison, some guilt in them, some- thing that deserves to be feared, and fled from. This very suspecting of our own ways, will alien us from our own lusts, will bend us nearer to God, and never suffer us to dare to venture where He hath not secured us; will join us as it were in an engine to God Himself, where the lower wheels never begin to move without the example and govern- ment of the higher. If you can but persuade yourself to fear your own ways, it will be a good stop of your progress to atheism. Iam confident the devil will never get you to walk in your own lusts. Thirdly, if walking in our own lusts be direct atheism, what shall we think of them who make it a piece of religion and holy policy-to do so? Beloved, there be some learned catechised atheists, who upon confidence of an absolute eternal predestination of every man in the world that shall ever possibly be saved, set up their rest there, and expect what God will do with them. It is to no purpose to hope God will alter the decree; they are resolved to leave all to God, and if they perish, they perish. Mark with me, is not this a religious atheism to attribute so much to God as to become careless of Him, so to depend as never to think on Him, and by granting His decree in our understanding, to deny His Godhead in our conversation? He that lives negligently on confidence that his care may be spared, that if there be any salvation for him, God will work it out without his fear or trembling: he that believes God’s election so absolute, {Job ix. 28. Vulg.] 1 John 1:1, 3. [ Gen. iv. 18,1 630 SERMON XXIX. that himself hath nothing to do in the business; whilst he expects mercy, makes himself uncapable of it; and though he acknowledge a resurrection, lives as though he looked to be annihilated. Certainly he that expects God should send him a fruitful harvest, will himself manure the ground; he that hopes will labour; according to that, 1 John iii. 3, “ He that hath this hope in him purifies himself,’ &c. So that whosoever relies on God for salvation, and in the midst of his hopes stands idle, and walks after his own lusts, by his very actions confutes his thoughts, and will not in a manner suffer God to have elected him, by going on in such repro- bate courses. Lastly, if it be this confident walking after our own lusts, which is here the expression of atheism, then here is a com- fort for some fearful sinners, who finding themselves not yet taken up quite from a licentious life, suspect, and would be in danger to despair of themselves as atheists. It is a blessed tenderness to feel every sin in ourselves at the greatest advantage; to aggravate and represent it to our conscience in the horridest shape; but there is a care also to be had, that we give not ourselves over as desperate ; Cain lied when he said his sin was greater than could be either borne or forgiven. When the physicians have given one over, at φύσεις ἱατροὶ νούσων, nature hath its spring and plunge, and sometimes quits and overcomes the disease. If thou art in this dangerous walk, and strivest and heavest, and canst not get out of it, yet sorrow not as one without hope: this very regret and reluctancy, this striving and plunging is a good symptom. If thou wilt continue with a good courage, and set thyself to it to the purpose, be con- fident thou shalt overcome the difficulty. If this sin be a walking, then every stop is a cessation, every check a degree to integrity, every godly thought or desire a pawn from God that He will give thee strength to victory: and if thou do but nourish and cherish every such reluctancy, every such gra- cious motion in thyself, thou mayest with courage expect a gracious calm deliverance out of these storms and tempests. And let us all labour, and endeavour, and pray that we may be loosed from these toils and gins, and engagements of our ' Joan. Philoponus, i. de Anima, SERMON XXIX. 631 own lusts, and being entered into a more religious severe course here, than the atheism of our ways would counsel us to, we may obtain the end, and rest, and consummation, and reward of our course hereafter. Now to Him which hath elected us, &c, , 1 Tim. iv. 11. Gal. vi. 14. SERMON XXX. 1 Trm. i. 15. Of whom I am the chief. Tue chief business of our Apostle St. Paul in all his Epistles is, what the main of every preacher ought to be, exhortation. There is not one doctrinal point but contains a precept to our understanding to believe it, nor moral dis- course, but effectually implies an admonishment to our wills to practise it. Now these exhortations are proposed either vulgarly in the downright garb of precept, as, “ These things command and teach,” &c., or in a more artificial, obscure, enforcing way of rhetoric, as, “ God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of Christ, whereby the world is crucified to me, and I unto the world ;” which though in words it seems a protestation of St. Paul’s own resolution, yet in effect is a most powerful exhortatory to every succeeding Christian to glory only in the cross of Christ, and on it to crucify both the world and himself. This method of reducing St. Paul to exhortation I observe to you for the clearing of my text. For this whole verse at the first view seems only a mere thesis or point of belief, that Christ came into the world to save sinners, illustrated and applied by the speaker as one, and the chief of the number of those sinners to be saved. But it contains a most rhetorical powerful exhortation to both understanding and will; to believe this faithful saying, “that Christ came,” &c. and to accept, lay hold of, and with all our might to embrace and apply to each of ourselves this great mercy, toward this great salvation bestowed on sinners who can with humility confess their sins, and with faith lay hold on the promise. And this is the business of the verse, SERMON XXX. 633 and the plain matter of this obscure double exhortation to every man’s understanding, that he believe “that Christ,” &c.; to every man’s affections, that he humble himself, and teach his heart, and that his tongue, to confess, Of all sinners, &c. This text shall not be divided into parts—which were to dis- order and distract the significancy of a proposition—but into several considerations; for so it is to be conceived either absolutely as a profession of St. Paul of himself; and there we will enquire whether and how Paul was the chief of all sinners: secondly, respectively to us, for whom this form of confessing the state, and applying the salvation of sinners to ourselves is set down. And first, whether and how Paul was the chief of all sin- ners; where we are to read him in a double estate, converted and unconverted, expressed to us by his double name Paul and Saul, Paul an Apostle of Jesus Christ, Saul a persecutor, mad against the Christians; and that both these estates may be contained in the text, although penned by Paul regene- rated, may appear, in that the pronoun ἐγὼ, I, signifying the whole complete person of Paul, restrains not the speech to his present being only, but considers also what he had been ; more especially set down at the thirteenth verse, “who was before a blasphemer,” &c. So then Paul in his Saul-ship being a blasphemer, a persecutor and injurious, and in sum, a most violent, perverse, malicious unbeliever, was a chief sinner, ranked in the front of the devil’s army; and this needs no further proof or illustration. Yet seeing that that age of the world had brought forth many other of the same strain of violent unbelief, nothing inferior to Saul, as may appear by those many that were guilty of Christ’s death (as Saul in person was not), and those that so madly stoned St. Stephen whilst Saul only “kept the witnesses’ clothes,’ and as the text speaks, “was consenting unto his death ;” seeing, I say, that others of that age equalled, if not exceeded Saul’s guilt, how can he be said above all other sinners to be the chief? I think we shall not wrest or en- large the text beside or beyond the meaning of the Holy Ghost or Apostle, if in answer unto this we say that there is intended not so much the greatness of his sins above all sinners in the world, but the greatness of the miracle in (ver. 13.] Acts vii. 58. viii. 1. Rom. vi. 1. 634. SERMON XXX. converting so great a sinner into so great a saint and Apo- stle. So that the words shall run, Of all sinners that Christ came into the world to save, and then prefer to such an emi- nence, I am the chief, or as the word primarily signifies, πρῶτος εἰμὶ, 1 am the first, i.e. Paul was the chief of all converts, and Paul was the first that from so great a perse- cutor of Christ was changed into so great, so glorious an Apostle. For so it follows in the verses next after my text, “For this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Christ Jesus might shew forth all long-suffering,” &c. The issue of all is this, that Saul unconverted was a very great sinner, yet not the greatest of sinners absolutely, but for aught we read in the New Testament, the greatest and first that was called from such a degree of infidelity, a blasphemer, a per- secutor, to so high a pitch of salvation, a saint, an Apostle, yea, and greater than an Apostle; whence the observation is, that though Saul were, yet every blasphemous sinner cannot expect to be called from the depth of sin to regene- racy and salvation. Although Saul being πρῶτος ἁμαρτω- λῶν, “ the chief of sinners,” was called and saved; yet Saul was also in another sense, for aught we read, πρῶτος, and perhaps the last that from so great a riot of sin obtained so great salvation. Wherefore, O sinner, be not presumptuous from Paul’s example, but from Paul’s single example begin to suspect thy state, and fear that such a miracle of salvation shall not be afforded thee. There hath been an opinion of late revived, perhaps original among the Romans, that the greatest sinner is the more likely object of God’s mercy, or subject of His grace, than the mere moral man, whom either natural fear, or the like, not spiritual respects, hath re- strained from those outrages of sin. The being of this opinion in the primitive Romans, and the falseness of it, is sufficiently proved by that expostulation of St. Paul, “ Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid,” in answer to some, who, hearing that Christ came into the world to save sinners, thought that the excess of sin was the best qualification and only motive to provoke and deserve a more abundant grace and certain salvation. As if that Spirit which once, to manifest its power, called Saul, in the midst of his madness breathing out threatenings SERMON XXX. 635 and slaughters against the Church, would not call any but those who had prepared themselves by the same degree of madness; but required that men should make themselves almost devils that they might be called into Christians; as if that God which could out of stones, could not also out of (Mat. iii, men raise up children unto Abraham; as if that Christ which 95] raised up Lazarus, being dead four days, and as they thought 39. stinking in his grave, could not as easily have healed him whilst he was yet alive: whereas we read that Christ dealt more on the cures of the impotent than resurrections of the dead; that is, in a spiritual application, healed more from the bed of languishment of their weaknesses and diseases, than He raised out of the graves of trespasses and sins; though some also hath He out of death quickened, to exalt the power and miracle of His mercy. Yet hath not this doctrine too been most confidently maintained among some of our times? That there is more hope of the debauched man, that he shall be called or saved, than of the mere moral, honest man, who yet is in the state of unregene- racy. Have not some men, defining this moral man by the formal hypocrite, set him in the greatest opposition to heaven? As if that degree of innocence, or rather not being extremely sinful, which a moral care of our ways may bestow on us, were a greater hindrance than promotion toward the state of grace, and the natural man were so much the fur- ther from God, the nearer he were to goodness, and no man could hope to come to heaven but he that had knocked at hell gates. I confess indeed that the Holy Ghost, where He means to inhabit, hath no need of pains to prepare Him a room, but can at His first knock open and cleanse, adorn and beautify the most uncouth, ugly, and unsavoury heart in the world. That omnipotent convincing Spirit can at the same instant strike the most obdurate heart, and soften it, and where it once enters cannot be repulsed by the most sturdy habituate sin or devil. I confess likewise, that some have been thus rather snatched than called, like the fire- brands out of the fire, and by an ecstasy of the Spirit inwardly in a minute changed from incarnate devils into incarnate saints. So was Mary dispossessed of seven devils, [Luke viii. who was after so highly promoted in Christ’s favour, that J n xi, Mark Xvi. 9. [ Luke viii. 27 sqq. | woe au 636 SERMON XXX. she had the honour to be the first witness of the resurrec- tion. So that Gadarene who had entrenched and fortified himself among the tombs, and was garrisoned with an army of devils, so that he brake fetters and chains, and could not be tamed or kept in any compass, yet in a minute at Christ’s word sent forth a legion of fiends sufficient to people and de- stroy a colony of swine. And so was Paul in my text, in a minute at Christ’s call delivered of a multitude of blasphem- ous malicious spirits, and straight became the joy of angels, the Apostle of the Gentiles. Yet meantime, these miracu- lous but rarer examples must not prescribe and set up, must not become a rule and encourage any one to Saul’s madness on confidence of Paul’s conversion, to a more impetuous course of sinning, that he may become a more glorious saint. It is a wrong way to heaven to dig into the deep, and a brutish arrogance to hope that God will the more eagerly woo us, the further our sins have divorced us from Him. If some, as hath been said, have been caught or strucken in the height of their rebellions, or in the fulness of the evil spirit called to a wane,—as diseases in the ἀκμὴ, or top-pitch, are wont to decay and weaken into health again,—if there have been some of these, as my Apostle, raised from the depth of sin, as Lazarus from the stench of the grave, yet these in respect of others more softly and ordinarily called, are found few in number; and such as were appointed for the miracles as well as the objects of God’s mercy. Hence it is that a strange disorder hath most times accompanied this extraordinary conversion of more violent outrageous sinners. Our Apostle—to go no further —was to be cast into a trance, and his regeneration not to be accomplished without a kind of death and resurrection, whereas others who are better morally qualified, or rather are less hardened in the sins of unregeneracy, do answer at the softest knock or whisperingest call of the Spirit, and at His beckon will come after Him. More might be said of this point, how St. Paul was most notably converted ; that he had the alleviation of ignorance, for which causé, as he i. says himself, he found mercy, and that others are not pro- bably to expect the like miracle, who have not those insuper- able prepossessions from custom and religion; but that this SERMON XXX. 637 is not the business of the text, but a precognoscendum or passage to the clearing of it. Briefly therefore to conclude this note, Paul is the chief example mentioned in Scripture, and there be not many, though some more, that were called from the height of impiety, from the gall of bitterness, to this mystical third heaven, or so high degree of saint and apostle. The more ordinary course of God’s proceeding— if we may possibly judge of the decree by events and exam- ples—is to call such to the state of grace, and so conse- quently of glory, who have passed their unregeneracy most innocently, and kept themselves least polluted from the stains of habituate wickedness, that is, have lived as much as natural men can do, in the plainest, honestest course of morality, it being presupposed that among all other moral virtues they have purchased humility, the best—if there be any preparative—for the receiving of grace. Meanwhile we are not to be mistaken, as if we thought God’s purposes tied to man’s good behaviour, or man’s moral goodness to woo and allure God’s Spirit, as that the Almighty is not equally able to sanctify the foulest soul by His converting grace, and the less polluted; or that He requires man’s prepara- tion: but our position is, that in ordinary charitable reason we ought to judge more comfortably, and hope more confi- dently of a mere moral man naturally more careful of his ways, that he shall be both called and saved, that God will with His Spirit perfect and crown his morally good, though imperfect endeavours, than of another more debauched sin- ner utterly negligent of the commands of either God or nature. Which position I have in brief proved, though nothing so largely as I might, in confutation of them who do utterly condemn unregenerate morality, and deject it below the lowest degree of profaneness, as if they would teach a man his way to heaven by boasting arrogantly, what Paul converted confesses humbly, I am the nearer to Christ’s salvation, because of all sinners I am the chief. The use in brief of this thesis shall be for those who not as yet find the power of the regenerating Spirit in them, —for I am to fear many of my auditors may be in this case, and I pray God they feel, and work, and pray themselves out of it,—the use, I say, is for those who are not yet full possessors of the Spirit, Acts xxiii. 1. Acts x. 2, 638 SERMON XXX. to labour to keep their unregeneracy spotless from the greater offence, that if they are not yet called to the prefer- ment of converts and saints, the second part of heaven, that earthly city of God, that yet they will live orderly in that lower regiment, wherein they yet remain, and be subject to the law of nature, till it shall please God to take them into a new commonwealth under the law of grace, to improve their natural abilities to the height, and bind their hands and hearts from the practice and study of outrageous sins by those ordinary restraints which nature will afford us; such as are a good disposition, education, and the like; not to leave and refer all to the miraculous working of God, and to increase our sins for the magnifying of the virtue in re- calling us. God requires not this glory at our hands that we should peremptorily over-damn ourselves, that He may be the more honoured in saving us. His mercy is more known to the world than to need this woeful foil to illus- trate it. God is not wont to rake hell for converts, to gather devils to make saints of; the kingdom of heaven would suffer great violence, if only such should take it. If Saul were infinitely sinful before he proved an Apostle,— though by the way we hear him profess he had lived im all good conscience,—yet expect not thou the same miracle, nor think that the excess of sins is the cue that God ordinarily takes to convert us. The fathers in an obedience to the discipline and pedagogy of the old law, possessed their souls in patience, expecting the prophesied approach of the new— did not by a contempt of Moses precipitate and hasten the coming of the Messias. Cornelius lived a long while de- voutly, and gave much alms, till at last God called him, and put him in a course to become a Christian: and do thou, if thou art not yet called, wait the Lord’s leisure in a sober moral conversation, and fright not Him from thee with un- natural abominations. God is not likely to be wooed by those courses which nature loathes, or to accept them whom the world is ashamed of. In brief, remember Saul and Cor- nelius; Saul, that he, not many, were called from a pro- fessed blasphemer ; Cornelius, that before he was called he prayed to God alway; and do thou endeavour to deserve the like mercy, and then in thy prayer confess thine undesery- SERMON XXX. 639 ing, and petition grace, as grace, that is not as our merit, but as His free-will favour, not as the desert of our morality, but a stream from the bounty of His mercy, who—we may hope—will crown His common graces with the fulness of His Spirit. And now, O powerful God, on those of us which are yet unregenerate, bestow Thy restraining grace, which may curb and stop our natural inordinacy, and by a sober, careful, continent life, prepare us to a better capability of Thy sanctifying Spirit, wherewith in good time Thou shalt establish and seal us up to the day of redemption. And cet iv. thus much concerning Saul unconverted, how of all sinners 0 he was the chief, not absolutely, that he surpassed the whole world in rankness of sin, but respectively to his later state, that few or none are read to have been translated from such a pitch of sin to saintship. Now follows the second conside- ration of him being proceeded Paul, i.e. converted, and then the question is, whether and how Paul converted may be said the chief of all sinners. It were too speculative a depth for a popular sermon to discuss the inherence and condition of sin in the regenerate; the business will be brought home more profitably to our practice if we drive it to this issue, that Paul in this place, intending by his own example to direct others how to believe the truth, and embrace and fasten on the efficacy of Christ’s incarnation, hath no better motive to incite himself and others toward it, than a recognition of his sins, that is, a survey of the power of sin in him before, and a sense of the relics of sin in him since his conversion. Whence the note is, that the greatness of one’s sins makes the regenerate man apply himself more fiercely to Christ. This faithful saying was therefore to Paul worthy of all acceptation, because of all simners he was the chief. St. Paul, as every regenerate man, is to be observed in a treble posture, either casting his eyes backward, or calling them in upon himself, or else look- ing forward and aloof; and accordingly is to be conceived in a treble meditation, either of his life past, or present state, or future hopes. In the first posture and meditation you may see, first, Paul alone, who was before a blasphemer, a per- secutor, and injurious; secondly, all the regenerate together. “ For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sin did work [Rom. vii. 5.] Acts xxiii. [5.] 2 Cor. xii. 1 Cor. ix. 27. Rom. vii. 25. Phil. iii. 13. [ Hab. i. 16.] 2Gor: xi. 7. 64.0 SERMON XXX. in our members,” &c., and many the like. In the second posture and meditation you may observe him retracting an error, deprecating a temptation with earnest and repeated intercessions, fighting with and harassing himself, “ beating down his body, and keeping it in subjection, lest while he preached to others he himself might be a cast-away.” In the third posture we find him, where after a long disguise he cries out, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” And again most evidently, “ Forgetting those things that are behind, and reaching out to those things which are be- fore, 1 press toward the mark,” &c., like a racer in the heat of his course whose eyes desire to anticipate his feet, and en- joy the goal before he reach it. These three carriages of the regenerate man fully prove our observation: for if either of the two former sights could afford any content; if either his former or present state did not sufficiently terrify him, he would not be so eager on the third, it being the folly of human pride and self-love to contemn any foreign aid as long as it finds either appearance or hope of domestic. If in the view of his former life he should find any thing either good, or not extremely bad and sinful, he would under-prize the mercy of that Saviour that redeemed him from so poor a guilt; if he could observe in his present state any natural firmness or stability, any inherent purity, any essential jus- tice, he might possibly sacrifice to his own nets, and reckon- ing himself in perfect peace with God, neither invoke and seek, nor acknowledge a Mediator. But when in his former life he shall find nothing but the matter and cause of horror and amazement, nothing but hideous, ghastly affrightments, yea, and a body of damnation: when in hope to mend him- self, and ease his fears, he shall fly to the comfort of his present converted state, and yet there also espy many thorns of temptations, how can he but be frighted out of himself? How can he but fly from the scene of those his torments, and seek out and importune the mercy of a Saviour, which may deliver him out of all his fears? After the example of our Apostle in my text, where he does more peremptorily apprehend Christ, and more bodily believe, “that He came into the world to save sinners, because of all sinners he was chief,” making his own sinfulness—being the object and ex- SERMON XXX. 641 ternal motive of God’s mercy—an argument and internal motive of his own faith and confidence. The plain meaning of this thesis is that among men things are not alway valued according to the merit of their nature, for then each com- modity should be equally prized by all men, and the man in health should bestow as much charges on physic as the diseased: but each thing bears its several estimation by its usefulness, and the riches of every merchandize is increased accordingly as men to whom it is proffered do either use or want it. Moreover, this usefulness is not to be reckoned of according to truth, but opinion, not according to men’s real wants, but according to the sense which they have of their wants; so a man distracted, because he hath not so much reason about him as to observe his disease, will contemn hel- lebore, or any other the most precious recipe for this cure: and generally no man will hasten to the physician, or justly value his art and drugs, but he whom misery hath taught the use of them. So then unless a man have been in some spiritual danger, and by the converting Spirit be instructed into a sense and apprehension of it, he will not sufficiently observe the benefit and use of a deliverer: unless he feels in himself some stings of the relics of his sin, some pricks of the remaining Amorite, he will not take notice of the want and necessity which he hath of Christ’s mediation. But when he shall with a tenderness of memory survey the guilt of his former state, from the imputation, not impor- tunity whereof he is now justified, when he shall still feel within him “the buffetings of Satan,’ and sensibly observe [2 Cor. xii. himself not fully sanctified, then, and not before, will he with ὯΙ a zealous earnestness apprehend the profit, yea, necessity of a Saviour, whose assistance so nearly concerns him. The second ground of this position is that an extraordinary unde- served deliverance is by an afilicted man received with some suspicion: the consideration of the greatness of the benefit makes him doubt of the truth of it, and he will scarce believe so important an happiness befallen him, because his misery could neither expect nor hope it. Hence upon the first notice of it he desires to ascertain it unto his sense, by a sudden possession of it, and not at all to defer the enjoying of that mercy which his former misery made infinitely “worthy AMMON D. πὶ Ὁ Mat. xx. 4. John xx. 25. Cant. iii 642 SERMON XXX. of all acceptation.” Thus may you see a shipwrecked man recovered to some refuge, cling about, and almost incorporate himself unto it, because the fortune of his life depends on that succour. The new regenerate man finding in the Scrip- ture the promise of a Redeemer, which shall free him from those engagements which his former bankrupt estate had plunged him in, cannot delay so great an happiness, but with a kind of tender fear and filial trembling, runs and strives, (as the disciples to the sepulchre), to assure his necessitous soul of this acceptable salvation: even sets upon his Saviour with a kind of violence, and will seem to distrust His promise, till His seal shall authorize and confirm it. Thus did the great- ness of the work of the unexpected resurrection beget in Thomas a suspicion and incredulity, “1 will not believe,” &c., where our charity may conjecture, that he above all the rest was not absolutely resolved not to believe the resurrection, but that he being absent at the first apparition, would not take so important a miracle upon trust, but desired to have that demonstrated to his sense, which did so nearly concern his faith; that so by putting his finger into the print of the nails, and thrusting his hand into His side, he might almost consubstantiate and unite himself unto his Saviour, and at once be assured of the truth, and partake of the profit of the resurrection. Hear but the voice of the spouse, and any further proofs shall be superfluous, where in violence and jealousy of love she importunes the eternal presence of the Beloved, “Set me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thine arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy as cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire which hath a vehement flame.” She had before often lost her beloved, which made her so fiercely fasten on him, for having roused him, rui¢ in am- plexus, she rushed into his embraces, she held him and would not let him go. Thus you see the jealousy and eagerness of love produced by either a former loss, or present more than ordinary want of the object, both which how pertinent they are to the regenerate man, either observing his past sins, or in- stant temptations, this discourse hath already made manifest. The use of this thesis (to wit, that the greatness of one’s sins makes the regenerate man apply himself more fiercely to Christ) is first, by way of caution, that we mistake not SERMON XXX. 643 a motive for an efficient, an impulsive for a principal cause. For where we say, ‘it makes him apply himself, &c., we mean not that the increase of sin produces faith formally, but only inciteth to believe by way of instruction, by shew- ing us what distress we are in, and consequently in what a necessity of a deliverer. The meditation of our sinful courses may disclose our misery, not redress it; may ex- plore, not mend a sinner, like a touchstone to try, not any way to alter him. It is the controlling Spirit which must effectually renew our spirits, and lead us to the Christ which our sins told us we had need of. The sense of sin may rouse the soul, but it is the Spirit of God that lays the toils; the feeling of our guilt may beat the waters, but it is the great fisher of our souls which spreads the nets, which entraps us as we are on our way to hell, and leads us captive to salvation. The mere gripings of our conscience being not produced by any pharmacon of the Spirit, but by some distemper arising from sin, what anxiety doth it cause within us! what pangs and twinges to the soul! O Lord, do Thou regenerate us, and then Thy Holy Spirit shall sanctify even our sins unto our good; and if Thy grace may lead us, our sins shall pursue and drive us unto Christ! Secondly, by way of character, how to distinguish a true convert from a false. A man which from an inveterate desperate malady shall meet with a miraculous unexpected cure, will naturally have some art of expression above an ordinary joy; you shall see him in an ecstacy of thanksgiving and exultancy, whilst another, which was never in that distress, quietly enjoys the same health, and gives thanks softly by himself to his preserver. So is it in the distresses of the soul, which if they have been exces- sive, and almost beyond hope of recovery, as the miracle must, so will the expression of this deliverance be somewhat extraordinary. The soul which from a good moral or less sinful natural estate, is magis immutata quam genita, rather changed than regenerate into a spiritual, goes through this business without any great noise, the Spirit entering into it in a still small voice, or at a breathing: but when a robust- John xx. ous obdurate sinner shall be rather apprehended than called, 22: when the sea shall be commanded to give up his ship- wrecked, and the sepulchre to restore her dead, the soul Tt 2 {Luke i. 48. ] [1 Cor. xv. 55—57. | [2 Pet. 1. 10.] [ Philipp. iii. 14. ] [ Rom. vii. 24. 644 SERMON XXX. surely which thus escapeth shall not be content with a mean expression, but will practise all the halleluiahs and magni- ficats which the triumphant liturgies of the saints can afford it. Wherefore, I say, if any one, out of a full violent course of sinning conceive himself converted and regenerated, let him examine what a degree of spiritual exultancy he hath attained to, and if he find it but mean, and slight, and perfunctory, let him somewhat suspect, that he may the more confirm the evidence of his calling. Now this spiritual exultancy of the regenerate consists both in a solemn humiliation of himself, and a spiritual rejoicing in God his Saviour; both expressed in Mary’s Magnificat, where she specifies in the midst of her joy “the lowliness of His handmaid,” and in St. Paul’s vic- tory-song over death. So that if the conversion of an inordi- nate sinner be not accompanied with unwonted joy and sorrow, with a godly sense of his past distress, and a godly triumph for his delivery; if it be not followed with a violent eager- ness to fasten on Christ; finally, if there be not somewhat above ordinary in the expression, then I counsel not to dis- trust, but fear, that is, with a solicitous, not suspicious trembling, to labour to “make thy calling and election sure :” to pray to that Holy Spirit to strike our hearts with a mea- sure of holy joy and holy sorrow, some way proportionable to the size of those sins, which in our unregeneracy reigned in us; and for those of us whom our sins have separated far from Him, but His grace hath called home to Him, that He will not suffer us to be content with a distance, but draw us close unto Himself, make us “ press toward the mark,” and fasten ourselves on that Saviour, which hath redeemed us from the body and guilt of this so great death. The third. use is, of comfort and confirmation to some tender souls who are incorporate into Christ, yet finding not in themselves that excessive measure of humiliation which they observe in others, suspect their own state, and infinitely grieve that they can grieve no more. Whereas this doctrine being ob- served will be an allay to their sorrow, and wipe some un- necessary tears from their eyes. For if the greatness of sin past, or the plentiful rel’cs of sin remaining, do require so great a measure of sorrow, to expiate the one, and subdue the other; if it be a deliverance from an habituate servitude SERMON XXX. 645 to all manner of sin, which provokes this extraordinary pains of expression; then certainly they who have been brought up with the Spirit, which were from their baptism never wholly deprived of it, need not to be bound over to this trade of sorrow, need not to be set apart to that perpetual humiliation which a more stubbern sin or devil is wont to be cast out by. I doubt not but a soul educated in familiarity with the Spirit, may at once enjoy herself and it; and so that if it have an humble conceit of itself, and a filial of God, may in earth possess God with some clearness of look, some serenity of affections, some alacrity of heart, and tranquillity of spirit. God delights not in the torment of His children, (though some are so to be humbled,) yea, He delights not in such burnt offerings as they bestow upon Him, who destroy, and consume, and sacrifice themselves; but “‘ the Lord’s de- light is in them that fear Him” filially, “and put their trust,” i.e. assurance, confidence, “in His mercy;” in them that re- joice, that make their service a pleasure, not an affliction, and thereby possess heaven before they come to it. It is ob- served in husbandry that soil, laid on hard, barren, starved ground doth improve it, and at once deface and enrich it, which yet in ground naturally fruitful, and kept in heart, and good case, is esteemed unnecessary and burthensome. You need not the application. Again, the husbandman can mend a dry, stubborn, wayward, fruitless earth, by over- flowing of it, and on such indeed is his ordinary requisite discipline, to punish it for its amendment. But there is a ground otherwise well tempered, which they call a weeping ground, whence continually water soaks out, and this proves seldom fruitful (if our learned husbandmen observe aright), whereof there is sometime need of draining, as well as water- ing. The application is that your soul, which either hath been naturally dry and barren, or else overwrought in the business of the world, needs a flood of tears to soften and purge it. But the well-tempered soul, which hath never been out of heart, but hath always had some inward life, some fatness of, and nourishment from the Spirit, is rather op- pressed than improved by such an overflow. The Christian is thereby much hindered in his progress of good works, and cannot serve the Lord with alacrity, that so perpetually hangs { Psalm exlvii. 11.] 646 SERMON XXX. down his head like a bulrush. Wherefore, the country rule is, that that ground is best which is mellow, which being crushed will break but not crumble, dissolve, but not exces- sively. Hence, I say, the habituate believer need not sus- pect his estate, if he find not in himself such an extremity of violent grief and humiliation as he observes in others ; knowing that in him such a measure of tears would both soil the face of his devotion, and clog the exercise of it. His best mediocrity will be to be habitually humbled, but actually lively and alacrious in the ways of godliness; not to be too rigid and severe a tyrant over his soul, but to keep it in a temper of Christian softness, tender under the hand of God, and yet man-like and able both in the performance of God’s worship and his own calling. And whensoever we shall find ourselves in either extreme, either too much hardened or too much melted, too much elevated or too much dejected, then to pray to that Holy Spirit so to fashion the temper of our souls, that we neither fail in humbling ourselves in some measure for our sins, nor yet too cowardly deject and cast down our- selves, below the courage, and comfort, and spiritual rejoicing which He hath prescribed us. “Ὁ Holy Lord, we are the greatest of sinners, and therefore we humble ourselves before Thee, but Thou hast sent Thy Christ into the world to save sinners, and therefore we raise up our spirits again, and praise and magnify Thy Name.”? And thus much of this point, and in brief, of the first consideration of these words, to wit, as they are absolutely a profession of Paul himself, to which end we beheld him in his double estate, converted and un- converted. In his unconverted state we found, though a very great sinner, yet not absolutely greater than those times brought forth, and therefore we were to think of him re- latively to his future estate, and so we found him the greatest sinner that ever was called in the New Testament into so glorious a saint. Whence we observe the rarity of such con- versions, that though Saul were, yet every blasphemous sinner could not expect to be called from the depth of sin to rege- neracy and salvation: and this we proved both against the ancient Romans and modern censors of morality, and applied it to the care which we ought to have of keeping our unre- generacy spotless from any reigning sin. Afterward we came SERMON XXX. 647 to Paul converted, where we balked the discourse of the con- dition of sin in the regenerate, and rather observed the effect of it; and in it, that the greatness of his sin made (as Paul, so) every regenerate man more eagerly to fasten on Christ. Which being proved by a double ground, we applied first, by way of caution, how that proposition was to be understood ; 2. by way of character, how a great sinner may judge of his sincere certain conversion; 3. by way of comfort to others, who find not the effects of humiliation and the like in them- selves, in such measure as they see in others; and so we have passed through the first consideration of these words, being conceived absolutely as St. Paul’s profession of himself, we should come to the other consideration, as they are set down to us as a pattern or form of confessing the estate, and ap- plying the salvation of sinners to ourselves, which business requiring the pains, and being worthy the expense of an en- tire hour, we must defer to a second exercise. Now the God which hath created us, hath elected, redeemed, called, justified us, will sanctify us in His time, will prosper this His ordinance, will direct us by His grace to His glory. To Him be ascribed due the honour, the praise, the glory, the dominion, which through all ages of the world have been given to Him that sitteth on the throne, to the Holy Spirit, and Lamb for evermore. PARS SECUNDA. SERMON XXXI. 1 Tm. 1. 15. Of whom I am the chief. In all human writings and learning, there is a kind of poverty and emptiness, which makes them when they are beheld by a judicious reader look starved and crest-fallen : their speeches are rather puffed up than filled, they have a kind of boasting and ostentation in them, and promise more substance and matter to the ear, than they are able to per- form really to the understanding: whence it falls out, that we are more affected with them at the first hearing, and, if the orator be clear in his expression, we understand as much at the first recital, as we are able to do at the hundredth repetition. But there is a kind of excellency in the Scrip- ture, a kind of ὕψος, or sublimity above all other writings in the world. The reading of every section of it leaves a sting in the mind, and a perpetual conceit of a still imperfect understanding of it. An intelligent man at every view finds in it a fresh mystery, and still perceives that there is some- what beyond, not yet attained to: like men digging in mines, the deeper he dives he finds the greatest treasure, and meets with that under ground, which looking on the outward turf, or surface, he never imagined to have been there. This I observe unto you, to shew you the riches both of all, and especially of this Scripture, whereinto the deeper I dig, the more ore I find: and having already bestowed one hour in the discussing of it, without any violence, or wresting, or wire-drawing, find plenty of new materials. We have already handled the words at large in one con- sideration, as they area profession of Paul himself; I will not repeat you the particular occurrents. We now without any more delay of preface come to the second consideration of SERMON XXXI. 64.9 them, as they are spoken by Paul respectively to us, i. e. as they are prescribed us for a form of confessing the estate, and applying the salvation of sinners unto ourselves, teaching each of us for a close of our faith and devotion to confess, “ Of all,” &c. Where first, the cadence or manner how Paul falls into these words, is worthy to be both observed and imitated: the chief and whole business of this verse being the truth, the acceptable truth, of Christ’s Incarnation, with the end of it, the saving of sinners. He can no sooner name this word sinners, but his exceeding melting tenderness abruptly falls off, and subsumes, “Of all sinners,” &c. ‘If there be any thing that concerns sinners, I am sure I have my part in that, for of that number 1 am the chief” The note by the way briefly is, that ‘‘a tender conscience never hears of the name of sin- ner, but straight applies it to itself.” It is noted by Aristotle, the master of human learning, that that rhetoric was very thin and unprofitable, very poor and like to do little good upon men’s affections, which insisted on general matters, and descended not to particulars, as if one should discourse of sin in general and sinners, without reference to this or that particular sin or sinner; and the reason of his note was, because men are not moved or stirred with this eloquence. The intemperate person could hear a declamation against vice, and never be affected with it, unless it stooped to take notice of his particular enormities; and so is it with other criminals. This reason of his was grounded upon the obdu- rateness of men’s hearts, which would think that nothing concerned them, but what was framed against the individual offender, all such being as dull and unapt to understand any thing that being applied might move or prick them, as men are to take notice of a common national judgment, which we never duly weigh, till we smart under it in particular. This senselessness may also seem to have been amongst St. Paul’s Corinthians, which made him use Aristotle’s counsel in driving his speech home to their private persons. Where [1 Cor. vi. telling them that neither fornicators nor idolaters, and the like, ” oe shall inherit the kingdom of God; for fear they should not be so tender conscienced as of their own accords to apply a { Rhetoric., lib. ii. ο. 22.] ver. 11]. [ Rom. i. 28. ] [ Ps. exv. 5, 6.] 650 SERMON XXXI. these sins to themselves, and read themselves guilty in that glass; he is fain to supply that office, and plainly tell them what otherwise perhaps they would not have conceived, “ and such were some of you.’ This senseless hard-heartedness or backwardness in applying the either commands or threaten- ings of the law to one’s self, is by the Apostle called, νοῦς ἀδόκιμος, Which we ordinarily translate a reprobate mind, but may be brought to signify, a mind without judgment, that hath no faculty of discerning, that cannot in a general threatening observe something that may concern the danger of his particular state: or, as it may be rendered, a mind without sense, not apprehensive of those things which are manifestly proposed to them, like those walking idols de- scribed by the Psalmist, “Eyes have they and see not, ears and hear not, noses and smell not,” only beautiful carcasses of Christians, which have nothing but their shape and motion to persuade you that they live: unless we add this most unhappy symptom, which indicates a state more wretched far than death itself, that there is strength and vigour to oppose recovery, that amidst death there yet survives a hatred and antipathy to life. In such a soul as this there is a perpetual reaction, and impatience of the presence of any thing which may trash, encumber, or oppress it: a judgment or denuncia- tion is but cast away upon it, it shall be sure to return un- profitably, and neither move nor mend it. This hath been, and much more might be observed to you, of the carriage of the hard, stupid heart toward either Scripture or preacher, to the plain opening of this point ; for you shall more clearly understand the tender heart by observing the obdurate, and learn to be affected aright with God’s law or punish- ents, by knowing and hating the opposite stubborn sense- lessness. Now in brief, this tender heart in the discovery of a sin, or denunciation of a judgment needs not a particular, “Thou art the man,” to bring it home to his person. The more wide and general the proposal is, the more directly and effectually is this strucken with it. In a common satire, or declamation against sin in general, it hath a sudden art of logic to anatomize and branch this sin in general into all its parts; and then to lay each of them to its own charge; it hath a skill of making every passage in the Scripture a SERMON XXXI. 651 glass to espy some of her deformities in, and cannot so much as mention that ordinary name of sin or sinner, without an extraordinary affection, and unrequired accusation of itself, “Of all sinners,” &c. The plain reason of this effect in the tender heart is, first, because it is tender. The soft and accurate parts of a man’s body do suffer without reaction, i. e. do yield at the appearance of an enemy, and not any way put forward to repel him. These being fixed on by a bee, or the like, are easily penetrated by the sting, and are so far from resisting of it, that they do in ἃ manner draw it to them, and by their free reception allure it to enter so far, that the owner can seldom ever recover it back again. Whereas on a dead car- cass, a thick or callous member of the body, a bee may fix and not forfeit her sting. So doth a tender heart never resist or defend itself against a stroke, but attenuates itself, lays wide open its pores, to facilitate its entrance, seems to woo a threatening, to prick, and sting, and wound it sharply, as if it rejoiced in, and did even court those torments which the sense of sin or judgment thus produced. Again, a tender heart ordinarily meets with more blows, more oppressions than any other: its very passiveness pro- vokes every one’s malice; the fly and dust, as if it were by a kind of natural instinct, drive directly at the eye, and no member about you shall be oftener rubbed or disordered than that which is raw or distempered; the reason being, because that which is not worthy notice to another part is an affliction to this, and a mote which the hand observes not, will torment the eye. So is it with the conscience, whose tenderness doth tempt every piece of Scripture to afflict it, and is more encumbered with the least atom of sin or threat, than the more hardened sinner is with a beam or mountain. Thirdly, one that hath any solemn business to do will not pass by any opportunity of means which may advantage him in it. One that hath a search to make will not slip any evidence which may concur to the helping of his discovery ; one that hath any treatise to write will be ready to apply any thing that ever he reads to his theme or purpose. Now the search, the discourse, the whole employment of a tender heart is the enquiry after the multitude of its sins, and in sum, the aggravation of each particular guilt, in and against Mat. xi. 26. 652 SERMON XXXI. itself, that so having sufficiently loaded itself, and being tired with the weight and burden of its sins, it may in some measure perform the condition which Christ requires of them which come to Him, and be prepared to receive that ease which Christ hath promised to the “ weary and heavy laden.” So then if the tender conscience doth never repel, or rever- berate any mention of sin, but doth draw out the sting of it to its length, if it be much affected with the least atom of sin, and therefore meets with frequent disorders, if, lastly, it make its employment to gather out of all the Scripture, those places which may advantage her in the sight and sense of her sins; then certainly doth she never hear of the name of sinner, but straight she applies it to herself, which was the point we undertook to shew. The direct use of this proposition is for a κρίσις, or judgment of our estate. It is observed in the body that the rest of the senses may be distempered and lost with- out impairing of it, but only the touch cannot, which there- fore they call the sense of life, because that part or body which is deprived of feeling, is also at death’s door, and hath no more life in it, than it hath relics of this sense. So is it also in spiritual matters: of all other symptoms this of senselessness is most dangerous, and as the Greek physi- cians are wont to say of a desperate disease, ὀλέθριον κάρτα λίαν, “very very mortal.” This feeling tenderness is necessary to the life of grace, and is an inseparable both effect and argument of it. Wherefore, I say, for the judgment of your- selves, observe how every piece of Scripture works upon you. If you can pass over a catalogue of sins and judgments without any regret, or reluctancy, if you can read Sodom and Gomor- rah, Babylon and the harlot Jerusalem, and not be affected with their stories, if thou canst be the auditor of other men’s faults without any sense or griping of thine own, if the name of sin or sinner be unto thee but as a jest or fable, not worthy thy serious notice, then fear thy affections’ want of that tem- per, which the softening Spirit is wont to bestow where it rests, and accordingly as thou findest this tenderness increas- ing or waning in thee, either give thanks or pray: either give thanks for the plenty of that Spirit which thou enjoyest, or in the sense of thy wants importune it, that God will give us SERMON XXXI. 653 softened relenting hearts, that the recital of other men’s sins may move us, other men’s judgments may strike us, other men’s repentance melt us with a sense, with a confes- sion, with a contrition of our own. But above all, O Holy Spirit, from hardness of heart, from an undiscerning, repro- bate spirit, from a contempt, nay neglect, a not observing of Thy Word, as from the danger of hell, Good Lord deliver us. And thus much of this point, of this effect of a tender heart, noted to you out of the cadence of the words. I now come to observe somewhat more real out of the main of the words themselves, “Of whom,” ἕο. We find not our Apostle here complimenting with himself, either excusing or attenu- ating his guilt, but as it were glorying in the measure of his sins, striving for pre-eminence above all other sinners, chal- lenging it as his right, and as eager upon the preferment, as his fellow-labourer Peter’s successor for a primacy (as he pro- fesses) of all bishops, yea the whole Church; so our Apostle here, “ Of all sinners I am the chief.” The note briefly is this, that every one is to aggravate the measure and number of his sins against himself, and as near as he can observe how his guilt exceedeth other men’s. This was St. Paul’s practice and our pattern, not to be gazed on, but followed, not to be discussed, but imitated. In the discourse whereof I shall not labour to prove you the necessity of this practice, which yet I might do out of David’s example in his penitential psalms, [Ps. li. ; especially the fifty-first, out of Nehemiah’s confession, and the ΟΣ like, but taking this as supposed, I shall rather mix doctrine, and reason, and use altogether, in prescribing some forms of aggravating ourselves to ourselves, yet not descending to a par- ticular dissection of sin into all its parts, but dealing only on general heads, equally applicable to all men, briefly reducible to these two, 1. original sin, or the sin of our nature, of which we are all equally guilty; 2. personal sin, grounded in and terminated to each man’s person. For original sin, it is the fathers’ complaint, and ought more justly to be ours of these times, that there is no reckoning made of it, it is seldom thought worthy to supply a serious place in our humiliation, it is mentioned only for fashion’s sake, and as it were to stop God’s mouth, and to give Him satisfaction, or palliate the guilt 654 SERMON XXXI. of our wilful rebellions, not on any real apprehension that its cure and remedy in baptism is a considerable benefit, or the remnant weakness (after the killing venom is abated) were more than a trivial disadvantage. So that we have a kind of need of original clearness of understanding, to judge of the foulness of original sin, and we cannot sufficiently con- ceive our loss, without some recovery of those very faculties we forfeited in it. But that we may not be wilfully blind in a matter that so imports us, that we may understand somewhat of the nature and dangerous condition of this sin, you must conceive Adam, who committed this first sin, in a double respect, either as one particular man, or as containing in his loins the whole nature of man, all mankind, which should ever come from him. Adam’s particular sin,i. e. his personal disobe- dience is wonderfully aggravated from the fathers”, 1. from his original justice, which God had bestowed on him; 2. from the near familiarity with God, which he enjoyed and then lost; ὃ. from the perpetual blessed estate, which, had it not been for this disobedience, he might for ever have lived in; 4. from the purity and integrity of his will, which was then void of all sinful desire, which otherwise might have tempted to this disobedience; 5. from the easiness of both remembering and observing the commandment, it being a short prohibition, and only to abstam from one tree, where there was such plenty besides; 6. from the nature and circumstances of the offence, by which the fathers* do refer it to all manner of heinous sins, making it to contain a breach of almost each moral law, all which were then written in the tables of his heart, and therefore concluding it to be an aggregate or mixture of all those sins which we have since so reiterated, and so many times sinned over. So then this personal sin of Adam was of no mean size, not to be reckoned of as an every day’s offence, as an ordinary breach, or the mere eating of an apple. In the next place, as Adam was no private person, but the whole human nature, so this sin is to be considered either in'the root, or in the fruit, in itself, or in its effects. In itself; so all mankind, and every particular man is, and in that name must humble himself as concerned in the eating » S. August. De Civit. Dei, xxi. 12. © Thid., lib. xiv. ο. 12. 4 S. Leo Magn., p. 143. [See above, p. 289. ] SERMON XXXI. 655 of that fruit, which only Adam’s teeth did fasten on; is to deem himself bound to be humbled for that pride, that curi- | osity, that disobedience, or whatsoever sin else can be con- tained in that first great transgression; and count you this nothing, to have a share in such a sin which contains such a multitude of rebellions? It is not a slight, perfunctory humi- liation that can expiate, not a small labour that can destroy this monster which is so rich in heads, each to be cut off by the work of a several repentance. Now in the last place, as this sin of all mankind in Adam is considered in its effects, so it becomes to us a “ body of sin and death,” a natural dis- order of the whole man, an hostility and enmity of the flesh against the spirit, and the parent of all sin in us, as may appear, Rom. vii. and Jam. i. 14. Which that you may have a more complete understanding of, consider it as it is ordi- narily set down, consisting of three parts, 1. a natural defect, 2. a moral affection, 3. a legal guilt; i.e. a guiltiness of the breach of the law, for these three (whatsoever you may think of them) are all parts of that sin of our nature, which is in, and is to be imputed to us, called ordinarily original sin in us, to distinguish it from that first act committed by Adam, of which this is an effect. And first, that natural defect is a total loss and privation of that primitive justice, holiness and obedience, which God had furnished the creature withal ; a disorder of all the powers of the soul, a darkness of the understanding, a perverseness of the will, a debility, weak- ness, and decay of all the senses, and in sum, a poverty and destruction, and almost a nothingness of all the powers of Soul and body. And how ought we to lament this loss with all the veins of our heart! to labour for some new strain of expressing our sorrow, and in fine to petition that rich grace, which may build up all these ruins; to pray to God that His Christ may purchase and bestow on us new abilities, that the second Adam may furnish us with more durable powers and lasting graces than we had, but forfeited in the first ! The following part of this sin of our nature, viz., a moral evil affection, is word for word mentioned Rom. vii.5; for there [Rom. vii. the Greek words παθήματα ἁμαρτιῶν, ordinarily translated J “motions of sins,” and in the margin ‘ the passions of sins,” are more significantly to be rendered “ affections of sins,” i. 6. by James i. 14. 656 SERMON XXXI. an usual figure, sinful affections. That you may the better observe the encumbrances of this branch of this sin, which doth so overshadow the whole man, and so fence him from the beams and light of the spiritual invisible Sun, I am to tell you that the very heathen that lived without the know- ledge of God, had no conversation with, and so no instruction from the Bible in this matter; that these very heathens, I say, had a sense of this part of original sin, to wit, of these evil moral lusts and affections, which they felt in themselves, though they knew not whence they sprang. Hence it is that a Greek philosopher® out of the ancients makes a large discourse of the unsatiable desire and lust which is in every man, and renders his life grievous unto him, where he useth the very same word, though with a significant epithet added to it, that St. James doth, ch. 1. ver. 14. ἀπέραντος ἐπιθυμία, “in- finite lust,” with which, as St. James saith, “a man is drawn away and enticed,” ἐξελκόμενος καὶ δελεαζόμενος, 80, saith he, that part of the mind in which these lusts dwell, is persuaded and drawn, or rather falls backward and forward, ἄνω καὶ κάτω μεταπίπτει Kal ἀναπείθεται, which lust or evil concu- piscence he at last defines to be’, ἀκολασία τῷ τετριμμένῳ πίθῳ διὰ THY ἀπληστίαν ἀπεικασμένη, “an unsatiable intem- perance of the appetite, never filled with a desire,’ never ceasing in the prosecution of evil; and again he calls it, πε- ριπεφυκυίαν ἡμῖν ἔξωθεν yéveows, “our birth and nativity derived to us by our parents,” i. e. an evil affection heredi- tary to us, and delivered to us as a legacy at our birth and na- tivity: all which seemsa clear expression of that original lust, whose motions they felt, and guessed at its nature. Hence is it, that it was a custom among all of them, I mean the com- mon heathen, to use many ways of purgations, especially on their children, who at the imposition of their names were to be lustrated and purified, with a great deal of superstition and ceremony, such like as they used to drive away a plague, or a cure for an house or city. As if nature by instinct had taught them so much religion, as to acknowledge and desire to cure in every one this hereditary disease of the soul, this “ plague of man’s heart,” as it is called 1 Kings viii. 38. And © Jamblichus, Protrept., ο. xvii. p. 101. ‘ Ibid., p. 102. ® (Id. Explan. Symb., iii.] p. 136, . SERMON XXXI. 657 in sum, the whole learning of the wisest of them, (such were the moralists,) was directed to the governing and keeping in order of these evil affections, which they called the unruly citizens" and common people of the soul, whose intemperance and disorders they plainly observed within themselves, and jaboured hard to purge out, or subdue to the government of reason and virtue, which two we more fully enjoy, and more christianly call the power of grace, redeeming our souls from this body of sin. Thus have I briefly shewed you the sense that the very heathen had of this second branch of original sin, which needs therefore no farther aggravation to you but this, that they who had neither Spirit nor Scripture to instruct them, did naturally so feelingly observe and curse it, that by reason of it they esteemed their whole life but a living death’, τίς οἶδεν εἰ τὸ ζῆν μέν ἐστι κατθανεῖν, τὸ κατ- θανεῖν δὲ ζῆν ; and their body but the sepulchre of the soul, τὸ σῶμα ἐστὶν ἡμῶν σῆμα, καὶ yap ἡμεῖς τῷ ὄντι τέθναμεν, both which together are but a periphrasis of that which St. Paul calls in brief the ‘body of death.” And shall we who (Rom. vii. have obtained plenty of light and instruction, besides that ?*1 which nature bestowed on us with them, shall we, I say, let our eyes be confounded with abundance of day? shall we see it more clearly to take less notice of it? shall we feel the stings of sin within us, (which though they do but prick the regenerate, prove mortal to the rest of us,) and shall we not observe them? Shall we not rather weep those fountains dry, and crop this luxury of our affections with a severe sharp sorrow and humiliation? Shall we not starve this rank, fruitful mother of vipers, by denying it all nourishment from without, all advantages of temptations and the like, which it is wont to make use of to beget in us all manner of sin: let us aggravate every circumstance and inconvenience of it to ourselves, and then endeavour to banish it out of us, and when we find we are not able, importune that strong assistant the Holy Spirit to curb and subdue it, that in the necessity of residing, it yet may not reign in our mortal bodies; to tame and abate the power of this necessary Amorite, and free us from the activity, and mischief and temptations of it here, and from the punishment and imputation of it hereafter. Maximus Tyrius, [supr. p. 278.] i Euripides, Polyidus, frag. 7. ed. Dind, NAMMOND, U τι IPS wlieon James i. 15. [Ps. Ixxiv. 4. [ Rom. vii. 23.] 658 SERMON ΧΧΧΙ. * And so I come to the third part or branch of this original sin, to wit, its legal guilt, and this we do contract by such an early prepossession, that it outruns all other computations of our life. We carry a body of sin about us, before we have one of flesh, have a decrepit, weak old man, with all his crazy train of affections and lusts, before even infancy begins. ‘“ Be- hold,” saith the Psalmist, “I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me:” as if guilt were the plastic power that formed us, and wickedness the minera and ele- ment of our being, as if it were that little moving point which the curious enquirers into nature find to be the rudiment of animation, and pants not then for life, brt lust, and endless death. So that the saying of St. James, chap. 1. 15, seems a description of our natural birth, “ when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” Nor does this hasty inmate leave us when grown up : no, it improves its rancour against God and goodness, mixes with custom, passion, and example, and whatever thing is apt to lead us unto mischief, fomenting all the wild desires of our inferior brutal part, till it become at last an equal and professed enemy, making open hostility, setting up its sconces, fortifying itself with munition and defence, as meaning to try the quarrel with God, and pretending right to man, whom God doth but usurp. Thus shall you see it encamped, and setting up its ‘“ banners for tokens,” under that proud name of another law. “I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind,” and as if it had got the better of the day, “ bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in the members,” i. e. unto itself. And shall we feel such an enemy within us, laying siege at God and grace in us, and fiercely resolving, whether by deceit or battery to capti- vate us unto himself, and shall we not take notice of him? Shall we not think it worthy our pains and expense to defeat him, or secure ourselves? Beloved, that will be the best stratagem for the taking of this enemy, which is now-a-days most ordinary in sieges, to block up all passages, and hinder all access of fresh provision, and so by denying this greedy devourer all nourishment from without, to starve and pine him into such a tameness, that he may be taken without re- sistance; which how really you may perform by these means 4 SHRMON ΧΧΧΙ. 659 of mortification and repentance prescribed you in Scripture, you shall better learn by your own practice than my discourse. The fourth aggravation of this guilt is, that its minera and fuel lurks even in a regenerate man, wretched, &c., and enforceth Paul into a conflict, a war against himself. And 1 Cor. ix. is it possible for one otherwise happy, (as the regenerate ae man inwardly surely is,) to sleep securely, and never to try a field with the author of its so much misery, or finding it to be within itself part of itself, not to think it a sin worthy re- pentance, and sorrow, by which God’s Holy Spirit is so re- sisted, so affronted, and almost quelled and cast out? Fifthly, and lastly, the guilt of it appears by the effects of it, 1. inclination, 2. consent to evil: for even every inclination to sin without consent is an irregularity and kind of sin, i. e. an aversion of some of our faculties from God; all which should directly drive amam to Him and goodness. That servant which is commanded with all speed and earnestness to go about any thing, offends against his master’s precept if he any way incline to disobedience, if he perform his commands with any regret or reluctancy. Now secondly, consent is so natural a consequent of this evil inclination, that in a man you can scarce discern, much less sever them. No man hath any inordinate lust, but doth give some kind of consent to it, the whole will being so infected with this lust, that that can no sooner bring forth evil motions, but this will be ready at hand with evil desires: and then how evident a guilt, how plain a breach of the law it is you need not mine eyes to teach you. Thus have I insisted somewhat largely on the branches of original sin, which I have spread and stretched the wider, that I might furnish you with more variety of aggravations on each member of it, which I think may be of important use, for this or any other popular auditory, because this sin ordinarily is so little thought of, even in our solemnest humi- lations. When you profess that you are about the business of repentance, you cannot be persuaded that this common sin which Adam, as you reckon, only sinned, hath any effect on you. I am yet afraid that you still hardly believe that you are truly, and in earnest to be sorry for it, unless the Lord strike our hearts with an exact sense, and professed feel- ing of this sin of our nature, and corruption of our kind. [ Eph. iv. 19.] 1 Kings viii. 37, &c. 660 SERMON XXXI. - And suffer us not, Ὁ Lord, to nourish in ourselves such a torpor, sluggishness and security, lest it drive us headlong to all manner of hard-heartedness to commit actual sins, and that even with greediness. And so I come briefly to a view of each man’s personal sins, “ I am the chief :” where I might rank all manner of sins into some forms or seats, and then urge the deformity of © each of them single and naked to your view, but I will for the present presume your understandings sufficiently im- structed in the heinousness of each sin forbidden by the commandments. For others who will make more or less sins than the Scripture doth, I come not to satisfy them, or decide their cases of conscience. In brief I will propose to your practice only two forms of confessing your sins, and humbling yourselves for them, which I desire you to aggra- vate to yourselves, because I have not now the leisure to beat them low, or deep to your consciences. Besides original sin already spoken of, you are to lay hard to your own charges, 1. your particular chief sins, 2. all your ordmary sms in gross. For the first, observe but that one admirable place in Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the Temple. “If there be in the land famine,” &c. ‘ Whatsoever plague, whatsoever sickness, what prayer or supplication soever be made by any man, or by all Thy people Israel, which shall know every man the plague of his own heart, and spread forth his hand to this house, then hear Thou in heaven,” &e. Where the condition of obtaining their requests from God is excellently set down, “if they shall know,” 1. e. be sensible of, be sorry for, and confess to God every man the “ plague of his own heart,” that is, m the bulk and heap of their sins, shall pick the fairest loveliest sin in the pack, the plague, 1. e. the pestilential, reigning, sweeping offence, on which all the lower train of petty faults do wait and depend, do minister and suppeditate matter to work. If, I say, they shall take this captain sin, and anatomize, and cut up, and discover every branch of him without any fraud or concealment before the Lord, and then sacrifice that dear darling, and with it their whole fleshly lust as an holocaust, or whole burnt-offering before the Lord: then will He “hear from heaven His dwelling-place, and when He heareth, forgive,” SERMON XXXI. 661 even their other concealed sins, because they have disclosed so entirely, and parted so freely from that. For there is in every of us one master sin that rules the rabble, one fatling which is fed with the choicest of our provision, one captain of the devil’s troop, one “the plague” in every man’s heart. This being sincerely confessed and displayed, and washed in a full stream of tears, for the lower more ordinary sort, for the heap or bulk, we must use David’s penitential compendious Ps, xix. art, who overcome with the multitude of his sins to be re- !* peated, folds them all in this prayer, ‘‘ Who can tell how oft he offendeth?” &e. ‘* And do Thou, O Lord, work in us the sincere acknowledgment of, and contrition for both them, and the whole bundle of our unknown every day’s transgres- sions, and having purged out of us those more forward, known, notorious enormities, cleanse us also from our secret faults.” And thus much be spoken of this proposition, that, and how every man is to aggravate the measure and number of his sins against himself. The whole doctrine is, and in our whole discourse hath been handled for a store of uses; for in setting down how you are to aggravate your sins, especially your original sin against yourselves, I have spoken all the while to your affections, and will therefore presume that you have already laid them up in your hearts to that purpose. Only take one pertinent use for a close, which hath not been touched in the former discourse. If every one be to aggravate his own sins, and to reckon himself “of all sinners the chief;” then must no man usurp the privilege to see or censure other men’s sins through a multiplying glass, 1. e. double to what indeed they are, as most men do now-a-days. What so frequent among those who are most negligent of their own ways, as to be most severe inquisitors of other men’s? and to spy, and censure, and damn a mote or atom in another man’s eye, when their own is in danger to be put out by a beam? Hence is it that among laymen the sins of clergy are weighed according to the measure of the sanc- tuary, which was provided for the paying of their tithesk, Lev. xxvii. i.e. double the ordinary balance; and their own, if not 7” under, at most according to the common weight of the con- gregation. In a minister every error shall become an heresy, « Hooker, p.428. [Book ν. ch. 79. § 10. ed. Keble. ] 662 SERMON XXXI. every slip a crime, and every crime a sacrilege, whereas, beloved, he that means to take out St. Paul’s lesson, must extenuate every man’s sins but his own, or else his heart will give his tongue the lie, when it hears him say, “ Of all,” &c. And so much of this doctrine of aggravating our sins to ourselves, which we are to perform in our daily audit betwixt us and our own consciences. There is another seasonable observation behind in a word to be handled; this particle ὧν, “of whom,” hath a double relation, either to sinners simply, and so it hath been handled already, or to sinners as they are here set down, to wit, those sinners which Christ came into the world to save: and so St. Paul here is changed from the chief of sinners to the chief of saimts, and then the doc- trine is become a doctrine of comfort fit for a conclusion, that he who can follow Paul’s example and precept, can suffi- ciently humble himself for his sins, accept that faithful say- ing, and rightly lay hold on Christ, may assure himself that he is become a chief saint, for so could Paul say, “Of all sinners I am the chief,” and therefore of all those sinners that Christ came into the world to save, πρῶτος εἰμὶ, “I am the chief too.” I shall not discuss this point at large, as being too wide to be comprehended in so poor a pittance of time, but shew the condition of it briefly. He that by God’s in- ward effectual working is come to a clear sight and accurate feeling of his sims; that hath not spared any one minute [of] circumstance for the discovery of them, not one point of aggravation for the humbling of himself, he that bemg thus prepared for his journey to Christ with his burden on his back, shall then take his flight and keep upon the wing, till he fix firmly on Him, may be as sure that he shall die the death, and reign the life of a saint, as he is resolved that God is faithful m His promises: then’ may he live with this syllogism of confidence, not presumption, in his mouth, “it is a faithful saying that Christ came into the world” to justify, sanctify, and “save believing humble sinners ;” but I find myself an humble and believing, and consequently, a justified, sanctified sinner, therefore it is as certain a truth, [Rom viii. that I shall be saved. And thus you see Paul’s, “I am the 58: chief,” interpreted by that assured persuasion, “that neither death nor life, nor any creature shall be able to separate him,” SERMON XXXI. 663 &e. I will not discuss the nature of this assurance, whether it be an act of faith or hope, only thus much, it seems to be derived or bestowed upon hope by faith, an expectation of the performances of the promises grounded upon a firm faith in them, and so to be either an eminent degree of faith, or a confirmed hope. The use of this point is, not to be content with this bare assurance, but to labour to confirm it to us by those effects which do ordinarily and naturally spring from it. Such are, first, joy, or glorying, mentioned Heb. iii. 6; Heb. iii. 6. the confidence and “ rejoicing of your hope firm unto the end:” secondly, a delight in God, mentioned 1 Pet.i. 3,6; “alively 1 Pet.i. hope,” &c., wherein ἀγαλλιᾶσθε, “ you exult,” you greatly Ὁ rejoice and are delighted: thirdly, a patient adhering to God in a firm expectation ofthis state, even in the midst of all manner of worldly evils, mentioned Isaiah vin. 17; “I will τ viii. wait upon the Lord which hideth His face, and I will look for |! Him,” i. e., I will wait His leisure patiently, for I am sure He will uncover His face. And Job more plainly and vehe- [et xiii. mently, “ Though He kill me, yet will I trust in Him.” So ver- ate πὶ batim, Rom. viii. 25, then “ do we in patience wait for it,” and 26. 2 Thess. ii. 5, “ the patient waiting for Christ.” Fourthly, as ? aun an effect of ee patience, a silence and acquiescence “in the will of God,” without any desire of hastening or altering any effect of it. So Psalm xxxvii. 7; “ Restin the Lord,” where Ps. xxxvii. the Hebrew hath it, be silent to the Lord, “ and wait patiently 7-517 for Him,” 1. 6. as the consequence interprets it, quarrel not with God for any thing that happens according to His will, but against thine, as the prosperity of the wicked, and the like. Fifthly, a confirmation of the mind, as making our hope “the anchor of our soul, sure and stedfast,” that we may Heb. vi. thereby in “ patience possess our souls.” And lastly, a desire of ἘΌΝ ἘΣ sanctifying ourselves, according tothat 1 John ii. 3; “ Every 19. man that hath this hope in him purifies himself, even as 1 John Christ is pure.” These six effects briefly set down, may be ie certain marks to you, by which you may judge how just grounds your assurance stands on, and whereby it is to be distinguished from presumption. O Lord, let the fulness of Thy Holy Spirit overshadow us, and increase our weaker faith into a richer measure of assurance, and our more fear- ful hopes into a degree of full persuasion and certain expec- 664 SERMON XXXI. tation of those visions that Thou shalt reveal, and that blest estate that Thou shalt bestow upon us; and lest our confidence may either be or seem but a presumption, work in us those effects of patience, of silence, of joy, of delight, of confirma- tion of mind, and above all a desire and ability of sanctifying our lives unto Thee. Thus have I with all possible haste made an end of these words, and at this time out of the cadence of them observed to you the tenderness of St. Paul and every regenerate man, at the least mention of a sin or sinner, illustrated by the op- posite hardness of heart, proved of soft tender parts of our body, and made use of for a crisis or judgment of our estate and livelihood in grace. Secondly, out of the words themselves we observed the necessity and method of aggravating our sins, especially original sin, against ourselves, which we made use of against those that are more quick-sighted in other men’s estates and guilts than their own. Thirdly, we closed all with that comfortable doctrine of assurance, discussed to you in brief with six effects of it proposed for an example to your care and imitation. Now the God which hath created us, redeemed, called, justified us, will sanctify in His time, will prosper this His ordinance to that end, will direct us by His grace to His glory. To Him be ascribed due the honour, the praise, the glory, the dominion, which through all ages of the world have been given to Him that sitteth on the throne, to the Holy Spirit, and to the Lamb for evermore. OXFORD: PRINTED BY I. SHRIMPTON, = ie 7 1 1012 010 6 85 652 " ΕΞ ᾿ ; Al. i ar > a ries i. ie ΝΥ is ἢ Ψ᾿ ἘΝ ᾿ 7 μὰ ot Ss ah em sea a joe ΤΩΣ og “Shue oun ums