Sermons preached upon several occasions

FROM-THE- LIBRARY OF
TRINITYCOLLEGETORDNTO

TRINITY UNIVERS

LIBRARY,

SERMONS

PREACHED UPON

SEVERAL OCCASIONS,

BY

ROBERT SOUTH, D.D.

PREBENDARY OF WESTMINSTER,
AND CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD.

A NEW EDITION, IN SEVEN VOLUMES.

VOL. III.

OXFORD,

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS.
MDCCCXXIII.

5

1623

THE

CHIEF HEADS OF THE SERMONS.

VOL. III.

SERMON XXXVII.

THE SCRIBE INSTRUCTED, &C.

MATTHEW xiii. 52.

Then said he unto them, Therefore every scribe which is in
structed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man
that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his
treasure things new and old. P. 3.
Christ here gives the character of a preacher or evange
list, 3. in these words ; where we are to consider,

1st, What is meant by the scribe among the Jews, either
as a civil or a church-officer, 5.

2dly, What it is to be instructed for the kingdom of
heaven, 7.

3dly, What it is to bring out of one's treasure things
new and old, 8.

And then, by applying all this to the minister of the
gospel, we are to examine,

1st, His qualifications, 11. viz.

1. A natural ability of the faculties of his mind, 12.
judgment, 12. memory, 13. invention, 14.

2. An habitual preparation by study, 15. in point of
learning and knowledge, 17. of significant speech and ex-

^pression, 21.

2dly, The reasons of their necessity, 24. viz.
1 . Because the preacher's work is to persuade, 24.
a2

iv THE CHIEF HEADS OF

2. Because God himself was at the expense of a miracle
to endow the first preachers with them, 29.

3. Because the dignity of the subject, which is divinity,
requires them, 30.

3dly, The inferences from these particulars, 32.

1 . A reproof to such as discredit the ordinance of preach
ing, 32, 40. and the church itself, 41. either by light and
comical, 32. or by dull and heavy discourses, 34.

2. An exhortation to such who design themselves for
the ministry, to bestow a competent time in preparing for
it, 42.

SERMON XXXVIII.

PROSPERITY EVER DANGEROUS TO VIRTUE.

PROVERBS i. 32.
The prosperity of fools shall destroy them. P. 47.

The misery of all foolish or vicious persons is, that pros
perity itself to them becomes destructive, 47. Because,

1st, They are ignorant or regardless of the ends where
fore God sends it, 48.

1. To try and discover what is in a man, 49.x

2. To encourage him in gratitude to his Maker, 51 .

3. To make him helpful to society, 52.
2dly, Prosperity is prone,

1. To abate men's virtues, 53.

2. To heighten their corruptions, 57. such as pride, 58.
luxury and uncleanness, 59. profaneness, 60.

3dly, It indisposes men to the means of their amendment,
62. rendering them,

1 . Averse to all counsel, 62.

%. Unfit for the sharp trials of adversity, under whicli
they either despond or blaspheme, 63.

Therefore, that prosperity may not be destructive, a man
ought,

1. To consider the uncertainty of it, 64. And

2. How little he is bettered by it, 65.

3. To use the severe duties of mortification, 66.

THE SERMONS IN VOL. III. v

SERMON XXXIX.

SHAMELESSNESS IN SIN THE CERTAIN FORERUNNER OF DE
STRUCTION.

JEREMIAH vi. 15.

Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination ?
nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they
blush : therefore they shall Jail among them that Jail : at
the time that I 'visit them they shall be cast down, saith
the Lord. P. 68.

Shamelessness in sin is the certain forerunner of destruc
tion, 68. In the prosecution of which proposition we may
observe,

1st, What shame is, 70. and how it is more effectual
than law in its influence upon men, with respect to the evil
threatened by it, 73. and to the extent of that evil, 74.

2dly, How men cast off that shame, 76.

1. By the commission of great sins, 77.

2. By a custom of sinning, 79.

3. By the examples of great persons, 80.

4. By the observation of the general practice, 81.

5. By having been once irrecoverably ashamed, 83.
3dly, The several degrees of shamelessness in sin, 84.

1. To shew respect to sinful persons, 84.

2. To defend sin, 85.

3. To glory in it, 87.

4thly, The reasons why shamelessness is so destructive, 88.

1. Because it presupposes those actions which God seldom
lets go unpunished, 88. and,

2. It has a destructive influence upon the government of
the world, 89.

5thly, The judgments, by which it procures the sinner's
ruin, 92.

1. A sudden and disastrous death, 92.

2. War and desolation, 92.

3. Captivity, 93.

Lastly, An application is made of the whole, 94.
a3

vi THE CHIEF HEADS OF

SERMON XL.

CONCEALMENT OF SIN NO SECURITY TO THE SINNER.

NUMBERS xxxii. 23.

Be sure your sin will find you out. P. 97.
These words reach the case of all sinners, 98.
1st, Sin upon a confidence of concealment, 98. For,

1. No man engages in sin, but as it bears some appearance
of good, 98.

2. Shame and pain are by God made the consequents of
sin, 99.

2dly, Take up that confidence, 10S. upon,

1. Their own success, 103,

2. The success of others, 106.

3. An opinion of their own cunning, 108.

4. The hope of repentance, 110.

3dly, Are at last certainly defeated, 112. Because,

1. The very confidence of secrecy is the cause of the
sinner's discovery, 112.

2. There is sometimes a providential concurrence of un
likely accidents for a discovery, 113.

3. One sin sometimes is the means of discovering an
other, 11 5.

4. The sinner may discover himself through phrensy and
distraction, 117. or be forced to it,

5. By his own conscience, 118.

6. He may be suddenly struck by some notable judg
ment, 119. Or,

Lastly, His guilt will follow him into another world, if
he should chance to escape in this, 121.

SERMON XLI.

THE RECOMPENCE OF THE REWARD.

HEBREWS xi. 24, 25, 26.

By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be
called the son of Pharaoh's daughter ; choosing rather
to suffer affliction with the people of God,, than to enjoy
the pleasures of sin for a season ; esteeming the re-

THE SERMONS IN VOL. III. vii

proach of Christ greater riches than all the treasures of
Egypt : for lie had respect unto the recompence of re
ward. P. 124.

A Christian is not bound to sequester his mind from
respect to an ensuing re ward, 125. For,

1st, Duty considered barely as duty is not sufficient to
engage man's will, 127. Because,

1. The soul has originally an averseness to duty, 128.

2. The affections of the soul are not at all gratified by
any thing in duty, 130.

3. If duty of itself was a sufficient motive, then hope and
fear would be needless, 135.

With an answer to some objections, 142.

2dly, A reward and a respect to it are necessary to en
gage man's obedience, 149. not absolutely, but with respect
to man's present condition, 150. The proof whereof may be
drawn from scripture, 151. and the practice of all law
givers, 152.

Therefore it is every man's infinite concern to fix to him
self a principle to act by, which may bring him to his bea
tific end, 154.

SERMON XLIL

ON THE GENERAL RESURRECTION.

ACTS xxiv. 15.
Having hope towards God, (which they themselves also

allow,) that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both

of the just and unjust. P. 157.

It is certain that there must be a general retribution,
and, by consequence, a general resurrection, 157, 158.

The belief of which, though,

1st, It is exceeding difficult, 159. because,

1. Natural reason is averse to it, 160.

2. This averseness is grounded partly upon many im
probabilities, 163. partly upon downright impossibilities
charged upon it, 165. Yet,

2dly, Is founded upon sufficient and solid grounds, 168.
which will appear,

a 4

viii THE CHIEF HEADS OF

1. By answering the objections of improbability and im
possibility, 168.

2. By positive arguments, 176.

3dly, Gaineth much worth and excellency from all those
difficulties, 185. For from hence,

1. We collect the utter insufficiency of bare natural re
ligion, 185.

2. We infer the impiety of Socinian opinions concerning
the resurrection, 188.

SERMON XLIII.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE BLESSED TRINITY ASSERTED, AND
PROVED NOT CONTRARY TO REASON.

COLOSS. ii. 2.
To the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the

Father, and of Christ. P. 194.

These words examined and explained prove the plurality
of Persons in the divine nature a great mystery, to be ac
knowledged by all Christians, 194. which will appear by
shewing,

1st, What conditions are required to denominate a thing
a mystery, 198. viz.

1. That it be really true, and not contrary to reason,
198.

2. That it be above the reach of mere reason to find it
out before it be revealed, 204.

3. That, being revealed, it be yet very difficult for, if not
above finite reason fully to comprehend it, 209.

2dly, That all these conditions meet in the article of the
Trinity, 198—213.

With an account of the blasphemous expressions and
assertions of the Socinians, 213.

Lastly, Since this article is of so great moment, it is fit to
examine,

1. The causes which have unsettled and destroyed the
belief of it, 21 9. Such as representing it in a figure, 219.
expressing it by bold and insignificant terms, 220. building
it on texts of scripture which will evince no such thing, 221.

THE SERMONS IN VOL. III. ix

2. The means how to fix and continue it in the mind,
221. by acquiescing in revelation, 222. and suppressing all
over-curious inquiries into the nature of it, 222.

SERMON XLIV. XLV.

ILL-DISPOSED AFFECTIONS BOTH NATURALLY AND PENALLY
THE CAUSE OF DARKNESS AND ERROR IN THE JUDGMENT.

2THESS.ii.ll.

And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion,
that they should believe a lie. P. 224.

A very severe judgment is here denounced against them
who receive not the love of the truth, 224. which will be
best understood by shewing,

1st, How the mind of man can believe a lie, either,

1. Through the remoteness of the faculty from its ob
ject, 230. or,

2. Through some weakness or disorder in it, 231.

2dly, What it is to receive the love of truth, 232. viz.
to esteem, 232. and to choose it, 236. And consequently,
what it is not to receive it, 237.

3dly, How the not receiving the love of truth into the
will, disposes the understanding to delusion, 240.

1. By drawing the understanding from fixing its con
templation upon truth, 240.

2. By prejudicing it against it, 242.

3. By darkening the mind, which is the peculiar malig
nity of every vice, 244.

4thly, How God can properly be said to send men delu
sions, 246.

1. By withdrawing his enlightening influence from the
understanding, 247.

2. By commissioning the spirit of falsehood to seduce the
sinner, 250.

3. By providential disposing of men into such circum
stances of life as have an efficacy to delude, 252.

4. By his permission of lying wonders, 255.

5thly, Wherein the greatness of this delusion consists, 259-

x THE CHIEF HEADS OF

1. In itself; as it is spiritual, and directly annoys a man's
soul, 259. and more particularly blasts his understanding,
263.

2. In its consequences, 268. as it renders the conscience
useless, 268. and ends in a total destruction, 270.

6thly, What deductions may be made from the whole,
272.

1. That it is not inconsistent with God's holiness to
punish one sin with another, 272.

2. That the best way to confirm our faith about the
truths of religion is to love and acknowledge them, 277.

3. That hereby we may be able to find out the true
cause of atheism, 281. and fanaticism, 283.

SERMON XLVI. XLVII.

COVETOUSNESS PROVED NO LESS AN ABSURDITY IN REASON,

THAN A CONTRADICTION TO RELIGION, NOR A MORE

UNSURE WAY TO RICHES, THAN RICHES

THEMSELVES TO HAPPINESS.

LUKE xii. 15.

And he said unto them. Take heed, and beware of covetous-
ness : for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of
the things which he possesseth. P. 287.

It is natural for man to aim at happiness, the way to
which seems to be an abundance of this world's good
things, and covetousness is supposed the means to acquire
it. But our Saviour confutes this in these words, 287
288. which contains,

1 st, A dehortation, 289. wherein we may observe,

1. The author of it, Christ himself, 290. the Lord of the
universe, 292. depressed to the lowest estate of poverty, 292.

2. The thing we are dehorted from, covetousness, 293.
by which is not meant a prudent forecast and parsimony,
294. but an anxious care about worldly things, attended
with a distrust of Providence, 295. a rapacity in getting,
298. by all illegal ways, 301. a tenaciousness in keep
ing, 303.

THE SERMONS IN VOL. III. xi

3. The way how we are dehorted from it ; Take heed and
beware, 306. For it is very apt to prevail upon us, by its
near resemblance to virtue, 307. the plausibility of its pleas,
308. the reputation it generally gives in the world, 311.
And there is a great difficulty in removing it, 313.

2dly, The reason of that dehortation, 288, 318. that a
man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things
which he possesseth, 318. Because,

1. In the getting of them men are put upon the greatest
toils and labours, 320. run the greatest dangers, 322. com
mit the greatest sins, 326. And,

2. When they are gotten, are attended with excessive
cares, 328. with an insatiable desire of getting more, 331.
are exposed to many temptations, 333. to the malice and
envy of all about them, 335.

3. The possession of earthly riches is not able to remove
those things which chiefly render men miserable, 337. such
as affect his mind, 337. or his body, 338.

4. The greatest happiness this life is capable of, may be
enjoyed without that abundance, 341.

SERMON XLVIII.

NO MAN EVER WENT TO HEAVEN, WHOSE HEART WAS NOT
THERE BEFORE.

MATTHEW vi. 21 .
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be

also. P. 348.

These words concerning man^s heart's being fixed upon
his treasure or chief good, 348. may be considered,
1st, As an entire proposition in themselves, 349.

1. Supposing, that every man has something which he
accounts his treasure, 350. which appears from the activity
of his mind, 350. and the method of his acting, 352.

2. Declaring, that every man places his whole heart upon
that treasure, 353. by a restless endeavour to acquire it,
354. by a continual delight in it, 356. by supporting him-

xii THE CHIEF HEADS OF

self with it in all his troubles, 358. by a willingness to part
with all other things to preserve it, 359.

2dly, As they enforce the foregoing precept in the 19th
and 20th verses; wherein the things on earth and the
things in heaven are represented as rivals for men's affec
tions, 361. and that the last ought to claim them in pre
ference to the other will be proved,

1. By considering the world, how vastly inferior it is to
the worth of man's heart, 364.

2. By considering the world in itself, 367. how all its en
joyments are perishing, 367. and out of our power, 369.
And on the contrary, heaven is the exchange God gives
for man's heart, 365. and the enjoyments above are inde
fectible, endless, 368. and not to be taken away, 370.

The improvement of these particulars is to convince us of
the extreme vanity of most men's pretences to religion, 371.

SERMON XLV1I.

VIRTUOUS EDUCATION OF YOUTH, THE WAY TO A HAPPY

OLD AGE.

PROVERBS xxii. 6.

Train up a child in the way he should go : and when he is
old, he will not depart from it. P. 379.

The rebellion of forty-one has had ever since a very per
nicious influence upon this kingdom, 379. To hinder the
mischief whereof, Solomon's advice is best, to plant virtue
in youth, in order to ensure the practice of it in a man's
mature or declining age, 383. For since every man is na
turally disposed to evil, and this evil principle will (if not
hindered) pass into action, and those vicious habits will,
from personal, grow national ; and no remedy against this
can be had but by an early discipline ; it is absolutely ne
cessary that the minds of youth should be formed with a
virtuous preventing education, 386. which is the business of

1. Parents, who ought to deserve that honour which their
children must pay them ; and to instil into their hearts
early principles of their duty to God and their king, 390.

THE SERMONS IN VOL. III. xiii

2. Schoolmasters ; whose influence is more powerful than
of preachers themselves, 395. and who ought to use great
discretion in the management of that charge, 397.

3. The clergy; who should chiefly attend first upon
catechising, 400. then confirmation, 402. and lastly, in
structing them from the pulpit, not failing often to remind
them of obedience and subjection to the government, 405.

Lastly, It is incumbent upon great men to suppress con-
ven tiding schools or academies, 409. and to countenance all
legal free grammar-schools, 411.

SERMON L.

PRETENCE OF CONSCIENCE NO EXCUSE FOR REBELLION.

JUDGES xix. 30.

And It was so, that all that saw it said, There was no such
deed done nor seen from the day that the children of Israel
came up out of the land of Egypt unto this day : consider
of it, take advice, and speak your minds. P. 415.
These words were occasioned by a foul and detestable
fact, which, for want of kingly government, happened in
one of the tribes of Israel, 415. but may be applied to ex
press the murder of king Charles the First, 418. The unpa
ralleled strangeness of which deed will appear, if we consider,

1. The qualities, human accomplishments and personal
virtues of the person murdered, 421.

2. The gradual preparations to such a murder, a factious
ministry and a covenant, 426. and their rebellious cate
chism, 428.

3. The actors in this tragical scene, 431.

4. Their manner of procedure in it, 432. openly, 433.
cruelly, 434. and with pretences of conscience, and protes
tations of religion, 439.

5. The fatal consequences of it, 440. such as were of a
civil, 440. or a religious concern, 442.

Lastly, Hereupon we ought to take advice, 445. and con
sider, that our sins have been the cause of our calamities ;
and that the best way to avoid the same evil is to sin no
more, 447.

xiv THE CHIEF HEADS OF

SERMON LI.

SATAN HIMSELF TRANSFORMED INTO AN ANGEL OF LIGHT.
% COR. Xi. 14.

And no marvel ; for Satan himself is transformed into an
angel of light. P. 450.

These words suppose that there is a Devil; and fore
warn us against his deceitful disguises, 450. and the sense
of the words may be prosecuted by shewing,

1st, What influence he has upon the soul, and how he
conveys his fallacies, 454.

1. In moving, or sometimes altering the humours of the
body, 454.

£. In suggesting the ideas of things to the imagina
tion, 455.

3. In a personal possession of the man, 457.

2dly, Several instances, wherein he, under the mask of
light, has imposed upon the Christian world, 459. making
use,

1. Of the church"^ abhorrence of polytheism, to bring in
Arianism, 459.

£. Of the zealous adoration of Christ's person, to intro
duce the superstitious worship of Popery, 461.

3. Of the shaking off of Popery, to bring in the two ex
tremes of Socinianism, 471. and Enthusiasm, 479. with a
comparison of this last with Popery, 480.

3dly, Certain principles, whereby he is like to repeat his
cheats upon the world, 485.

1. By making faith and free grace undermine the neces
sity of a good life, 485.

2. By opposing the power of godliness irreconcilably to
all forms, 487.

3. By making the kingdom of Christ oppose the king
doms of the world, 489.

Therefore we ought not to cast the least pleasing look
upon any of his insidious offers, 489. but encounter him
with watchfulness and prayer, 494.

THE SERMONS IN VOL. III. xv

SERMON LII.

THE CERTAINTY OF OUR SAVIOUR'S RESURRECTION.

JOHN xx. 29.
Jesus saitli unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me,

thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen,

and yet have believed. P. 496.

The resurrection of a body before its total dissolution is
easier to be believed than after it ; and it was this last sort
of resurrection, which puzzled Thomases reason, 496, 497.
with various objections, 500. Which, after some preliminary
considerations, 502. are severally proposed, and answered
under eight heads, 502. together with a confutation of the
lie invented by the Jews, 515. Then, all objections being
removed, Christ's resurrection is proposed to our belief
upon certain and sufficient grounds, 517. viz.

1st, The constant, uniform affirmation of such persons,
as had sufficient means to be informed of the truth, 520.
and were of an unquestionable sincerity, 521.

2dly, The miracles which confirmed the apostle's words,
523.

Lastly, That such tradition has greater reason for its be
lief, than can be suggested for its disbelief, 525.

Thence we ought to admire the commanding excellency
of faith, which can force its way through the opposition of
carnal reason, with an entire submission to divine revela
tion, 526.

SERMON LIIL

OBEDIENCE FOR CONSCIENCE SAKE, THE DUTY OF GOOD
SUBJECTS.

ROM. xiii. 5.

Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath,
but also for conscience sake. P. 531.

In these words there is,

1st, A duty enjoined, viz. subjection, 531. which the be
lievers of the church of Rome are commanded to pay Nero,
532.

>

X

xvi THE CHIEF HEADS OF THE SERMONS.

2dly, The ground of this duty, for conscience sake, 534.
In which we are to consider,

1. The absolute unlawfulness of resistance, 537. notwith
standing the doctrine of the sons both of Rome, 538. and
of Geneva, 543. of the Scotch, 546. and English puritans,
548. With an account, how far human laws bind the con
science, 550.

2. The scandal which resistance casts upon Christianity,
553.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

WILLIAM BROMLEY, ESQ.

SOME TIME SPEAKER OF THE HONOURABLE THE
HOUSE OF COMMONS ;

AND AFTER THAT

PRINCIPAL SECRETARY OF STATE TO HER MAJESTY QUEEN
ANNE, OF EVER BLESSED MEMORY;

IN BOTH STATIONS GREAT AND EMINENT,
BUT IN NOTHING GREATER THAN IN AND FROM HIMSELF;

ROBERT SOUTH,

HIS MOST DEVOTED SERVANT,

HUMBLY OFFERS AND PRESENTS THIS FOURTH VOLUME «

OF

HIS SERMONS,

AS THE LAST AND BEST TESTIMONY HE CAN GIVE OF

THE HIGH ESTEEM AND SINCERE AFFECTION,
WHICH HE, THE AUTHOR OF THEM, BEARS, AND EVER
MUST AND SHALL BEAR, TO THAT
EXCELLENT PERSON.

* This refers to the twelve sermons next following.
VOL. III. B

The Scribe instructed, tyc.

A SERMON

PREACHED AT ST. MARY'S CHURCH IN OXON,

BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY,

JULY 29, 1660.

Being the time of the King's commissioners meeting there, soon after
the Restoration, for the visitation of that University.

MATTHEW xiii. 52.

Then said he unto them. Therefore every scribe which is in
structed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man
that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his
treasure things new and old.

AN this chapter we have a large discourse from the
great preacher of righteousness ; a discourse fraught
with all the commending excellencies of speech ; de
lightful for its variety, admirable for its convincing
quickness and argumentative closeness, and (which
is seldom an excellency in other sermons) excellent
for its length.

For that which is carried on with a continued, un
flagging vigour of expression can never be thought
tedious, nor consequently long. And Christ, who
was not only the preacher, but himself also the
word, was undoubtedly furnished with a strain of
heavenly oratory far above the heights of all human

B 2

4 A SERMON

rhetoric whatsoever : his sermons being of that
grace and ornament, that (as the world generally
goes) they might have prevailed even without truth,
and yet pregnant with such irresistible truth, that
the ornament might have been spared ; and indeed
it still seems to have been used, rather to gratify
than persuade the hearer. So that we may (only
with a reverential acknowledgment both of the
difference of the persons and of the subject) give
that testimony of Christ's sermons, which Cicero
(the great master of the Roman eloquence) did of
Demosthenes's orations, who being asked, which of
them was the best, answered, the longest.

Accordingly, our Saviour having in the verse here
pitched upon for my text, finished his foregoing dis
course, he now closes up all with the character of a
preacher, or evangelist ; still addressing himself to
his disciples, as to a designed seminary of preachers ;
or rather indeed, as to a kind of little itinerant
academy, if I may so call it, of such as were to take
his heavenly doctrines for the sole rule of their prac
tice, and his excellent way of preaching for the
standing pattern of their imitation ; thus lying at
the feet of their blessed Lord, with the humblest at
tention of scholars, and the lowest prostration of
subjects. The very name and notion of a disciple
implying, and the nature of the thing itself requiring
both these qualifications.

Now the discussion of the words before us shall
He in these following particulars :

1st, To shew, What is here meant by the scribe
2dly, What by being instructed unto the kingdom
of heaven. And,

ON MATTHEW XIII. 52. 5

3dly and lastly, What by bringing out of his trea
sure things new and old; and how upon this ac
count he stands compared to an householder.

And I. Concerning the word scribe. It was a
name, which amongst the Jews was applied to two
sorts of officers.

1. To a civil ; and so it signifies a notary, or in a
large sense any one employed to draw up deeds or
writings : whether in an higher station or degree,
as we read in the 2 Kings xxii. and the 3d verse,
that Shaphan was ypa^arev^ /3«(nAeV, the king's
scribe, or secretary ; or, as in a lower sense and ac-
ception of the word, we find this appellation given
to that officer who appeared in quelling the uproar
at Ephesus, as we read in Acts xix. where, in the
35th verse, he is called ypapparevs, which, I think,
we may fitly enough render, (as our English text
does,) the townclerk, or public notary of the city.
To this sort also some would refer those mentioned
in Matthew ii. and the 4th verse, who are there
called the scribes of the people ; as if they were
such notaries as we have been speaking of; but the
business about which we read in that chapter that
Herod called them together, seems to evince the
contrary ; which was to inquire of such as were
skilled in the writings of the prophets, when and
where the Messiah was to be born. The resolution
of which was very unlikely to be had from those
who were only notaries and journeymen to courts,
to draw up indictments, bonds, leases, contracts, and
the like. And from whence we may, no doubt,
conclude, that this sort of scribes was quite of another
nature from the scribe here alluded to in the text ;
and which shall be next treated of : and therefore,

B 3

G A SERMON

2. This name scribe signifies a church-officer, one
skilful and conversant in the law, to interpret and
explain it. For still we find the scribes reckoned
with the great doctors of the Jewish church, and
for the most part joined with the Pharisees in the
writings of the evangelists, and by St. Paul with the
disputer of this world, 1 Cor. i. 20 ; and sometimes
called also VO/X//CG/, lawyers, as in St. Luke vii. 30,
and in St. Luke xi. 52; that is to say, men skilful
and expert in the Mosaic law. Not that these
scribes were really and properly any part of the
Pharisees, (as some have thought ;) for Pharisee was
the name of a sect, scribe of an office : and whereas
we read, in Acts xxiii. and the 9th verse, of the
ypa.fj.pa.Teig> there said to be rov pepovs T£V &api(rai(t>v, of
part of the Pharisees ; the word of part is not to
be understood in respect of distribution, as it sig
nifies a correlate to the whole, but in respect of
opinion ; as that they were of the Pharisees' part or
side, or, in other words, joined with them in some
of their opinions ; as possibly others of them might
join with the Sadducees in some of theirs. By scribe
therefore must be here meant a doctor or expounder
of the law to the people ; such an one as Ezra, that
excellent person, so renowned amongst the Jews ;
who, in Ezra vii. verse 6, is said to have been a ready
scribe in the law of Moses. For though, indeed,
the word scribe in the English and Latin imports
barely a writer, and the Greek ypafipuT&tf by its
derivation from ypa</>w, strictly signifies no more ;
yet by its nearer derivation from ypdppa, which sig
nifies a letter, it seems to represent to us the nature
of the office frotn the notation of the name, viz. that
these scribes were men of the bare letter, or the

ON MATTHEW XIII. 52. 7

text ; whose business it was to explain and give the
literal sense and meaning of the law. And there
fore, that the men here spoken of, whom the Jews
accounted of such eminent skill in it, should by their
office be only writers, or transcribers of it, can with
no more reason, I think, be affirmed, than if we
should allow him to be a skilful divine, who should
transcribe other men's works, and, which is more,
preach them when he had done. But,

2. As for the meaning of that expression, of being
instructed unto the kingdom of heaven. By the
kingdom of heaven is here signified to us, only the
preaching of the gospel, or the condition and state
of the Church under the gospel; as, Repent, for the
kingdom of heaven is at hand, that is, the gospel is
shortly to be preached : now we are to take notice,
that it was the way of Christ, in his preaching to
the Jews, to express the offices, and things belonging
to his church under the gospel, by alluding to those
of the Jewish church under the law, as being
known, and familiar to them. Hence he calls a
minister, or preacher of the gospel, a scribe: and
this from the analogy of what the scribe did in the
explication of the Mosaic law, with what the gospel
minister was to do, in preaching and pressing home
the doctrines of Christianity upon the heart and
conscience; much the harder work, God knows, of
the two.

Now the word which we here render instructed,
in the Greek is /xa^revSe^, one who was taught,
schooled, or disciplined to the work by long exercise
and study. He was not to be inspired, or blown
into the ministry, but to come to it by mature study
and labour. He was to fetch his preparations from

B 4

8 A SERMON

industry, not infusion. And forasmuch as Christ's
design was to express evangelical officers by legal,
there must, as I shew, be some resemblance between
them ; and since the matter or subject they were
engaged in was wholly diverse, this resemblance
was to hold, at least, in the qualification of the per
sons, viz. that as the scribe of the law did with
much labour stock himself with all variety of learn
ing requisite to find out the sense of the same, so the
evangelical scribe, or preacher, should bring as much
learning, and bestow as much labour in his employ
ment, as the other did in his ; especially since it re
quired full as much, and deserved a great deal more :
and so pass we to the

3d thing proposed, which wras to shew what is to
be understood by bringing out of his treasure things
new and old. By treasure is here signified that
which in Latin is called penus, a storehouse, or
repository ; and the bringing out thence things new
and old was (as some are of opinion) a kind of pro
verb, or proverbial speech amongst the Hebrews,
expressing a man's giving a plentiful or liberal en
tertainment to his friends, and such as came about
him. And accordingly, as here borrowed from the
householder, and applied to the gospel-scribe in the
text, it makes the drift and import of the whole
parable to amount to this : that as the former, if a
man of substance and sufficiency, of a large stock,
and as large a mind, will entertain his friends and
guests with plenty and variety of provision, an
swerable to the difference of men's palates, as well
as to the difference of the season ; not confining
•^them to the same standing common fare, but, as oc
casion requires, adding something of more cost and

ON MATTHEW XIII. 52. 9

rarity besides ; so our gospel-scribe or preacher, in
the entertainment of his spiritual guests, is not
always to set before them only the main substan-
tials of religion, whether for belief or practice, but,
as the matter shall require, to add also illustration
to the one, and enforcement to the other, sometimes
persuading, sometimes terrifying; and accordingly
addressing himself to the afflicted and desponding
with gospel lenitives, and to the hard and obstinate
with legal corrosives ; and since the relish of all is
not the same, he is to apply to the vulgar with plain
familiar similitudes, and to the learned with greater
choiceness of language and closeness of argument ;
and moreover, since every age of the church more
peculiarly needs the clearer discussion of some truth
or other, then more particularly doubted of, or op
posed ; therefore, to the inculcating the general ac
knowledged points of Christianity, he is to add
something of the controversies, opinions, and vices
of the times ; otherwise he cannot reach men's minds
and inclinations, which are apt to be argued this
way or that way, according to different times and
occasions ; and consequently he falls so far short of a
good orator, and much more of an accurate preacher.
This, I conceive, is the genuine and full sense of
the words we are now upon, and which I shall yet
further strengthen with this observation : " That we
" shall find that Christ's design all along the evan-
" gelists was to place the economy of the church
" under the gospel, above that of the Jewish church
" under the law, as more excellent in every particu-
" lar." Now it was the way of the scribes then, to
dwell wholly upon the letter of the law, and what
Moses said ; shewing the construction, the coherence,

10 A SERMON

and force of his words, only sometimes sprinkling
them a little with tradition, and the pompous alle
gation of their ancient rabbies, 'EppeQy rug ap%aioi$.
But Christ, who, we read, taught with authority,
and not as the scribes, as one not only expounding,
but also commanding the words, took a freedom of
expression, in shewing not the sense of Moses only,
but the further sense and intent of God himself
speaking to Moses ; and then clothing this sense in
parables, similitudes, and other advantages of rheto
ric, so as to give it an easier entrance and admis
sion into the mind and affections ; and what he did
himself, he recommended to the practice of his dis
ciples. So that, I think, we may not unfitly ac
count for the meaning of our Saviour in this chapter
thus : You see how the scribes of the law with much
anxiety and niceness confine themselves to the let
ter of Moses, but the scribe who is instructed unto
the kingdom of heaven, and fitted to preach the
gospel, must not dwell only upon the letter and
shell of things, but often enlarge and amplify upon
the subject he handles, adapting his discourse to the
various circumstances, tempers, and apprehensions
of his hearers ; and so letting it rise or fall in the
degrees of its plainness or quickness, according to
his hearers' dulness or docility.

Thus, I hope, I have made out the full import of
the words, and the design of our Saviour in them,
which I shall now more throughly prosecute in this
proposition, naturally resulting from them so ex
plained, viz.

That the greatest advantages, both as to largeness
of natural, and exquisiteness of acquired abilities, are
not only consistent with, but required to the due

ON MATTHEW XIII. 52. 1 1

performance of the work and business of a preacher
of the gospel.

Not that I affirm, that every one, who has not
such a furniture of parts and knowledge, is therefore
wholly unfit or forbidden to be a preacher ; for then
most of us might for ever sit down and adore, but
not venture upon this work. But in giving a rule
for any thing or action, we must assign the utmost
perfection which either of them is capable of, and to
which men ought to aspire ; not to which they of
necessity must or can attain. We know the copy
always falls short of the original, and the perform
ance of the precept. But still the rule must be ab
solute, and highly perfect ; otherwise, we should ne
ver look upon our improvement as our duty, or our
imperfections as our defects.

In the handling of the proposition drawn forth, I
shall shew,

1st, What qualifications are required as necessary
to a minister of the word, from the force of the
comparison between him and the scribe mentioned
in the text.

2dly, I shall shew the reasons to evince and prove
their necessity : and

3dly, I shall draw some inferences from the
whole.

And first, concerning the qualifications required,
&c.

I shall bring them under these two.

1. An ability and strength of the powers and fa
culties of the mind. And,

2. An habitual preparation of the same, by study,
exercise, and improvement.

12 A SERMON

Which two, I conceive, contain all that both na
ture and art can do in this matter.

And first, for the first of these two.

1. A natural ability and strength of the powers
and faculties of the mind. And what these are is
apparent, viz. judgment, memory, and invention.

Now, whether these three are three distinct things
both in being distinguished from one another, and
likewise from the substance of the soul itself consi
dered without any such faculties, but only receiving
these several denominations from the several respects
arising from the several actions exerted immediately
by itself upon several objects, or several qualities
of the same object ; I say, whether of these two
it is, is not easy to decide ; and it is well, that it
is not necessary. Aquinas and most with him
affirm the former, and Scotus with his followers the
latter. But yet to assert with him, that in a created
nature essence and power are the same, seems too
near and bold a step to the incommunicable simpli
city of the divine; and according to the received
way of arguing will pass for a great absurdity.
However, not to insist further upon a point merely
philosophical, but supposing (at least probably) that
(according to the common opinion) the soul acts or
works by powers and faculties, as well as habits, dis
tinct from its own substance ; I proceed to shew the
necessity of the three forementioned faculties in the
business of the ministry. And,

1st, For that great leading one, the judgment:
without which, how can any controversy in philoso
phy or divinity be duly managed, stated, or deter
mined? How can that which is ambiguous be

ON MATTHEW XIII. 52. 13

cleared, that which is fallacious be detected, or even
truth itself be defended ? How, where the words of
scripture may bear several senses, some proper, and
some figurative, can we be assured which the writer
or speaker of them intended them in ? How also,
without this, when a scripture has been corrupted,
partly by filching some words out of it, and partly by
a supposititious foisting of some in, shall the whole
be rescued from the imposture passed upon it, and
so restored true and genuine to itself? And lastly,
how shall many seeming clashings and dark pas
sages in sacred history and chronology be placed in
such a light, as may throughly satisfy, or at least
effectually silence the doubtful and exceptious ? All
which particulars (with many more of the like na
ture) being confessedly knotty and difficult, can ne
ver be accorded, but by a competent stock of critical
learning; and can any one (even according to the
very signification of the word) be said to be a critic,
and yet not judicious ? And then,

2dly, For memory. This may be reckoned twofold.
1. That which serves to treasure up our reading, or
observations. And 2. That which serves to suggest
to us, in our reciting or repeating of any thing,
which we had endeavoured to commit to our memo
ry before. I distinguish them, because one may be,
and often is excellent, where the other is deficient.
But now, were this never so large, yet theology is
of that vast compass, as to employ and exhaust it.
For what volumes are there of antiquity, church-
history, and other divine learning, which well de
serve reading ; and to what purpose do we read, if
we cannot remember ? But then also, for the recit
ing or repeating part of memory, that is so neces-

14 A SERMON

sary, that Cicero himself observes of oratory, (which
indeed upon a sacred subject is preaching,) that upon
the want of memory alone, omnia, etiamsi prcecla-
rissima fuerint, in orators peritura b. And we
know that, to a popular auditory, it is upon the
matter all. There being, in the esteem of many,
but little difference between sermons read, and ho
milies, save only this, that homilies are much better.
And then for the

Third faculty, which is invention : a faculty act
ing chiefly in the strength of what is offered it by
the imagination. This is so far from being admitted
by many as necessary, that it is decried by them as
utterly unlawful ; such grand exemplars, I mean, as
make their own abilities the sole measure of what is
fit or unfit, lawful or unlawful ; so that what they
themselves cannot reach, others, forsooth, ought not
to attempt. But I see not why divinity should suffer
for their narrowness, and be deprived of the service of
a most useful and excellent endowment of the mind,
and which gives a gloss and a shine to all the rest.
For I reckon upon this as a great truth, that there
can be no endowment in the soul of man, which God
himself is the cause and giver of, but may even in its
highest and choicest operations be sanctified and em
ployed in the work of the ministry. And there is
also another principle, which I account altogether as
true as the former ; namely, that piety engages no
man to be dull ; though lately, I confess, it passed
with some for a mark of regeneration. And when I
shall see these principles disproved, I shall be ready
to grant all exercise of the fancy or invention, in the
handling things sacred, to be unlawful. As fancy,

h Primo libro de Oratore.

ON MATTHEW XIII. 52. 15

indeed, is often taken in the worst sense, for a con
ceited, curious, whimsical brain, which is apt to
please itself in strange, odd, and ungrounded no
tions ; so I confess, that nothing is more contrary to
or destructive of true divinity ; but then I must add
withal, that if fancy be taken in this sense, those
who damn it in its other sober and right acception,
have much the greatest share of it themselves. But
if, on the other hand, we take fancy for that power
or ability of the mind, which suggests apposite and
pertinent expressions, and handsome ways of cloth
ing and setting off those truths which the judgment
has rationally pitched upon, it will be found full as
useful as any of all the three mentioned by us in
the work of preaching; and consequently slighted
and disapproved of by none but such as envy that
in others, which they are never like to be envied for
the want of in themselves. He therefore who thinks
to be a scribe instructed for the kingdom of heaven,
without a competency of judgment, memory, and in
vention, attempts a great superstructure where there
is no foundation ; and this, surely, is a very prepos
terous way to edify either himself or others.

And thus much for the first of the two qualifica
tions of our evangelical scribe ; to wit, a tolerable
ability or strength of the powers and faculties of the
mind; particularly of those three, judgment, me
mory, and invention. I proceed now to the other,
and

Second qualification : which was an habitual pre
paration by study, exercise, and due improvement of
the same. Powers act but weakly and irregularly,
till they are heightened and perfected by their ha
bits. A well radicated habit, in a lively, vegete fa
culty, is like an apple of gold in a picture of silver ;

16 A SERMON

it is perfection upon perfection, it is a coat of mail
upon our armour, and, in a word, it is the raising
the soul at least one story higher : for take off but
these wheels, and the powers in all their operations
will drive but heavily. Now it is not enough to
have books, or for a man to have his divinity in his
pocket, or upon the shelf; but he must have mas
tered his notions, till they even incorporate into his
mind, so as to be able to produce and wield them
upon all occasions ; and not when a difficulty is pro
posed, and a performance enjoined, to say, that he
will consult such and such authors : for this is not
to be a divine, who is rather to be a walking library,
than a walking index. As, to go no farther than
the similitude in the text, we should not account him
a good or generous housekeeper, who should not
have always something of standing provision by him,
so as never to be so surprised, but that he should still
be found able to treat his friend at least, though per
haps not always presently to feast him : so the scribe
here spoken of should have an inward, lasting ful
ness and sufficiency, to support and bear him up ;
especially where present performance urges, and
actual preparation can be but short. Thus, it is not
the oil in the wick, but in the vessel, which must
feed the lamp. The former indeed may cause a pre
sent blaze, but it is the latter which must give it a
lasting light. It is not the spending-money a man
has in his pocket, but his hoards in the chest, or in
the bank, which must make him rich. A dying
man has his breath in his nostrils, but to have it in
the lungs is that which must preserve life. Nor will
it suffice to have raked up a few notions here and
there, or to rally up all one's little utmost into one
discourse, which can constitute a divine, or give a

ON MATTHEW XIII. 52. 17

man stock enough to set up with ; any more than a
soldier who had filled his snapsack should thereupon
set up for keeping house. No ; a man would then
quickly be drained, his short stock would serve but
for one meeting in ordinary converse, and he would be
in danger of meeting with the same company twice.
And therefore there must be store, plenty, and a
treasure, lest he turn broker in divinity, and having
run the rounds of a beaten exhausted common place,
be forced to stand still, or go the same round over
again ; pretending to his auditors, that it is profit
able for them to hear the same truths often incul
cated to them ; though, I humbly conceive, that to
inculcate the same truths, is not of necessity to re
peat the same words. And therefore, to avoid such
beggarly pretences, there must be an habitual pre
paration as to the work we are now speaking of.
And that in two respects.

1. In respect of the generality of knowledge re
quired to it. The truth is, if we consider that great
multitude of things to be known, and the labour and
time required to the knowledge of each particular,
it is enough to discourage and dash all attempt, and
cause a careless despair. What Hippocrates said of
the cure of the body, is much truer of the cure of
the soul, " that life is short, and art long." And I
might add also, that the mind is weak and narrow,
and the business difficult and large. And should I
say, that preaching was the least part of a divine, it
would, I believe, be thought a bold word, and look
like a paradox, (as the world goes,) but perhaps, for
all that, never the further from being a great truth.
For is it not a greater thing to untie the knots of
many intricate and perplexing controversies; and

VOL. in. c

18 A SERMON

to bring together all the ends of a loose and hardly
cohering hypothesis ? to refute the opinions and
stop the mouths of gainsayers, whereas some of them
are so opposite amongst themselves, that you can
hardly confute one, but with arguments taken from
the other, though both of them equally errone
ous ? In which and the like cases to carry an argu
ment for the defence of truth so warily and exactly,
that an adversary shah1 not sometimes be able to per
vert it to the support of an error, (since though the
argument may be materially the same, yet the diffe
rent application and management of it may produce
quite different inferences from it;) this, no doubt, is
a matter of great difficulty, and no less dexterity.
And the like also may be said of casuistical divinity
for resolving cases of conscience; especially where
several obligations seem to interfere, and, as it were,
justle one another, so that it seems impossible to the
conscience to turn either way without sin, and while
it does so, must needs be held under great distrac
tion. To clear a way out of which, being a work
certainly depending upon much knowledge of the
canon and civil laws, as well as of the principles
of divinity, it must needs require much toil and la
bour for the casuist to provide himself with mate
rials for this purpose, and then no less art and skill
to manage and apply them to the conscience. And
as it is highly requisite that this should in some
measure be found in every divine, and in its height
and perfection in some, which since it cannot well be,
but by the whole employment of a man's time, not
took off or diverted by other ministerial business, it
so far shews the happy constitution of such churches,
as afford place of suitable scholastic maintenance

ON MATTHEW XIII. 52. 19

(without the trouble of a pastoral charge) for such
whose abilities carry them to the study of the con
troversial or critical part of theology, rather than
any other belonging to the ministry. But on the
contrary, where there is no such proper maintenance
allotted for a divine, but by preaching only, let us
suppose, that which in such a case we easily may;
That one had a peculiar inclination to controversy, or
to dive into antiquity, or to search critically into the
original letter of the scriptures ; and withal had lit
tle inclination, and perhaps less ability to preach,
but yet knew no other way to li ve as a divine, but by
preaching ; do we not here lose an excellent casuist,
an accurate critic, or profound school-divine, only
to make a very mean preacher? who, had he had the
forementioned opportunity of encouragement, might
have been eminently serviceable to the church in any
of those other ways, while he only serves the natu
ral necessities of life in this. And this has been ob
served by a learned knight a to have been an incon
venience even in those days, when the revenues of
the church were not wholly reformed from it ; that
for our not then setting aside whole societies for the
managing of controversies and nothing else, as the
church of Rome finds it necessary to do, divines for
the most part handle controversies only as a diver
sion in the midst of their other pastoral labours,
and many of them have performed it accordingly.
For as man's faculties will not suffice him for all
arts and sciences, so neither will they sometimes
reach all the parts and difficulties of any one of them.
But the late times made the matter yet ten times
worse with us, when the rooters and through-re-

a Sir Eclwyn Sandys in his Europe Speculum.
c* 2

20 A SERMON

formers made clean work with the church, and took
away all, and so, by stripping the clergy of their
rights and preferments, left us in a fair posture, (you
may be sure,) both offensive and defensive, to en
counter our acute and learned adversaries the Jesuits.
For then the polemics of the field had quite silenced
those of the schools. All being took up and busied,
some in pulpits, and some in tubs, in the grand work
of preaching and holding forth, and that of edification,
(as the word then went ;) so that they seemed like an
army of men armed only with trowels, and perhaps
amongst thousands only a Saul and a Jonathan with
swords in their hands, only one or two with scho
lastic artillery, and preparation for controversy. But
this by the way, and as a sad instance to shew how
fatal it is, that when divinity takes in so large a com
pass of learning, and that for so many uses, the church
should be robbed of the proper and most effectual
means of stocking herself with it.

But some perhaps will reply, What needs all this?
we are resolved to preach only, and look no further,
and for this much reading cannot be requisite, ex
cept only for the deli very of our sermons : for we
will preach our own experiences. To which I an
swer, that be this as it may ; but yet, if these men
preach their own experiences, as they call them,
without some other sort of reading and knowledge,
both their hearers, and themselves too, will quickly
have more than sufficient experience of their confi
dence and ridiculous impertinence. But as there
are certain mountebanks and quacks in physic, so
there are much the same also in divinity, such as
have only two or three little experiments and po
pular harangues to entertain and amuse the vulgar

ON MATTHEW XIII. 52. 21

with ; but being wholly unacquainted with the solid
grounds and rules of science, from whence alone
come true sufficiency and skill, they are pitifully ig
norant and useless as to any great and worthy pur
poses ; and fit for little else, but to shew the world
how easily fools may be imposed upon by knaves.
And thus much for habitual preparation in point of
knowledge ; besides which, there is required also,
in the

Second place, the like preparation as to significant
speech and expression. For as I shew, that by know
ledge a man informs himself, so by expression he con
veys that knowledge to others ; and as bare words
convey, so the propriety and elegancy of them gives
force and facility to the conveyance. But because
this is like to have more opposers, especially such as
call a speaking coherently upon any sacred subject, a
blending of man's wisdom with the word, an offering
of strange fire ; and account the being pertinent, even
the next door to the being profane, I say, for their
sakes, I shall prove a thing clear in itself by scrip
ture, and that not by arguments, or consequences
drawn from thence, but by downright instances oc
curring in it, and those so very plain, that even such
as themselves cannot be ignorant of them. For in
God's word we have not only a body of religion, but
also a system of the best rhetoric : and as the high
est things require the highest expressions, so we
shall find nothing in scripture so sublime in itself,
but it is reached, and sometimes overtopped by
the sublimity of the expression. And first, where
did majesty ever ride in more splendour, than in
those descriptions of the divine power in Job,
in the 38th, 39th, and 40th chapters? And what

c 3

22 A SERMON

triumph was ever celebrated with higher, livelier,
and more exalted poetry, than in the song of Moses
in the 32d of Deut? And then for the passions of
the soul ; which being things of the highest transport
and most wonderful and various operation in human
nature, are therefore the proper object and business
of rhetoric : let us take a view how the scripture
axpresses the most noted and powerful of them. And
here, what poetry ever paralleled Solomon in his de
scription of love, as to all the ways, effects, and ec
stasies, and little tyrannies of that commanding pas
sion ? See Ovid with his Omnia vincit amor, &c.
and Virgil with his Vulnus alit vents et c<zco car-
pitur igne, &c. How jejune and thin are they to
the poetry of Solomon, in the 8th chapter of the
Canticles, and the 6th verse, Love is strong as death,
and jealousy cruel as the grave. And as for his
description of beauty, he describes that so, that he
even transcribes it into his expressions. And where
do we read such strange risings and fallings, now the
faintings and languishings, now the terrors and asto
nishments of despair venting themselves in such high,
amazing strains, as in the 77th Psalm ? Or where
did we ever find sorrow flowing forth in such a na
tural prevailing pathos, as in the Lamentations of
Jeremy ? One would think, that every letter was
wrote with a tear, every word was the noise of a
breaking heart ; that the author was a man com
pacted of sorrows ; disciplined to grief from his in
fancy ; one who never breathed but in sighs, nor
spoke but in a groan. So that he who said he would
not read the scripture for fear of spoiling his style,
shewed himself3 as much a blockhead as an atheist,

1 Politian.

ON MATTHEW XIII. 52. 23

and to have as small a gust of the elegancies of expres
sion, as of the sacredness of the matter. And shall we
now think that the scripture forbids all ornament
of speech, and engages men to be dull, flat, and slo
venly in all their discourses ? But let us look a
little further, and see whether the New Testament
abrogates what we see so frequently used in the Old.
And for this, what mean all the parables used by our
Saviour, the known and greatest elegancies of
speech ? so that if this way was unlawful before,
Christ by his example has authorized and sanctified
it since, and if good and lawful, has confirmed it.
But as for the men whom we contend with ; I see
not why they should exterminate all rhetoric, who
still treat of things figuratively, and by the worst of
figures too, their whole discourse being one continued
meiosis, to diminish, lessen, and debase the great
things of the gospel infinitely below themselves.
Besides that I need not go beyond the very words of
the text for an impregnable proof of this ; for Christ
says, that a scribe instructed unto the kingdom of
heaven ought to bring out of his treasure things
new and old. Now I demand, what are the things
here to be understood ? For as to the matter which
he is here to treat of, the articles of the Chris
tian religion are and still must be the same, and
therefore there can be no such variety as new and
old in them. Wherefore it remains, that this variety
can be only in the way of expressing those things.
Besides that our Saviour Christ, in these words,
particularly relates to the manner of his own preach
ing, upon occasion of the very sermon which we
find all along this chapter delivered in parables ; so
that by new and old may probably be meant no-

c 4

24 A SERMON

thing else, but a plenty, or fluent dexterity of the
most suitable words and pregnant arguments to set
off and enforce gospel truths. For questionless,
when Christ says, that a scribe must be stocked
with things new and old, we must not think that
he meant, that he should have an hoard of old ser
mons, (whosoever made them,) with a bundle of new
opinions ; for this certainly would have furnished
out such entertainment to his spiritual guests, as no
rightly-disposed palate could ever relish, or stomach
bear. And therefore, the thing which Christ here
drives at, must needs be only variety and copiousness
of sacred eloquence.

And thus much for the first of the three general
heads proposed by us for the handling these words ;
which was to shew the qualifications necessary for
a gospel scribe instructed unto the kingdom of hea
ven. And these were two ; first, habitual prepara
tion, in point of learning or knowledge ; and se
condly, the other in point of significant speech or
expression : I proceed now to the

Second general head proposed ; which was, to as
sign the reasons of this their necessity; and these
shall be three.

1. Because the preacher works upon men's minds
only as a moral agent, and as one who can do no
more than persuade, and not by any physical effi
ciency. And herein I do not say, that conversion
is caused only by moral suasion : for if we consider
the strength of our corruption, and how it has in
sinuated itself into the very principles of nature,
and seized upon those powers which are but very
little under the command of the intellectual part, I
think it cannot be subdued by mere suasion, which

ON MATTHEW XIII. 52. 25

in its utmost reaches only to the convincing of that :
but the heart must be changed by a much higher
power, even by an immediate omnipotent work of
God's Spirit infusing a quality into the soul, not
there before, which by degrees shall weaken and
work out our inherent natural corruption : and this
being a creating work, is done solely and immedi
ately by God himself, forasmuch as creation admits
of no instrument, as being an effect of that infinite
creative power, which cannot be conveyed to an in
strumental agent.

But you will say then, If conversion be the sole,
immediate work of God, what need is there of a
preacher ? and how can he be said to be, as usu
ally he is, God's instrument in the work of a man's
conversion ? To which I answer, 1st, That God's in
stitution of preaching is a sufficient reason for it,
though we knew no other. 2dly, That when the
preacher is said to be an instrument in the conver
sion of a sinner, it is not meant, that he is such, by
a properly physical efficiency, but only morally, and
by persuasion. I explain my meaning thus. A
physical instrument, or such as is found in natural
efficient productions, is that, which, partaking of the
power, force, and causality of the principal agent
from thence derived to it, produces a suitable effect.
As when I cut or divide a thing, the force of my
hand is conveyed to the knife, by virtue of which,
the knife cuts or divides. And thus, I say, the
preacher cannot be the instrument of conversion, for
the reason above mentioned ; because that infinite
power, which does convert, cannot be conveyed to
any finite being whatsoever. But a moral instru
ment is quite of 'another nature; and is that, as I

26 A SERMON

may so express it, non quo producente, sed quo in-
terveniente sequitur effectus : not that which con
version is effected by, but that without which, ordi
narily at least, it is not. So that while the minister
is preaching and persuading, God puts forth another
secret influence, quite different from that of the
preacher, though still going along with it : and it is
this, by which God immediately touches the sinner's
heart, and converts him. Howbeit, the preacher is
still said to be instrumental in this great work ; for
asmuch as his preaching is subordinate to, and most
commonly, as has been said, accompanies it : God
not being pleased to exert his action, but in concur
rence with the preacher exerting his. And thus
having given God his prerogative, and the preacher
his due, by shewing how he is morally instrumental
to the work of the sinner's conversion by persuad
ing; I infer the necessity of those forementioned
abilities and preparations for preaching, as being the
most proper means and instruments of persuasion.
See this exemplified in St. Paul himself, and in him
observe, when he deals with the Jews, how he en
deavours to insinuate what he says, by pleading his
own kindred with them, speaking honourably of
Abraham, and of the law, and calling the gospel
the law of faith ; and affirming, that it did establish
the law. All which was the true art of natural rhe
toric, thus to convey his sense under those names
and notions, which he knew were highly pleasing to
them. But then, on the other hand, when he would
win over the gentiles ; forasmuch as there was a
standing feud between them and the Jews ; (the
Jews, like the men here of late, for ever unsainting
all the world, besides themselves ;) observe how he

ON MATTHEW XIII. 52. 27

deals with them. He tells them of the rejection of
the Jews, and the Gentiles being ingrafted in their
room : and that Abraham believed unto justification
before he was circumcised, and therefore was no less
the father of the uncircumcised believers, than of
the circumcised. He tells them also, that the be
lieving Gentiles were his spiritual seed, but the Jews,
as such, were only his carnal. He takes occasion
also to undervalue circumcision, and the ceremonial
law, as abused by the Jews, and in themselves things
most hateful to other nations. Now all this was
hugely pleasing to the Gentiles, and therefore very
apt to persuade. But had not St. Paul been a man
of learning and skill in the art and methods of rhe
toric, he could not have suited such apposite exhor
tations to such different sorts of men with so much
dexterity. And the same course, in dealing with
men's minds, is a minister of the word to take now.
As suppose, he would dissuade men from any vice,
he is to found his dissuasives upon the peculiar tem
per of the man ; so that if, for instance, he should
find it needful to preach against drunkenness, and
there were several in the congregation addicted to
several sorts of vice, as some to pride or ambition,
some to covetousness, or the like ; here, besides the
general argument from the punishments of the other
world denounced against these and such other vices,
if he would do his business effectually, he must also
tell the ambitious or proud man, that his drunken
ness would disgrace him, and make him the scorn
and contempt of all the world about him ; and the
covetous man, that it would certainly waste his
estate, and beggar him. Whereas should he, on the
other hand, transplace these arguments, and dis-

28 A SERMON

suade him who is proud from drinking, because it
would beggar him, and him who is covetous, because
it would disgrace him, doubtless he would prevail
but little ; because his argument would not strike
that proper principle which each of them were go
verned by. And now what can this be grounded
upon, but upon natural philosophy, and a knowledge
of men's passions and interests, the great and chief
springs of all their actions ? And upon the like
ground it is, that for a preacher in his discourses to
the people to insist only upon universals, is but a
cold, faint, languid way of persuading or dissuading ;
as, to tell men in general, that they are sinners, and
that, going on in sin without repentance, they are
under the curse and wrath of God ; all which they
think they knew before, and accordingly receive it
as a word of course, and too slightly regard it : but
conviction, the usual forerunner of, and preparative
to conversion, is from particulars, as if the preacher
should tell his hearers, that he who continues to
cheat, cozen, and equivocate, is a wicked and impe
nitent wretch ; and that he who drinks, and swears,
and whores, is the person to whom the curse directly
belongs : and this seriously urged, and discreetly
applied, will, if any thing, carry it home to the con
science, and lodge it there too. And now is not
the reason of this method also to be fetched from
philosophy, as well as from religion ? For we know,
that men naturally have only a weak, confused
knowledge of universals, but a clear and lively idea
of particulars. And that which gives a clear repre
sentation of a thing to the apprehension, makes a
suitable impression of it upon the will and affections.
Whosoever therefore pretends to be a preacher.

ON MATTHEW XIII. 52. 29

must know, that his main business is to persuade,
and that without the helps of human learning, this
can hardly be done to any purpose. So that if he
finds himself wholly destitute of these, and has no
thing else to trust to, but some groundless, windy,
and fantastic notions about the Spirit, (the common
sanctuary of fanatics and enthusiasts,) he would do
well to look back, and taking his hand off from this
plough, to put it to another much fitter for him.
But in the mean time, as for ourselves, who pretend
not to a pitch above other mortals, nor dare rely
upon inspiration instead of industry, we must rest
content to revere the wisdom, and follow the ex
amples of those who went before us, and enjoined
us the study of the arts and sciences, as the surest
and most tried way to that of divinity.

2. A second reason for the necessity of these pre
parations for the ministry shall be taken from this
consideration ; that at the first promulgation of the
gospel, God was pleased to furnish the apostles and
preachers of it with abilities proper for that great
work, after a supernatural and miraculous way. For
still we find, that the scripture represents the apo
stles as ignorant and illiterate men, and that the
chief priests and elders of the Jews took particular
notice of them, as such, in Acts iv. and the 13th
verse. The text there giving them this character,
that they were &fya«rw aypafjtfuxrroi) KOI tfttwreu, that is
to say, according to the strict signification of the
word, men unlearned, and of a mean and plebeian
condition. Nevertheless, since they were appointed
by God to preach the gospel to several nations ; a
work requiring a considerable knowledge of the lan
guages of those nations, and impossible to be per-

30 A SERMON

formed without it ; and yet no less impossible for
the apostles, having neither time nor opportunity
to acquire that knowledge in the natural, ordinary
course of study ; God himself supplies this defect,
and endues them with all necessary qualifications
by immediate and divine infusion. So that being
filled with the Holy Ghost, as we read in Acts ii.
and the 4th verse, they forthwith spoke with other
tongues ; and that so clearly, plainly, and intelligi
bly, as both to convince and astonish all who heard
them ; even those of the most different nations and
languages, as well as their own countrymen the
Jews themselves. From whence I thus argue ; That
if the forementioned helps and assistances were not
always of most singular use, and sometimes of indis
pensable necessity to the calling of a divine, cer
tainly the most wise God would never have been at
the expense of a miracle, to endow men, of that
calling, with them. For he who observes that
order and decorum in all his works, as never to over
do any thing, nor carry on the business of his ordi
nary providence by extraordinary and supernatural
ways, would doubtless (in the eye of the world at
least) seem to debase and make cheap those noblest
instances of his power, should he ever exert them,
but where he saw it of the highest concern to his
own honour, and man's happiness, that something
should be done for both, which bare nature, left to
itself, could never do.

3. The third and last reason for the necessity of
such preparations for the ministry, shall be drawn
from the dignity of the subject of it, which is divi
nity. And what is divinity, but a doctrine treating
of the nature, attributes, and works of the great

ON MATTHEW XIII. 52. 31

God, as he stands related to rational creatures ;
and the way how rational creatures may serve, wor
ship, and enjoy him ? And if so, is not the subject-
matter of it the greatest, and the design and busi
ness of it the noblest in the world, as being no less
than to direct an immortal soul to its endless and
eternal felicity ? It has been disputed, to which of
the intellectual habits, mentioned by Aristotle, it
most properly belongs ; some referring it to wisdom,
some to science, some to prudence, and some com
pounding it of several of them together : but those
seem to speak most to the purpose, who will not
have it formally any one of them, but virtually, and
in an eminent transcendent manner, all. And now
can we think, that a doctrine of that depth, that
height, and that vast compass, grasping within it all
the perfections and dimensions of human science,
does not worthily claim all the preparations, whereby
the wit and industry of man can fit him for it ? All
other sciences are accounted but handmaids to di
vinity : and shall the handmaid be richer adorned,
and better clothed and set off, than her lady ? In
other things, the art usually excels the matter, and
the ornament we bestow, is better than the subject
we bestow it upon : but here we are sure, that we
have such a subject before us, as not only calls for,
but commands, and not only commands, but deserves
our utmost application to it ; a subject of that na
tive, that inherent worth, that it is not capable of
any addition from us, but shines both through and
above all the artificial lustre we can put upon it.
The study of divinity is indeed difficult, and we are
labour hard and dig deep for it ; but then we

32 A SERMON

dig in a golden mine, which equally invites and re
wards our labour.

And thus much for the second general head at
first proposed, for the handling of the words ; which
was to shew, the reasons of the necessity of the pre
parations spoken of to the study of divinity. Of
which we have assigned three.

And so we pass at length to the third and last
general head proposed, which was, to shew what
useful inferences may be drawn from the foregoing
particulars. And the first shall be a just and severe
reproof to two sorts of men.

1st, To such as disparage and detract from the
grandeur of the gospel, by a puerile and indecent
levity in their discourses of it to the people.

2dly, To such as depreciate, and (as much as in
them lies) debase the same, by a coarse, careless,
rude, and insipid way of handling the great and in
valuable truths of it.

Both of them certainly objects of the most de
served reproof. And

1. For those who disparage and detract from the
gospel, by a puerile and indecent sort of levity in
their discourses upon it, so extremely below the sub
ject discoursed of. All vain, luxuriant allegories,
rhyming cadencies of similary words, are such pitiful
embellishments of speech, as serve for nothing but
to embase divinity ; and the use of them, but like
the plastering of marble, or the painting of gold,
the glory of which is to be seen, and to shine by no
other lustre but their own. What Quintilian most
discreetly says of Seneca's handling philosophy, that
he did rerum ponder a mimttissimis sententirs fran-

ON MATTHEW XIII. 52. 33

gere, break, and, as it were, emasculate the weight
of his subject by little affected sentences, the same
may with much more reason be applied to the prac
tice of those, who detract from the excellency of
things sacred by a comical lightness of expression :
as when their prayers shall be set out in such a
dress, as if they did not supplicate, but compliment
Almighty God ; and their sermons so garnished
with quibbles and trifles, as if they played with
truth and immortality ; and neither believed these
things themselves, nor were willing that others
should. For is it possible, that a man in his senses
should be merry and jocose with eternal life and
eternal death, if he really designed to strike the
awful impression of either into the consciences of
men? No, no; this is no less a contradiction to
common sense and reason, than to the strictest no
tions of religion. And as this can by no means be
accounted divinity, so neither indeed can it pass for
wit ; which yet such chiefly seem to affect in such
performances. For these are as much the stains of
true human eloquence, as they are the blots and
blemishes of divinity ; and might be as well con
futed out of Quintilian's Institutions, as out of St.
Paul's Epistles. Such are wholly mistaken in the
nature of wit : for true wit is a severe and a manly
thing. Wit in divinity is nothing else, but sacred
truths suitably expressed. It is not shreds of Latin
or Greek, nor a JDeus dixit, and a Deus henedixit,
nor those little quirks, or divisions into the OTI,
the lion, and the KaQort, or the egress, regress, and
progress, and other such stuff, (much like the style
of a lease,) that can properly be called wit. For
that is not wit which consists not with wisdom.

VOL. Ill, D

34 A SERMON

For can you think that it had not been an easy
matter for any one, in the text here pitched upon
by me, to have run out into a long, fulsome allegory,
comparing the scribe and the householder together,
and now and then to have cast in a rhyme, with a
quid, a quo, and a quomodo, and the like ? But
certainly it would then have been much more diffi
cult for the judicious to hear such things, than for
any, if so inclined, to have composed them. The
practice therefore of such persons is upon no terms
to be endured. Nor,

2. Is the contrary of it to be at all more endured
in those who cry up their mean, heavy, careless, and
insipid way of handling things sacred, as the only
spiritual and evangelical way of preaching, while
they charge all their crude incoherences, saucy fami
liarities with God, and nauseous tautologies, upon
the Spirit prompting such things to them, and that
as the most elevated and seraphic heights of religion.
Both these sorts, as I have said, are absolutely to be
exploded ; and it is hard to judge which of them de
serves it most. It is indeed no ways decent for a
grave matron to be attired in the gaudy, flaunting
dress of youth ; but it is not at all uncomely for such
an one to be clothed in the richest and most costly
silk, if black or grave : for it is not the richness of
the piece, but the gaudiness of the colour, which ex
poses to censure. And therefore, as I shew before,
that the CT/'S and the W-n's, the Deus dixit, and the
Deus benedixit, could not be accounted wit ; so nei
ther can the whimsical cant of a issues, products, ten
dencies, breathings, indwellings, rollings, recum-

a Terms often and much used by one J. O. a great leader and
oracle in those times.

ON MATTHEW XIII. 52. 35

bencies, and scriptures misapplied, be accounted di
vinity. In a word, let but these new lights, (so apt
to teach their betters,) instead of all this and the
like jargon, bring us, in their discourses, strength of
argument, clearness of consequence, exactness of me
thod, and propriety of speech, and then let prejudice
and party (whatsoever they may mutter against them)
despise and deride them, if they can. But persons
of light, undistinguishing heads, not able to carry
themselves clear between extremes, think that they
must either flutter, as it were, in the air, by a kind
of vain, empty lightness, or lie grovelling upon the
ground, by a dead and contemptible flatness ; both
the one and the other, no doubt, equally ridiculous.
But, after all, I cannot but believe, that it is the be
witching easiness of the latter way of the two which
chiefly sanctifies and endears it to the practice of
these men ; and I hope it will not prove offensive
to the auditory, if, to release it (could I be so happy)
from suffering by such stuff for the future, I ven
ture upon some short description of it ; and it is
briefly thus. First of all they seize upon some text,
from whence they draw something, which they call
a doctrine, and well may it be said to be drawn from
the words ; forasmuch as it seldom naturally flows
or results from them. In the next place, being thus
provided, they branch it into several heads, perhaps
twenty, or thirty, or upwards. Whereupon, for the
prosecution of these, they repair to some trusty con
cordance, which never fails them ; and by the help
of that, they range six or seven scriptures under each
head ; which scriptures they prosecute one by one,
first amplifying and enlarging upon one, for some
considerable time, till they have spoiled it ; and then,

36 A SERMON

that being done, they pass to another, which in its
turn suffers accordingly. And these impertinent and
unpremeditated enlargements, they look upon as the
motions and breathings of the Spirit, and therefore
much beyond those carnal ordinances of sense and
reason, supported by industry and study ; and this
they call a saving way of preaching, as it must be
confessed to be a way to save much labour, and
nothing else that I know of. But how men should
thus come to make the salvation of an immortal soul
such a slight, extempore business, I must profess I
cannot understand ; and would gladly understand
upon whose example they ground this way of preach
ing ; not upon that of the apostles, I am sure. For
it is said of St. Paul, in his sermon before Felix, that
he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judg
ment to come. The words being in Acts xxiv. 25,
$ia\€<yo[j,evov £e avrov, and, according to the natural
force and import of them, signifying, that he dis
coursed or reasoned dialectically, following one con
clusion with another, and with the most close and
pressing arguments from the most persuasive topics
of reason and divinity. Whereupon we quickly find
the prevalence of his preaching in a suitable effect,
that Felix trembled. Whereas had Paul only cast
about his arms, spoke himself hoarse, and cried, You
are damned, though Felix (as guilty as he was)
might have given him the hearing, yet possibly he
might also have looked upon him as one whose pas
sion had at that time got the start of his judgment,
and accordingly have given him the same coarse sa
lute which the same Paul afterwards so undeservedly
met with from Festus ; but his zeal was too much
under the conduct of his reason to fly out at such a

ON MATTHEW XIII. 52. 37

rate. But, to pass from these indecencies to others,
as little to be allowed in this sort of men, can any
tolerable reason be given for those strange new pos
tures used by some in the delivery of the word?
Such as shutting the eyes, distorting the face, and
speaking through the nose, which I think cannot so
properly be called pr caching > as toning of a sermon.
Nor do I see why the word may not be altogether
as effectual for the conversion of souls, delivered by
one who has the manners to look his auditory in the
face, using his own countenance and his own native
voice, without straining it to a lamentable and dole
ful whine, (never serving to any purpose, but where
some religious cheat is to be carried on.) That an
cient, though seemingly odd saying, Loquere ut te
videam, in my poor judgment, carries in it a very
notable instruction, and peculiarly applicable to the
persons and matter here pointed at. For, supposing
one to be a very able and excellent speaker, yet,
under the forementioned circumstances, he must,
however, needs be a very ill sight ; and the case of
his poor suffering hearers very severe upon them,
while both the matter uttered by him shall grate
hard upon the ear, and the person uttering it at the
same time equally offend the eye. It is clear, there
fore, that the men of this method have sullied the
noble science of divinity, and can never warrant
their practice either from religion or reason, or the
rules of decent and good behaviour, nor yet from the
example of the apostles, and least of all from that of
)ur Saviour himself. For none surely will imagine,
that these men's speaking as never man spoke be
fore, can pass for any imitation of him. And here
humbly conceive that it may not be amiss to take
D 3

38 A SERMON

occasion to utter a great truth, as both worthy to be
now considered, and never to be forgot; namely,
that if we reflect upon the late times of confusion
which passed upon the ministry, we shall find that
the grand design of the fanatic crew was to persuade
the world, that a standing, settled ministry was wholly
useless. This, I say, was the main point which they
then drove at. And the great engine to effect this,
was by engaging men of several callings, (and those
the meaner still the better,) to hold forth and ha
rangue the multitude, sometimes in streets, some
times in churches, sometimes in barns, and some
times from pulpits, and sometimes from tubs : and,
in a word, wheresoever and howsoever they could
clock the senseless and unthinking rabble about
them. And with this practice well followed, they
(and their friends the Jesuits) concluded, that in some
time it would be no hard matter to persuade the
people, that if men of other professions were able to
teach and preach the word, then to what purpose
should there be a company of men brought up to it,
and maintained in it, at the charge of a public al
lowance? especially when, at the same time, the
truly godly so greedily gaped and grasped at it for
their self-denying selves. So that preaching, we see,
was their prime engine. But now what was it which
encouraged these men to set up for a work, which,
if duly managed, was so difficult in itself, and which
they were never bred to ? Why, no doubt it was
that low, cheap, illiterate way then commonly used,
and cried up for the only gospel, soul-searching
way, (as the word then went,) and which the craftier
sort of them saw well enough, that with a little ex
ercise, and much confidence, they might in a short

ON MATTHEW XIII. 52. 39

time come to equal, if not exceed ; as it cannot be
denied but that some few of them (with the help of
a few friends in masquerade) accordingly did. But,
on the contrary, had preaching been made and reck
oned a matter of solid and true learning, of theolo
gical knowledge, and long and severe study, (as the
nature of it required it to be,) assuredly no preach
ing cobbler amongst them all would ever have ven
tured so far beyond his last as to undertake it. And
consequently this their most powerful engine for sup
planting the church and clergy had never been at
tempted, nor perhaps so much as thought on : and
therefore of most singular benefit, no question, would
it be to the public, if those who have authority to
second their advice would counsel the ignorant and
the forward to consider what divinity is, and what
they themselves are, and so to put up their preach
ing tools, their medullas, note-books, their mellifi-
ciums, concordances, and all, and betake themselves
to some useful trade, which nature had most parti
cularly fitted them for. This is what I thought fit
to offer and recommend ; and that not out of any
humour of opposition to this or that sort of men,
(for, whatsoever they may deserve, I think them be
low it,) but out of a dutiful zeal for the advancement
of what most of us profess, divinity ; as likewise for
the honour of that place which we belong to, the
University ; and which of late years I have (with
no small sorrow) heard often reflected upon for the
meanness of many performances in it, no ways an
swerable to the ancient reputation of so noble a seat
of knowledge. For, let the enemies of that and us
say what they will, no man's dulness is or can be his
duty, and much less his perfection.

D 4

40 A SERMON

And thus, having considered the two different, or
rather contrary ways of handling the word, and most
justly rejected them both, I shall now briefly give
the reasons of our rejection of them ; and these shall
be two.

1. Because both these ways, to wit, the light and
comical, and the dull and heavy, extremely expose
and discredit the ordinance of preaching : and,

2. Because they no less disgrace the church itself.
1. And, first, we shall find how much both of

them expose and discredit the ordinance of preach
ing ; even that ordinance which was originally de
signed for the two greatest things in the world, the
honour of God, and the conversion of souls. For if
to convert a soul, even by the word itself, and the
strongest arguments which the reason of man can
bring, (as being no more than instruments, or rather
mere conditions in the case,) if, I say, this be reck
oned a work above nature, (as it really is,) then
surely to convert one by a jest would be a reach be
yond a miracle. In short, it is this unhallowed way
of preaching which turns the pulpit into a stage, and
the most sovereign remedy against sin, and preserva
tive of the soul, into the sacrifice of fools ; making
it a matter of sport to the light and vain, of pity to
the sober and devout, and of scorn and loathing to
all ; and I believe never yet drew a tear or a sigh
from any judicious and well-disposed auditor, unless
perhaps for the sin and vanity of the speaker: so
sad a thing it is, when sermons shall be such, that
the most serious hearer of them shall not be able to
command or keep fixed his attention and his coun
tenance too. For can it be imagined excusable, or
indeed tolerable, for one who owns himself for God's

ON MATTHEW XIII. 52. 41

ambassador to the people, to speak those things, as
by his authority, of which it is hard to judge whe
ther they detract from the honour or honesty of an
ambassador most ? But, in a word, when the pro
fessed dispensers of the weighty matters of religion
shall treat them in a way so utterly unsuitable to
the weight and grandeur of them, do they not come
too near the infamous example of Eli's two sons,
who managed their priestly office (as high and sa
cred as it was) in so wretched a manner, that it is
said, in 1 Sam. ii. 17? that the people abhorred the
offering of the Lord ? and if so, we may be sure
that they abhorred the offerers much more.

2. As the two forementioned ways of handling
the word, viz. the light and comical, and the heavy
and dull, do mightily discredit the great ordinance
of preaching, so they equally discredit the church it
self. It is the unhappy fate of the clergy, above all
men, that their failures and defects never terminate
in their own persons, but still redound upon their
function ; a manifest injustice certainly ; where one
is the criminal, and another must be the sufferer :
but yet as bad as it is, from the practice of some
persons, to take occasion to reproach the church ; so,
on the other side, to give the occasion, is undoubtedly
much worse. And therefore, whatsoever relation to,
or whatsoever interest in, or affection to the church,
such may or do pretend to, they are really greater
enemies and fouler blots to her excellent constitution,
than the most avowed opposers and maligners of it ;
and consequently would have disobliged her infi
nitely less, had they fallen in with the schismatics
and fanatics in their bitterest invectives against her ;
and that even to the renouncing her orders, (as some

42 A SERMON

of them have done,) and an entire quitting of her
communion besides ; the greatest kindness that such
could possibly have done her. For better it is to be
hissed at by a snake out of the hedge or the dung
hill, than to be hissed at and bitten too by one in
one's own bosom. But I trust, that when men shall
seriously and impartially consider how and from
whence the church's enemies have took advantage
against her, there will be found those whose preach
ing shall both answer and adorn her constitution,
and withal make her excellent instructions from the
pulpit so to suit, as well as second her incomparable
devotions from the desk, that they shall neither fly
out into those levities and indecencies (so justly be
fore condemned) on the one hand, not yet sink into
that sordid, supine dulness on the other, (which our
men of the Spirit so much affect to distinguish them
selves by, and which we by no means desire to vie
with them in.) In sum, we hope that all our church-
performances shall be such, that she shall as much
outshine all those about her in the soundness and
sobriety of her doctrines, as she surpasses them all
in the primitive excellency of her discipline.

And thus having finished the first of the two ge
neral inferences from the foregoing particulars, which
was for the reproof of two contrary sorts of dis
pensers of the word, and given reasons against them
both, I shall now, in the

Second place, pass to the other and concluding in
ference from this whole discourse ; and that shall be,
to exhort and advise those who have already heard
what preparations are required to a gospel scribe in
structed to the kingdom of heaven, and who withal
design themselves for the same employment, with

ON MATTHEW XIII. 52. 43

the utmost seriousness of thought to consider the
high reasonableness, or rather absolute necessity of
their bestowing a competent and sufficient time in
the universities for that purpose. And to dissuade
such from a sudden and hasty relinquishment of
them, (besides arguments, more than enough, drawn
from the great inconveniencies of so doing, and the
implicit prohibition of St. Paul himself, declaring,
that he who undertakes a pastoral charge must not
be a novice 1) there is still a more cogent reason for
the same, and that from the very nature of the thing
itself: for how (naturally speaking) can there be a
fitness for any great thing or work without prepara
tion? And how can there be preparation without
due time and opportunity ? It is observed of the Le-
vites, though much of their ministry was only shoul
der work, that they had yet a very considerable time
for preparation. They were consecrated to it by the
imposition of hands at the age of five and twenty ;
after which they employed five years in learning
their office, and then, at the thirtieth year of their
age, they began their Levitical ministration ; at
which time also our blessed Saviour began his mi
nistry. But now, under the gospel, when our work
is ten times greater, (as well as twice ten times more
spiritual than theirs was,) do we think to furnish
ourselves in half the space ? There was lately a com
pany of men called triers, commissioned by Crom
well, to judge of the abilities of such as were to be
admitted by them into the ministry : who, forsooth,
if any of that Levitical age of thirty presented him
self to them for their approbation, they commonly
rejected him with scorn and disdain ; telling him,
that if he had not been lukewarm, and good for

44 A SERMON

nothing, he would have been disposed of in the mi
nistry long before; and they would tell him also,
that he was not only of a legal age, but of a legal
spirit too ; and as for things legal, (by which we
poor mortals, and men of the letter, and not of the
spirit, understand things done according to law,)
this they renounced, and pretended to be many de
grees above it ; for otherwise we may be sure that
their great master of misrule, Oliver, would never
have commissioned them to serve him in that post.
And now what a kind of ministry (may we imagine)
such would have stocked this poor nation with, in
the space of ten years more ? But the truth is, for
those whose divinity was novelty, it ought to be no
wonder, if their divines were to be novices too ; and
since they intended to make their preaching and
praying an extemporary work, no wonder if they
were contented also with an extemporary prepara
tion ; and after two or three years spent in the uni
versity, ran abroad, under a pretence of serving God
in their generation, (a term in mighty request with
them,) and that for reasons (it is supposed) best
known to themselves. But as for such mushroom
divines, who start up so of a sudden, we do not usu
ally find their success so good as to recommend their
practice. Hasty births are seldom long lived, but
never strong : and therefore I hope, that those who
love the church so well, as not to be willing that she
should suffer by any failure of theirs, will make it their
business so to stock themselves here, as to carry from
hence both learning and experience to that arduous
and great work, which so eminently requires both.
And the more inexcusable will an over-hasty leaving
this noble place of improvement be, by how much

ON MATTHEW XIII. 52. 45

the greater encouragement we now have to make a
longer stay in it than we had some years since ; Pro
vidence having broken the rod of (I believe) as great
spiritual oppression, as was ever before exercised
upon any company or corporation of men whatso
ever : when some spiritual tyrants, then at the top
and head of it, not being able to fasten any accusa
tion upon men's lives, mortally maligned by them,
would presently arraign and pass sentence upon
their hearts ; and deny them the proper encourage
ment and support of scholars, because, forsooth, they
were not (in their refined sense) godly and regene
rate ; nor allowed to be godly, because they would
not espouse a faction, by resorting to their congre
gational, house-warming meetings ; where the bro
therhood (or sisterhood rather) used to be so very
kind to their friends and brethren in the Lord. Be
sides the barbarous, raving insolence which those
spiritual dons from the pulpit were wont to shew to
all sorts and degrees of men, high and low ; repre
senting every casual mishap as a judgment from God
upon such and such particular persons ; who being
implacably hated by the party, could not, it seems,
be otherwise by God himself. For, a Mark the men,
said Holderforth, (as I myself, with several others,
frequently heard him.) And then, having thus fixed
his mark, and taken aim, he would shoot through
and through it with a vengeance. But, I hope,
things are already come to that pass, that we shall
never again hear any, especially of our own body, in
the very face of loyalty and learning, dare in this
place (so renowned for both) either rail at majesty,

a Dr. H. W. violently thrust by the parliament visitors, in the
in canon of Christ Church, Oxon, year 1647.

46 A SERMON ON MATTHEW XIII. 52.

or decry a standing ministry, and, in a most unna
tural and preposterous manner, plant their batteries
in the pulpit for the beating down of the church.

In fine, therefore, both to relieve your patience
and close up this whole discourse, since Providence,
by a wonder of mercy, has now opened a way for
the return of our laws and our religion, it will con
cern us all seriously to consider, that as the work
before us is the greatest and most important, both
with reference to this world and the next, so like
wise to remember and lay to heart, that this is the
place of preparation, and now the time of it : and
consequently, that the more time and care shall be
taken by us to go from hence prepared for our great
business, the better, no doubt, will be our work, and
the larger our reward.

Now to God the Father, God the Son, and God
the Holy Ghost, be rendered and ascribed, as
is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and
dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen,

A SERMON

ON

PROVERBS I. 32.

The prosperity of fools shall destroy them.

AT is a thing partly worth our wonder, partly our
compassion, that what the greatest part of men are
most passionately desirous of, that they are generally
most unfit for : for they look upon things absolutely
in themselves, without examining the suitableness of
them to their own conditions ; and so, at a distance,
court that as an enjoyment, which upon experience
they find a plague, and a great calamity. And this
peculiar ill property has folly, that it widens and en
larges men's desires, while it lessens their capacities.
Like a dropsy, which still calls for drink, but not
affording strength to digest it, puts an end to the
drinker, but not the thirst.

As for the explication of the text, to tell you, that
in the dialect of scripture, but especially of this book
of the Proverbs, wicked men are called fools, and
wickedness folly, as on the contrary, that piety is
still graced with the name of wisdom, would be as
superfluous as to attempt the proof of a self-evident
and first principle, or to light a candle to the sun.
By fools therefore are here represented all wicked

48 A SERMON

and vicious persons. Such as turn their backs upon
reason and religion, and, wholly devoting themselves
to sensuality, follow the sway and career of their
corrupt affections.

The misery of which persons is from hence most
manifest, that, when God gives them what they most
love, they perish in the embraces of it, are crushed
to death under heaps of gold, stifled with an over
coming plenty : like a ship fetching rich commodi
ties from a far country, but sinking by the weight of
them in its return. Since therefore wicked men are
so strangely out in the calculating of their own in
terest, and account nothing happiness, but what
brings up death and destruction in the rear of it ;
and since prosperity is yet, in itself, a real blessing,
though to them it becomes a mischief, and deter
mines in a curse ; it concerns us to look into the rea
son of this strange event, and to examine how it
comes to pass, that the prosperity of fools destroys
them.

The reasons of it, I conceive, may be these
three.

I. Because every foolish or vicious person is either
ignorant or regardless of the proper ends and uses,
for which God designs the prosperity of those to
whom he sends it.

II. Because prosperity (as the nature of man now
stands) has a peculiar force and fitness to abate men's
virtues, and to heighten their corruptions. And,

III. and lastly, because it directly indisposes them
to the proper means of amendment and recovery.

I. And first for the first of these. One reason why
vicious persons miscarry by prosperity, is, because

ON PROVERBS I. 32. 4<>

every such person is either ignorant or regardless of
the proper ends and uses for which God ordains and
designs it. Which ends are these :

1. To try and discover what is in a man. All
trial is properly inquiry, and inquiry is an endeavour
after the knowledge of a thing as yet unknown ; and
consequently, in strictness of speech, God, who knows
all things, and can be ignorant of nothing, cannot be
said to try, any more than he can be said to inquire.
But God, while he speaks to men, is often pleased to
speak after the manner of men ; and the reason of
this is not only his condescension to our capacities,
but because in many actions God behaves himself
with some analogy and proportion to the actings of
men. And therefore, because God sometimes sets
those things before men, that have in them a fitness
to draw forth and discover what is in their heart, as
inquisitive persons do, who have a mind to pry into
the thoughts and actions of their neighbour, he is
upon this account said to try or to inquire, though,
in truth, by so doing, God designs not to inform
himself, but the person whom he tries, and to give
both him and the world a view of his temper and dis
position.

For the world is ignorant of men, till occasion
gives them power to turn their inside outward, and
to shew themselves. So that what is said of an
office, may be also said of prosperity, and a fortune,
that it does indicare virum, discover what the man
is, and what metal his heart is made of. We see a
slave perhaps cringe, and sneak, and humble him
self; but do we therefore presently think that we see
his nature in his behaviour ? No, we may find our
selves much mistaken ; for nobody knows, in case

VOL. in. E

50 A SERMON

Providence should think fit to smile upon such an
one, and, as it were, to launch him forth into a deep
and a wide fortune, how quickly he would be an
other man, assume another spirit, and grow inso
lent, imperious, and insufferable.

Nor is this a mystery hid only from the eyes of
the world round about a man, but sometimes also
even from himself; for he seldom knows his own
heart so perfectly, as to be able to give a certain ac
count of the future disposition and inclination of it,
when placed under different states and conditions of
life. He that has been bred poor, and grown up in
a cottage, knows not how his spirits would move,
and his blood rise, should he come to handle full
bags, to see splendid attendances, and to eat, drink,
and sleep in state. Yet no doubt, but by such great
unlikely changes, as also by lower degrees of afflu
ence and fruition, Providence designs to sift, and
search, and give the world some experience of the
make and bent of men's minds.

But now the vicious person flies only upon the
bulk and matter of the gift, and considers not that
the giver has a plot and a design upon him ; the
consideration of which would naturally make men
cautious and circumspect in their behaviour: for
surely it is not an ordinary degree of intemperance,
that would prompt a man to drink in temperately be
fore those, who, he knows, gave him his freedom,
only to try whether he would use it to excess or no.
God gave Saul a rich booty upon the conquest of
Amalek, to try whether he would prefer real obedi
ence before pretended sacrifice, and the performing
of a command before flying upon the spoil : but his
ignorance of the use to which God designed that

ON PROVERBS I. 32. 51

prosperous event, made him let loose the reins of his
folly and his covetousness, even to the blasting of his
crown, and the taking the sceptre from his family,
1 Sam. xv. 23. Because thou hast rejected the word
of the Lord, said Samuel to him, he hath also rejected
theefrom being king : so that this was the effect of
his misunderstood success; he conquered Amalek, but
destroyed himself.

2. The second end and design of God in giving
prosperity, and of which all wicked persons are
either ignorant or regardless, is to encourage them
in a constant, humble expression of their gratitude
to the bounty of their Maker, who deals forth such
rich and plentiful provisions to his undeserving crea
tures. God would have every temporal blessing
raise that question in the heart ; Lord, what is man,
that thou visitest him f or the son of man., that
thou so regardest him ? He never sends the plea
sures of the spring nor the plenties of harvest to
surfeit, but to oblige the sons of men ; and the very
fruits of the earth are intended as arguments to carry
their thoughts to heaven.

But the wicked and sensual part of the world are
only concerned to find scope and room enough to
wallow in ; if they can but have it, whence they
have it troubles not their thoughts ; saying grace is
no part of their meal; they feed and grovel like
swine under an oak, filling themselves with the mast,
but never so much as looking up, either to the boughs
that bore, or the hands that shook it down. This is
their temper and deportment in the midst of all their
enjoyments. But it is far from reaching the pur
poses of the great governor of the world ; who makes
it not his care to gratify the brutishness and stupi-

E 2

52 A SERMON

dity of evil persons. He will not be their purveyor
only, but their instructor also, and see them taught,
as well as fed by his liberality.

3. The third end that God gives men prosperity
for, and of which wicked persons take no notice, is
to make them helpful to society. No man holds the
abundance of wealth, power, and honour, that Hea
ven has blessed him with, as a proprietor, but as a
steward, as the trustee of Providence to use and dis
pense it for the good of those whom he converses
with. For does any one think, that the divine Pro
vidence concerns itself to lift him up to a station of
power, only to insult and domineer over those who
are round about him ; and to shew the world how
able he is to do a mischief, or a shrewd turn ? No,
God deposits (and he does but deposit) a power in
his hand to encourage virtue, and to relieve op
pressed innocence ; and in a word, to act as his de
puty, and as God himself would do, should he be
pleased to act immediately in affairs here below.

God bids a great and rich person rise and shine,
as he bids the sun ; that is, not for himself, but for
the necessities of the world : and none is so ho
nourable in his own person, as he who is helpful to
others. When God makes a man wealthy and po
tent, he passes a double obligation upon him ; one,
that he gives him riches ; the other, that he gives
him an opportunity of exercising a great virtue ;
for surely, if God shall be pleased to make me his
almoner, and the conduit by which his goodness
may descend upon my distressed neighbour, though
the charity be personally mine, yet both of us have
cause to thank God for it, I that I can be virtuous,
and he that he is relieved.

ON PROVERBS I. 32. 53

But the wicked, worldly person looks no further
than himself; his charity ends at home, where it
should only begin. He thinks that Providence fills
his purse and his barns only to pamper his own
carcass, to invite him to take his ease and his fill,
that is, to serve his base appetites with all the occa
sions of sin. It is not his business to do good, but
only to enjoy it, and to enjoy it so, as to lessen it,
by monopolizing and confining it. Whereupon being
ignorant of the purpose, it is no wonder, if he also
abuses the bounty of Providence, and so perverts it
to his own destruction.

II. The second general reason, why the prosperity
of fools proves destructive to them, is, because pros
perity (as the nature of man now stands) has a pecu
liar force and fitness to abate men's virtues, and to
heighten their corruptions.

1. And first for its abating their virtues. Virtue,
of any sort whatsoever, is a plant that grows upon
no ground, but such an one as is frequently tilled
and cultivated with the severest labour. But what
a stranger is toil and labour to a great fortune !
Persons possessed of this, judge themselves to have
actually all that, for which labour can be rational.
For men usually labour to be rich, great, and emi
nent. And these are born to all this, as to an in
heritance. They are at the top of the hill already ;
so that while others are climbing and panting to
get up, they have nothing else to do, but to lie down
and sun themselves, and at their own ease be specta
tors of other men's labours.

But it is poverty and hardship that has made the
ost famed commanders, the fittest persons for bu
siness, the most expert statesmen, and the greatest

E3

54 A SERMON

philosophers. For that has first pushed them on
upon the account of necessity, which being satisfied,
they have aimed a step higher at convenience; and
so being at length inured to a course of virtuous
and generous sedulity, pleasure has continued that,
which necessity first began ; till their endeavours
have been crowned with eminence, mastership, and
perfection in the way they have been engaged in.

But would the young effeminate gallant, that
never knew what it was to want his will, that every
day clothes himself with the riches, and swims in
the delights of the world ; would he, I say, choose
to rise out of his soft bed at midnight, to begin an
hard and a long march, to engage in a crabbed
study, or to follow some tedious perplexed business ?
No ; he will have his servants, and the sun itself rise
before him ; when his breakfast is ready, he will
make himself ready too ; unless perhaps sometimes
his hounds and his huntsmen break his sleep, and
so make him early in order to his being idle.

Hence we observe so many great families to de
cay and moulder away through the debauchery and
sottishness of the heir : the reason of which is, that
the possession of an estate does not prompt men to
those severe and virtuous practices, by which it was
first acquired. The grandchild perhaps comes, and
drinks and whores himself out of those fair lands,
manors, and mansions, which his glorious ancestors
had fought or studied themselves into, which they
had got by preserving their country against an inva
sion, by facing the enemy in the field, hungry and
thirsty, early and late, by preferring a brave action
before a sound sleep, though nature might never so
much require it.

ON PROVERBS I. 32. 55

When the success and courage of the Romans
had made them masters of the wealth and pleasures
of all the conquered nations round about them, we
see how quickly the edge of their valour was dulled,
and the rigorous honesty of their morals dissolved
and melted away with those delights, which too
too easily circumvent and overcome the hearts of
men. So that instead of the Camilli, the Fabricii,
the Scipio's, and such like propagators of the grow
ing greatness of the Roman empire, who lived as
high things as they performed ; as soon as the bulk
of it grew vast and unlimited upon the reign of Au
gustus Caesar, we find a degenerous race of Cali
gula's, Nero's, and Vitellius's ; and of other inferior
sycophants and flatterers, who neither knew nor
affected any other way of making themselves consi
derable, but by a servile adoring of the vices and
follies of great ones above them, and a base trea
cherous informing against virtuous and brave per
sons about them.

The whole business that was carried on with
such noise and eagerness in that great city, then the
empress of the western world, was nothing else but
to build magnificently, to feed luxuriously, to fre
quent sports and theatres, to run for the sportula, and
in a word, to flatter and to be flattered ; the effects
of a too full and unwieldy prosperity. But surely
they could not have had leisure to think upon their
sumens, their mullets, their Lucrinian oysters, their
phenicopters, and the like ; they could not have
made a rendezvous of all the elements at their table
every day, in such a prodigious variety of meats and
drinks ; they could not, I say, have thus intended
these things, had the Gauls been besieging their

E 4

56 A SERMON

capitol, or Hannibal in the head of his Carthaginian
army rapping at their doors : this would quickly
have turned their spits into swords, and whet their
teeth too against their enemies. But when peace,
ease, and plenty, took away these whetstones of
courage and emulation, they insensibly slid into the
Asiatic softness, and were intent upon nothing but
their cooks and their ragouts, their fine attendants
and unusual habits ; so that the Roman genius was
(as the English seems to be now) even lost and
stifled, and the conquerors themselves transformed
into the guise and garb of the conquered ; till by
degrees the empire shrivelled and pined away ; and
from such a surfeit of immoderate prosperity, passed
at length into a final consumption.

Nor is this strange, if we consider man's nature,
and reflect upon the great impotence and difficulty
that it finds in advancing into the ways of virtue
merely by itself, without some collateral aids and as
sistances ; and such helps as shall smooth the way
before it, by removing all hinderances and impedi
ments. For virtue, as it first lies in the heart of
man, is but as a little spark ; which may indeed be
blown into a flame ; it has that innate force in it,
that, being cherished and furthered in its course, the
least particle falling from a candle may climb the
top of palaces, waste a city, and consume a neigh
bourhood. But then the suitableness of the fuel,
and the wind and the air must conspire with its en
deavours : this is the breath that must enliven and
fan, and bear it up, till it becomes mighty and vic
torious. Otherwise do we think, that that little
thing, that, falling upon a thatch, or a stack of corn,
prevails so marvellously, could exert its strength and

ON PROVERBS I. 32. 57

its flames, its terror and its rage, falling into the
dew or the dust ? There it is presently checked, and
left to his own little bulk to preserve itself; which
meeting with no catching matter, presently expires
and dies, and becomes weak and insignificant.

In like manner let us suppose a man, according to
his natural frame and temper, addicted to modesty
and temperance, to virtuous and sober courses. Here
is indeed something improvable into a bright and a
noble perfection ; nature has kindled the spark, sown
the seed, and we see the rude draught and first li
neaments of a Joseph, a Cato, or a Fabricius. But
now has this little embryo strength enough to thrust
itself into the world? to hold up its head, and to
maintain its course to a perfect maturity, against all
the assaults and batteries of intemperance ; all the
snares and trepans that common life lays in its way
to extinguish and suppress it ? Can it abstain, in the
midst of all the importunities and opportunities of
sensuality, without being confirmed and disciplined
by long hardships, severe abridgments, and the
rules of virtue, frequently inculcated and carefully
pressed ? No, we shall quickly find those hopeful
beginnings dashed and swallowed up by such ruining
delights. Prosperity is but a bad nurse to virtue ;
a nurse which is like to starve it in its infancy, and
to spoil it in its growth.

I come now in the next place to shew, that as it
has such an aptness to lessen and abate virtue, so it
has a peculiar force also to heighten and inflame
men's corruptions.

Nothing shall more effectually betray the heart
into a love of sin, and a loathing of holiness, than
an ill managed prosperity. It is like some meats,

58 A SERMON

the more luscious, so much the more dangerous.
Prosperity and ease upon an unsanctified, impure
heart, is like the sunbeams upon a dunghill, it raises
many filthy, noisome exhalations. The same sol
diers, who in hard service, and in the battle, are in
perfect subjection to their leaders, in peace and
luxury are apt to mutiny and rebel. That corrupt
affection, which has lain, as it were, dead and frozen
in the midst of distracting businesses, or under ad
versity, when the sun of prosperity has shined upon
it, then, like a snake, it presently recovers its former
strength and venom. Vice must be caressed and
smiled upon, that it may thrive and sting. It is
starved by poverty : it droops under the frowns of
fortune, and pines away upon bread and water.
But when the channels of plenty run high, and every
appetite is plied with abundance and variety, so that
satisfaction is but a mean word to express its en
joyment ; then the inbred corruption of the heart
shews itself pampered and insolent, too unruly for
discipline, and too big for correction.

Which will appear the better, by considering
those vices, which more particularly receive im
provement by prosperity.

1. And the first is pride. Who almost is there,
whose heart does not swell with his bags ? and
whose thoughts do not follow the proportions of his
condition? What difference has been seen in the
same man poor and preferred ? his mind, like a
mushroom, has shot up in a night : his business is
first to forget himself, and then his friends. When
the sun shines, then the peacock displays his train.

We know when Hezekiah's treasuries were full,
his armories replenished, and the pomp of his court

ON PROVERBS I. 32. 59

rich and splendid, how his heart was lifted up, and
what vaunts he made of all to the Babylonish am
bassadors, Isaiah xxix. 2. though in the end, as
most proud fools do, he smarted for his ostentation.
See Nebuchadnezzar also strutting himself upon the
survey of that mass of riches and settled grandeur
that Providence had blessed his court with. It
swelled his heart, till it broke out at his mouth in
that rodomontade, Dan. iv. 30. Is not this great
Babylon that I have built for the house of the
kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the
glory of my majesty ? Now, that prosperity, by
fomenting a man's pride, lays a certain train for his
ruin, will easily be acknowledged by him, who either
from scripture or experience shall learn what a spite
Providence constantly owes the proud person. He is
the very eyesore of Heaven ; and God even looks
upon his own supremacy as concerned to abase him.
2. Another sin, that is apt to receive increase and
growth from prosperity, is luxury and uncleanness.
Sodom was a place watered like the garden of God,
Gen. xiii. 10. There was in it fulness of bread,
Ezek. xvi. 49, and a redundant fruition of all things.
This was the condition of Sodom, and what the sin
of it was, and the dismal consequence of that sin, is
too well known. The Israelites committing fornica
tion with the daughters of Moab, which reaped
down so many thousands of them at once, was intro
duced with feasting and dancing, and all the gayeties
and festivities of a prosperous, triumphing people.
We read of nothing like adultery in a persecuted
David in the wilderness ; he fled here and there
like a chaste roe upon the mountains ; but when the
delicacies of the court softened and ungirt his spirit,

60 A SERMON

when he drowsed upon his couch, and sunned him
self upon the leads of his palace ; then it was that
this great hero fell by a glance, and buried his glo
ries in his neighbour's bed : gaining to his name a
lasting slur, and to his conscience a fearful wound.

As Solomon says of a man surprised with surfeit
and intemperance, we may say of every foolish man
immersed in prosperity, that his eyes shall look
upon strange women, and his heart shall utter per
verse things. It is a tempting thing for the fool to
be gadding abroad in a fair day. But Dinah knows
not, but the snare may be laid for her, and she re
turn with a rape upon her honour, baffled and de-
floured, and robbed of the crown of her virginity.
Lot's daughters revelled and banqueted their father
into incest.

The unclean devil haunts the families of the rich,
the gallant, and the high livers ; and there is nothing
but the wisdom from above, which descends upon
strict, humble, and praying persons, that can pre
serve the soul pure and sound in the killing neigh
bourhood of such a contagion.

3. A third sin that prosperity inclines the cor
rupt heart of man to, is great profaneness, and neg
lect of God in the duties of religion. Those who lie
soft and warm in a rich estate, seldom come to heat
themselves at the altar. It is a poor fervour that
arises from devotion, in comparison of that which
sparkles from the generous draughts, and the fes
tival fare which attend the tables of the wealthy and
the great. Such men are, as they think, so happy,
that they have no leisure to be holy. They look
upon prayer as the work of the poor and the solitary,
and such as have nothing to spend but their time

ON PROVERBS I. 32. 61

and themselves. If Jesunm wax fat, it is ten to one
but he will kick against him who made him so.

And now, I suppose, a reflection upon the pre
mises cannot but press every serious person with a
consideration of the ticklish estate he stands in,
while the favours of Providence are pleased to
breathe upon him in these gentle gales. No man is
wholly out of the danger which we have been dis
coursing of: for every man has so much of folly in
him as he has of sin ; and therefore he must know,
that his foot is not so steady, but it may slip and
slide in the oily paths of prosperity.

The treachery and weakness of his own heart
may betray and insensibly bewitch him into the
love and liking of a fawning vice. What the prophet
says of wine and music may be also said of pros
perity, whose intoxications are not at all less, that it
steals away the heart. The man shall find that his
heart is gone, though he perceives not when it goes.

And the reason of all this is, because it is natural
for the soul in time of prosperity to be more careless
arid unbent; and consequently not keeping so narrow
a watch over itself, is more exposed to the invasions
and arts of its industrious enemy. Upon which ac
count, the wise and the cautious will look upon the,
most promising season of prosperity with a doubtful
and a suspicious eye ; as bewaring, lest, while it
offers a kiss to the lips, it brings a javelin for the
side ; many hearts have been thus melted, that could
never have been broke. This also may be a full,
though a sad argument to allay the foolish envy,
with which some are apt to look upon men of great
and flourishing estates at a distance : for how do
they know, that what they make the object of their

62 A SERMON

envy, is not a fitter object for their pity? And
that this glistering person, so much admired by them,
is not now a preparing for his ruin, and fatting for
the slaughters of eternity ? That he does not eat
his bane, and carouse his poison ? The poor man
perhaps is cursed into all his greatness and prospe
rity. Providence has put it as a sword into his
hand, for the wounding and destroying of his own
soul: for he knows not how to use any of these
things ; and so has only this advantage, that he is
damned in state, and goes to hell with more ease,
more flourish and magnificence than other men.

And thus much for the second general reason,
why the prosperity of fools proves fatal and destruc
tive to them. I come now to the third and last,
which is, because prosperity directly indisposes men
to the proper means of their amendment and reco
very.

1. As first, it renders them utterly averse from
receiving counsel and admonition, Jer. xxii. 21. /
spake to thee in thy prosperity, and ihou saidst, I
will not hear. The ear is wanton and ungoverned,
and the heart insolent and obdurate, till one is
pierced, and the other made tender by affliction.
Prosperity leaves a kind of dulness and lethargy
upon the spirits ; so that the still voice of God will
not awaken a man, but he must thunder and lighten
about his ears, before he will be brought to take no
tice that God speaks to him. All the divine threat-
enings and reprehensions beat upon such an one but
as stubble upon a brass wall ; the man and his vice
stand firm, unshaken, and unconcerned ; he pre
sumes that the course of his aifairs will proceed al
ways as it does, smoothly, and without interruption ;

ON PROVERBS L 32. 63

that to-morrow will be as to-day, and much more
abundant. It is natural for men in a prosperous
condition neither to love nor suspect a change.

But besides, prosperity does not only shut the
ear against counsel, by reason of the dulness that
it leaves upon the senses ; but also upon the account
of that arrogance and untutored haughtiness that
it brings upon the mind ; which of all other quali
ties chiefly stops the entrance of advice, by making
a man look upon himself as too great and too wise
to admit of the assistances of another's wisdom.
The richest man will still think himself the wisest
man. And where there is fortune, there needs no
advice.

2. Much prosperity utterly unfits such persons
for the sharp trials of adversity: which yet God
uses as the most proper and sovereign means to cor
rect and reduce a soul grown vain and extravagant,
by a long, uninterrupted felicity. But an unsanc-
tified, unregenerate person, passing into so great an
alteration of estate, is like a man in a sweat enter
ing into a river, or throwing himself into the snow;
he is presently struck to the heart ; he languishes,
and meets with certain death in the change. His
heart is too effeminate and weak to contest with
want and hardship, and the killing misery of having
been happy heretofore : for in this condition he cer
tainly misbehaves himself one of these two ways.

1. He either faints and desponds, and parts with
his hope together with his possessions. He has nei
ther confidence in Providence, nor substance in him
self, to bear him out, and buoy up his sinking spirit,
when the storms and showers of an adverse fortune
shall descend, and beat upon him, and shake in pieces

64 A SERMON

the pitiful fabric of his earthly comforts. The earth
he treads upon is his sole joy and inheritance, and
that which supports his feet must support his heart
also ; otherwise he cannot, like Job, rest upon that
Providence that places him upon a dunghill.

2. Such a person, if he does not faint and sink in
adversity, then on the contrary he will murmur and
tumultuate, and blaspheme the God that afflicts him.
A bold and a stubborn spirit naturally throws out
its malignity this way. It will make a man die
cursing and raving, and even breathe his last in
a blasphemy. No man knows how high the cor
ruption of some natures will work and foam, being
provoked and exasperated by affliction.

Having thus shewn the reasons why prosperity
becomes destructive to some persons ; surely it is
now but rational, in some brief directions* to shew
how it may become otherwise ; and that is, in one
word, by altering the quality of the subject. Pros
perity, I shew, was destructive to fools ; and there
fore, the only way for a man not to find it de
structive, is for him not to be a fool ; and this he
may avoid by a pious observance of these following
rules. As,

1. Let him seriously consider upon what weak
hinges his prosperity and felicity hangs. Perhaps
the cross falling of a little accident, the omission of
a ceremony, or the misplacing of a circumstance,
may determine all his fortunes for ever. Or per
haps his whole interest, his possessions, and his
hopes too, may live by the breath of another, who
may breathe his last to-morrow. And shall a man
forget God and eternity for that which cannot se
cure him the reversion of a day's happiness ? Can

ON PROVERBS I. 32. 65

any favourite bear himself high and insolent upon
the stock of the largest fortune imaginable, who has
read the story of Wolsey or Sejanus ? Not only the
death, but the humour of his prince or patron may
divest him of all his glories, and send him stripped
and naked to his long rest. How quickly is the
sun overcast, and how often does he set in a cloud,
and that cloud break in a storm ! He that well con
siders this, will account it a surer livelihood to de
pend upon the sweat of his own brow, than the fa
vour of another man's. And even while it is his
fortune to enjoy it, he will be far from confidence ;
confidence, which is the downfall of a man's happi
ness, and a traitor to him in all his concerns ; for
still it is the confident person who is deceived.

2. Let a man consider, how little he is bettered
by prosperity, as to those perfections which are
chiefly valuable. All the wealth of both the Indies
cannot add one cubit to the stature either of his
body or his mind. It can neither better his health,
advance his intellectuals, or refine his morals. We
see those languish and die, who command the phy
sic and physicians of a whole kingdom. And some
are dunces in the midst of libraries, dull and sottish
in the very bosom of Athens ; and far from wisdom,
though they lord it over the wise.

For does he, who was once both poor and igno
rant, find his notions or his manners any thing im
proved, because perhaps his friend or father died,
and left him rich ? Did his ignorance expire with
the other's life ? Or does he understand one propo
sition in philosophy, one mystery in his profession
at all the more for his keeping a bailiff or a steward?
great and as good a landlord as he is, may lie

VOL. in. F

66 A SERMON

not for all this have an empty room yet to let ?
and that such an one as is like to continue empty
upon his hands (or rather head) for ever? If so,
surely then none has cause to value himself upon
that, which is equally incident to the worst and
weakest of men.

3dly and lastly, Let a man correct the gayeties and
wanderings of his spirit, by the severe duties of mor
tification. Let him, as David says, mingle his drink
with weeping, and dash his wine with such water.
Let him effect that upon himself by fasting and ab
stinence, which God would bring others to by pe
nury and want. And by so doing, he shall disen-
slave and redeem his soul from a captivity to the
things he enjoys, and so make himself lord, as well
as possessor of what he has. For repentance sup
plies the disciplines of adversity ; and abstinence
makes affliction needless, by really compassing the
design of it upon the nobler accounts of choice : the
scarceness of some meals will sanctify the plenty of
others. And they are the quadragesimal fasts which
fit both body and soul for the festivals of Easter.

The wisest persons in the world have often
abridged themselves in the midst of their greatest
affluence ; and given bounds to their appetites,
while they felt none in their fortunes. And that
prince who wore sackcloth under his purple, wore
the livery of virtue, as well as the badge of sove
reignty ; and was resolved to be good, in spite of all
his greatness.

Many other considerations may be added, and
these farther improved. But to sum up all in short ;
since folly is so bound up in the heart of man, and
since the fool in his best, that is, in his most pros-

ON PROVERBS I. 32. 67

perous condition, stands tottering upon the very
brink of destruction, surely the great use of the whole
foregoing discourse should be to remind us in all our
prayers, not so much to solicit God for any temporal
enjoyment, as for an heart that may fit us for it;
and that God would be the chooser, as well as the
giver of our portion in this world ; who alone is
able to suit and sanctify our condition to us, and us
to our condition.

To whom therefore be rendered and ascribed,
as is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and
dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen.

Shamelessness in sin, the certain forerunner
of destruction :

IN

A DISCOURSE

UPON

JEREMIAH VI. 15.

Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination?
nay, they 'were not at all ashamed^ neither could they
blush : therefore they shall fall among them that fall : at
the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, saith
the Lord.

U.E, who after the commission of great sins, can
look God, his conscience, and the world in the face,
without blushing, gives a shrewd and sad demon
stration, that he is too far gone in the ways of sin
and death to be reclaimed to God, or recovered to
himself, without a miracle. For having lost not
only the substance of virtue, but the very colour of
it too, (as the philosopher called blushing,) and the
principles of morality having upon the same account
lost all hold of him ; he now seems to claim a place
in the highest rank of sinners ; and from the condi
tion of the actually disobedient, and, as yet, impe
nitent, to have passed into the unspeakably worse
estate of the desperate and incurable. For though
Almighty God is very free and forward in the ad
dresses of his grace to the souls of men, yet still

A SERMON ON JEREMIAH VI. 15. 63

there must be something in them for grace to work
upon ; to wit, something of natural spiritual sense
and tenderness ; which if once extinct and gone, (as
they may be, and God knows too often are,) the
Spirit of God will find nothing in such a soul to en
tertain its motions, or receive its impressions ; but
the man having sinned himself past all feeling, may,
I fear, be but too justly supposed to have sinned
himself past grace too.

And such a sort of sinners seems the prophet to
encounter all along this chapter. A pack of wretches
hardened and confirmed in their sins ; daring God,
and defying his laws; with one foot, as it were,
trampling upon natural conscience, and with the
other upon religion : wretches, who, by shaking off
all shame and modesty, (the first and kindliest re
sults of common humanity,) seem even to have sinned
themselves into another kind or species : while the
very shamefulness of the sins they committed, ut
terly took away all shame from the committers of
them; and the guilt, which should have covered
and confounded their faces with blushing, was the
very cause that they could not blush.

Which short account and description of the enor
mous impiety of the persons here pointed at in the
text, being thus premised, let us now proceed to the
consideration of the words themselves, wherein we
have these four things observable.

First, The guilt of some extraordinary, crying
sins, charged upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, in
these words : they had committed abomination.
An expression importing some superlative sort of
villainy acted by them, whatsoever it might be.

Secondly, Their deportment under this guilt:
F3

70 A SERMON

they were not at all ashamed, neither could they
blush.

Thirdly, God's high resentment of the monstrous-
ness of such a shameless carriage, implied in that
vehement interrogatory exclamation, Were they
ashamed ?

Fourthly and lastly, The judgment consequent
hereupon in the concluding words of the text ; there
fore they shall fall amongst them that fall, &c.

These particulars I shall not prosecute in that
order and distinction in which they have been laid
down, but shall gather the entire sense and drift of
them into this one proposition, which I intend for
the subject of the following discourse ; namely,

That shamelessness in sin is the certain forerunner
of destruction.

The prosecution of which proposition I shall ma
nage under these particular heads.

1st, I shall shew what shame is, and the influ
ence it has upon the government of men's manners.
2dly, I shall shew by what ways men come to
cast off shame, and to grow impudent in sin.

3dly, I shall shew the several degrees of shame
lessness in sin.

4thly, I shall shew the reasons why it so remark
ably and effectually brings down judgment and de
struction upon the sinner : and

5thly and lastly, I shall shew what those judg
ments most commonly are, by which it procures the
sinner's ruin and destruction, Of all which in their
order : and

1. For the first of them. What shame is, and
what influence it has upon the government of men's
manners. In order to which, if we consider the na-

ON JEREMIAH VI. 15. 71

tural frame of man's mind, and the ways and me
thods by which the divine wisdom governs the affairs
of the world, we shall find none more effectual to
this great end, than that contrariety of passions and
affections planted by God in the heart of man ;
which though in themselves most eager and impe
tuous, and such as are wholly unable to prescribe
either rule or measure to their own operations, yet
in the whole economy of them, are disposed with
such admirable equality, that the vehemence of one
passion is still matched and balanced with the force
of another. It is evident from reason, and too sad
an experience, that desire, anger, hatred, and the
like passions, are of that fury and transport in their
egress to, and actings about their respective objects,
that the greatest disturbances in the world spring
from thence, and would, no doubt, from disturbance
pass into confusion, were there not such passions as
sorrow, fear, and shame, to obviate and control
them in their excess : so that these are, as it were,
the shores and bounds which Providence has set in
the soul of man, to check, and to give laws to the
overflowings of those contrary affections, which
would otherwise bear down all before them, and
drive all peace and order out of the world. This I
thought fit to remark of the passions in general.

And now for the passion of shame in particular,
to shew what that is, and wherein it does consist.
I conceive this may be a full account of the nature
of it, viz. that it is a grief of mind springing from
the apprehension of some disgrace brought upon a
man. And disgrace consists properly in men's
knowledge or opinion of some defect natural or
moral belonging to them. So that when a man is

F 4

72 A SERMON

sensible that any thing defective or amiss, either in
his person, manners, or the circumstances of his
condition, is known, or taken notice of by others ;
from this sense or apprehension of his, there natu
rally results upon his mind a certain grief or dis
pleasure ; which grief properly constitutes the pas
sion of shame. So that shame presupposes in the
mind these two things.

1. A great esteem and value of every thing be
longing to the due perfection of a man's being.
And,

2. An earnest desire of other men's knowledge or
opinion of this perfection, as possessed by him.

And consequently, as glory is the joy a man con
ceives from his own perfections, considered with re
lation to the opinion of others, as observed and ac
knowledged by them ; so shame is the grief a man
conceives from his own imperfections, considered
with relation to the opinion of the world taking no
tice of them ; and in one word, may be defined grief
upon the sense of disesteem. And there is not in
the whole mind of man a passion of a quicker and
more tender sense, and which receives a deeper and
a keener impression from its object, than this of
shame : which in my judgment affords a stronger
argument to prove a man a creature naturally de
signed for society and conversation, than any that
are usually produced for that purpose. For were
not every man conscious to himself of his desire and
need of the benefits of conversation, why should he
be so solicitous to approve himself to the good opi
nion of others ; and with so much sorrow and im
patience regret other men's knowledge of any imper
fection belonging to him? Which yet he himself

ON JEREMIAH VI. 15. 73

could quietly enough brook the knowledge of, so
long as it lay confined within his own breast, and
heartily love himself with all his faults. And as the
nature of this passion argues a man disposed to so
ciety, so when we consider that amongst the objects
of this passion, those imperfections, which relate to
a man's actions and manners, hold the prime place ;
so that a man is more ashamed to be accounted a
dishonest or unjust, than a weak or an unfortunate
man ; it is evident from hence, that the apprehen
sions and resentments of the turpitude and disho
nesty of our actions, are founded upon something
born into the world with us, and spring originally
from the first and most native discourses of the soul
about its own actions.

Now from this, that shame is grounded upon the
dread man naturally has of the ill opinion of others,
and that chiefly with reference to the turpitude or
immorality of his actions, it is manifest, that it is
that great and powerful instrument in the soul of
man, whereby Providence both preserves society,
and supports government ; forasmuch as it is the
most effectual restraint upon him from the doing of
such things as more immediately tend to disturb the
one and destroy the other. It is indeed more ef
fectual than bare law, and that upon a double ac
count.

1st, Of the nature of the evil threatened by it : and

2dly, Of the largeness of its extent.

1. And first for the evil threatened. Whereas the
law directly threatens pains of the body, or muti
lation of limbs to the delinquent ; shame threatens
disgrace, which above all other things is properly
the torment of the soul, and (considering the innate

74 A SERMON

generosity of man's mind disposing him to prefer a
good name before life itself) is much more grievous
and unsupportable to him, than those other inflictions.
So that in that grand exemplar of suffering, even our
Saviour himself, his enduring the cross is heightened
and set off by his despising the shame, as that which
far surpassed all the cruelties of the rods, the nails,
and the spear, and, upon the truest estimate of pain,
much the bitterer passion of the two. And from
hence also it is, that no penal laws are found so forci
ble for the control of vice, as those wherein shame
makes the chief ingredient of the penalty. Death
at the -block looks not so grim and dismal as death
at the gibbet ; for here it meets a man clad with in
famy and reproach, which does a more grievous ex
ecution upon his mind, than the other can upon his
body. Nay, wounds, and pain, and death itself,
from terrible, sometimes become contemptible, where
they are looked upon but as a passage to honour, and
many are easily brought to write their names with
their own blood in the records of fame and immor
tality. So that the sting of death here is shame ;
and the matter of the sharpest punishment, stripped
of all reproach and ignominy, is so far from over
whelming the mind with horror and consternation,
that in many circumstances it is capable of being re
conciled even to nature itself, and that in such a de
gree, that instead of being submitted to barely upon
the stock of patience, it may be made the object of
a rational choice. But,

2. As to the other advantage, which sense of shame
has above the law ; to wit, that it extends itself to
more objects than the law does, and consequently
restrains and prevents more evil than the law can :

ON JEREMIAH VI. 15. 75

it is to be observed, that whereas the laws of men in
punishing the transgressors of them, take notice only
of such gross enormities as directly tend to make a
breach upon government and overthrow society ; the
sense of shame, on the other side, reaches likewise
to all indecencies, and not only to such things as
shake the being, but to such also as impair the beau
ties and ornaments of a society : and by that means
guards the behaviour of men, even against the first
approach, and indeed the very shew and semblance
of immorality. Such a sovereign influence has this
passion upon the regulation of the lives and actions
of men ; indeed so sovereign and so great, that a
society set up purposely for the reformation of man
ners, (God bless it,) can hardly have a greater.

And no wonder, if we consider the unaccountable
force of it in those strange effects it has sometimes
had upon men. Some have been struck with phrensy
and distraction, and some with death itself upon
the sudden attack of an intolerable confounding
shame : the sense of which has at once bereaved
them of all their other senses, and they have given
up the ghost and their credit together. Take one
of the greatest and most approved courage, who
makes nothing to look death and danger in the face,
who can laugh at the glittering of swords, the clash
ing of armour, and the hissing of bullets, with all
the other terrors of war : take, I say, such an one in

a base and a shameful action ; and the eye of the
discoverer, like that of the basilisk, shall look him
dead. So that in such a surprise, he who is valiant,
and whose heart is as the heart of a lion, shall ut
terly sink and melt away. Shame shall fly like a
poisoned arrow into his heart, and strike like a dart

76 A SERMON

through his liver. So inexpressibly great sometimes
are the killing horrors of this passion.

And as it has sometimes these prodigious effects
upon surprise, so is it of a malignity not at all less
fatal, when it so fastens upon the soul, as to consume
and waste it with the continual gn a wings of a lin
gering and habitual grief. He whom shame has
done its worst upon, is, ipso facto, stripped of all the
common comforts of life. Every eye that sees him
wounds him, and he thinks he reads his destiny in
the forehead of every one who beholds him. The
light is to him the shadow of death; he has no heart
nor appetite to business ; nay, his very food is nau
seous to him, and his daily repast no refreshment.
It is his mind only which feeds heartily upon his
body, and the vulture within which preys upon his
stomach. In which wretched condition having pass
ed some years, first the vigour of his intellectuals
begins to flag and dwindle away, and then his health
follows : the hectic of the soul produces one in the
body ; the man from an inward falls into an outward
consumption ; and death at length gives the finishing
stroke, and closes all with a sad catastrophe. This
is the natural progress of this cruel passion.

And thus much for the first thing proposed ;
which was to shew, what shame is, and what influ
ence it has upon the government of men's manners.
I proceed now to the

2d. Which is to shew, by what ways men come to
cast off shame, and grow impudent in sin. Con
cerning which, we must first of all observe, that the
principles of shame and modesty are too deeply
rooted in man's nature to be easily plucked out ;
which makes the loss of them (wheresoever they

ON JEREMIAH VI. 15. 77

come to be lost) so extremely sinful : shamelessness
in sin being a thing perfectly unnatural, and (if a
man could lose his nature as well as his virtue) a
deviation even from humanity itself. Nevertheless,
the frailty and mutability of nature is such, that it is
capable of being debauched even in its first and best
notions, and of growing into such a change of incli
nation, as to become quite another thing from what
God at first made it. But how and by what means
this comes to be effected, is the subject of our present
inquiry ; and to give some general account of this,
we must know, that by whatsoever ways or courses
men are brought to cast off that natural tenderness
and sensibility of mind, which renders them appre
hensive of any thing done unsuitably to their nature,
by those properly is this passion of shame first les
sened, and at length totally extinguished. Now
that may be done several ways.

1. By the commission of great sins. For these
waste the conscience, and destroy at once. They are,
as it were, a course of wickedness abridged into one
act; and a custom of sinning by equivalence. Lesser
sins indeed do by degrees sully and change the habit
of the soul ; but these transform it in a minute : as in
the complexion of a man's face, he grows tanned and
swarthy by little and little; but if a blast comes,
that gives him another face and hue in the twin
kling of an eye. Sins of daily incursion insensibly
wear away the innate tenderness of the conscience ;
but whoredoms, murders, and perjuries, (though
never so much sanctified,) and the like, tear and
break it off presently. Nor does this contradict the
issertion just now premised by us, concerning the
lifficult removal of shame and modesty. For when

78 A SERMON

a thing falls by a very great blow, though it fall
quickly, it cannot be said to fall easily. Besides
that nature can hardly pass from its first innocence
and modesty to the commission of a great crime, but
by many intermediate preparatives of sin ; unless it
should chance to be strangely seized, and, as it were,
ravished by some fierce and horrid temptation. But
this very rarely happens : and therefore, though
great sins do usually expel shame at once, yet peo
ple seldom rush into great sins at first. All that we
insist upon in the present case is, that upon what
account soever such sins come actually to be com
mitted, they make a mighty breach and invasion
upon the soul, and shame seldom long survives the
commission of them. They steel the forehead, and
harden the heart, and break those bars asunder,
which modesty had originally fenced and enclosed it
with. In Jeremy iii. 3. Thou hadst a whore's
forehead, said the prophet to Jerusalem, and re-
fusedst to be ashamed. A whore's life naturally
produces a whore's forehead. Scandalous and flagi
tious actions superinduce new hardnesses, and con
fidences, which nature of itself would never have
reached to. For upon every great sin, the Spirit of
God proportionably withdraws his presence from the
soul, and, together with it, that influence, by which
alone the principles of modesty, and the awe of vir
tue and goodness, are kept alive and fresh upon
the mind. And when the soul is once rifled of these,
and has lost the honour of its virgin purity by a foul
action, it is left naked and unguarded, and open to
all the assaults of its grand enemy ; who, if he can
go op in his attempts with any tolerable success,
will be sure never to give over, till, having quite

ON JEREMIAH VI. 15. 79

razed all sense of shame and remorse out of the sin
ner's heart, he at length confirms and seals him up
in a state of sin and death. And this he knows is
both effectually and compendiously done by sins of a
peculiar and more than ordinary guilt, which no
sooner enter into the soul, but he also enters with
them, and so driving out all shame before him, takes
full livery and seisin of it, and keeps firm and quiet
possession of the man to his dying day.

2dly. Custom in sinning never fails in the issue to
take away the sense and shame of sin, were a person
never so virtuous before. For albeit the object of
shame still carries with it something strange, new,
and unusual, yet the strangeness of any thing wears
off with the frequency of its practice. This makes it
familiar to the mind, and being so, the mind is never
startled or moved at it. By great sins (as we have
shewn) the soul casts off shame all on a sudden ; but
by customary sinning it lays it down leisurely, and by
degrees. And no man proceeding in such a course
or method, arrives presently at the top of any vice ;
but holding on a continual, steady progress in the
paths of sin, passes at length into a forlorn, shame
less condition by such steps as these. First, he be
gins to shake off the natural horror and dread which
he had of breaking any of God's commands, and so
not to fear sin : in the next place, finding his sinful
appetites gratified by such breaches of the divine law,
he comes thereupon to Mke his sin, and to be pleased
with what he has done ; and then, from ordinary
complacencies, heightened and improved by custom,
he comes passionately to delight in such ways. And
thus, being captivated with delight, he resolves to
continue and persist in them ; which, since he can

80 A SERMON

hardly do without incurring the censure and ill opi
nion of the world, he frames himself to a resolute
contempt of whatsoever is either thought or said of
him : and so having hereby done violence to those
apprehensions of modesty, which nature had placed as
guardians and overseers to his virtue, he flings off all
shame, wears his sin upon his forehead, looks boldly
with it, and so at length commences a fixed through-
paced, and complete sinner.

3. The examples of great persons take away the
shame of any thing which they are observed to prac
tise, though never so foul and shameful in itself.
Every such person stamps a kind of authority upon
what he does ; and the examples of superiors (and
much more of sovereigns) are both a rule and an en
couragement to their inferiors. The action is seldom
abhorred, where the agent is admired ; and the filth
of one is hardly taken notice of, where the lustre of
the other dazzles the beholder. Nothing is or can
be more contagious, than an ill action set off with a
great example : for it is natural for men to imitate
those above them, and to endeavour to resemble, at
least, that, which they cannot be. And therefore,
whatsoever they see such grandees do, quickly be
comes current and creditable, it passes cum privilegio ;
and no man blushes at the imitation of a scarlet or a
purple sinner, though the sin be so too.

It is, in good earnest, a sad consideration to reflect
upon that intolerable weight of guilt which attends
the vices of great and eminent offenders. Every one,
God knows, has guilt enough from his own personal
sins to consign him over to eternal misery ; but when
God shall charge the death of so many souls upon
one man's account, and tell him at the great day, This

ON JEREMIAH VI. 15. 81

man had his drunkenness from thee, that man owes
his uncleanness to thy example ; another was at first
modest, bashful, and tender, till thy practice, en
forced by the greatness of thy place and person, con
quered all those reluctancies, and brought him in the
end to be shameless and insensible, of a prostitute
conscience and a reprobate mind. When God, I say,
shall reckon all this to the score of a great, illustrious,
and exemplary sinner, over and above his own per
sonal guilt, how unspeakably greater a doom must
needs pass upon him for other men's sins, than could
have done only for his own ! The sins of all about him
are really his sins, as being committed in the strength
of that which they had seen him do. Wherein,
though his action was personal and particular, yet
his influence was universal.

4. The observation of the general and common
practice of any thing, takes away the shame of that
practice. Better be out of the world, than not be like
the world, is the language of most hearts. The com
monness of a practice turns it into a fashion, and few,
we know, are ashamed to follow that. A vice ala-
mode will look virtue itself out of countenance, and
it is well if it does not look it out of heart too. Men
love not to be found singular, especially where the
singularity lies in the rugged and severe paths of
virtue. Company causes confidence, and multitude
gives both credit and defence ; credit to the crime,
and defence to the criminal. The fearfullest and the
basest creatures, got into herds and flocks, become
bold and daring : and the modestest natures, harden
ed by the fellowship and concurrence of others in
the same vicious course, grow into another frame of
spirit ; and in a short time lose all apprehension of

VOL. III. G

82 A SERMON

the indecency and foulness of that which they have
so familiarly and so long conversed with. Impudence
fights with and by number, and by multitude be
comes victorious. For no man is ashamed to look
his fellow-thief or drunkard in the face, or to own a
rebellious design in the head of a rebel army.

And we see every day what a degree of shame-
lessness the common practice of some sins amongst
us has brought the generality of the nation to ; so
that persons of that sex, whose proper ornament
should be bashfulness and modesty, are grown bold
and forward, offer themselves into company, and even
invite those addresses, which the severity of former
times would have scorned to admit : from the retire
ments of the closet they are come to brave it in thea
tres and taverns ; where virtue and modesty are
drunk down, and honour left behind to pay the
reckoning. And now ask such persons with what
face they can assume such unbecoming liberties ;
and they shall answer you, that it is the mode, the
gallantry, and the genteel freedom of the present
age, which has redeemed itself from the pitiful pe
dantry and absurd scrupulosity of former times,
in which those bugbears of credit and conscience
spoiled all the pleasure, the air, and fineness of con
versation. This is all the account you shall have
from them ; and thus, when common practice has
vouched for an ill thing, and called it by a plausible
name, the credit of the word shall take away the
shame of the thing: vice grows triumphant; and,
knowing itself to be in its full glory, scorns to fly to
corners or concealments, but loves to be seen and
gazed upon, and has thrown off the mask or vizard
as an useless, unfashionable thing. This, I say, is

ON JEREMIAH VI. 15. 83

the guise of our age, our free thinking and freer
practising age, in which people generally are asham
ed of nothing, but to be virtuous, and to be thought
old.

5thly and lastly. I shall mention one thing
more, which renders men shameless ; and that is, to
have been once greatly and irrecoverably ashamed.
For shame is never of any force, but where there is
some stock of credit to be preserved. But when a
man finds that to be lost, and the recovery of it des
perate and impossible, he lets loose his appetites to
their full swing, and no longer fears that which he
reckons has done its worst upon him already. He
is like an undone gamester, who plays on safely,
knowing that he can lose no more.

And for this cause, many wise governors having
had the utmost advantage against some delinquents
upon this account, yet if they were such as were ca
pable of being either useful or dangerous to the pub
lic, have thought it unsafe to disgrace them totally.
For in this case government can have no hold of
them, by one of the strongest ties in nature, viz. a re
gard of their credit and reputation. Set a man once
in the pillory, and see whether ever after his credit
can keep him from playing the knave, if his interest
prompts him to it : the man has now looked shame
in the face, and looked it out of countenance too ; he
has swallowed down scorn, and digested it. His re
putation is forlorn and gone ; and he knows that a
good name once dead has no resurrection.

And thus I have done with the second thing pro
posed ; which was to shew, by what ways men come
to cast off shame, and to grow impudent in sin. I
proceed now to the

G 2

84 A SERMON

Third, which is to shew, the several degrees of
shamelessness in sin.

I shall not pretend to recount them all, but only
mention three of the most notorious : as,

1. A shewing of the greatest respect, and making
the most obsequious applications and addresses to
lewd and infamous persons ; and that without any
pretence of duty requiring it, which yet alone can
justify and excuse men in it. For it is confessed,
that no vice can warrant the least failure of re
spect to our parents or governors, be they never
so bad ; since, in truth, all respect shewn to these,
does not so much fall upon the persons to whom
it is directed, as redound upon the divine law, by
which it is commanded. But when people volun
tarily make their visits to persons living in open
and avowed wickedness, affect to be of their retinue,
and their acquaintance, and dependence, treat them,
and speak honourably and affectionately of them,
this is really and properly to vouch for, and to abet
their crime ; which, duly considered, ought to make
their persons as contemptible in the eyes of men, as
it certainly renders them vile in the sight of God.
Heretofore, persons of honour and genteel quality
thought, they could not give a deeper wound to their
own honour, than by being so much as seen in the
company of such as had lost theirs : and suitable to
this was the practice of the primitive church. In
1 Cor. v. 11. / have wrote to you, says St. Paul,
not to keep company, if any man who is catted a
brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater,
or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner ; with
such an one no not to eat. And in 21 Thess. iii. 14.
If any man obey not our word by this epistle, note

ON JEREMIAH VI. 15. 85

that man, and have no company with him, that he
may be ashamed. Were this well practised, many
would need neither parlours nor antechambers to re
ceive visitants in. But now all possible courtship and
attendance is thought too little to be used towards
persons infamous and odious, and fit to be visited
by none but by God himself, who visits after a very
different manner from the courtiers of the world.
And what is the ground of all this ? What the great
inducement both to men and women thus to address
to such scandalous livers ? Why, the very bottom and
ground of all is, that by this means they may give
credit and countenance to the vice ; that so, as occa
sion serves, they may, without disrepute, practise it
themselves.

2. The second degree of shamelessness in sin is,
to defend it. In Luke xvi. 15. Ye are they who
justify yourselves, says our Saviour to the Phari
sees : they were not only egregious hypocrites, and
gross violators of the law, but they also faced down the
world, that they did well and meritoriously in those
very things, in which their hypocrisy and violation
of the law did consist. Now, even to extenuate, or
excuse a sin, is bad enough ; but to defend it is in
tolerable. For he who excuses a sin, still supposes
it to be a sin, and only endeavours to cover it, or at
least to take off some degree of its guilt. But he
who defends it, utterly denies its guilt, and (as I may
so speak) absolutely unsins it. For he puts it into
another rank and order of actions, asserts its legality,
and so confounds the essential differences of men's
manners; which is directly to call evil good; the
thing which God declares himself so peculiarly to
abominate. Such are properly the Devil's advocates.

G 3

86 A SERMON

For he who does the part of an advocate, pleads not
for mercy upon breach of law confessed ; (for this
were properly to beg, and not to plead;) but he
alleges, that the law is not broke ; and that there
fore upon terms of justice his cause is good, and con
sequently needs no pardon, but pleads right on his
side. In like manner, whosoever manages the De
vil's cause, by defending an ill action, in pleading for
that, he does by consequence implead the law ; to
which he endeavours to reconcile it, For if that be
not against the law, neither can the law be against
that : so that by this means the divine precept be
comes a party in the crime, and the rule itself a
transgressor. To defend sin, is to justify it ; and to
justify it, is to pronounce for it according to sen
tence of law ; and that surely is to condemn the law :
an higher affront than which cannot be passed upon
the great author and giver of it. Yet such wretches
both have been and still are found in the world.
Some of which have dared to argue for their de
bauchery from principles (some call them oracles)
of reason ; and some again have been so unsufferably
profane, as to throw scripture itself in the face of
God, by pleading it in behalf of their lewdness. I
shall not allege instances, and am sorry that I can :
but God knows what pitiful reasoners, what forlorn
disputants such shew themselves, while they plead
reason for that which contradicts reason, and allege
scripture in opposition to religion. Nothing I am
sure can be pleaded for them ; nor perhaps do such
persons think, that their actions need either plea or
pardon. For that which may be defended, certainly
needs not to be pardoned ; and therefore, if they will
Venture things upon this issue, and cast all upon the

ON JEREMIAH VI. 15. 87

merits of the cause, they must thank themselves, if,
at the last and great judgment, God sends them
away with no other sentence but this ; that as they
have defended their sins, so let them now see whe
ther their sins can defend them.

3. The third and last degree of shamelessness in
sin, is to glory in it. And higher than this the cor
ruption of man's nature (as corrupt as it is) cannot
possibly go ; though, the truth is, this may seem to
proceed, not so much from a corruption of it, as from
something that is a direct contradiction to it. For
can any thing in nature incline a man to glory in his
imperfections ? to pride and plume himself in his de
formities ? Was ever any one yet seen to boast of a
blear-eye, or a crook-back ? And are not the defects
of the soul by so much the more ugly, by how much
the soul is naturally more noble than the body?
and the faculties of one more excellent, than the
shape and lineaments of the other ?

Yet some there are who have shook off reason
and humanity so far, as to proclaim and trumpet
out those villainies upon the house-tops, which such
as sin but at an ordinary rate of wickedness commit
only in the corners of them : they declare their sin
as Sodom, and hide it not, as the prophet says in
Isaiah iii. 9. And as the apostle expresses it to the
height, Phil. iii. 19, they glory in their shame. A
thing as much against nature, as it can be against
religion ; and full as contrary to the course and dic
tates of the one, as to the most confessed rules of
the other. Nevertheless, such monsters there are.
For may we not hear some vaunting what quanti
ties of drink they can pour down, and how many
weak brethren they have in such heroic pot combats

G 4

88 A SERMON

laid under the table ? And do not others report with
pleasure and ostentation, how dexterously they have
overreached their weU-meaning neighbour ; how
neatly they have gulled him of his estate, or abused
him in his bed ? And lastly, have not some arrived
to that frontless and horrid impudence, as to say
openly, that they hoped to live to see the day in
which an honest woman or a virtuous man should
be ashamed to shew their head in company ? How
long such persons may live, I know not ; how long
they deserve to live, it is easy to tell. And I dare
confidently affirm, that it is as much the concern of
government, and the peace of a nation, that the
utterers of such things should be laid hold on by the
hand of public justice, as it can be to put to death a
thief or an highwayman, or any such common male
factor. For this is publicly to set up a standard in
the behalf of vice, to wear its colours, and avowedly
to assert and espouse the cause of it, in defiance of
all that is sacred or civil, moral or religious. I must
confess I am ashamed thus to lay open men's want
of shame. But whosoever they are who are come
to this height, let them know that they are consum
mate in vice, and upon all accounts so unspeakably
bad, that the Devil himself can neither make nor
wish them worse. And thus much for the third
thing proposed, which was to shew the several de
grees of shamelessness in sin. Pass we now to the

Fourth, which is to shew the reasons why it brings
down judgment and destruction upon the sinner. I
shall assign two.

1. Because shamelessness in sin always presup
poses those actions and courses which God rarely
suffers to go unpunished. It presupposes them, I

ON JEREMIAH VI. 15. 89

say, as the proper causes from which this shameless-
ness does proceed. For I have shewn, that great
and heinous crimes, custom in sinning, the criminal
examples of great ones, together with a general and
received practice of vice, are the ways and means
by which the heart of man comes to be hardened
against all sense of and shame for sin. But -now
every one of these does most particularly solicit and
call upon God for justice, and put the weapons of
vengeance into his hands ; so that shamelessness in
sin provokes and draws down wrath in the strength
and stock of that guilt, which a man always con
tracts before he can come to be shameless.

2. The other reason why shamelessness in sin
brings down the divine judgments upon men, is from
the destructive influence which it has upon the go
vernment of the world. For the better understand
ing of which, we must observe, that God, the wise
and righteous governor of the universe, finds it ne
cessary, in the course of his providence, to punish
some sins, even in this life. Such as are murders,
perjuries, adulteries, gross falsehoods, and the like ;
and generally all such crimes as have in them a pe
culiar tendency to overthrow government and com
mon society amongst men. In the number of which,
(if we may call it one kind of sin, and not rather a
general preparative to all sin,,) we may reckon this
shamelessness in sinning. It is an observation fre
quent in Machiavel, " that when there is a general
" depravation and corruption of the manners of any
" people, that government cannot stand." And it is
manifest, that the integrity of men's manners cannot
be secured, where there is not preserved upon men's

90 A SERMON

minds a true estimate of vice and virtue ; that is,
where vice is not looked upon as shameful and op
probrious, and virtue valued as worthy and honour
able. But now, where vice walks with a daring
front, and no shame attends the practice or the
practisers of it, there is an utter confusion of the
first dividing and distinguishing properties of men's
actions ; morality falls to the ground, and govern
ment must quickly follow. For if virtue comes once
to be hissed and exploded, and forced to hide its
head, what can recommend it, with all its rigours,
to the choice and practice of mankind? since it is
not imaginable, that men will take pains to abridge
and restrain the unruly appetites of their nature,
when no other reward shall follow all these severi
ties, but scorn and reproach. And if, on the other
side, all these appetites should be left fully at liberty
to take their own exorbitant satisfaction, how shall
government support itself? and how. shall laws be
able to subsist, where the violation of them is be
come creditable, and brings an esteem to the viola
tors? This is most certain, that there can be no
fence against vice got into reputation ; especially
when the vice acts also in the strength of a mighty
natural propensity to it. For, in this case, it rushes
in upon society like a torrent or inundation, with a
furious storm driving it on ; and virtue must either
swim against wind and tide too, that is, both against
the struggles of appetite, and the discountenance of
the world besides, or it must sink, and be swallowed
up in the prevailing stream of a contrary practice.
Honour is the birthright of virtue, and shame of vice.
But if these come to be shifted and transplaced, so

ON JEREMIAH VI. 15. 91

that honour still waits on vice, and shame on virtue,
government becomes presently like a curious engine,
torn in pieces by the violent motion of its own
springs and wheels disordered or misplaced.

And whenever it comes to fare thus with any ci
vil state, virtue and common honesty seem to make
their appeal to the supreme Governor of all things,
to take the matter into his own hands, and to cor
rect those clamorous enormities which are grown too
big and strong for law or shame, or any human co
ercion. And accordingly God often finds himself
engaged by some notable judgment to assert and
declare his sovereignty, and to convince insolent and
audacious sinners, that where shame ends, vengeance
must begin, or the government of the world cease ;
and that if men will not see, they must be made to
feel the difference between vice and virtue. For
where nature and religion find themselves too weak
to redress the extravagance of men's manners, a blow
from Heaven must do the business, or the societies
of the world must fall into confusion and dissolution.
But the great Judge and Ruler of all things, who,
even for his own honour, has undertook the protec
tion of law, order, and justice here below, so long as
he suffers the world to stand, will not suffer these
to fall. And therefore, when vice is got above all
cure, and scorns all the corrections which fear and
shame can apply, God lays hold on judgment, makes
bare his arm, and by doing justice upon daring sin
ners, does then most eminently do justice to his own
providence too. And thus much for the fourth thing
proposed ; which was to shew the reasons why shame-
lessness in sin brings down judgment and destruction

ipon the sinner. I descend now to the

92 A SERMON

Fifth and last ; which is to shew what those judg
ments are by which it procures the sinner's ruin and
destruction. And for this, it must be confessed, that
they neither are nor can be particularly known to
any but to him who alone knows the wise and deep
counsels of his own will, the great rule and compass
which his providence steers by. Nevertheless, so
far as his word dictates, we may safely pronounce ;
and what we find recorded in that, to have been
done by God upon such kind of sinners formerly, we
may warrantably infer is the most likely to be done
by him again.

Now I shall instance in three several sorts of judg
ments, which we read in scripture to have been in
flicted upon shameless sinners : as,

1. A sudden and disastrous death ; and indeed
suddenness in this can hardly be without disaster.
When the Israelites made that wicked combination
with the Moabites, we find Zimri, one of the princes
of the people, leading Cozbi, an infamous strumpet,
into his tent before Moses, and all the congregation
looking on with weeping eyes and bleeding hearts.
This surely was impudence in the height; impu
dence, as it were, working up to a full crisis. And
we know how quickly the divine justice revenged it
upon them by the sword of Phinehas, and such a
sudden unlooked for execution, as despatched them
both into another world without either space or
power of repenting for what they had done in this.

2. Another sort of judgment is war and desola
tion. In the 19th and 20th chapters of the book
of Judges, we read what a detestable piece of vil
lainy was acted by some of the Benjamites. And
when satisfaction was demanded of them, the whole

ON JEREMIAH VI. 15. 93

tribe abets the villainy and the villains too; they
own the defence of both with sword in hand ; they
fight for an action not fit to be named, and plead
the cause of their lewdness both with their guilt and
their blood too about their ears. And was not this
to be proof against all shame ? For could there be a
more absolute and professed homage paid to vice,
than thus to march under its banner, and to fight
its battles ? But what is the consequence of all this ?
Why a whole tribe is almost cut off and destroyed
by a fatal civil war ; and such a sweeping overthrow
and slaughter of that infamous army, as may for ever
be a convincing lesson to such shameless wretches,
how ill they consult for themselves, who shed that
blood which should blush for sin, in the foul and
odious defence of it.

3. A third sort of judgment is captivity : which
was that here denounced by the prophet in the text
against the men of Israel, now grown past shame.
And a severe one it was certainly : when the proud
and fierce armies of the Assyrians came up against
Jerusalem, sacked the city, and laid the temple even
with the ground; and upon an absolute and entire
conquest, carried away the inhabitants captive into
Babylon. Shameless, it seems, they had been in
their sin, and therefore God would make them taste
what shame was in their punishment ; in those bit
ter taunts and contumelies which always pass upon
the conquered from an insolent and victorious ene
my. Conquest and captivity are perhaps the bitter
est cup that vengeance can put into the hands of a
sinful people. David chose the plague and pesti
lence before it, as the lesser evil, and the gentler in
fliction of the two. And he who shall consider the

94 A SERMON

rage and lawless fury of a conquering invading army,
needs no other account of the calamities of the van
quished : no respect to the aged, no compassion to
the infant : in a word, the Assyrians were as shame
less in their cruelties, as the Jews had been in their
sins ; which made the whole visitation not only a
just, but also a suitable revenge.

And thus we have seen what those judgments are,
which God from time to time has inflicted upon bold
and profligate offenders ; and are we now sure, that
none of all these are kept in reserve for us ? The
text begins with the charge of shamelessness, and
ends with the denunciation of judgment : and shall
we be able, think we, to divide and separate the lat
ter part of it from the former, the effect from the
cause; and while we bring ourselves under one,
wholly to escape the other ? How home the charge
reaches us, has been made out by shewing with
what high impudence some amongst us defend sin,
and with what undaunted confidence others live in
it; and lastly, with what patronage others counte
nance it. So that vice has clearly got the victory,
and carried it against all opposition. It rides on
successfully and gloriously, lives magnificently, and
fares deliciously every day ; and all this in the face
of God and man, without either fear of one or shame
of the other. Nay, so far are our modern sinners
from sneaking under their guilt, that they scorn to
hide, or so much as hold down their head for less
crimes than many others have lost theirs. Such a
rampancy of vice has this age of abused mercies, or
rather miracles, brought England to. While, on the
other hand, the widows and orphans of many brave
and worthy persons, who had both done and suffered

ON JEREMIAH VI. 15. 95

honourably for their prince, their church, and their
country, as a reward for all this, live in want and
misery, and a dismal lack of all things, because they
had rather work or beg, do or suffer any thing, than
sin for their bread. This is our present case ; and
being so, do those thriving wretches know, that this
their prosperous, and, therefore, contagious lewdness,
may not be preparing for us the fire and fagot, or
provoking God to pour in a foreign domineering
enemy upon us, an enemy whom we have been al
ways so sottishly fond of; for hardly any other judg
ment remains yet untried upon the nation? This
surely it is natural and reasonable enough to ima
gine, that such as thus glory in their shame, (be
they never so high and great,) should have shame
and confusion cast upon their glory. My business,
I confess, hitherto has been to discourse upon the
prophet's words ; and I heartily wish, that in so
doing, I may not prove too much a prophet myself.

But whether things may so happen to us or no,
and that this notorious and almost national impu
dence in sin should ever bring down any of the fore-
mentioned judgments upon us, (which God in mercy
avert,) one judgment, I am sure, it will infallibly
bring along with it, and that is itself. And can
there be a dreadfuller judgment than that which
gives a man an universal disposition to all sin ? which
offers up his soul, as it were, a blank to the Devil, to
write what he will upon it ? Of all the curses which
can possibly befall a sinner, there is none comparable
to this, that he should add iniquity to iniquity, and
fall from sin to sin ; which the shameless person can
not but do, till he falls by it too : his recovery, while
under that character, being utterly impossible. For

96 A SERMON ON JEREMIAH VI. 15.

where there is no place for shame, there can be none
for repentance. Shamelessness naturally and neces
sarily seals a man up under impenitence, and impe
nitence seals him up to destruction. God of his in
finite goodness work better minds in us, which he
must and will do, if he intends better things for us.

To whom be rendered and ascribed, as is most
due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion,
now and for evermore. Amen.

Concealment of sin no security to the
sinner:

IN

A DISCOURSE

UPON

NUMBERS XXXII. 23.

Be sure your sin willjind you out.

all the ways to be taken for the prevention of
that great plague of mankind, sin, there is none so
rational and efficacious, as to confute and baffle those
motives, by which men are induced to venture upon
it ; and amongst all such motives, the heart of man
seems chiefly to be overpowered and prevailed upon
by two ; to wit, secrecy in committing sin, and im
punity consequent upon it.

Accordingly, Moses, in this chapter, having to
deal with a company of men suspected guilty of a
base and fraudulent design, though couched under
a very fair pretence, (as most such designs use to
be ;) he endeavours to dash it in its very conception,
by particularly applying himself to encounter those
secret ratiocinations and arguments, which he knew
were the most likely to encourage them in it ; and
this he does very briefly, but effectually, by assuring
them, that how covertly and artificially soever they
might carry on their dark project, yet their sin
should infallibly find them out.

The subject and occasion of the words is indeed
particular, but the design of them is manifestly of

VOL. III. H

98 A SERMON

an universal import ; as reaching the case of all
sinners in the world, in their first entrance upon
any sinful act or course. And therefore, I shall
consider them according to this latter and more en
larged sense ; , casting the prosecution of them under
these three following heads : as,

First, I shall shew, that men generally, if not al
ways, proceed to the commission of sin, upon a se
cret confidence of concealment or impunity.

Secondly, I shall shew the grounds and reasons
upon which men take up such a confidence. And

Thirdly and lastly, I shall shew the vanity of
this confidence, by declaring those several ways, by
which, in the issue, it comes certainly to be de
feated.

Of each of which in their order.

First. And first for the first of them ; to wit, that
men generally, if not always, proceed to the com
mission of sin, upon a secret confidence of conceal
ment or impunity.

For the better handling of which proposition, I
shall lay down these two assertions.

1. That no man is induced to sin, considered in
itself, as a thing absolutely or merely evil, but as it
bears some resemblance or appearance of good, in
the apprehensions of him who commits it. Certain
it is, that there can be no real good in sin ; but if it
had no shadow, no shew of good, it could not pos
sibly be made the object of an human choice ; the
will of man never choosing or embracing any thing
under the proper notion of evil. But then, as to
the kind of this good ; if we would know what that
is, it is also as certain, that no man can be so far
deluded, or rather besotted in his judgment, as to

ON NUMBERS XXXII. 23. 99

imagine that sin can have any thing of moral good
in it ; forasmuch as that imports a direct contradic
tion to the very nature, notion, and definition of sin ;
and therefore besides that, philosophy, we know,
owns and asserts two other sorts of good, to wit,
pleasing and profitable ; good being properly the de
nomination of a thing, as it suits with our desires or
inclinations. According to which acception of the
word, whatsoever pleases or profits us, may, upon
that general account, be called good ; though other
wise it swerves from the stated rules and laws of ho
nesty and morality. And upon the same ground,
sin itself, so far as it carries either pleasure or profit
with it, is capable of being apprehended by the mind
of man as good ; and consequently of N being chosen
or embraced by the will as such.

2. The other assertion to be laid down is, that
God has annexed two great evils to every sin, in
opposition to the pleasure and profit of it ; to wit,
shame and pain. He has by an eternal and most
righteous decree, made these two the inseparable
effects and consequents of sin. They are the wages
assigned it by the laws of Heaven ; so that who
soever commits it, ought to account shame and pu
nishment to belong to him, as his rightful inherit
ance. For it is God who has joined them together
by an irreversible sentence ; and it is not in the
power or art of man to put them asunder. And
now, as God has made these two evils the sure con
sequents of sin, so there is nothing which the na
ture of man does so peculiarly dread and abhor as
these ; they being indeed the most directly and ab
solutely destructive of all its enjoyments ; forasmuch
as they reach and confound it in the adequate sub-

ii 2

100 A SERMON

ject of enjoyment, the soul and body ; shame being
properly the torment of the one, and pain of the
other. For the mind of man can have no taste or
relish of any pleasure in the world, while it is ac
tually oppressed and overwhelmed with shame ; no
thing does so keenly and intolerably affect the soul,
as infamy : it drinks up and consumes the quick
ness, the gayety, and activity of the spirits : it de
jects the countenance, made by God himself to look
upwards ; so that this noble creature, the master
piece of the creation, dares not so much as lift up
either his head or his thoughts, but it is a vexation
to him even to look upon others, and yet a greater
to be looked upon by them. And as shame thus
mortifies the soul, so pain or punishment (the other
twin-effect of sin) equally harasses the body. We
know how much misery pain is able to bring upon
the body in this life ; (in which our pains and plea
sures, as well as other things, are but imperfect ;)
there being never a limb or part, never a vein or
artery of the body, but it is the scene and receptacle
of pain, whensoever it shall please God to unfence
it, and let in some sharp disease or distemper upon
it. And so exceedingly afflictive are these bodily
griefs, that there is nothing which affects the body
in the way of pleasure, in any degree comparable to
that which affects it in the way of pain. For is
there any pleasure in nature, which equals the im
pressions of the gout, the stone, or even of the tooth-
ach itself? But then further, when we shall con
sider, that the pains which we have here mentioned,
and a great many more, are but the preludiums, the
first-fruits, and beginnings of that pain which shall
be infinitely advanced, and finally completed in the

ON NUMBERS XXXII. 23. 101

torments of another world, when the body shall
descend into a bed of fire and brimstone, and be
lodged for ever in the burning furnace of an al
mighty wrath ; this consideration surely will or
ought to satisfy us, that God will not be behind
hand with the sinner in point of punishment, what
soever promises his sin may have made him in point
of pleasure.

And now, if we put these two assertions, laid
down by us, together ; as first, That no man ever
engages in sin, but as he apprehends in it some
thing of pleasure or advantage ; and secondly, That
shame and pain are by God himself made the assured
consequents of sin ; which are utterly inconsistent
with and destructive of all such pleasure or ad
vantage : it must needs follow from hence, that the
will cannot possibly choose sin, so long as the un
derstanding is under a full conviction or persuasion,
that shame and punishment shall certainly follow
the commission of it. For no man, doubtless, is so
furiously bent upon his lust, or any other infamous
passion, as to attempt the satisfaction of it in the
marketplace, or in the face of the sun and of the
world, or with the sword of the avenger applied to
his heart.

Covetousness, we all know, is a blinding, as well
as a pressing and a bold vice ; yet certainly it could
never blind nor infatuate any one to that degree,
as to make a judge take a bribe upon the bench, or
in the open sight of the court. No ; no man is so
far able to conquer and cast off those innate fears,
which nature has thought fit to bridle and govern
the fury of his affections by, as to bid defiance to an
evil which his best and strongest reasonings assure

H«J
<L>

102 A SERMON

him to be unsupportable ; and therefore his appre
hensions must be, some way or other, first unshackled
from a belief of these evils, before his will and his
choice can be let loose to the practice of sin. And
does not this give us a most philosophical, as well as
true account of the infinite reasonableness of the
scripture's charging all sin upon unbelief, as the first
root and source of men's apostasy from God ? For
let men think and say what they will, yet when
they venture upon sin, they do not really believe
that God will ever revenge it upon them : they may
indeed have some general, faint, speculative belief of
hell and damnation ; but such a belief as is particu
lar and practical, and personally applies and brings
it home to their own condition, this they are void
of ; and it is against the methods of reason and na
ture, for any man to commit sin with such a belief
full and fresh upon his spirit : and consequently, the
heart must prevaricate, and shift off these persua
sions the best it can, in order to its free passage to
sin ; and this can by no other means be so effectually
done, as by promising itself secrecy in sin, and im
punity or escape after it. For these two reach and
remove all a man's fears, by giving him security
against those two grand terrifying effects of sin,
shame and pain. Assure but the sinner, that he
shall neither be discovered nor punished, and pre
sently the reins lie loose upon all his appetites ; and
they are free to take their full swing in all enormi
ties whatsoever. But yet, since this is not to be
effected without the help of some arguments and
considerations, which may have something of shew,
at least, to delude, though nothing of strength to
convince the reason ; therefore,

ON NUMBERS XXXII. 23. 103

Secondly, We shall now, under our next head, en
deavour to give some account of those fallacious
grounds, upon which the sinner is apt to take up such
a confidence, as to believe that he shall be able to
carry off his sin clear, without either discovery or re
tribution. And, no doubt, weak and shallow enough
we shall find them all ; and such as could never per
suade any man to sin, did not his own love to sin
persuade him much more forcibly than all such con
siderations ; some of which are these that follow.
As,

1. First, men consider the success which they
have actually had in the commission of many sins ;
and this proves an encouraging argument to them
to commit the same for the future ; as naturally sug
gesting this to their thoughts, that what they have
done so often, without either discovery or punish
ment, may be so done by them again. For nothing
does so much confirm a man in the continuance of
any practice, as frequent experience of success in
what he does; the proper genuine result of this
being confidence.

Some men indeed stumble in their very first en
trance upon a sinful course ; and this their disap
pointment frequently proves their cure, by making
them to retreat and draw off timely, as being dis
heartened with so unfortunate a beginning. And
it is, no doubt, the singular mercy and indulgence
of God to such, thus to cross and turn them out of
the paths of destruction ; which had they found
smooth, safe, and pleasurable, the corruption of their
hearts would have infallibly engaged them in them
to their lives end. That traveller, surely, has but
little cause to complain, who by breaking a leg or

H 4

104 A SERMON

an arm at his first setting out upon an unfortunate
journey, prevents the losing of his head at his jour
ney's end ; it being but a very uncomfortable way
of travelling, to finish one's journey and one's life
together. Great reason, therefore, have they to own
themselves particularly favoured by Providence, who
have been stopped and withstood by it, in the very
first attempts of any sin, and thereby snatched, as it
were a brand, out of the fire, or, which is yet better,
have been kept from ever falling into it : their being
scorched has prevented their being burnt ; while
the fright, caused by the danger they so narrowly
escaped, has been always fresh upon their memories ;
and such as come to be thus happily frighted into
their wits, are not so easily fooled out of them again.
In short, all frustration in the first essays of a vi
cious course, is a balk to the confidence of the bold
undertaker. And therefore, on the contrary, when
God is pleased to leave a man under the full sway
and power of any vice, he does not concern his pro
vidence to lay any block or impediment in such an
one's way, but suffers him to go on and succeed in
his villainy, to effect all his projects, and compass
the full satisfaction of his lewd desires. And this
flushes him up, and makes him hard and insensible ;
and that makes him venturous and daring ; and so
locks him fast in the embraces of his sin, while he
has not the least surmise of the sadness of the issue,
and that the present sweets of sin will and must be
bitterness in the end ; but, like a sot in a tavern,
first drinks himself drunk, and then forgets that
there is a reckoning to be paid.

Such an one the Devil accounts he has fast
enough ; and for that cause, none shall so studiously

ON NUMBERS XXXII. 23. 105

endeavour to promote a man's quiet and success in
sin, as he, who at present tempts him to it, and will
hereafter torment him for it. For the Devil desires
not that the sinner should feel any trouble for sin,
till he comes to feel it for good and all in that place
which is designed only for payment, and not amend
ment; and where all that he can do or suffer to
eternal ages can contribute nothing to his release.
And therefore, that the sinner may sleep on soundly
in his sin, the Devil will be sure to make his bed
soft enough. It is said of the Spaniard, that there
are two things much accounted of, and desired by
many in the world, which yet he heartily wishes his
enemy; one is, that if he be a gamester, he may
win ; the other, that if he be a courter of women,
he may obtain his desires ; for that he knows well
enough, that either of these courses will, in all like
lihood, prove his undoing at long run. In like
manner, when the Devil has the management of a
sinner, he will spread his wing over him so, that he
shall never be alarmed with dangers, disgraces, and
other calamitous effects of sin, (if the officious tempter
can ward them off,) but shall pursue his vice with
ease, safety, and reputation.

And while the sinner can do so, such is the prone-
ness of man by nature to deceive himself in a thing
which he passionately desires, that having thus ac
quitted himself to himself, he takes it for granted,
that God will acquit him too ; and like our late
sanctified, and since justified rebels, concludes, that
God and he, forsooth, are still of a mind : in Eccles.
viii. 11. Because, says the Wise Man, sentence
against an evil tvork is not executed speedily.,
lerefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set

106 A SERMON

in them to do evil. Here he gives us an account of
the secret reasoning of most sinners' hearts ; namely,
that because God does not confound them in the
very act of sin, by some immediate judgment, there
fore they resolve upon a more audacious progress in
it ; and so sing Agag's requiem to themselves, that
surely the bitterness of death is past : but much
surer will such find it, that no man's being past fear
makes him past feeling too ; nor that the distance
of an evil abates the certainty of it. And yet, the
great knower of hearts ascribes men's resolution to
sin to such reasonings as these, (as sottish and ab
surd as they are ;) so that in Psalm 1. having reck
oned up several flagitious practices, he adds, in ver.
21. These things hast thou done, and I kept si
lence, and thou thoughtest that I was altogether
such an one as thyself. God's silence, it seems,
passes with such for his consent, and his not attack
ing the guilty wretch by a present execution, makes
him conclude, that Heaven has passed an act of ob
livion upon all his rogueries, so that henceforth he
shall live and die a prosperous, indemnified villain,
and his sin never find him out. In which case, cer
tainly, for a sinner thus to presume to absolve him
self from his own sins, is itself a greater sin than
any of those which he can pretend to absolve him
self from. But,

2. A second ground upon which men are apt to
persuade themselves, that they shall escape the
stroke of divine justice for their sins, is their obser
vation of the great and flourishing condition of some
of the topping sinners of the world. They have
seen perjury and murder nestle themselves into a
throne, live triumphant, and die peaceably ; and this

ON NUMBERS XXXII. 23.

107

makes them question whether God will ever concern
himself to revenge that hereafter which he seems so
much to connive at and countenance here ; espe
cially, since men are so generally apt to judge of
things and persons according to the present face and
appearance of them ; that they make the present
the sole measure of the future, guide their hopes and
their fears by what they actually see and feel ; and
in a word, make their outward senses the rule and
ground of their inmost ratiocinations.

For could we hear the secret language of most
men's thoughts, we should hear them making such
kind of answers and replies to the checks of con
science dissuading them from sin, and laying the
danger of it before them, as these : Pray, what mis
chief befell such an oppressor, such a tyrant, or such
a rebel ? And who passed his life with more afflu
ence and jollity, than such an epicure, such a money-
monger, such a tally-broker, and cheater of the
public ? And have not some dexterous accomptants
got estates, and made their fortunes, by a clever
stroke or two of their pen ? and by a skilful mis
take, wrote themselves forty or fifty thousand pounds
richer than they were before, in a trice ? And did
not that discreet Roman, Verres, lighting into a
wealthy province, plunder and carry off from thence
enough to serve himself, his friends, and his judges
too ? And why may not others, whose parts lie the
same way, follow such lucky examples? and the
thriving hypocrites of the present age find as fair
quarter from God and man, as any of the former ?
With such considerations as these, (if they may be
called so,) men commonly arm themselves against all
the threatenings of the divine judgments ; and think

108 A SERMON

that, in the strength of them, they can warrant the
most resolute pursuit of their vices for safe and ra
tional. They see not the smoke of the bottomless
pit, and so dread not the fire.

Flourishing sinners are indeed plausible argu
ments to induce men to sin : but, thanks be to God,
that for a sinner to spend and end his days flourish
ing, is a privilege allowed by him to very few ; and
those only such, as are likely to be much lower in the
other world, than ever they were high in this. But,

3. As we have shewn how mightily men are
heartened on to their sins by the successful exam
ples of others, as bad as themselves, or perhaps
worse ; so the next ground, upon which such are
wont to promise themselves security, both from the
discovery and punishment of their sins, is the opinion
which they have of their own singular art and cun
ning to conceal them from the knowledge, or, at
least; of their power to rescue them from the juris
diction of any earthly judge. The eye of man, they
know, is but of a weak sight and a short reach ; so
that he neither sees in the dark, nor pierces into the
cabinet-council and corner-practices of his neigh
bours ; and therefore these sons of darkness, who
love to work as well as walk in the dark, doubt not,
but to contrive and cast the commission of their vil
lainies under such sure coverts of secrecy, that they
shall be able to laugh at all judges and witnesses,
and defy the inspection of the most curious and ex
act inquirers. And this makes them proceed to sin
with such bravadoes in their hearts as these : Who
shall ever see, or hear, or know what I do ? The sun
itself, the eye of the world, shall never be conscious
to my actions ; even the light and the day shall be

ON NUMBERS XXXII. 23. 109

strangers to my retirements. So that, unless the
stones I tread upon cry out against me, and the
beam out of the wall accuse, and my own clothes ar
raign me, I fear no discovery. This is the language,
these the inward boasts of secret, or rather self-be
fooled sinners.

But now, what if such strange things as these
should sometimes come to pass ? And it should so
fall out, (as it will appear by and by,) that even these
dumb, inanimate things are sometimes unaccount
ably enabled to clamour and depose against the
guilty wretch ; so that, to the amazement of the
world, he is drawn forth into public view, out of all
his lurking holes and pavilions of darkness ? Why
then, upon such surprising accidents as these, some
have yet a further asylum to fly to, and reckon that
leir power and interest shall protect them ; and so
secure the sinner, notwithstanding the discovery of
the sin. And the truth is, if matters stand so with
them, that the height of their condition equals the

leight of their crimes, what care such ungodly great

>nes, whether or no their sins are known, so long as
leir persons must not be touched ? No, so far are
such from excusing or covering their lawless prac
tices, that they choose rather to own and wear them
in the eye of the world, as badges of their power,
id marks of such a greatness, as has set itself above

the reach of either shame or fear : even treason itself
dreads not a discovery, if the overgrown traitor be
but mighty enough to bear it out ; but it shall walk
abroad openly, and look the world in the face un
dauntedly, with all the consciousness of a clamour-

>us guilt, and yet with the confidence of innocence
itself. For we must know, that it is not mere guilt,

110 A SERMON

but guilt weak and disarmed, which exposes an
offender to the merits of his offence ; they are only
the minorum gentium malefici, malefactors of a
lower form, who break the law, and are hanged for
it. Whereas, let a crime be never so foul and so
notorious, yet if the wary criminal has so armed and
encompassed himself with friends and money, as to
stave off all approaches of justice, howsoever his sin
may find him out, yet he persuades himself that his
punishment cannot ; and that is as much as he cares
for. For a man's debts will never fright him, if the
officer dares not arrest him ; and he will hardly fear
breaking the law, who knows that he can trample
upon it too. But,

4. The fourth and last ground (which I shall men
tion) of men's promising themselves security from
the punishment of their sins, is a strong presump
tion, that they shall be able to repent, and make
their peace with God when they please ; and this,
they fully reckon, will keep them safe, and effec
tually shut the door against their utmost fears, as
being a reach beyond them all. For let a man be
never so deeply possessed with a belief of God's sin-
revenging justice, never so much persuaded, that all
the wrath which the curse of the law can threaten
or inflict, is most certainly entailed, not upon sin
only in general, but also upon his own sin in parti
cular ; nay, let damnation be always present to his
thoughts, and the fire of hell continually flaming in
his apprehensions ; yet all this shall not be able to
take him off from his resolution to sin, and his con
fidence of escape, because he has an argument in re
serve, which he thinks will answer all, to wit, an
after-repentance. For if this shall interpose be-

ON NUMBERS XXXII. 23. Ill

tween the commission of sin and the punishment of
it, he concludes, upon the stock of all God's promises
to the penitent, that he is past danger ; and conse
quently has outwitted the law and the curse, and so
stands reef us in curia? in spite of all the threatenings
of death and damnation.

And as he thus reckons that repentance will se
cure him, so he doubts not but he can command that
when he will ; as, according to the doctrine of Pela-
gius, and his modern admired followers, he certainly
may ; repentance, in their divinity, being a work en
tirely in the power of the sinner's will. So that now
the sinner's main business must be to time his re
pentance artificially, and to retreat opportunely, be
fore the hand of vengeance be actually upon him :
and if he can but prevent, and be too nimble for
that ; why then, he comes off clear and successful,
with flying colours, having enjoyed the pleasures
and advantages of his sin, without enduring any
thing of the smart or sad consequences of the
same.

But now, how wretched an inference this is, for
any man to form to himself, and thereby to mock
ind defy Heaven ! and yet how deep it lies in the
hearts of most sinners, may easily be observed by
men of sense ; and will be sadly rued by such as are
not so, when it is too late. For this is manifestly
the great fort and castle, the citadel and strong
tower, which the soul has built to itself, to repair to,
whensoever it has a mind to sin both with delight
and security too. And were it not for this, it would
be impossible for any considering man to satisfy him
self in his continuance in any known sin for one mo
ment. For he could not, with any consistence with

112 A SERMON

that mighty overruling principle of self-preservation,
commit a sin, if he assuredly knew or believed that
he should be damned for it ; which yet, since the in
finitely just and true God has most peremptorily de
creed and threatened, unless repentance shall inter
vene, it is evident, that his whole refuge must He
in the intervention of that ; which also, he persuades
himself, shall, in due time, step in between him and
the fatal blow. And this very consideration utterly
evacuates the terrifying force of the divine threat
ening ; and by promising the sinner a fair issue of
things, both here and hereafter, makes the poor self-
deluding and deluded creature conclude, that his sin
shall never find him out.

And thus having shewn some of those fallacious
grounds, upon which men use to build their confi
dence of the concealment, or at least of the impunity
of their sins, I proceed now to the

Third and last general head, at first proposed by
us : which was, to shew the vanity of such a confi
dence, by declaring those several ways, by which, in
the issue, it comes certainly to be defeated; and
that both with reference to this world and the next.

And first for this world ; there are various ways
by which it comes to be disappointed here : as,

1. The very confidence itself of secrecy is a di
rect and natural cause of the sinner's discovery.
For confidence in such cases causes a frequent repe
tition of the same action ; and if a man does a thing
frequently, it is odds, but some time or other he is
discovered : for by this he subjects himself to so
many more accidents, every one of which may pos
sibly betray him. He who has escaped in many
battles, has yet been killed in the issue; and by

ON NUMBERS XXXII. 23. 113

playing too often at the mouth of death, has been
snapped by it at last.

Add to this, that confidence makes a man ven
turous, and venturousness casts him into the high
road of danger, and the very arms of destruction.
For while a man ventures, he properly shuts the
eyes of his reason. And he who shuts his own eyes,
lies so much the more open to those of other men.

2. There is sometimes a strange, providential
concurrence of unusual, unlikely accidents, for the
discovery of great sins ; a villainy committed perhaps
but once in an age, comes sometimes to be found
out also by such an accident, as scarce happens
above once in an age. For there are some sins
more immediately invading the great interests of so
ciety, government, and religion ; which Providence
sets itself in a more peculiar manner to detect and
bring to light, in spite of all the coverings which art
or power can cast over them : such as are murder,
perjury, and sacrilege, (all of them accounted sins of
the foulest guilt before forty-one, but marks of re
generation with many ever since :) and more particu
larly for murder; in what a strange, stupendous
manner does Providence oftentimes trace it out,
though concealed with all the closeness which guilt
and skill, and the legerdemain of a well packed and
paid jury can secure it by !

Such small, such contemptible, and almost un ob
servable hints have sometimes unravelled and thrown
open the mysterious contexture of the deepest laid
villainies, and delivered the murderer into the hands
of justice, by means which seemed almost as much
above nature, as the sin committed was against it.

And the like instances might be given in many

VOL. III. I

114 A SERMON

other crying sins, which sometimes cry so long and
so loud too, that they come at length to be seen as
well as heard, and to alarm the earth as well as
pierce heaven. Curse not the king, no not in thy
heart, (says the Wise Man, in Eccles. x. 20,) for
a bird in the air shall carry the voice, and that
which hath wings shall tell the matter: though
some, I confess, are of opinion, that such as have
no wings are much nimbler and quicker in car
rying and telling these matters, than such as have.
But to keep to these remarkable words now before
us ; if the bird upon the house-top (as the text
seems to intimate) shall be able (in such a case as
this) to tell what is done or whispered within the
house ; and these inhabitants of the air shall have
keys to our chambers and our closets, nay, and to
our very hearts too ; how can there be such a thing
in the world as secrecy? (as the truth is, setting
aside all tropes and hyperboles, there is but very
little :) and then, if such informers as these find out
the treason, we may be sure, that the treason itself
will not fail to find out the traitor.

For let a criminal seem never so safe in his own
thoughts, and in the thoughts of all about him, yet
still he must know, that the justice of God has him
in chace, and will one day shew, that it never hunts
surer, than when the politicians of the world think
it upon a cold scent. For how many strange, intri
cate, and perplexed villainies have been ript up, and
spread far and near, which the subtle actors of them,
both before, and in, and after the commission, fully
believed could not possibly be discovered ? Whereas,
on the contrary, it is most certain, that no man,
though never so crafty and sagacious, can propose

ON NUMBERS XXXII. 23. 115

to himself such great unlikelihoods for the discovery
of any action, but others, altogether as crafty, have
actually failed, and miscarried under the very same,
or greater.

And therefore the psalmist, most appositely to
our present purpose, observes, Psalm xxxvi. 2, that
the sinner flatters himself in his own eyes, till his
iniquity be found out: that is the issue; and no
wonder, if such a practice comes to such an end.

For whosoever flatters himself, cheats and be
trays himself by false reasonings ; and by not deal
ing clearly and impartially with himself, but ground
ing his presumption of secrecy upon arguments re
presented to him much firmer and stronger, than his
own experience, severely judging, would allow them
to be. For, if such an one finds an accident highly
improbable, he will presently screw it up, from
thence, to impossible, and then conclude, that in so
vast a number of contingencies, one of a million
shall never hit his case. And very probably it may
not. But what if it should? why then, one such
unlucky event will fully pay the reckoning for all
former escapes ; and one treason or felony discovered,
will as certainly bring his neck to the block or the
halter, as a thousand, were they ah1 of them crowded
together into one and the same indictment against
him.

3. God sometimes makes one sin the means of
discovering another : it often falling out with two
vices, as with two thieves or rogues ; of whom it is
hard to say which is worse, and yet one of them
may serve well enough to betray and find out the
other. How many have by their drunkenness dis
closed their thefts, their lusts, and murders, which

I 2

116 A SERMON

might have been buried in perpetual silence, had
not the sottish committers of them buried their rea
son in their cups ? for the tongue is then got loose
from its obedience to reason, and commanded at all
adventures by the fumes of a distempered brain and
a roving imagination ; and so presently pours forth
whatsoever they shall suggest to it, sometimes cast
ing away life, fortune, reputation, and all in a
breath.

And how does the confident sinner know, but the
grace of God, which he has so often affronted and
abused, may some time or other desert, and give
him up to the sordid temptations of the jug and
the bottle, which shall make the doors of his heart
fly open, and cause his own tongue to give in evi
dence against him, for all the villainies which had
lain so long heaped up and concealed in his guilty
breast? For let no man think that he has the se
crets of his own mind in his own power, while he
has not himself so ; as it is most certain that he has
not who is actually under a debauch : for this con
founds, and turns all the faculties of the soul topsy
turvy ; like a storm tossing and troubling the sea,
till it makes all the foul, black stuff, which lay at
the bottom, to swim, and roll upon the top.

In like manner, the drunken man's heart floats
upon his lips, and his inmost thoughts proclaim
and write themselves upon his forehead ; and there
fore, as it is an usual, and indeed a very rational
saying, that a liar ought to have a good memory ;
so upon the like account, a person of great guilt
ought to be also a person of great sobriety ; lest
otherwise his very soul should, some time or other,
chance to be poured out with his liquor : for com-

ON NUMBERS XXXII. 23. 117

monly the same hand which pierces the vessel,
broaches the heart also, and it is no strange nor
unusual passage from the tavern to the gaol.

4. God sometimes infatuates, and strikes the sin-
ner with phrensy, and such a distraction, as causes
him to reveal all his hidden baseness, and to blab
out such truths, as will be sure to be revenged upon
him who speaks them. In a word, God blasts and
takes away his understanding, for having used it so
much to the dishonour of him who gave it ; and de
livers him over to a sort of madness, too black and
criminal to be allowed any refuge in bedlam. And
for this, there have been several fearful instances of
such wretched contemners of Heaven, as having, for
many years, outfaced all the world, both about
them and above them too, with a solemn look and
a demure countenance, have yet, at length, had
their loathsome inside turned outwards, and been
made an abhorred spectacle to men and angels.
For it is but just with God, when men have de
bauched their consciences, to bereave them of their
senses also ; and to disturb and disarm their reason,
so as to disable it from standing upon its guard,
even by that last and lowest sort of self-defence,
the keeping of its own counsel ; for no chains will
hold a madman's tongue, no fetters can restrain the
ramble of his discourse, nor bind any one faculty of
his soul or body to its good behaviour : but all that
is within him is promiscuously thrown out ; and his
credit, with all that is dear to him, is at the mercy
of this unruly member, as St. James calls it, which,
in the present case, has no mercy upon him whom
it belongs to; nor any thing to govern it, but a

I 3

118 A SERMON

violent, frantic humour, wholly unable to govern
itself.

5. God sometimes lets loose the sinner's con
science upon him, filling it with such horror for sin,
as renders it utterly unable to bear the burden it
labours under, without publishing, or rather pro
claiming it to the world.

For some sorts of sin there are, which will lie
burning and boiling in the sinner's breast, like a
kind of Vesuvius, or fire pent up in the bowels of
the earth ; which yet must, and will, in spite of all
obstacles, force its way out of it at length ; and thus,
in some cases of sin, the anguish of the mind grows
so exceeding fierce and intolerable, that it finds no
rest within itself, but is even ready to burst, till it is
delivered of the swelling secret it labours with :
such kind of guilt being to the conscience, like some
offensive meats to the stomach, which no sooner
takes them in, but it is in pain and travail, till it
throws them out again.

Who knows the force, the power, and the re
morseless rage of conscience, when God commissions
it to call the sinner to an account? how strangely
it will sift and winnow all his retirements ? how
terribly it will wring and torture him, till it has
bolted out the hidden guilt which it was in search
of? All which is so mighty an argument of the pre
rogative of God over men's hearts, that no malefac
tor can be accounted free, though in his own keeping,
nor any one concealed, though never so much out of
sight; for still God has his sergeant or officer in
the sinner's breast ; who will be sure to attack him,
as soon as ever the great Judge shall but give the

ON NUMBERS XXXII. 23. 119

word : an officer so strictly true to his trust, that he
is neither to be softened nor sweetened ; neither to be
begged nor bought off; nor consequently, in a word,
fit to be of the jury, when a rich or potent malefac
tor comes to be tried, in hopes to be brought off.

And this also shews the great importance and wis
dom of that advice of Pythagoras, namely, that every
man, when he is about to do a wicked action, should,
above all things in the world, stand in awe of him
self, and dread the witness within him : who sits
there as a spy over all his actions ; and will be sure,
one day or other, to accuse him to himself, and per
haps put him upon such a rack, as shall make him
accuse himself to others too.

For this is no new thing, but an old experimented
case ; there having been several in the world, whose
conscience has been so much too hard for them, that
it has compelled them to disclose a villainous fact,
even with the gibbet and the halter set before their
eyes ; and to confess their guilt, though they saw
certain and immediate death the reward of that con
fession.

But most commonly has conscience this dismal
effect upon great sinners, at their departure out of
this world ; at which time some feel themselves so
horribly stung with the guilty sense of some fright
ful sin, that they cannot die with any tolerable peace
till they have revealed it ; finding it some small re
lief, it seems, and easement of their load, to leave
the knowledge of their sin behind them, though they
carry the guilt of it along with them.

6. And lastly, God sometimes takes the work of
vengeance upon himself, and immediately, with his

I 4

120 A SERMON

own arm, repays the sinner by some notable judg
ment from heaven : sometimes, perhaps, he strikes
him dead suddenly ; and sometimes he smites him
with some loathsome disease, (which will hardly be
thought the gout, whatsoever it may be called,) and
sometimes again he strangely blasts him in his name,
family, or estate, so that all about him stand amazed
at the blow ; but God and the sinner himself know
well enough the reason and the meaning of it too.

Justice, we know, uses to be pictured blind, and
therefore it finds out the sinner, not with its eyes,
but with its hands ; not by seeing, but by striking :
and it is the honour of the great attribute of God's
justice, which he thinks so much concerned, to give
some pledge or specimen of itself upon bold sinners
in this world ; and so to assure them of a full pay
ment hereafter, by paying them something in the
way of earnest here.

And the truth is, many and marvellous have been
the instances of God's dealing in this manner, both
with cities and whole nations. For when a guilt
has spread itself so far as to become national, and
grown to such a bulk as to be too big for all control
of law, so that there seems to be a dispute whether
God or sin governs the world ; surely it is then high
time for God to do his own work with his own hand,
and to assert his prerogative against the impudent
defiers of it, by something every whit as signal and
national as the provocation given ; whether it be by
war, plague, or fire, (all which we have been visited
with, though neither corrected nor changed by ;) and
to let the common nuisances of the age, the pro
fessed enemies of virtue and religion, and the very

ON NUMBERS XXXII. 23. 121

blots and scandal of human nature itself, know, that
there still remains upon them a flaming guilt to ac
count for, and a dreadful Judge to account to.

And thus I have gone over several of those ways
by which a man's sin overtakes and finds him out in
this world. As, first, the very confidence itself of
secrecy is a direct and natural cause of the sinner's
discovery. Secondly, there is sometimes a strange,
providential concurrence of unusual, unlikely acci
dents, for the bringing to light great villainies. Third
ly, God sometimes makes one great sin a means to
detect and lay open another. Fourthly, God some
times infatuates and strikes the sinner with phrensy,
and such a distraction, as makes him reveal all his
hidden guilt. Fifthly, God sometimes lets loose the
sinner's conscience upon him, so that he can find no
rest within himself, till he has confessed and declared
his sin. Sixthly and lastly, God sometimes smites
and confounds him by some notable, immediate judg
ment from heaven.

These, I say, are some of the chief ways by which
God finds out the sinner in this life. But what now,
if none of all these should reach his case, but that
he carries his crimes all his life closely, and ends
that quietly, and, perhaps, in the eye of the world,
honourably too ; and so has the good luck to have
his shame cast into and covered under the same
ground with his carcass ? Why yet, for all this, the
man has not escaped ; but his guilt still haunts and
follows him into the other world, where there can be
no longer a concealment of it, but it must inevitably
find him out: for, as it is in Daniel vii. 10, when
the judgment shall be set, the looks shall be also
opened; even those doomsday books, (as I may so

122 A SERMON

call them,) wherein God has kept a complete regis
ter of all the villainies that were ever committed
against him, which then shall be displayed, and read
aloud in the audience of that great and terrible court.
The consideration of which, surely, may well put
those excellent words of the apostle, in Rom. vi. 21,
with this little alteration of them, into our mouths.
What fruit can we [now] have of those things,
whereof we shall [then] he ashamed'? So, what ad
vantage of pleasure, profit, or honour, can the sinner
promise to himself from any sin which may be laid
in the balance against that infinite and incredible
weight of reproach, with which it will certainly pay
him home at that day ?

For could he persuade the mountains to cover
him, or could he hide himself in the bosom of the
great deep, or could he wrap himself in the very
darkness of hell; yet still his sin would fetch him
out of all, and present him naked, open, and de
fenceless before that fiery tribunal, where he must
receive the sentence of everlasting confusion, and
where the Devil himself will be sure to do him jus
tice, as never failing to be a most liberal rewarder
of all his pimps and vassals, for the secret service
done him in this world.

And now, what is the whole foregoing discourse,
but a kind of panegyric (such a mean one as it is)
upon that glorious thing innocence? I say inno
cence, which makes that man's face shine in public,
whose actions and behaviour it governs in private.
For the innocent person lives not under the conti
nual torment of doubts and fears, lest he should be
discovered ; for the light is his friend, and to be seen
and looked upon is his advantage : the most retired

ON NUMBERS XXXII. 23. 123

parts of his life being like jewels, which, though in
deed most commonly kept locked up in the cabinet,
yet are then most admired and valued, when shewn
and set forth by the brightness of the sun, as well as
by their own.

How poor a thing secrecy is to corrupt a rational
man's behaviour, has been sufficiently declared al
ready, by the survey which we have taken of those
several ways whereby the most wise and just Gover
nor of the world is pleased to defeat and befool the
confidence of the subtilest and the slyest sinners.
We have seen also what paper walls such persons
are apt to inclose themselves with ; and how slight,
thin, and transparent all their finest contrivances of
secrecy are ; while, notwithstanding all the private
recesses and dark closets, which they so much trust
in, the windows of heaven are still open over their
heads : and now, what should the consideration of
all this do, but every minute of our lives remind us
so to behave ourselves as under the eye of that God,
who sees in secret, and will reward us openly?

To whom be rendered and ascribed, as is most
due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion,
both now and for evermore. Amen.

The recom pence of the reward :

A SERMON

PREACHED IN CHRIST CHURCH, OXON,

BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY,
SEPT. 11, 1698.

ON

HEBREWS XL 24, 25, 26.

By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be
called the son of Pharaoh's daughter ; choosing rather to
suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the
pleasures of sin for a season ; esteeming the reproach of
Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt : for
he had respect unto the recompence of the reward.

JL HIS chapter exhibits to us a noble and victorious
army of saints, together with an account of those
heroic actions and exploits, which they were re
nowned for in their several ages ; and have been
since transmitted such to posterity : as, that they
subdued kingdoms, wrought wonders, stopped the
mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire i and,
in a word, triumphed over the cruellest and bitterest
persecutions. And the great spring or principle,
which (in spite of all their enemy's power and their
own weakness) bore them up to these high achieve
ments,, is not obscurely intimated in the person of
Moses, to have been a respect to the recommence of

A SERMON ON HEB. XI. 24, 25, 26. 125

reward. Thus, as it were, fastening one hand upon
the promise, and turning about the world with the
other.

A due consideration of which ground and motive
of action, in so great a person and so authentic an
example of sanctity as Moses was, may justly make
us wonder at that strange proposition, or rather pa
radox, which has, for so long a time, passed current
with too many, namely, that a Christian, in all acts
of duty, ought to sequester his mind from all respect
to an ensuing reward, and to commence his obe
dience wholly and entirely upon the love of duty it
self, abstracted from all regard to any following ad
vantages whatsoever: and that to do otherwise is
to act as a slave, and not as a son ; a temper of mind
which will certainly embase and discommend all our
services to the acceptance of Almighty God.

This is a glorious speech, I confess, and to the
angels, to the cherubims and seraphims, perhaps
practicable; whose natures , being so different from
and so much superior to ours, may (for ought we
know) have as different and superior a way of acting
too. But then we are to consider, that even that
known and so much celebrated aphorism, which this
assertion is manifestly founded upon, to wit, that
virtue is its own reward, will, upon examination,
be found true only in a limited sense ; that is to say,
in respect of a sufficiency of worth in it to deserve
our choice, but not in respect of a sufficiency of
power actually to engage our choice. For such a
sufficiency it has not ; and consequently, if taken in
this sense, and applied to men in their natural estate,
though under any height or elevation of piety what
soever, it is so far from being the true and refined

126 A SERMON

sense of the gospel, (as some pretend,) that it is
really absurd in reason ; and, I suppose, that to de
monstrate it not to be evangelical, there needs no
other course to be taken, than to prove it to be irra
tional. And this, by God's assistance, I shall endea
vour to do in the foUowing discourse. The founda
tions of which I shall lay in these four previous pro
positions.

I. That the gospel, or doctrine of Christianity, does
not change, and much less destroy or supersede the
natural way of the soul's acting.

II. That it is natural for the soul, in the way of
inclination and appetite, to be moved only by such
objects as are in themselves desirable.

III. That as it is natural for the soul to be thus
moved only by things desirable, so it is equally na
tural to it to be moved by them only in that degree
and proportion in which they are desirable : and con
sequently, in the

Fourth and last place, that whatsoever is proposed
as a motive or inducement to any action, ought for
that reason to be in an higher degree desirable, and
to have in it a greater fitness to move and affect the
will, than the action itself, which it is proposed as a
motive to.

For otherwise it would be superfluous, and indeed
no additional motive to it at all ; forasmuch as the
bare action, so considered, would be as strong an ar
gument to a man to perform it, as such a motive
(being but in the same degree desirable) could be to
induce him to it.

Now these four propositions fully weighed and
put together, will amount to a clear proof of that
which I first intended to prove. For to be moved

ON HEBREWS XL 24, 25, 26. 12?

by rewards, belongs not to a man properly as corrupt
or depraved in his nature through the fall, but sim
ply as he is a man ; a creature endued with the fa
culties of understanding and will: and therefore,
since the gospel (as we have shewn) entrenches not
upon the natural way of the soul's working, it fol
lows, that neither under the gospel can it be unlaw
ful to engage in duty from a respect to a future re-
compence. And moreover, since it is natural to the
will to be more moved by that which is in itself
more desirable ; and since that which is given as a
motive to any action, ought to be in itself more de
sirable than that action ; and lastly, since God pro
poses rewards as such motives to the actions of duty
and obedience, it roundly follows, that it is not only
lawful, in the matter of obedience, to have respect
to the recompence of reward, but also, that accord
ing to the natural order of human acting, the soul
should have respect to that in the first place ; and
then, being animated and enlivened thereby, should
respect the works of duty and obedience in the next.
But to bring things into a narrower compass, and
so both to prosecute the subject more fully, and to
represent it more clearly, I shall reduce what I have
to say upon it into these two propositions.

I. That in the actions of duty, considered barely
as duty, or as morally good, and fit to be done, there
is not a sufficient motive to engage the will of man
in a constant practice of them.

II. That the proposal of a reward on God's part,
and a respect had to it on man's, are certainly ne
cessary to engage men in such a course of duty and
obedience.

128 A SERMON

This proposition naturally and unavoidably issues
from the former ; and accordingly we shall consider
both of them in their order.

And first for the first of them, to wit, that duty,
considered barely as duty, does not carry in it a suf
ficient motive to engage the will of man in the con
stant practice of it. And this I shall endeavour to
make out by these following reasons : as, 1st, If in the
soul of man its averseness to duty be much greater
and stronger than its inclination to it, then duty, con
sidered barely in itself, is not sufficient to determine
the will of man to the constant performance of it ;
which, in my judgment, is an argument so forcible
and clear, that one of greater force and clearness
cannot well be desired. For unless hatred must
pass for courtship, and hostility for allurement, cer
tainly that from which the will is so averse cannot
be a proper means to win upon it, or to get into its
embraces. No ; sooner may the fire be attracted by
the centre of the earth, or the vine clasp about the
bramble, than any faculty of the soul have its in
clinations drawn forth by a contrary and distasteful
object.

And then for the ground of this argument, to wit,
that the soul has originally such an averseness to
duty ; this, I suppose, is but too evident to need any
further probation. For that horrid proneness of man's
will to all vice, that inundation of lewdness, which
with such an unresisted facility, or rather such an un
controlled predominance, has spread itself over the
whole world, is a sad, but full eviction of this fatal
truth. For what mean all those hard restraints and
shackles put upon us in our minority? What are those

ON HEBREWS XL 24, 25, 26. 129

several arts of discipline and education, those early
preventions, but so many banks, as it were, raised up
to keep that sea of impurity, that swells within our
nature, from pouring itself forth into actual enormities
upon every occasion ? How hardly is the restive, un
ruly will of man first tamed and broke to duty. How
exceeding hardly are its native reluctancies mastered,
and subdued to the sober rules of morality. Duty
carries with it a grim and a severe aspect; and the
very nature of it involves difficulty. And difficulty
certainly is no very apt thing to ingratiate or endear
itself to men's practices or affections. Nay, so un
deniable is the truth of this, that the very scene of
virtue is laid in our natural averseness to things
excellent and praiseworthy. For virtue is properly
a force upon appetite, the conquest of an inclination,
and the powerful bending of the mind to unusual
choices and preternatural courses ; so that indeed to
live virtuously is to swim against the stream, to be
above the pleasures of sense, and, in a word, to be
good in spite of inclination.

And upon this account alone it is, that virtue
carries so high a price in the world, and that it at
tracts such a mighty esteem and value, both to itself
and to him who has it, and that even from those
who have it not. For if to lie abed, to fare de-
liciously, and to flow with all sorts of delight and
plenty, were to be virtuous, there could be no more
commendation due to a virtuous person, than to one
who had pleased his palate, fed lustily, and slept
well. But nothing easy ever did or will draw after
it either applause or admiration. No, these are things
which wait only upon the painful, the active, and
laborious ; upon those who both do and undergo such

VOL. III. K

130 A SERMON

things, as the rest of mankind are unwilling and
afraid to meddle with ; and that gives them fame,
and renown, and lustre in the eyes of the world
round about them: for to reconcile ease and splen
dour together is impossible ; and not only the course
of Providence, but the very nature of things pro
tests against it. And therefore the paths of vir
tue must needs lie through craggy rocks and pre
cipices ; its very food is abstinence ; it is cherished
with industry and self-denial ; it is exercised and
kept in heart with arduous attempts and hard ser
vices ; and if it were otherwise, it could neither be
high, nor great, nor honourable, nor indeed so much
as virtue.

But now, if this be the natural complexion of vir
tue and duty, by such terrifying severities to raise in
the soul a kind of horror of it and aversion to it, let
this be the first reason, why duty, considered barely in
itself, and abstracted from all reward, is not sufficient
to engage men in the practice of it. Next to which,

2. The second reason, for the proof of the same
truth, is this, that those affections and appetites of
the soul, which have the strongest influence upon it,
to incline and bias it in all its choices, to wit, the ap
petites belonging properly to the sensitive part of
man's nature, are not at all moved or gratified by
any thing in duty, considered barely as duty, and
therefore, as so considered, it is not a sufficient
motive to induce men to the practice of it. Now this
reason also, I conceive, carries its own evidence
with it. For the soul of man (as the present state of
nature is) generally moves as those forementioned
appetites and affections shall incline it ; and there
fore, if that which thus inclines it be not, some way

ON HEBREWS XI. 24, 25, 26. 131

or other, first made sure of, all persuasions addressed
immediately to the will itself, are like to find but a
very cold reception.

I shah1 not here insist upon the division of the
appetites of the soul into the rational and sensitive,
the superior and inferior, and much less shall I trace
them into any further subdivisions : but shall only
observe, that there is one general, comprehensive ap
petite, or rather ratio appetendi, common to all the
particular appetites, and into which the several opera
tions of each of them are resolved, and that is, the
great appetite of jucundum, or tendency of the
whole soul to that which pleases. For whether they
be properly the desires of the rational part, or the
desires and inclinations of the sensitive, they aU con
cur and meet in this, that they tend to and terminate
in something that may please and delight them.

But now I have already shewn, that bare duty and
virtue are rather attended with difficulty and hard
ship, than seasoned and set off with pleasure ; and
for that cause are commonly looked upon but as dry
things ; and consequently such as need to have some
thing of relish put into them by the assignation of a
pleasing reward ; which may so recommend and
gild the bitter pill, as to reconcile it to this great ap
petite, and thereby convey and slide it into the will,
as a proper object of its choice.

Nay, and I shall proceed further, and add, that
duty, upon these grounds, is then most effectually
proposed, when it is not only seconded with a re
ward, but also with a reward sensibly represented ;
and (so far as the nature of the thing will bear) with
all the conditions of allurement and delight ; that so

K 2

132 A SERMON

it may be able to counterbalance the contrary sug
gestions of sense, which beat so strongly upon the
imagination. Upon which account, as Moses en
forced the observation of his law upon the Israelites,
by rewards most suitable, and adapted to sense, as
consisting of temporal promises, (though couching
under them, I confess, spiritual and more sublime
things;) so Christ himself, though the rewards pro
mised by him to his followers were all of them heaven
ly and spiritual, yet he vouchsafed oftentimes to ex
press them by such objects as most affected the sense.
As for instance : the enjoyments of the other world
are shadowed and set forth to us in the gospel, by
drinking wine in the kingdom of heaven, Luke xxii.
18. and by the mirth and festivities of a marriage
feast, Matt. xxii. 4. also by sitting upon thrones,
Matt. xix. 28. likewise by dwelling in palaces adorn-
ed with pearls and diamonds, and all hind of pre
cious stones, Rev. xxi. 19, 20, 21. and lastly, by the
continual singing of triumphal songs, Rev. xv. 3.
and xix. 1. All which are some of the most lively
and exalted instances of pleasure that fall within
the enjoyment of sense in this world. And this way
of expression was most wisely made use of by our
Saviour, for that the pleasures of the sensitive, infe
rior appetites, though they are not in themselves the
best objects, yet are certainly the best representa
tions and conveyances of such objects to the mind ;
since without some kind of sensible dress, things too
fine for men's apprehensions can never much work
upon their affections.

And upon the same ground we may observe also,
that those virtues are the most generally and easily

ON HEBREWS XI. 24, 25, 26. 133

practised, which do least thwart and oppose these
appetites. As for example, veracity in speaking
truth, faithfulness in not violating a trust, and jus
tice in punishing offenders, or rendering to every one
his due, are much more frequent in the world, than
temperance, sobriety, and chastity, and other such
virtues, as are properly conversant about abridging
the pleasures of the senses.

So then, if this be the case, that the soul of man,
in all its choices, is naturally apt to be determined
by pleasure, and the sensitive, inferior appetites
(which would draw it off from duty) are continually
plying it with such suitable and taking pleasures ;
doubtless, there is no way for duty to prevail and get
ground of them, but by bidding higher, and offer
ing the soul greater gratifications wrapped up in a»
eternal reward. For when an adversary is ready
to bribe the judge, and the judge is as ready to be
bribed, assuredly there is no way so likely to carry
the cause, as to outbribe him. The sensitive part
or principle in all the pressing, enticing offers it
makes to the soul, must either be gained and taken
off from alluring, or be conquered and outdone in
it. The former of which can never be effected ; but
the latter may, and that by no other means, than by
representing duty as clothed with such great and
taking rewards, that the soul shall stand convinced,
that there will be really a greater and more satisfac-,
tory pleasure in the consequents of duty, (how hard
soever it may appear at present,) than there can be in
the freest and most unlimited fruition of the great
est sensual delights.

But now, should we proceed upon the contrary
principle, requiring obedience without recompence,

K 3

134 A SERMON

how lame and successless would every precept of the
divine law prove, when thus proposed to us naked
and stripped of all that may either strengthen or re
commend it ? Would not such a forlorn nakedness
represent it, as coming rather to beg than to com
mand ? and to ask an alms, than to impose a duty ?
For suppose, that when God bids us fast and pray,
abstain from all the allurements of sensual pleasure,
deny ourselves, being smote upon one cheek, turn
the other, and lastly, choose death, rather than
commit the least known sin ; suppose, I say, that
God should command us all these severe things,
upon no other account, but because they are excel
lent actions, high strains of virtue, most pleasing to
God, and upon that score both commanded by him
and to be performed by us : certainly these considera
tions (notwithstanding all the reason and truth that
is in them) would yet strike the will but very faint
ly : for men care not for suffering, while they think
it is only for suffering-sake. And self-denial is but
a sour morsel, and will hardly go down without
something to sweeten it ; and men, generally, have
but a small appetite to pray, and a much smaller to
fast, (how great soever they may have after it.) On
the contrary therefore, let us, in this case, take our
measures from the addresses made by our Saviour
himself to the minds of men ; Blessed, says he to his
disciples, are ye9 when men shall revile you, and
persecute you, and speak all manner of evil against
you falsely for my sake ; rejoice, and be exceeding
glad. But why, I pray ? Was it such matter of joy,
either to be spit or trampled upon ? to be aspersed
by men's tongues, or crushed under their heels ? No
certainly ; but we have a very good reason given us

ON HEBREWS XL 24, 25, 26. 135

for all this, in the next words : for great, says our
Saviour, is your reward in heaven, Matth. v. 12.
And again, Blessed are they that mourn. But sure
ly not for the barejlendi voluptas ; nor for any such
great desirableness that there is or can be in tears
or groans, any more than in that which causes them :
no, but for something else, that was abundantly
able to make amends for all these sadnesses, in the
5th and 6th verses of the same chapter. For such,
says our Saviour, shall be comforted: which one
word implies in it all the felicity and satisfaction
that human nature is capable of. But now had
our Saviour, in defiance of all their natural inclina
tions, pressed these austerities upon them, as the sole
and sufficient reason and reward of themselves, sure
ly he had done like one, who neither understood the
nature of man's will, nor the true arts of persuasion.
And the case had been much the same, as if Moses,
instead of giving the Israelites water, had bid them
quench their thirst with the rock. Let this there
fore be the second reason, why duty, considered bare
ly as duty, and abstracted from all reward, is not
sufficient to induce men to the practice of it.

3. The third and last reason that I shall allege
for the same is this ; that if duty, considered barely
in itself, ought to be the sole motive to duty, with
out any respect to a subsequent reward, then those
two grand affections of hope and fear ought to have
no influence upon men, so as to move or engage
them to the acts of duty at all. The consequence is
most clear ; because the proper objects, upon which
these affections are to be employed, are future re
wards and future punishments ; and therefore, if no
regard ought to be had of these in matters of duty,

K4

136 A SERMON

it will follow, that neither must those affections,
which are wholly conversant about rewards, have
any thing to do about duty, wherein no considera
tions of a reward ought, upon this principle, to take
place. This, I say, would be the genuine, unavoid
able consequence of this doctrine.

But now, should any one venture to own such an
odd and absurd paradox, in any of those sober, ra
tional parts of Christendom, which have not de
praved their judging and discerning faculties with
those strange, new-found, ecstatic notions of religion,
which some (who call themselves Christians, and
Christians of the highest form too) have, in the late
super-reforming age, taken up amongst us ; how un
natural, or rather indeed how romantic, would such
divinity appear ! For all the world acknowledges,
that hope and fear are the two great handles, by
which the will of man is to be taken hold of, when
we would either draw it to duty or draw it off from
sin. They are the strongest and most efficacious
means to bring such things home to the will, as are
principally apt to move and work upon it. And the
greatest, the noblest, and most renowned actions,
that were ever achieved upon the face of the earth,
have first moved upon the spring of a projecting
hope, carrying the mind above all present discou
ragements, by the prospect of some glorious and fu
ture good.

And therefore he, who, to bring men to do their
duty heartily and vigorously, and to the best advan
tages of Christianity, shall cut off all rewards from
it, and so remove the proper materials which hope
should exert itself upon, does just as if a man should
direct another to shoot right and true, by forbidding

ON HEBREWS XI. 24, 25, 26. 137

him to take aim at the mark ; or as if we should bring
a man to a race, and first tie his legs fast, or cut
them off, and then clap him on the back, and bid him
run. He who takes away the incitements to duty,
dashes the performance of duty, and not the perform
ance only, but the very attempt also : for men do not
use to run, only that they may run, but that they
may obtain ; labour itself being certainly one of the
worst rewards of a man's pains. And therefore, no
wonder, if every exhortation to virtue has just so
much strength in it, as there is in the argument
brought to enforce it. For, if we will be but true
to the first principles of nature, we shall find, that
all arguments made use of to persuade the mind
of man, must be founded upon something that is
grateful, acceptable, and pleasing to nature; and
that, in short, is a man's easy and comfortable en
joyment of himself, in all the powers, faculties, and
affections, both of his soul and body. Which said
enjoyment, in the hard and dry strokes of duty and
spiritual day-labour, as I may call it, I am sure is not
to be found. For no man enjoys himself, while he
is spending his spirits, and employing the utmost
intention of his mind upon such objects, as shall
both put and keep it upon the stretch ; which yet,
in the performance of duty, every one actually does,
or at least should do. In a word, irksomeness in the
whole course of an action, and weariness after it,
certainly are not fruition ; but the actions of bare
duty are naturally accompanied with both.

Let us, therefore, here once again observe the
course taken by our Saviour himself, when he would
raise men up to something singular and extraordi
nary, and above the common pitch of duty : as in

138 A SERMON

Mark x. 21. we find, how he answered the rich
young heir, inquiring of him the way to heaven :
Go, says he, and sell whatsoever tliou hast., and give
it all to the poor. Now certainly, had our Saviour
stopped here, this had been as grinding and as strip
ping a command, as could have well passed upon a
man ; and might indeed have seemed, not so much
a command to prove, as an artifice to blow him up ;
not so much a test, to try his obedience, as a trick
(like some oaths) to worm him out of his estate. But
surely, our Saviour never affected to be king of beg
gars, and much less to make men beggars, the better
to king it over them. Nor can we imagine, that he,
who was all wisdom and goodness, would have so far
contradicted both, as to make it a duty to give alms,
and at the same time put men into a condition fit
only to receive them; or that he would have en
joined so great a paradox in practice, as to require
his followers to choose poverty merely for poverty's
sake ; or to sell their possessions, only to buy hunger
and rags, scorn and contempt with the price of them.
No ; assuredly, the God of nature would never have
put a man upon any thing so contrary to the first
principles of nature. And therefore our Saviour did
not require this young man here absolutely to quit
his riches, but only to exchange them, and to part
with a less estate in possession, for a greater in re
version, with a small enjoyment for a vast hope ; in
those following words : Do tills, says he, and thou
shalt have treasure in heaven : so that he proposed
the duty in one word, and the reward in another.
And it was this alone which made our Saviour's
proposal (which looked so terribly at first) fair and
rational ; and which, without such a reward annexed

ON HEBREWS XI. 24, 25, 26. 139

to it, would, upon the strictest and most impartial
discourses of reason and nature, have been thrown
back as cruel and intolerable.

And again, when our Saviour preached to the
world the grand evangelical duty of taking up the
cross, we do not find that he made the mere burden
of bearing it any argument for the taking it up ; no,
certainly, such arguments might have pressed hard
upon their shoulders, but very little upon their rea
son. And therefore, in Mark x. 29, 30, There is
no man, says he, that hath left house, or brethren,
or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or chil
dren, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel's, but
he shall receive an hundred fold now in this time,
and in the world to come eternal life. So that we
see here the antecedent smoothed over, and recom
mended by the consequent ; duty and reward walk
ing hand in hand; the riches of the promise still
overmatching the rigours of the precept, and (as we
observe in the royal diadems of Christian kings) the
cross and the crown put together.

But, above all, the example of the great author
and finisher of our faith himself will put the point
here before us past all dispute. For are not his en
during the cross and despising the shame (and
this latter as terrible a crucifixion to the mind as
the other could be to the body) both of them re
solved into the joy that was set before him ? Heb.
xii. 2. And did not our Saviour teach us by his ex
ample, as well as by his precept ? At least so far,
that what he did was certainly lawful to be done ;
though, by reason of the immense disparity of his
condition and ours, not always necessary for us to
do. But, however, as to the case now spoken of, it

140 A SERMON

was manifestly the subsequent joy which baffled and
disarmed the present pain, and the prospect of a glo
rious immortality, which carried him triumphant
through all those agonies which bare mortality must
otherwise have sunk under.

It has been observed, and that with great wit and
reason, that in all encounters of dangerous and dread
ful issue, it is still the eye which is first overcome ;
and being so, presently spreads a terror throughout
the whole man : accordingly, on the contrary, where
the eye is emboldened with the encouraging view of
some vast enjoyment pressing close upon the heels
of a present suffering, it diffuses such a noble bra
very and courage into all the faculties, both of soul
and body, as makes them overlook all dangers ; and,
by overlooking, conquer and get above them. In a
word, let us so eye the great captain of our salva
tion, as to rest assured of this, that wheresoever he
went before, it is both our privilege and our safety
to follow ; and that his example alone is enough
both to justify and to glorify the imitation.

But to proceed. As we have shewn how our Sa
viour has sometimes thought fit to draw men to their
duty by their hopes, so let us see, in the next place,
how he sometimes also drives them to it by their
fears : Fear not those, says he, who can but kill
the body, but fear him who is able to destroy both
soul and body in hell, Matt. x. 28. And again, in
Luke xii. 5, he enforces the same words, with this
emphatical repetition : Yea, I say unto you, Fear
him. But now, if the fear of hell influencing a man
either to the practice of duty, or the avoidance of
sin, were the direct way to hell, (as some with equal
confidence and ignorance have affirmed,) surely our

ON HEBREWS XI. 24, 25, 26. 141

Saviour took the most preposterous course that could
be, to prescribe the fear of hell as the surest means
to escape it. For how can there be any such thing
as fleeing from the wrath to come, if fear, which is
the only thing that can make men flee, shall betray
them into that which they flee from ?

But further, to descend from the method used by
Christ himself to that made use of by his apostles.
What means St. Peter, to put men upon passing the
time of their sojourning here in fear ? 1 Pet. i. 17.
and St. Paul, to press men upon working out their sal
vation with fear and trembling? Phil. ii. 12. For
fear and trembling are certainly very senseless things,
where a man is not at all the better for them. But
these experienced guides, it seems, very well knew
how impossible it was, where the concern was infinite
and unspeakable, and the danger equal, for any man
of sense and reason to shake off his fears, and retain
his wits too. And therefore to me it seems none
of the smallest arguments against the modern whim-
sey, which we are now opposing, that, both in the lan
guage of the Old Testament and the New, the whole
business of religion is still comprehended and sum-
med up in this one great thing, the fear of God.
For this we may assure ourselves of, that he who
fears as he should do in this world, shall have nothing
either to fear or feel in the next.

And now, lastly, to set off the foregoing authori
ties with the manifest reason of the thing itself. It
is doubtless one of the greatest absurdities that can
well fall within the thoughts of man, to imagine, that
God, who has cast the business of man's salvation
into so large a compass, as to share out to every

142 A SERMON

other faculty and affection of the soul its due part
and proportion in this great work, should yet wholly
disinterest those two noble leading affections of hope
and fear from having any thing to do in the same.
For must these only lie idle and fallow, while all the
other affections of the mind are employed and taken
up? And has God something for us to love, and
something to hate, but in the whole business of reli
gion nothing for us to hope for, and nothing to fear?
Which surely he has not, if it be absolutely unlaw
ful for men under the gospel, in any religious per
formance, to act with an eye to a future recompence.
And therefore, since this assertion, to wit, that duty,
considered barely as duty, ought to be the sole mo
tive to the practice of it, brings us under a necessity
of asserting also, that hope and fear ought not at all
to influence men in the matter of duty ; which yet
is most absurd : and since nothing that is absurd or
false can, by genuine and just consequence, issue
from what is true ; it follows, that the former asser
tion or position, from which this latter is inferred, is
most false and irrational. Which was the thing to
be proved. And so

I proceed to answer such objections, as may, with
any colour of argument, be alleged in opposition to
the doctrine hitherto laid down and defended by us,
and so conclude this first proposition : as,

1. It may be argued, that there is a certain com
placency and serenity of mind attending the per
formance of actions pious and virtuous, and a kind
of horror or remorse that follows the neglect of them,
or the doing of the quite contrary ; the consideration
of which alone, setting aside all further hopes of a

ON HEBREWS XI. 24, 25, 26. 143

future reward, may be a sufficient argument to en
force the practice of duty upon any sober, rational
mind whatsoever.

To this I answer, that this complacency of mind
upon a man's doing his duty, on the one side, and
that remorse attending his neglect of it, or doing the
quite contrary, on the other, are so far from exclud
ing a respect to a future recompence, or being a dif
ferent motive from it, that they do really imply it,
and are principally founded in it ; the said compla
cency flowing naturally from the assurance given a
man by his conscience, that the honesty and good
ness of his actions sets him free and safe from all
that evil and punishment which the law of God
awards to the transgressors of it. And the contrary
remorse of mind proceeding chiefly from a dread of
those punishments, which a man's conscience assures
him that the breach of the said law will render the
breakers of it obnoxious to. And that this is so, is
demonstrable by this one reason ; that several men
are differently affected, either with this complacency
or remorse of mind, upon their doing the very same
action ; and that, because some are verily persuaded,
that the said action is a sin, and so to be followed
with the penal consequents of sin ; and others, on
the contrary, are as fully persuaded that it is no sin.
For the better illustration and proof of which, we
must observe, that men's judgments concerning sin
have been, and in several parts of the world still are,
very different ; so that what is sin with one people
or nation, is not always so with another : as for in
stance, some account drunkenness no sin, as many
of the Germans; and others have had the same
thoughts of theft, as the Spartans ; and of fornica-

144 A SERMON

tion, as most of the heathens ; and some again think,
that an officious lie is no sin, as the Jesuits and So-
cinians : whereas others, on the contrary, stand as
fully persuaded, that all these are sins, (as indeed
they are, and most of them very gross ones too,) and
such as, unrepented of, will assuredly consign over
the persons guilty of them to eternal punishment
from the hands of a sin-revenging justice.

But now, upon these two so different, preconceived
opinions, it will and must certainly follow, that those
of the latter judgment cannot but feel that horror
and remorse of mind upon the doing of these ac
tions, which those of the contrary persuasion, to wit,
that they are no sins, undoubtedly, upon the very
same actions, do not feel. But now, from whence
can this be ? Surely, not from the bare action itself,
nor from any thing naturaUy adherent to it ; foras
much as the action, with all that is natural to it, is
the same in both those sorts of men, whose minds,
after the doing of it, are so differently affected. And
therefore it must needs be from the different infu
sions into, and prepossessions of men in their mino
rity and first education ; by which some have been
taught, that a severe punishment and after-reckon
ing belongs to such and such actions ; and by which
others again have been taught, that they are actions
in themselves indifferent, and to which no penalty at
all is due.

I conclude, therefore, that the complacency which
men find upon the performance of their duty, and
the remorse which they feel upon the neglect of it,
taken abstractedly from all consideration of a future
reward, cannot be a sufficient motive to duty ; be
cause, indeed, so taken, they are but a mere fiction

ON HEBREWS XI. 24, 25, 2G. 145

or chimera. For that all such complacency and re
morse are founded only upon an early persuasion
wrought into men's minds of a following retribution
of happiness or misery allotted to men hereafter, ac
cording to the different nature and quality of their
actions here : and so much in answer to this first
exception. But,

2. Some again object and argue, that there is a
different spirit required under the gospel from that
which was either under or before the Mosaic dispen
sation ; and therefore, though it might be lawful
and allowable enough for the church in those days,
living under an inferior economy, in all acts of duty
to have respect to the recompence of reward; yet
in times of higher and more spiritual attainments,
and under a gospel state, men ought wholly to act,
and to be acted by such a filial and free spirit, as
never to enter upon any duty with the least regard
to an after-compensation ; this being servile, legal,
and mercenary ; as these sons of perfection do pre
tend.

But to this also I answer, that the Jewish church,
and the church before it, may be considered under a
double character or capacity. 1. As they sustained
the peculiar formality of a church so or so consti
tuted. And, 2dly, as they were men, or rational
creatures, as the rest of mankind are.

Now it must be confessed, that what belonged to
them in the former capacity was undoubtedly pro
per and peculiar to them, and so neither does nor
ought to conclude the church nowadays, being cast
into a different form or constitution. Nevertheless,
rhat belonged to them, simply as they were men,
or moral agents, equally belongs to and concerns the

VOL. in. L

146 A SERMON

church in all places and all ages of the world, and
under all forms, models, and administrations what
soever.

But now, for any one in the works of duty to pro
ceed upon hopes of a reward, is (as I have already
shewn) the result of a rational nature, endued with
such faculties of mind, as, according to their natural
way of acting, (especially as the state of nature now
is,) will hardly or never be brought to apply heartily
to duty, but in the strength of such motives; the
very nature of man inclining him chiefly, if not
solely, to act upon such terms and conditions ; so
that to do one's duty with regard to a following re-
compence, concerns not men under any peculiar de
nomination of Jews or Christians, but simply as they
are men. And to affirm the contrary, is a direct
passing over to the heresy and dotage of the Saddu-
cees, who, by mistaking and perverting that saying
of Zadock, the author of their sect and name, to wit,
that men ought to do virtuously without any thought
of a following recompence, carried it to that height
of irreligion, as to deny all rewards of happiness or
misery in another world ; and, consequently, a resur
rection to another life after this. Such horrid and
profane inferences were drawn, or rather dragged by
these heretics, from one unwary and misunderstood
expression.

Nevertheless, so much is and must be granted,
(and no doubt Zadock himself, if there was such an
one, never intended more,) that for a man, in the
practice of duty, to act solely and entirely from a
desire of a following recompence, exclusively to all
love of the work and duty itself, is indeed servile
and mercenary, and no ways suitable to that filial

ON HEBREWS XL 24, 25, 26. 147

temper which ought to govern all Christian minds.
But then again, we must remember, that to do one's
duty only for a reward, and not to be willing to do
it without one, are very different things. And if we
consider even Judas himself, it was not his carrying
the bag, while he followed his master, but his fol
lowing his master only that he might carry the bag,
which made him a thief and an hireling. For other
wise, I cannot see why he might not have been every
whit as lawfully his master's almoner, as he was one
of his apostles ; and have carried his bag with the
same duty with which he might have carried his
cross.

But now, if we shall drive the matter so far, as
to make it absolutely unchristian for a man, in the
practice of duty, to have any design at all upon a
future reward ; why then (as I may speak with re
verence) does not God, in the conversion of a sinner,
new-model his very essence, cashier and lop off the
natural affections of hope and fear ? And why does
he also promise us heaven and glory, if it be not
lawful for us to pursue what he is pleased to pro
mise ? For are these promises made to quicken our
endeavours, or to debase and spoil our performances ?
to be helps, or rather snares to our obedience ? All
which, if it be both absurd and impious for any one
to imagine, then it will follow, that this and the like
exceptions, from which such paradoxes are inferred,
must needs also fall to the ground as false, and not
to be defended.

But before I make an end of this first proposition,
it may not be amiss to consider a little the temper of
those seraphic pretenders to religion, who have pre
sumed to refine upon it by such airy, impracticable

T 2

148 A SERMON

notions, and have made such a mighty noise with
their gospel-spirits and gospel-dispensations, their
high attainments and wonderful illuminations, screw
ing up matters to such an height, that there is no
hope of being a Christian without being something
more than a man. For so, I am sure, ought he to
be, who, in the doing of his duty, must not be suffer
ed to expect or look for any reward after it ; nor, in
his way to heaven, so much as to think of the place
which he is going to. I say, if we consider the tem
per of these highfliers, (who would needs impose
such a new Christianity upon the world,) are they
themselves all spirit and life, all Christianity subli
mate? (as I may so express it ;) are they nothing but
self-denial and divine love ? nothing but a pure as
cending flame, without any mixture or communica
tion with these lower elements? I must confess I
could never yet find any such thing in this sort of
men ; but on the contrary have generally observed
them to be as arrant worldlings, and as proud and
selfish a generation of men, as ever disgraced the
name of Christianity by wearing it, and far from
giving any other proof, that in all their religious per
formances they never act with an eye to a future re
ward, but only this onea that having wholly fastened
their eyes, their hands, and their hearts also upon
this world, they cannot possibly, at the same time,
place them upon another too. On the other side,
therefore, not to aspire to such heights and elevations
in religion, (or rather indeed above it,) since God, of
his abundant goodness, has been pleased to invite,
and even court us to our duty with such liberal and
glorious rewards, let us neither despise his grace nor
be wiser than his methods ; but with arms as open

ON HEBREWS XI. 24, 25, 26. 149

to take, as his are to give, let us embrace the motives
he has afforded us, as so many springs and wheels to
our obedience. And whosoever shall piously, con
stantly, and faithfully do his duty with hopes of the
promised recompence, shall find that God will not
fail to make good that promise to him hereafter, by
an humble dependance upon which he was brought
to do his duty here : and so much for our first and
main proposition. The

Second, which (as I shew before) was in a man
ner included in the first, and so scarce needs any
prosecution distinct from it, is this ;

That the proposal of a reward on God's part, and
a respect had to it on man's, are undoubtedly neces
sary to engage men in a course of duty and obe
dience.

For the discussion of which, I shall briefly do these
two things :

1st, I shall shew in what respect these are said to
be necessary. And

2dly, I shall shew why, and upon what reasons,
they ought to be accounted so.

1. And first for the necessity of them. A thing may
be said to be necessary two ways. As,

1. When by the very essence or nature of it, it is
such, that it implies in it a contradiction, and conse
quently an impossibility, even by the power of God
himself, that (the said nature continuing) it should
be otherwise. And thus, I shall never presume to
affirm (though some I know do) that God cannot in
duce a man (being a free agent) to a course of duty
and obedience, without proposing a competent reward
to such obedience. For I question not, but God can
so qualify and determine the will of a rational agent,

L 3

150 A SERMON

(and that without the least diminution to its natural
freedom,) that the inclination and bias of it shall
wholly propend to good, and that from a mere love
of goodness itself, without any consideration of a fur
ther recompence. And the reason of this is, because
all good, as such, is in its degree a proper object for
the will to choose ; and whatsoever is a proper ob
ject of its choice, is also sufficient to draw forth and
determine the actings of it, unless there interpose
some stronger appetibile, to rival or overmatch it in
its choice : and yet even in this case also, God no
doubt can so strengthen the propensity of the will to
good, that it shall have no appetite to or relish for
the pleasures of sense at all ; and consequently shall
need no proposal, either of reward or punishment, to
draw it off from the choice and pursuit of those
things, which the grace of God has already given it
such an entire aversion to. For this, questionless, is
the present condition of the angels and other glori
fied spirits, whose will is so absolutely determined to
good, as to be without any proneness or disposition
at all to evil ; and what condition they are in at pre
sent, God, we may be sure, by his omnipotence,
could have created man in at first, and have preserv
ed him in ever since, had he been so pleased ; so that
there is nothing in the thing itself impossible. But
this, I own, affects not immediately the case now
before us. And therefore, in the

Second place, a thing may be said to be necessary,
not absolutely, but with respect to that particular
state and condition in which it is. And thus, be
cause God has actually so cast the present condition
of man, as to make his inclination to good but im
perfect, and during this life to continue it so, and

ON HEBREWS XL 24, 25, 26.

151

withal to place him amongst such objects as are might
ily apt to draw him off from what is morally good,
it was necessary, upon the supposal of such a condi
tion, that, if God would have men effectually choose
good, and avoid evil, he should suggest to them some
further motives to good, and arguments against evil,
than what the bare consideration of the things them
selves, prohibited or commanded by him, can afford.
For otherwise, that which is morally good, meeting
with so faint and feeble an inclination in the will to
wards it, will never be able to make any prevailing
impression upon that leading faculty. From all which
you see in what sense we affirm it necessary for God
to propose rewards to men, thereby to engage them
to their duty; namely, because of that imperfect
estate which God has been pleased to leave men
under in this world.

And now, in the next place, for the proof of this
necessity, (which was the other thing proposed by us,)
these two general reasons may be offered.

The first taken from clear evidence of scripture.
And the

Second, from the constant avowed practice of all
the wise lawgivers of the world.

1. And first for scripture. It has been more than
sufficiently proved from thence already, how deplor
ably unable the heart of man is, not only to conquer,
but even to contend with the difficulties of a spiritual
course, without a steady view of such promises as
may supply new life, spirit, and vigour to its obedi
ence. To all which, let it suffice, at present, to add
that full and notable declaration of St. Paul, in
1 Cor. xv. 19, that if in this life only we had hope
in Christ, we ivere of all men most miserable. And

L 4

A SERMON

certainly, for a man to know, that by being a Chris
tian, he should be of all men most miserable., was
as untoward an argument (should we look no fur
ther) to persuade him to be a Christian, as could
well have been thought of. So that we see here
how those adepti, those men of perfection before
spoken of, (who scorn to be religious out of any re
spect to a future reward,) are already got a pitch
above the third heaven ; and far beyond the utmost
perfection that St. Paul himself ever pretended to.
But,

Secondly, the other proof of the same assertion
shall be taken from the practice of all the noted law
givers of the world ; who have still found it neces
sary to back and fortify their laws with rewards
and punishments ; these being the very strength and
sinew of the law, as the law itself is of government.

No wise ruler ever yet ventured the peace of so
ciety upon the goodness of men's nature, or the vir
tuous inclination of their temper. Nor was any
thing truly great and extraordinary ever almost
achieved, but in the strength of some reward every
whit as great and extraordinary as the action which
it carried a man out to. Thus it was in the virtue
of Saul's high promises that David encountered Go-
liah : the giant indeed was the mark he shot, or
rather slung at; but the king's daughter and the
court preferments were the mark he most proba
bly aimed at. For we read how inquisitive he was,
what should be done for him. And it is not un
known, how in the case of a scrupulous oath-sick
conscience also, promise of preferment has been
found the ablest casuist to resolve it ; from which
and the like passages, both ancient and modern, if

ON HEBREWS XL 24, 25, 26. 153

we look further into the politics of the Greeks and
the Romans, and other nations of remark in history,
we shall find, that, whensoever the laws enjoined
any thing harsh, and to the doing of which men
were naturally averse, they always thought it requi
site to add allurement to obligation, by declaring a
noble recompence (possibly some large pension, or
gainful office, or title of honour) to the meritorious
doers of whatsoever should be commanded them;
and when again, on the other side, the law forbad
the doing of any thing which men were otherwise
mightily inclined to do, they were still forced to
call in aid from the rods and the axes, and other
terrible inflictions, to secure the authority of the
prohibition against the bent and fury of the con
trary inclination. And this course, being founded
in the very nature of men and things, was and is
as necessary to give force and efficacy to the divine
laws themselves, as to any human laws whatsoever.
For in vain do we think to find any man virtuous
enough to be a law to himself, or any law strong
enough to enforce and drive home its own obliga
tion ; or lastly, the prerogative of any lawgiver
high enough to assure to him the subjects' obedience.
For men generally affect to be caressed and encou
raged, and, as it were, bought to their duty, (as well
as from it too sometimes.) For which and the like
causes, when God, by Moses, had set before his own
people a large number of the most excellent, and,
as one would think, self-recommending precepts on
the one hand, and a black roll of the very worst and
vilest of sins on the other, (sins that seemed to carry
their punishment in their very commission ;) yet ne
vertheless, in the issue, God found it needful to

154 A SERMON

bring up the rear of all with those decretory words,
in Deut. xxx. 19, Behold, I have this day set be
fore you life and death, blessing and cursing.
And what he then set before the Israelites, he now
sets before us, and the whole world besides ; and
when we shall have well weighed the nature of the
things set before us, and considered what life is and
what death is, I suppose we shall need neither in
struction nor exhortation, to which of the two we
should direct our choice.

And now, to close up all, and to relieve your pa
tience, you have heard the point stated and argued,
and the objections against it answered ; after all
which, what can we so naturally infer from this
whole discourse, as the infinite concern, lying upon
every man, to fix to himself such a principle to act
by, as may effectually bring him to that great and
beatific end, which he came into the world for ?

This is most certain, that no man's practice can
rise higher than his hopes. It is observed in aque
ducts, that no pipe or conduit can force the current
of the water higher than the spring-head itself lies,
from whence the water first descends. In like
manner, it is impossible for a man, who designs to
himself only the rewards of this world, to act in the
strength thereof, at such a rate, as shall bring him
to a better. And the reason of this is, because
whosoever makes these present enjoyments his
whole design, accounts them absolutely the best
things he can have, and accordingly he looks no
further, he expects no better ; and if so, it is not to
be imagined, that he should ever obtain what he
never so much as looked for : for no man shall come
to heaven by chance.

ON HEBREWS XL 24, 25, 26.

155

As for trials and temptations, (those fatal rocks
which the souls of men are so apt to dash upon,) we
may take this for an infallible rule concerning them ;
namely, that nothing in this world can support a
man against such trials, as shall threaten him with
the utter loss of this world. For the truth is, it
would imply a contradiction to suppose that it could ;
and yet these are the trials which even wise men
so much fear, and prepare for, and know that they
shall sink under and perish by, unless borne up by
something mightier and greater than the world ;
and therefore not to be found in it.

What further trials God may have in reserve for
us, we cannot tell ; only this we may reckon upon
as a certain, though sad truth ; that there has been
a mighty growing guilt upon this nation for several
years. And as great guilts naturally portend as
well as provoke great judgments ; so God knows
how soon the black cloud, which has been so long
gathering over us, may break, and pour down upon
us ; and how near we may be to times, in which
he who will keep his conscience must expect to
keep nothing else.

For nothing, certainly, can cast a more dreadful
aspect upon us, than those monstrous crying immo
ralities lately broke in amongst us ; by which, not
only the English virtue, but the very English temper,
seems utterly to have left us ; while, to the terror
of all pious minds, foreign vices have invaded us,
which threaten us more than any foreign armies
can.

As for our excellent church, which has been so
maligned and struck at on all hands, and we of this
place especially ; and that by some whom we had

156 A SERMON ON HEBREWS XL 24, 25, 26.

little cause to expect such stabs from, (to their just
and eternal infamy be it spoke a;) we have been
moreover told, and that with spite and insolence
enough, that our possessions and privileges are very
precarious, (though yet, thanks be to God, and to
our ancient government, confirmed to us by all that
this nation calls law;) and withal, that our reign
will be very short, (as no doubt, if republicans might
have their will, the reign of all kings, even of king
William himself, would be so too.) But still, blessed
be the Almighty, we are in his hands ; and whatso
ever his most wise providence may bring upon us, we
know upon what terms our great Lord and Master
will deal with us ; having so fully declared himself,
as to all these critical turns and trials of our obedi
ence, in Rev. ii. 10. Be thou faithful unto death,
and I will give thee a crown of life. God enable
us to be the former, by a steady, unshaken hope of
the latter.

To which God be rendered and ascribed, as is
most due, all praise, might, majesty, and do
minion, both now and for evermore. Amen.

a See a virulent, insulting the year 1697, and as like the

pamphlet, entitled, A Letter to author himself, W. W. as malice

a Member of Parliament, &c. can make it.
page 14 and 52, printed in

A DISCOURSE

CONCERNING

THE GENERAL RESURRECTION,

ON

ACTS XXIV. 15.

Having hope towards God, (which they themselves also al
low^) that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both
of the just and unjust.

J_ HE most wise Creator of the universe has so
formed one world, that it is not to be governed
without the help of another ; nor the actions of the
life here, to be kept in order, without the hopes and
fears of one hereafter. The truth is, next to God
himself, hopes and fears govern all things. They
act by a kind of royal deputation under him, and
are so without control, that they carry all before
them, by an absolute, unlimited sway. For so long
as God governs the world, (which will be as long as
there is a world to govern,) law must govern under
him, and the sanction of rewards and punishments
must be that which enables the law itself to govern :
human nature of itself being by no means so well
disposed, as to make its duty the sole motive or
measure of its obedience.

For as in other cases, so here, it is not so much
the hand which binds, as the bond or chain with
which it binds, which must make good its hold,
upon the thing or person so bound by it. Every

158 A SERMON

man, in all that concerns him, stands influenced by
his hopes and fears, and those by rewards and pu
nishments, the proper and respective objects thereof;
and the divine law is the grand adamantine liga
ment, tying both of them fast together ; by assuring
rewards to our hopes, and punishments to our fears ;
so that man being thus bound by the peremptory,
irreversible decree of Heaven, must, by virtue there
of, indispensably obey or suffer ; the sentence of the
law being universal and perpetual, either of a work
to be done, or a penalty to be endured.

But whether it be from the nature or fate of man
kind, it is no small matter of wonder, that man, of
all creatures, should have such an averseness to obey,
and such a proneness to disobey his Maker, that no
thing under an eternity of happiness or misery (the
first of them unspeakable, and the other of them in
tolerable) should be the means appointed to engage
him to the one, or deter him from the other. And
it is yet a greater wonder, that not only such a me
thod of dealing with men should be thought neces
sary, but that in such innumerable instances it
should be found not sufficient ; at least not effectual
to the end it is intended for ; as the event of things
too fatally demonstrates it not to be.

Nevertheless, since Almighty God has pitched
upon this method of governing the world by rewards
and punishments, a resurrection of the persons so to
be rewarded or punished must needs be granted ab
solutely and unavoidably necessary : nothing in this
life giving us a satisfactory account, that either the
good or the bad have been yet dealt with according
to the strict and utmost merit of their works : which
yet, the justice of an infinitely wise judge and go-

)N ACTS XXIV. 15.

lor having so positively declared his will in the
»e, cannot but insist upon. For albeit God, as
creator of the world, acted therein by an absolute,
sovereign power, always under the conduct of infi
nite wisdom and goodness ; yet, as governor of it,
his justice is the prime attribute which he proceeds
by, and the laws the grand instruments whereby jus
tice acts, as rewards and punishments are the things
which give life, force, and efficacy to justice itself.
Upon which grounds, the apostle gives us a full ac
count of the whole matter, in that excellent place,
in 2 Cor. v. 10. We must all, says he, appear be
fore the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one
may receive the things done in his body, according
to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad.
Thus says the apostle. But the dead, we know, as
such, can receive no such things ; nor are subjects
capable of rewards or punishments : so that the sum
of the apostle's whole argument amounts to this :
that as certainly as God governs the world wisely,
and will one day judge it righteously, s"o certain is
it, that there must be a general retribution, and, by
consequence, a general resurrection.

In my discourse upon which, I shall cast the
whole prosecution of the subject here to be treated
of by us, under these three propositions, viz.

I» That a belief of a resurrection from the dead,
is a thing exceeding difficult, strange, and harsh to
the discourses of natural reason.

II. That notwithstanding this great difficulty,
there is yet sufficient reason and solid ground for
the belief of it. And,

III. and lastly, That supposing a sufficiency of
reason for this belief, all difficulties, and seeming re-

160 A SERMON

pugnancies allegeable against it, do exceedingly ad
vance the worth, value, and excellency of it.

Now under these three propositions shall be taken
in all that we shall or can say concerning the ge
neral resurrection at the last day. And accordingly,
as to the first of the three propositions, importing
the great difficulty, strangeness, and repugnancy of
the article of the resurrection to the belief of na
tural reason, we find, moreover, in the text here
pitched upon by us, that the main objection insisted
upon by the principal of St. Paul's opposers, the
Sadducees, against the doctrine preached by him,
was drawn from this controverted point of the re
surrection, and of the incredibility of the same,
founded upon the supposed impossibility thereof;
which, as it was a point of incomparably the greatest
moment in the practice of religion, and consequently
with the firmest steadiness to be assented to, and
with equal zeal to be contended for, by our apostle ;
so was it with no less heat and fierceness opposed
and exploded by those his forementioned antagonists.
In treating of which, I shall endeavour these two
things.

1. To shew that there is such an extraordinary
averseness in natural reason to the belief of a resur
rection, as in the said proposition we have affirmed
that there is.

2. To assign the causes from which this averse-
ness proceeds.

And first, for the first of these. The surest and
readiest way, I should think, to learn the verdict of
reason in this matter, would be to proceed by the
rule and standard of their judgment, who were the
most acknowledged and renowned masters of reason

ON ACTS XXIV. 15. 16'1

and learning in the several ages of the world, the
philosophers ; persons who discoursed upon the bare
principles of natural reason, and upon no higher ;
who pretended not to revelation, but acquiesced in
such discoveries, as nature, assisted with industry,
and improved with hard study, could furnish them
with. And this certainly was the best and likeliest
way to state the ne plus ultra of reason, and to
shew how far it could and could not go, by shewing
how far it had actually gone already. And the
world has had experience in more sorts of learning
than one, how much those, who have gone before,
have surpassed in perfection, as well as time, those
who have come after them.

Now, in the first rank of these great and cele
brated persons, Pythagoras (the earliest whom his
tory reports to us to have been dignified with the
title of philosopher) asserted and taught a metemp
sychosis, or transmigration of the same soul into se
veral bodies ; which is utterly inconsistent with a re
surrection ; the number of bodies, upon these terms,
in so great a proportion exceeding the number of
souls ; one soul wearing out many bodies, as one
body does many garments. So that the Pythagoric
principle can admit of no resurrection, unless there
could be as many souls as bodies to rejoin one an
other ; which, upon this hypothesis, cannot be.

Plato indeed speaks much of the immortality of
the soul; but by not so much as mentioning the
rising of the body again after its dissolution, (when
yet he treated of so cognate a subject,) we may ra
tionally presume, that he knew nothing of it ; and
that amongst all his ideas, (as I may so express it,)
he had none of such a resurrection.

VOL. III. M

1G2 A SERMON

Aristotle held an eternity of the world, viz. as to
the heavens and the earth, the principal parts of it.
But as to things mutable, he placed that eternity in
the endless succession of individuals ; which clearly
shews, that he meant not, that those individuals
should revive, and return to an endless duration.
For since he asserted this succession only to immor
talize the kind or species, the immortality of par
ticulars would have rendered that succession wholly
needless.

As for the Stoics and Epicureans, who, I am
sure, were reputed the subtilest and most acute of
all the sects of philosophers, we have them in Acts
xvii. 32. scoffing at the very mention of rising from
the dead. They thought it ridiculous for animated
dust once dead to revive, or for man to be made or
raised out of it, any more than once. For if that
might be, they reckoned that men could not pro
perly be said to die, but rather only to hold their
breath for some time, than totally to lose it ; and
that death might be called a sleep without a meta
phor, if we might so soon shake it off, and rise from
it again. In short, if Zeno or Chrysippus were alive,
they would explode, and if Epicurus himself should
rise from the dead, he would scarce believe a resur
rection.

But to pass from heathens to those who had
their reason further improved by revelation, we
have in the Jewish church a great, a learned, and
considerable sect, called the Sadducees, wholly dis
carding this article from their creed ; as St. Mat
thew tells us, in Matth. xxii. 23, and St. Luke,
in Acts xxiii. 8, that the Sadducees say, there is
no resurrection, &c. as, no doubt, it was their in-

ON ACTS XXIV. 15. 163

terest (as well as belief) that there should be
none.

And lastly, even for some of those who professed
Christianity itself, and that in the famous city of
Corinth, where most of the gallantry, the wit, and
learned arts of Greece flourished, we find some
Christians themselves denying it, as appears from
that elaborate confutation which St. Paul bestowed
upon them in the 15th chapter of his first Epistle to
the Corinthians.

Which instances, amongst several others assign
able to the same purpose, may suffice to shew, how
hardly this article finds credit with those who are
led by principles of mere natural reason ; and indeed
so strange and incredible does it appear to such, (and
some others also, though professing higher principles,)
that the same power which God exerted in raising
Christ from the dead, seems necessary to raise such
sons of infidelity to a firm and thorough belief of it.
And so I come to the

Second thing proposed, viz. to assign the causes,
why natural reason thus starts from the belief of a re
surrection : and these may be reckoned of two sorts.

1. Such as are taken from the manifold improba
bilities, rendering the matter so exceeding unlikely
to the judgment of human reason, that it cannot
frame itself to a belief, that there is really any such
thing. And,

. Such as are drawn from the downright impos
sibility charged upon it. Both which are to be con
sidered. And

1st. Those many great improbabilities and unlikeli
hoods alleged against the resurrection of the same
numerical body, are apt to give a mighty check to

M 2

164 A SERMON

the mind of man in yielding its belief to it. For who
would imagine, or could conceive, that when a body,
by continual fraction and dissipation, is crumbled
into millions of little atoms, some portions of it rari-
fied into air, others sublimated into fire, and the rest
changed into earth and water, the elements should
after all this surrender back their spoils, and the seve
ral parts, after such a dispersion, should travel from
all the four quarters of the world to meet together,
and come to a mutual interview of one another, in one
and the same individual body again ? That God should
summon a part out of this fish, that fowl, that beast,
that tree, and remand it to its former place, to unite
into a new combination for the rebuilding ol a fallen
edifice, and restoring an old, broken, demolished
carcass to itself once more ? So that, by such a con
tinual circulation of life and death following upon
one another, the grave should become, not so much a
conclusion, as the interruption ; not the period, but
the parenthesis of our lives ; a short interval between
the present and the future, and only a passage to
convey us from one life to another. These things,
we must confess, are both difficult in the notion, and
hard to our belief. For though, indeed, the word of
truth has declared, that all flesh is grass, and man
but as the flower ofthefleld; yet the apprehensions
of sense will hardly be brought to acknowledge, that
he therefore grows upon his own grave, or springs
afresh out of the ground. For can the jaws of death
relent ? or the grave, of all things, make restitution?
Can filth and rottenness be the preparatives to glory ?
and dust and ashes the seedplots of immortality ?
Is the sepulchre a place to dress ourselves in for
heaven, the attiring room for corruption to put on

ON ACTS XXIV. 15.

165

incorruption, and to fit us for the beatific vision ?
These are paradoxes which nature cannot well di
gest ; mysteries which it cannot fathom ; being all
of them such, as the common, universal observation
of the world is wholly a stranger to.

And thus much for the first cause, which generally
keeps men from a belief of the resurrection ; namely,
the great improbabilities and unlikelihoods attending
it ; but this is not all ; there being yet another and a
greater argument alleged against it, and that is, in the

Second and next place, the downright impossibi
lities charged upon it. And this from the seemingly
unanswerable contradictions and absurdities implied
in it ; and, as some think, unavoidably consequent
upon it. Of which, the chief, and most hardly recon-
cileable to the discourses of human reason, is founded
in and derivable from the continual transmutation of
one thing into another. For how extravagant so
ever the forementioned Pythagorean hypothesis, of
the transmigration or metempsychosis of one soul
into several bodies, may be justly accounted to be,
yet the transmutation of one body into another
ought not to be accounted so. For the parts of
a body, we know, are in a continual flux, and the de
cays of nature are repaired by the daily substitution
of new matter derived from our nutriment ; and
when, at length, this body comes to be dissolved by
death, it soon after returns to earth ; and that earth
is animated into grass, and that grass turned into
the substance of the beast which eats it, and that
beast becomes food to man, and so, by a long perco
lation, is converted into his flesh and substance. So
that such matter or substance, which was once an
integral part of this man's body, perhaps twenty

M 3

166 A SERMON

years after his death, by this round or circle of per
petual transmutation, comes to be an integral part
of another man's. Now if there be a resurrection,
and every man shall be restored with his own nu
merical body, perfect and complete, we may propose
our doubt in those words of the Sadducees to our Sa
viour in Matth. xxii. 2! 8, concerning the woman who
had been married to several husbands successively :
To which of them shall she belong at the last day'?
for all of them had her. So may it be said of such
a portion of matter or substance, which, by continual
change, has been an integral part of several bodies :
To which of these bodies shall it be restored at the
resurrection ? For having successively belonged to
each of them, either our bodies must not rise entire,
or the same portion of substance and matter must be
a part of several distinct bodies, and consequently
be in several distinct places at the same time, which
is manifestly impossible.

Now the foundation of this argument, taken from
the vicissitude and mutual change of things into one
another, is clear, from obvious and universally un-
contested experience ; and being so, the restitution
of every soul to its own respective body, and to
every integral part of it, is a thing to which all prin
ciples of natural reason seem a contradiction ; and
by consequence, if so, not within the power of
omnipotence to effect. I say, it seems so ; and I will
not presume to say more.

The consideration of which drove the Socinians,
those known enemies to natural as well as revealed
religion, (whatsoever they pretend in contradiction
to what they assert in behalf of both,) together with
some others, peremptorily to deny that men shall be

ON ACTS XXIV. 15.

167

raised with the same numerical bodies which they
had in this world, but with another, which, for its
ethereal, refined substance, they say, is by St. Paul
termed a spiritual body, 1 Cor. xv. 44. And being
here pressed with the very literal signification of the
word resurrection, which implies a repeated existence
of the same thing, they will have it here used only by
a kind of metaphor, viz. that because in death a man
seems to the perception and view of sense utterly to
perish and cease to be, therefore his restitution seems
to be a sort of resurrection. And as for those Greek
words ava&Tyvat and eye/pe/v, they endeavour to shew,
by other like places of scripture, that they signify no
more than the bare suscitation, raising, or giving
being to a thing, without its having fallen or perish
ed before. As for instance, in Matth. xxii. 24, ava-
o-TyQ-ei a-Treppa, ru> a&eA<££, he shall raise up seed to
his brother. And in Rom. ix. 17, God says of Pha
raoh, &/« TOVTO etyyeipoi <7e* for this cause have I raised
thee up. Whereas neither of these can be supposed
to have perished before that raising. From whence,
and some other such like places, they conclude, that
these words, applied to the present case, import at
most the bare restoration of the man ; and that not
necessarily by restoring his soul to its old body, but
by joining it to a new ; accounted indeed the same
to all real intents and purposes of use, though not by
formal identity ; they still affirming, nevertheless,
the man thus raised, and with his new body, to be
the same person ; forasmuch as, they say, it is the
soul or spirit which makes the man, and is the pro
per principle which gives the individuation. This
was their opinion.

And thus I have done with the first of the three
M 4

168 A SERMON

propositions drawn from the words, viz. the exceed
ing great difficulty of men's believing a resurrection.
And that, both by proving that actually it is so,
from the most authentic examples allegeable in the
case, and by assigning withal the reasons and causes
why it comes to be so : I proceed now to the second
proposition, viz. To shew that, notwithstanding this
difficulty, there is yet sufficient reason and solid
ground for the belief of it.

And this I shall endeavour to do, both by answer
ing the foregoing objections brought against the re
surrection ; and withal offering something by way of
argument, for the positive proof of it.

Now for the first of these. I shew that the re
surrection was argued against upon two distinct heads,
viz. The improbabilities attending it, and the impos
sibilities charged upon it. And,

1. Briefly, as to the objection from the impro
babilities said to attend it, and to keep men off from
the belief of it ; besides that the said objection runs
in a very loose and popular, rather than in a close
and argumentative way, and looks more like ha
rangue than reasoning, (though yet the best that the
thing will bear,) we are to observe yet further, that
not every strange and unusual event ought always,
and under all circumstances, to be accounted impro
bable. For where a sufficient cause of any thing or
event may be assigned, though above and beyond
the common course of natural causes, I cannot
reckon that event or thing properly and strictly im
probable. Forasmuch as it is no ways improbable,
that the supreme agent and governor of all things
should, for some great end or purpose, sometimes
step out of the ordinary road of his providence, (as

ON ACTS XXIV. 15. 169

undoubtedly he often does,) and of which there are
several instances upon record, both in sacred and
profane story, relating what strange things have
happened in the world, which could not rationally
be ascribed to any other, but the supernatural work
ings of a divine power. Nevertheless, admitting,
but not granting the fore-alleged improbabilities of a
resurrection, yet this does not at all affect the point
now in dispute before us, which turns not properly
upon the probability, but the possibility of the thing
here discoursed of. And where there is a possibility
on the one side, answered by an omnipotence on the
other, there can be no ground to question an effect
commensurate to both. For a resurrection being
allowed possible, though never so improbable, still it
is in the number of those things which an infinite
power can do ; and upon this account we find, that
there is a much higher pitch of infidelity, which
stops not here, but goes so far on, as to deny the
very possibility of it too : and this brings me to the
examination of the

Second objection produced against this article of
the resurrection, from the utter impossibility thereof,
(as the objectors pretend) and that impossibility (as
we have shewn) founded upon the continual transmu
tation of one body into another. This, I say, was
the argument; and it seems to me to press the
hardest upon the resurrection of the same numerical
body, and to be the most difficult to be solved and an
swered of any other whatsoever. For as for those
commonly drawn from the seeming impossibility of
bringing together such an innumerable multitude of
minute particles, as from a body once dissolved must
needs be scattered all the world over into the several

170 A SERMON

elements of fire, air, water, and earth, and reuniting
them all together at the last day ; I cannot, I say,
find any thing in all this either hard or puzzling, and
much less contrary to natural reason to believe, if we
do but acknowledge an omniscience in the agent,
who is to do this great thing, joined with an omni
potence in the same. For, by the first of these two
perfections, he cannot but know where all and every
one of the said particles of the body are lodged and
disposed of; and by the latter, he must be no less
able to bring them from all parts and places of the
universe, though never so vastly distant from one an
other, and join them again together in the restitu
tion of the said body. Nothing being difficult, either
for omniscience to know, or for omnipotence to do ;
but when the thing to be done is, in the nature of it,
impossible ; as the fore-alleged argument would infer
the resurrection to be.

To which therefore I answer, that the proposi
tion or assertion, upon which the said argument is
grounded, is neither evident nor certain ; and that
we have no assurance, that the transmutation of an
human body into other animated bodies, after its
dissolution, is total, and extends to all the parts
thereof; but that there may be a considerable por
tion of matter in every man's body (for of such only
we now dispute) which never passes by transmuta
tion into any other animated body, but sinks into
and rests in the common mass of matter, contained
in the four elements, (according to the respective na
ture of each particular element wherein it is lodged,)
and there continues unchanged by any new anima
tion, till the last day. But what these particular
parts are, which admit of no such further change^

ON ACTS XXIV. 15.

171

and what quantity of corporeal substance or matter
they make or amount to, I suppose, is known only
to God himself, the great disposer and governor, as
well as maker and governor of the world.

And whereas it is said in the objection, that such
a continual transmutation, as is here supposed, is
evident from a general, constant, uncontestable ex
perience ; I deny, that the just measures, bounds,
and compass of this transmutation can be exactly
known by or evident to common experience ; foras
much as it falls not under the cognizance of the out
ward senses ; and yet it is only that, and the re
peated observations made thereby, which experience
is or can be founded upon. For who can assure
himself, or any one else, upon his own personal
sight, hearing, or the report of any other of his
senses, that the whole matter of a dissolved body
passes successively into other living bodies ? (though
a great portion of it may, and without question
does ;) and if, on the other side, he cannot, upon his
own personal observation, give a full and exact ac
count of this, can he pretend to tell how and where
the providence of God has disposed of the remaining
part of the said dissolved body, which has not under
gone any such change? This, I say, is not to be
known by us, either by any observation of sense, or
discourse of reason founded thereupon, and I know
of no revelation to adjust the matter. So that, al
though it should be supposed true, (which we do by
no means grant to be so,) that in the dissolution of
every human body the whole mass, and every part
of the said body, underwent such an entire transmu
tation as we have been speaking of; yet, since this
cannot certainly be known, it cannot come into ar-

172 A SERMON

gumentation, as a proof of that which it is alleged
for ; unless we would prove an ignotum per ceque
ignotum ; which being grossly illogical, and a mere
petitio principii, can conclude nothing, nor at all
affect the subject in dispute, one way or other : for
asmuch as in every demonstration of the highest
sort, the principles thereof ought to be evident, as
well as certain.

The sum of all therefore is this ; that every hu
man body, upon its dissolution, sinks by degrees into
the elementary mass of matter ; whereof a great part
passes by several animations into other bodies ; and
a great part likewise remains in the same elementary
mass, without undergoing any further change. To
which reserved portion, at the last day, the soul, as
the prime, individuating principle, and the said re
served portion of matter, as an essential and radical
part of the individuation, together with a sufficient
supply of more matter (if requisite) from the general
mass, shall, by the almighty power of God joining
all those together, make up and restore the same in
dividual person : and this cuts off all necessity of
holding, that what was once an integral part of one
body, should, at the same time, become an integral
part of another, which, it is confessed, for the reason
before given, would make the restitution of the same
numerical portion of matter to both bodies utterly
impossible.

But if it be here replied, that our assertion of a
reserved portion of matter never passing into other
animated bodies by any further transmutation, (albeit
a considerable portion of the same dissolved body be
allowed so to do) is a thing merely gratis dictum,
and that we have not yet positively proved the same ;

ON ACTS XXIV. 15. 173

mya nswer is, that in the present case, there is no
necessity of proving that it is actually so ; but it is
sufficient to our purpose, that the contrary cannot be
proved, and that nothing hinders but that it may be
so ; the thing being in itself possible : and if that be
granted, then the argument, founded upon the sup
posed impossibility of it, comes to nothing. Foras
much as being possible, it falls within the compass of
God's omnipotence, which is the great attribute to
be employed in this case. And this effectually over
throws the whole force of the objection.

But if it be further argued, that the great addi
tion of matter to be made at the last day, out of the
common mass, to those remainders of matter, which
(having belonged to the same man's body formerly)
are then to be completed into a perfect body again,
seems inconsistent with the numerical identity of the
body which was before, and that which shall be after
wards at the resurrection ; I answer, that this is no
more inconsistent with the numerical identity there
of, than the addition of so great a quantity of new
matter, as comes to be made to a man's body, by a
continual augmentation of all the parts of it, from
his birth to his full stature, makes his body numeri-

ly another at his grown age, from that which the
same person had while he was yet an infant. In
both which ages, nevertheless, the body is still
reckoned but one and the same in number, though
in disparity of bulk and substance, twenty to one
greater in the latter than in the former. Accordingly,
suppose we further, that only so much matter as has
still continued in our bodies, from our coming into
the world to our going out of it, shall be reunited to
our soul at the resurrection, even that may and will

174 A SERMON

be sufficient to constitute our glorified body in a real,
numerical identity with that body which the soul
was in before, so as upon all accounts to be still the
same body, though in those so very different states
and conditions.

And therefore, the opinion of the Socinians, viz.
That the soul, at the resurrection, shall be clothed
with another and quite different body, from what it
had in this life, (whether of ether or some such like
sublimated matter,) moved thereto by the foremen-
tioned objections, and the like, ought not to be ad
mitted: it being contrary to reason and all sound
philosophy, that the soul successively united to two
entirely distinct bodies, should make but one and the
same numerical person : since though the soul be in
deed the prime and chief principle of the individua-
tion of the person, yet it is not the sole and ade
quate principle thereof; but the soul, joined with
the body, makes the adequate, individuating princi
ple of the person. Nor will any true philosophy al
low, that the body was ever intended for the mere
garment of the soul, but for an essential, constituent
part of the man, as really as the soul itself : and the
difference of an essential half in any composition
will be sure to make an essential difference in the
whole compound. Nor is this Socinian assertion
more contrary to the principles of philosophy, than
to the express words of scripture ; which are not
more positive in affirming a resurrection, than in de
claring a resurrection of the same numerical person.
And whereas, they say, that they grant, that the
same numerical person shall rise again, though not
the same body, (the soul, as they contend, still indivi
duating any body which it shall be clothed with,) we

ON ACTS XXIV. 15. 175

have already shewn, on the contrary, that the person
cannot be numerically the same, when the body is
not so too ; since the soul is not the sole principle of
personal individuation, though the chief; besides
that it seems very odd, and no ways agreeable to the
common sentiments of reason, to say, that any thing
rises again, which had never perished nor fallen be
fore, as it is certain that the body, which these men
suppose shall be united to the soul at the last day,
never did. But to elude the force of this argument,
the Socinians pretend, that the words whereby we
would infer a resurrection of the same body, to wit,
avaa-ryvai, eyeipetv, and eyeipea-Qai, &c. infer no such
thing in the several texts from whence they are
alleged ; but only import a bare suscitation, or rais
ing up of a thing, without any necessity of supposing
it to have perished before, as being often applied to
things entirely produced de novo. But the answer
to this is not difficult, viz. that the point now be
fore us is not wholly deter min able from the bare
grammatical use of these words ; (according to which
we deny not, but that they sometimes import a mere
suscitation or production of a thing, without suppos
ing any precedent destruction of the same ;) but the
sense of these words must be sometimes also deter
mined by the particular state and circumstance of
the objects to which they are applied ; as when they
are applied to and used about things bereaved of
their former existence, (as persons dead, and de
parted this life, manifestly are ;) and in such a case,
whensoever the words cawrfaa*, cytipeiv, and eyeipevQai
come to be so applied, I affirm, that they can, with
no tolerable accord to common sense and reason, be
allowed to signify any thing else, but the repetition

176 A SERMON

or restitution of lost existence, or, in other words,
the resuscitation of that which had perished before.

And thus much in answer to the objection brought
to prove the impossibility of a resurrection of the
same numerical body founded upon the continual
transmutation of one body into another. The sum
of all amounting to this, viz. that if the transmuta
tion of human bodies after death, into other animate
bodies successively, be total, the objection, founded
upon such a transmutation, is not easy to be avoided;
and if, on the other side, it be not total, I cannot
see how it proves, that the restitution of the same
numerical body carries in it any contradiction, nor,
consequently, any impossibility at all. For the point
now before us depending chiefly upon the due stating
of the object of an infinite power, if the thing in
dispute be but possible, it is sufficient to overthrow
any argument that would pretend to prove, that an
omnipotence cannot effect it. Which consideration
having been thus offered by us, for the clearing of
the forecited objection, we shall now proceed in
the

Second place, to produce something, as we pro
mised, by way of positive proof for the evincing of a
resurrection, notwithstanding all the difficulties and
repugnancies which seem to attend it. And here,
since this is a point of religion, knowable only by
revelation, it cannot be positively proved, or made
out to us any other way than by revelation, that is
to say, by what God has declared in his written
word concerning it : for natural reason and phi
losophy will afford us but little assistance in a case
so extremely above both. Accordingly, since re
velation is our only competent guide in this matter9

ON ACTS XXIV. 15. 177

the natural method, I conceive, for us to proceed by
in our discourses thereupon, must be this, viz. that
whereas the objection is, that the resurrection of the
same numerical body implies in it a contradiction,
and therefore cannot possibly be, even by the divine
power itself; the proper answer to this ought to be
by an inversion of the same terms after this manner,
viz. that God has declared that he will, and there
fore can raise the same numerical body at the last
day. So that the sum of the whole matter turns
upon this point ; to wit, whether that which we
judge to be or not to be a contradiction, ought to
measure the extent of the divine power ; or, on the
other side, the divine power to determine what is or
is not to be accounted by us a contradiction. And
the difficulty on either side seems not inconsiderable.
For if we take the first of these methods, this in
convenience will attend it ; that the measure we
make use of is always short of the thing we apply
it to ; as a finite must needs be short of an infinite :
and sometimes also false, and thereby not only short
of it, but moreover disagreeable to it ; it being very
possible, (because indeed very frequent,) that the
mind of man, even with its utmost sagacity, may be
mistaken, and judge that to imply a contradiction
which really does not so. But, on the other hand,
if we make the divine power the measure, whereby
we ought to judge what is or what is not a contra
diction, we make that a measure which we do not
throughly understand or comprehend ; and that is
contrary to the very nature and notion of a measure;
forasmuch as that by which we would understand

lother thing, ought to be first understood itself.

kit how shall we be able to understand the extent
VOL. in. N

173 A SERMON

of an infinite power, so as to know certainly how
far it can go, and where it must stop, and can go no
further ? As if we should argue thus : This or that
implies in it no contradiction, because God, by his
divine power, can effect it; I think the inference
very good : but for all that, it may be replied, How
do you know what an infinite or divine power can
or cannot do ? Certain it is, that it cannot destroy
itself, or put an end to its own being ; and possibly
there may be some other things, unknown to us,
which are likewise under an incapacity of being
done by it. And how then shall we govern our
speculations in this arduous and perplexing point ?
For my own part, I should think it not only the
safest, but in all respects the most rational way,
in any doubtful case, where the power of almighty
God is concerned, to ascribe as much to him as his
divine nature and attributes suffer us to do : that
is to say, that we rather prescribe to our reason
from his power, than to his power from any rule or
maxim taken up by our reason. And since there is
a necessity of some rule or other to proceed by, in
forming a judgment of God's power, no less than of
his other perfections ; let God's word or revelation,
(in the name of all that pretends to be sensible or
rational,) founded upon his infallible knowledge of
whatsoever he says or reveals, (and confirmed by his
essential veracity inseparably attending it,) be that
great rule for us to judge by : for a better, I am
sure, can never be assigned, nor a safer relied upon.
And accordingly, when our Saviour was to answer
the Sadducees, disputing upon this very subject, the
resurrection, he argues not from any topic of com
mon reason or natural philosophy, but wholly from

ON ACTS XXIV. 15.

the power of God, as declared by the word of God.
Do ye not therefore err, says he, Mark xii. 24,
because ye know not the scriptures, neither the
power of God? or, in other words, the power of
God, as declared in scripture. Our Saviour went no
further with them, as knowing this to have been
home to the point, and sufficient for their conviction.
And upon the same account, those remarkable pas
sages in the evangelists cannot but be of mighty
weight in the present case : as that particularly in
Matt. xix. 26, and in Mark x. 27. In both which
it is plainly and positively affirmed, that with God
all things are possible ; and yet more particularly
in Luke xviii. 27, where Christ, speaking of some
things accounted with men impossible, tells us, that
the things impossible with men were possible with
God. The antithesis, we see here, is clear and full
enough ; and yet even with men nothing uses to be
accounted impossible, but what is judged by them
one way or other to imply in it a contradiction ; and
if so, it is evident, that the divine power may ex
tend to some things, ^which, in the judgments of men,
pass for contradictions ; and consequently, that what,
according to their judgments, implies in it a contra
diction, cannot be always a just measure of what is
impossible for God to do. Nevertheless, in order to
the better understanding of this matter, I conceive
it may not be amiss to distinguish here of two sorts
of contradictions.

1. Such as appear immediately and self-evidently
so, from the very terms of the proposition wherein
they are expressed : the predicate implying in it a
direct negation of the subject, and the subject mu
tually of the predicate ; so that, upon the bare un-

N 2

180 A SERMON

derstanding of the signification of the terms or parts
of the proposition, we cannot but apprehend and see
the contradiction couched under them, and the utter
inconsistency of the idea of one with the idea of the
other : as if, for instance, we should say, that light
is darkress, or that darkness is light ; or that a
piece of bread of about an inch in breadth, and of
an inch in length, is a man's body of about a yard
and an half in length, and of a proportionable size
in breadth ; each of these propositions or assertions
would import a direct and evident negation of the
other, upon the very first sight or hearing, without
any further examination of them at all. But then,
2. There is another sort of contradictions, which
may not improperly be termed consequential. That
is to say, such as shew themselves, not by the imme
diate self-evidence of the terms, but by consequences
and deductions drawn from some known principle
by human ratiocination or discourse, and the judg
ment which men use to pass upon things in the
strength and light thereof. In all which, since men
may be deceived, (nothing being more incident to
common humanity than mistake,) such contradic
tions cannot be so far relied upon, as to be taken for
a perfect and sure measure of what the divine power
can or cannot do. As for instance, if we should
say, " That for a body having been once destroyed,
" and transmuted into other human bodies, or some
" parts thereof successively, to be restored again,
" with all the parts of it complete, and numerically
"the same, is a contradiction;" it is certain, how
ever, that the contradiction here charged does not
manifestly appear such from any evidence of the
terms, but is only gathered by such consequences

ON ACTS XXIV. 15. 181

and inferences, as men form to themselves in their
discourses upon this subject ; and therefore, though
possibly a truth, yet can be no clear proof, that it is
impossible for an infinite power to do that which
is here supposed and said to be a contradiction.
But, on the other side, touching the first sort of
contradictions mentioned by us, and shewing them
selves by the immediate self-evidence of the terms ;
these, no doubt, ought to be looked upon by us out
of the sphere or compass of omnipotence itself to
effect : or otherwise, that old and universally re
ceived rule, viz. that the divine power extends to
the doing of every thing, not implying in it a con
tradiction, must be exploded, and laid aside by us,
as utterly useless and fallacious.

But now, with reference to the foregoing distinc
tion of prime and consequential contradictions, if it
should be here asked, whether a contradiction of the
latter sort be not as really and as much a contradic
tion as one of the former ; I grant that it is, (there
being no magis and minus in contradictions ;) but
nevertheless, not so manifestly nor so evidently such,
nor consequently of so much force in argumentation,
nor equally capable of having a conclusion or infe
rence drawn from it, as the other is. For we are
to observe, that, in the case now before us, a contra
diction is not so much considered for what it is
barely in itself, as for its being a medium to prove
something else by it ; and for that reason, we allow
not the same conclusive force (though the same
reality, could it be proved) to a consequential con
tradiction, which we allow to a prime and self-evi
dent one, and such as shews itself to the very first

N 3

182 A SERMON

view, in and by the bare terms of the proposition
wherein it is contained.

Upon the whole matter therefore, if by true and
sound reasoning I stand assured, that God has af
firmed or declared a thing, all objections against the
same, though never so strong, (even reason itself,
upon the strictest principles of it, being judge,) must
of necessity fall to the ground. Forasmuch as rea
son itself cannot but acknowledge, that men of the
best wit, learning, and judgment, may sometimes
take that for a contradiction, which really is not so ;
but still, on the other side, must own it utterly im
possible for a being infinitely perfect, holy, and true,
either to deceive or be deceived in any thing af
firmed or attested by it. And moreover, to carry
this point yet something further : if a proposition be
once settled upon a solid bottom, and sufficiently
proved, it will and must continue to be so, notwith
standing any after-arguments or objections brought
against it, whether we can answer and clear off the
said objections, or no ; I say, it lessens not our obli
gation to believe such a proposition one jot. And if
the whole body of Christians, throughout all places
and ages, should with one voice declare, that they
could not solve the foregoing objection urged against
the resurrection, and taken from the continual trans
mutation of bodies into one another, or any other
such like arguments, it would not abate one degree
of duty lying upon them, to acknowledge and em
brace the said article, as an indispensable part of
their Christian faith ; nor would they be at all the
worse Christians, for not being able to give a philo
sophical account or solution thereof; so long as, with

ON ACTS XXIV. J5. 183

a non obstante to all such difficulties, they stedfastly
adhered to and acquiesced in the article itself. For,
so far as I can see, this whole controversy depends
upon, and ought to be determined by the scriptures,
as wholly turning upon these two points, viz. 1st,
Whether a future general resurrection be affirmed
and revealed in the scriptures, or no ? And 2dly,
Whether the said scriptures be the word of God?
And if the matter stands thus, I am sure that none
can justly pretend to the name of a Christian, who
in the least doubts of the affirmative in either of
these two points. And consequently, if this article
stands thus proved, all arguments formed against it,
upon the stock of reason or philosophy, come too
late to shake it; for they find the thing already
fixed and proved ; and being so, it cannot, by after-
allegations, be disproved. Since it being also a pro
position wholly founded upon revelation, and the
authority of the revelation upon the authority of the
revealer, all arguments from any thing else are
wholly foreign to the subject in dispute; and ac
cordingly ought by no means to be admitted, either
as necessary proofs of it, or so much as competent
objections against it. For whatsoever is contrary to
the word or affirmation of a being infinitely know
ing and essentially infallible, let it carry with it
never so much shew of truth ; yet it certainly is
and can be nothing else but fallacy and imposture.
And upon this one ground I firmly do and ought to
believe a general resurrection, though ten thousand
arguments from the principles of natural philosophy
could be opposed to it. But may it not then, you
will say, upon the same terms, be here argued, that
Jesus Christ (who is God blessed for ever) having

N 4

184 A SERMON

expressly said of the bread in the holy sacrament,
This is my body, we ought to believe the said piece
of bread to be really and substantially his body, how
much soever we may apprehend it to contradict
the principles of sense, reason, and philosophy ? To
this I answer ; That the words here alleged, as pro
nounced by our Saviour, are confessedly in the holy
scripture. But that every thing affirmed by God in
scripture, is there affirmed and intended by him,
literally, properly, and not figuratively, this I ut
terly deny. And since it is agreed to by ah1, (and
even by those whom in this matter we contend
with,) that many expressions in scripture cannot be
understood but by a figure ; and since, moreover, I
grant and assert, that every thing affirmed by God
in holy scripture ought to be believed in that sense
only in which it is so affirmed ; I will venture to al
low the persons, who are for the literal sense of
those particular words against the figurative, till
doomsday, to prove that the literal sense only ought
to take place here, and the figurative to be exploded
and set aside ; and if they can but prove this, I shall
not fail, as I said before, to believe and assent to the
thing so proved, whatsoever that, which the world
calls common reason and philosophy, shall or can
suggest and offer to the contrary.

And this, I hope, may suffice to have been spoken
upon the second proposition assigned for the prose
cution of this subject, namely, That notwithstanding
all the difficulties and objections alleged against
the article of a general resurrection, there is yet
sufficient reason and solid ground for the belief of
it. From whence we should now proceed to treat
of the third and last proposition ; to wit, That a suf-

ON ACTS XXIV. 15. 185

ficiency of reason being thus given for the belief of
the said article, all the difficulties, and seeming re
pugnancies to reason, which it is charged with, do
exceedingly enhance the worth, value, and excellency
of that belief.

But this, as I reckon, having been, in effect, done
by us already ; and the whole matter set in a full
view, partly by clearing off the objections pretended
to be brought against it, from natural reason, in the
two foregoing propositions ; and partly by establish
ing the proof thereof, upon the sure basis of those
three great attributes of God, his omniscience, his
omnipotence, and his essential veracity, all of them
employed to warrant and engage our assent to it ; we
shall now at length come to consider the same more
particularly in some of the consequences deducible
from it. Such as are these two that follow. As,

1. We collect from hence the utter insufficiency
of bare natural religion to answer the proper ends
and purposes which God intended religion for. And,

2. We infer from hence also, the diabolical im
piety of the Socinian opinions ; and particularly of
those relating to the resurrection. And here,

1. For the first of these, the insufficiency of natu
ral religion to answer the proper ends which religion
was designed for. This is most certain, that natu
ral religion exceeds not the compass of natural rea
son ; it neither looks higher nor reaches further,
but both of them are commensurate to one another ;
and it is every whit as certain, that the soul of man,
being the proper seat and subject of religion, must
needs be allowed to be immortal ; and being withal
both endued with and acted by the affections of hope
and fear, that it must be supplied with objects pro-

186 A SERMON

per and adequate to both, which yet nothing under
an eternal happiness with respect to the one, and an
eternal misery with reference to the other, together
with a general resurrection from the dead, to render
men capable of either, can possibly be. So that it is
manifest, from the very nature and essentials of re
ligion, supposing it perfect, that the particulars now
alleged by us necessarily do and must come up to
the utmost of what they stand alleged for. But then,
on the other hand, can mere natural reason of itself,
by full evidence and strength of argument, convince
us of any of the aforesaid particulars ? As, for in
stance, can it demonstrate that the soul is immortal?
Or can it certainly prove, that there is a future and
eternal state of happiness or of misery in another
life ? And that, in order to it, there shall be a resur
rection of their mortal bodies, after an utter disso
lution of them into dust and ashes? No, there is
nothing in bare reason that can so much as pretend
to evince demonstratively any of these doctrines or
assertions. And what then can natural religion do
or say in the case ? For where the former is at a
stand, the latter can go no further ; so that there is
an absolute necessity, if we would have any more
certain knowledge of these matters, to fetch it from
revelation : forasmuch as the great apostle himself
assures us, in 1 Cor. ii. 9, that eye hath not seen,
nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of
man to conceive, what things God has prepared
for those that love him ; nor consequently, (by a pa
rity of reason,) what miseries he has prepared for
those that hate him. And if both of them are a
perfect nonplus and baffle to all human understand
ing, is it possible for natural reason to comprehend

ON ACTS XXIV. 15.

187

what the heart of man cannot conceive? Nothing
certainly can be a grosser contradiction, and that in
the very terms of it, than such an assertion. But
some perhaps may here say, that though natural
reason, by its own strength and light, cannot give
us a clear and particular account what these things
are ; yet it may, however, be able to discover to us,
that really there are such things. But, in answer
to this also, the same apostle tells us, in 2 Tim. i. 10,
that it was our Saviour Christ who brought life
and immortality to light through the gospel ; that
is to say, cleared off all doubts about the immortal
state and being of the soul, the everlasting felicities
of the righteous, and the never-dying worm and tor
ments of the wicked in another world. Touching
all which, I affirm, that nothing but divine revela
tion could give any solid satisfaction to the minds of
men, either as to the quid sit or the quod sit of
these things ; that is to say, either by declaring the
nature of them, what they are ; or by proving the
existence and being of them, that they are ; besides,
that the very expression of bringing a thing to
light, must needs import its being hidden or undis
covered (at least to any considerable purpose) before.
But some possibly may here further object, that the
heathens could not but, long before the times of our
Saviour, have had a competent knowledge of these
matters. For did they not, by what they discoursed
of the Elysian fields, intend thereby to express the
future blessedness of pious and virtuous persons?
And by what they taught of Styx, Acheron, and
Cocytus, and the torments of Prometheus, Ixion,
and other famous criminals, design likewise to set
forth to us the future miseries of the wicked and

188 A SERMON

flagitious ? No doubt, they meant so : but still all
this was built upon such weak and fabulous grounds,
that the wiser sort of them did but despise and laugh
at all these things. So that Juvenal, speaking of
these matters, tells us in plain terms, mx pueri ere-
dunt, that children scarce believed them ; though
surely, if any thing could dispose the mind of men
to an extravagant credulity, one would think that
the age and state of childhood should. And then,
as for the immortality of the soul, whatsoever Plato
and other philosophers might argue in behalf there
of, yet I am abundantly satisfied, that neither Plato,
nor all of them together, have been able to argue
more close and home to this subject, than those wits,
who have lived in the ages after them, have done.
And yet, upon the result of ah1, 1 do not find, that any
thing hitherto has been so clearly and irrefragably
proved for the immortality of it, but that the most
that can be done upon this argument is, that the soul
cannot be proved by any principle of natural reason
to be mortal. And that (though it does not prove
so much as it should do) is yet, I think, no inconsi
derable point or step gained : but, after all, admit
ting the proof hereof to be as full and convincing as
we could wish, then what can natural reason say to
a general resurrection from the dead, that main ar
ticle which we are now insisting upon ? Why, truly,
nothing at all : and if this be the utmost which is
to be had from natural reason upon this point, I am
sure there is no more to be had from natural reli
gion ; which (to make the very best and most of it)
is nothing but reason, not assisted by revelation.
But,

2. The other thing, which we shall infer from the

ON ACTS XXIV. 15. 189

foregoing particulars, is, the horrible impiety of the
Socinian opinions ; and particularly of those relating
to the resurrection, and the state of men's souls after
death. The Socinians, who have done their utmost
to overthrow the credenda of Christianity, are not
for stopping there, but for giving as great a blow to
the agenda of it too, by subverting (if possible) those
principles which are to support the practice of it.
Amongst which I reckon one of the chief to be,
the belief of those eternal torments awarded by God
to persons dying in a state of sin and impenitence,
one of the most powerful checks to sin, doubtless,
of any that religion affords : forasmuch as where
there is one withheld from sin by the hopes of those
eternal joys promised in the scripture, I dare affirm,
that there are an hundred at least, if not more, kept
from it by the fears of eternal torments. And the
reason of this is, because those things by which the
joys of heaven are represented to us, do by no means
make so quick and lively an impression upon men's
minds, as those by which the torments of hell, as
they are described to us, are found to do. I am far,
I confess, from affirming, that this ought to be so ;
but as the state of mankind now generally is, there
are but too many and too manifest proofs, that actu
ally it is so. And I do not in the least question,
but that there are millions who would readily part
with all their hopes of the future felicities which the
scripture promises them, upon condition that they
might be secured from the eternal torments which
it threatens a. And therefore, what a mighty encou-

a They deny the torments of " irasci in aeternum, et peccata
hell, and give this reason for it. " creaturarum finita poenis infi-
" Quod absurdum sit, Deum " nitis mulctare, praesertim cum

190

A SERMON

ragement must the denial of eternal punishments
needs be to all sorts of wickedness in the lives of
men ! And what shall be able to restrain the pro
gress and rage of it, in the course of the world, when
sinners shall be told, that, after all the villainies com
mitted by them here, nothing is to be expected or
feared by them, when they have quitted this life,

" nulla hinc ipsius gloria illus-
" tretur." Compendiolum Doc-
trincB Ecclesiarum in Polonia.
Likewise Ernestus Sonnerus, a
noted Socinian, has wrote a just
treatise, with this title prefixed
to it, Demonstratio Theologica
et Philosophica, Quod aterna
impiorwn supplicia non argu-
ant Dei justitiam, sed injusti-
tiam. And if they be unjust,
we may be sure, (as Dr. Til-
lotson, in his sermon on Mat
thew xxv. 46, learnedly ob
serves,) that there shall be no
such thing. And to shew fur
ther how industrious these fac
tors for the devil are to rid
men's minds of the grand re
straint of sin, the belief of eter
nal torments, he sets down at
the end of his Demonstration,
(as he calls it,) several places
of scripture, where the words
eternal and for ever signify not
an infinite or everlasting, but
only a finite, though indefinite
duration. Likewise Diodorus
Camphuysen, one of the same
tribe, with a frontless impu
dence, in a certain epistle of his,
requires such as should read it,
" negare et ridere damnatorum
" poenas, etcruciatus seternos ;"
that is, not only to deny, but
also to laugh at the eternal tor
ments and punishments of the
damned. And to make yet surer

work, (if possible,) Socinus de
nies the soul even a capacity of
being tormented after a man's
death. " Tantum id mi hi vide-
" tur statui posse, post hanc vi-
" tarn, animam, sive animum
" hominis non ita per se subsis-
" tere, ut praemia ulla poenasve
" sentiat, vel etiam ista senti-
" endi sit capax, quae mea firma
" opinio," &c. Socinus in quin-
ta Epistola ad Volkelium. And
elsewhere ; " Homo, sive anima
" humana nihil cum immorta-
" litate habet commune." In
short, I am so far from account
ing the authors or owners of
such horrid assertions to be
really Christians, that I account
them really the worst of men,
if profaneness, blasphemy, and
the letting loose all sorts of
wickedness upon the world, can
make them so. For, according
to these grand agents and apo
stles of Satan, wicked men, no
less than the very brutes them
selves, (whose spirits also they
affirm to return to God, as well
as those of the other,) being
once dead, shall rise no more.
And if they can but persuade
men, that they shall die like
beasts, there is no question to
be made, but that most of them
will be quickly brought to live
like beasts too.

ON ACTS XXIV. 15. 191

but a total annihilation or extinction of their per
sons, together with an endless continuance under
the said estate ? And is not this, think we, a sort of
eternal punishment according to the sinner's own
heart's desire ? For since it so utterly bereaves him
of all sense, that he can feel nothing hereafter, let
him alone to fear as little here. And as for the re
surrection from the dead, the same men generally
deny, that the wicked shall have any at all ; it being,
as they affirm, intended by God for a peculiar favour
and privilege to the godly, who alone are to be the
sons of the resurrection. But then, if these men
find themselves pinched by such scriptures as that
of the 25th of St. Matthew, and this of my text, so
expressly declaring a resurrection, both of the just
and the unjust; in this case, some of them have
another assertion to fly to ; namely, that the wicked
shall indeed be raised again at the last day ; but im
mediately after such a resuscitation, shall be annihi
lated and destroyed for ever : an assertion so into
lerably absurd, and so manifestly a scoff upon reli
gion, that none but an atheist or Socinian (another
word for the same thing) could have been so pro
fane as even to think of it, or so impudent as to own
or declare it. In fine, such is the diabolical impiety
and the mischievous influence of the foregoing opi
nions upon the practices of mankind, and conse
quently upon the peace and welfare of societies and
governments, (all depending upon the said practices,)
that all sober and pious minds do even groan under
the very thoughts of such foul invasions upon reli
gion ; and cannot but wonder, even to amazement,
that the maintainers of such tenets were not long
since delivered over into the hands of civil justice,

192 A SERMON

to receive condign punishment by the sentence of
the judge ; as likewise, that those who deny the di
vinity and satisfaction of our Saviour, explode origi
nal sin, and revive several of the old condemned
blasphemies, have not long before this been brought
under the censures of the church in convocation.
But if, on the contrary, the sheltering of some such
rotten churchmen, as well as several others, from the
dint of ecclesiastical authority, was one great cause
of that so long and unaccountable omission of those
sacred and most useful assemblies, for many years
together, since the restoration, (as many wise and
good men shrewdly suspect it was,) is it not just
with God, and may it not, for ought we know, ac
tually provoke him to deprive us even of the Chris
tian religion itself? For assuredly, that lewd, scan
dalous, and ungrateful usage, which it has (of late
years especially) found from some of the highest
pretenders to it amongst us, has not only deserved,
but, upon too great grounds of reason, seems also to
prognosticate and forebode, and even cry out for no
less a judgment upon the nation. But howsoever
God, whose ways are unsearchable, shall think fit to
dispose of and deal with us, let us not vainly flatter
ourselves ; but as we have been hitherto proving the
certainty of a general resurrection, so let us still re
member, that the day of the resurrection will be as
certainly a day of retribution too ; a day, in which
the proudest and most exalted hypocrite shall be
brought low enough, and even the lowest hypocrites
much lower than they desire to be ; a day, in which
the meanest and most abject (if sincere) member of
our excellent (how much soever struck at and ma
ligned) church, shall be raised to a most happy and

ON ACTS XXIV. 15.

193

glorious condition : though, whether or no the church
itself (God bless it) be, in the mean time, in so flou
rishing an estate, (as some would persuade us it is,)
I shall not, I must not presume to determine.

Now to God, the great Judge and Rewarder of
men, according to the mleness of their prin
ciples, as well as the wickedness of their prac
tices, be rendered and ascribed, as is most due,
all praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both
noiv and for evermore. Amen.

VOL. III.

The doctrine of the blessed Trinity asserted,
and proved not contrary to reason :

IN

A SERMON

PREACHED BETWEEN THE YEARS 1G63 AND 1670,

BEFORE

THE UNIVERSITY OF OXON,

UPON

COLOSS. II. 2.

To the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the
Father, and of Christ.

EJ$ 67r/yvo;<nv TOU /xuoDjg/oy TOU (S)SQV} xotl Ylotrpos, *«' TOU

XgJOTOU.

J_N the handling and asserting of the doctrine of
the Trinity, I do not remember any place so often
urged, and so much insisted upon by divines, as that
in 1 John v. 7, There are three who hear record
in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy
Ghost ; and these three are one : a text fully con
taining in it the doctrine of three distinct divine Per
sons in one and the same blessed and eternal God
head ; a doctrine unanimously received by the ca
tholic Christian church, and warranted by the testi
mony of the most ancient, genuine, and unexcep
tionable records or copies of the New Testament, as
well as of the most noted of the fathers concerning
it ; and that not only as of a single article, but ra
ther as the sum total of our Christian faith ; and not
so much a part or member, as a full but short com-

A SERMON ON COLOSSIANS II. 2. 195

pendium of our religion. And yet, under these high
advantages of credibility, we see what opposition it
met with, both from ancients and moderns ; of the
first sort of which we have Arius, with his infamous
crew, leading the van, by questioning the text itself,
as if not originally extant in some two or three an
cient copies of this epistle ; and of the latter sort
are those innumerable sects and sectaries sprung up
since ; some of them openly denying, and some of
them, whose learning, one would have thought, might
have been better employed, slyly undermining this
grand fundamental; and while they seemingly ac
knowledge the truth, as it lies in the bare Words of
the text, treacherously giving it up in the explica
tion.

As for the Socinians, who hold with the Arians,
so far as they oppose us, though not in all which the
Arians assert themselves, they have a double refuge.
And first, with them pretending the doubtfulness of
the text, they would further evade it by a new in
terpretation of its sense, affirming, that this expres
sion, these three are one, does not of necessity im
port an unity of nature, but only of consent : the
Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, being there
fore said to be one, because they jointly and in di vi
sibly carry on one and the same design ; all of them
jointly concurring in the great work of man's salva
tion.

Thus say they ; but if this were indeed so, and if
no more than matter of consent were here intended,
where then (in God's name) would be the mystery
which the universal Christian church have all along
acknowledged to be contained in these words ? For
that the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit,

O 2

196 A SERMON

should thus jointly concur in and carry on the grand
business of saving mankind, is a doctrine expressing
in it nothing mysterious, unaccountable, or surpass
ing man's understanding at all.

But further, if unity of consent only were here
intended, why in all reason was it expressed by ev
eia-i, that is, they are one thing, being, or nature ;
and not rather by e/V TO ev e<V/, they agree in one? as
in the very next verse to this, such an unity of con
currence in the spirit, the water, and the Mood, is
expressed by the same words, e/V TO ev e/V/, manifestly
importing no identity or unity of nature or being,
but only of agreement in some certain respect or
other : and doubtless, in so very near a neighbour
hood and conjunction of words, had the sense been
perfectly the same, there can be no imaginable rea
son given, why the apostle should in the very same
case thus have varied the expression.

But, for yet a further assertion of the great truth
now insisted upon, this text out of the epistle to the
Colossians will as effectually evince the same, as the
place before mentioned, though perhaps not quite so
plainly, nor wholly in the same way; that is to say,
it will do it by solid inference and just consequence
from the words, though not expressly in the very
words themselves. And accordingly we may con
sider those words, E/V €7riyv®Giv TOV fJLWTYjpicv TOV Seov,
KOI HaTpof, KOLL TOV Xpi(7Tov, two different ways, viz.

1st, As the term TOV Seov may be taken personally,
as in scripture sometimes it is, and then it will here
signify the Holy Ghost, the third Person of the
blessed Trinity, though not indeed mentioned in this
place in the same order in which the three Persons
commonly use to be; but the order, I conceive, may

ON COLOSSIANS II. 2.

197

sometime be less observed, without any change in
or detriment to the article itself. And so this text
out of the epistle to the Colossians will point out to
us the doctrine of the ever-blessed Trinity, as well as
that fore-alleged place out of St. John did. But,

2dly, If the word TOV Beov be here taken essentially,
and for the divine nature only, then the particle KOU
will import here properly a distribution of TOV Beoi/,
(signifying the divine nature,) as a term common to
those two, TOV Harpofy KOU TOV XpKTTov, as to two particu
lar Persons, distinguished by their respective proper
ties. And so taken, it must be confessed, that the term
TOV Seov here will not signify the Person of the Holy
Ghost. But granting all this, are there not, how
ever, two other Persons in the divine nature mani
festly signified thereby? forasmuch as the Godhead,
here imported by TOV Seov, is expressly applied both to
the Father and the Son, in those words, TOV pva-Typiov
TOV 6eoD, KOU TlaTpof, KOU TOV XpuTTov. And that, I am
sure, (should it reach no further,) is a full and irrefra
gable confutation of the Socinians, the grand and
chief opposers of the doctrine now insisted upon.
For these men deny not a plurality of Persons in
the Godhead from any allegation or pretence of some
peculiar repugnancy of the number of three to the
same, more than of any other number ; but because
they absolutely deny, that there can be any more
Persons in the Godhead than only one. And conse
quently, that a duality, or binary number of Persons
in it, would, in a Socinian's account, pass for no less
in absurdity than even a Trinity itself, the grand
icle controverted between us and them.
The words, therefore, being thus examined and
o 3

1.98 A SERMON

explained, I shall draw forth the sense of them into
this one proposition ; viz.

That a plurality of Persons, or personal subsist
ences in the divine nature, is a great mystery, and
so to be acknowledged by all who really are and
profess themselves Christians.

The discussion of which shall lie in these two
things :

I. In shewing what conditions are required to de
nominate a thing properly a mystery. And,

II. In shewing that all these conditions meet in
the article of the blessed Trinity.

I. And first for the first of these. The conditions
required to constitute and denominate a thing pro
perly a mystery, are these three :

1. That the thing so denominated be in itself
really true, and not contrary to reason.

2. That it be a thing above the power and reach
of mere reason to find it out before it be revealed.
And,

3. That being revealed, it be yet very difficult for,
if not above, finite reason fully to understand and
comprehend it. And here,

1. For the first of these conditions: a mystery
must be a thing really true, and by no means con
trary to reason. Where let me lay down this rule or
maxim, as the groundwork of all that is to follow ;
to wit, That as nothing can be an article of faith,
that is not true, so neither can any thing be true,
that is irrational. Some indeed lay this as their foun
dation, That men, in matters of religion, are to deny
and renounce their reason : but if so, then let any
one declare, why I am bound to embrace the Chris-

ON COLOSSIANS II. 2. 199

tian religion rather than that of Mahomet, or of any
other impostor. And I suppose you will in the first
place tell me, because the Christian religion was re
vealed and attested by God ; whereas others, opposing
it, were not so. To which I answer, first, that this
very thing, that it was thus attested by God, is the
greatest reason for our believing it true in the world,
and as convincing as any demonstration in the ma
thematics ; it being founded upon the essential, un
failing veracity of God, who can neither deceive nor
be deceived. But then further, in the second place,
I ask, how I shall come to know, that this is revealed
by God ? Now here, if you will prove this to me, (it
being matter of fact,) you must have recourse to all
those grounds upon which reason uses to believe
matters of fact, when past, and accordingly shew me,
how that all these are to be found for the divine re
velation of the Christian religion, and not of any
other pretending to oppose or contradict it. And
this, I am sure, is solid and true arguing in the case
before us ; and being so, what can it amount to less,
than a just demonstration of the thing here intended
to be proved? I say, a demonstration proceeding
upon principles of moral certainty ; a certainty full
and sufficient, and such as, being denied, must infal
libly draw after it as great an absurdity in reference
to practice, as the denial of any first principle can do
in point of speculation. As for instance, I look upon
the unanimous testimony of a competent number
of sincere, disinterested eye or ear-witnesses ; and,
which is more, (in the present case inspired too,) all
affirming the same thing, to be a ground morally cer
tain, why we should believe that thing ; forasmuch
as the denial of its certainty would, amongst many

o 4

200 A SERMON

other absurdities, run us upon this great one, that
we can have no assurance or certain knowledge of
any thing, but what we ourselves have personally
seen, heard, or observed with our own senses ; which
assertion, if stuck to, would be as absurd and incon
venient in the transactions of common life, as to
deny that two and two make four in arithmetic. And
in good earnest it will be very hard (if possible) to
assign any other sufficient reason, why our Saviour,
in Mark xvi. 14, upbraided some with their unbelief,
as unexcusable, only for not believing those who had
seen him after he was risen.

In short, the ultimate object of faith is divine re
velation ; that is, I believe such a thing to be true,
because it is revealed by God : but then my reason
must prove to me that it is revealed ; so that, this
way, reason is that into which all religion is at last
resolved.

And let me add a little further, that no one truth
can possibly contradict another truth; for if two
truths might contradict, then two contradictions
might be true. And therefore, if it be true in
Christian religion, that one nature may subsist in
three persons, the same cannot be false in reason.
Thus much I confess, that, take the thing abstract
from divine revelation, there is nothing in reason
able to prove that there is such a thing ; but then
this also is as true, that there is nothing in reason
able to disprove it, and to evince it to be impossible.
But you will say, that for the same thing to be
three and one is a contradiction, and therefore rea
son cannot but conclude it impossible. I answer, that
for a thing to be one in that very respect in which
it is three, is a contradiction ; but to assert, that

ON COLOSSI ANS II. 2. 201

that which is one in this respect may be three in an
other, is no contradiction.

But you will reply, that the single nature of any
person is uncommunicable to another, as the essence
of Peter is circumscribed within the person of Peter,
and so cannot be communicated to Paul.

In answer to this, let it be here observed, that
this is the constant fallacy that runs through all the
arguments of the Socinians in this dispute ; and all
that they urge against a triple subsistence of the
divine nature is still from instances taken from cre
ated natures, and applied to the divine ; and because
they see this impossible, or at least never exemplified
in them, they conclude hence, that it must be so also
in this.

But this is a gross and apparent error in argu
mentation ; it being a mere transition a genere ad
genus, which is to conclude the same thing of dif
ferent kinds ; and because this holds true in things
of this nature, to conclude hence, that therefore the
same must be true also in things that are of a clean
different nature ; which is a manifest paralogism.

To all these arguments therefore, I oppose this
one, I think, not irrational consideration ; that it is
a thing very agreeable even to the notions of bare
reason to imagine, that the divine nature has a way
of subsisting very different from the subsistence of
any created being. For inasmuch as nature and
subsistence go to the making up of a person, why
may not the way of their subsistence be quite as dif
ferent as their natures are confessed to be ? one na
ture being infinite, the other finite. And therefore,
though it be necessary in things created (as no one
instance appears to the contrary) for one single es-

202 A SERMON

sence to subsist in one single person, and no more ;
does this at all prove, that the same must be also
necessary in God, whose nature is wholly different
from theirs, and consequently may differ as much in
the manner of his subsistence, and so may have one
and the same nature diffused into three distinct per
sons? This one consideration, I say, well weighed
and applied, will retund the edge and dint of all the
Socinian assaults against this great article ; whom I
have still observed to assert boldly, when they con
clude weakly, and in all their arguments to prove
nothing more than this, that the greatest pretenders
to, are not always the greatest masters of reason.

But here, before I dismiss this particular, I shall
observe this, that for a man to prove a thing clearly,
is to bring it, by certain and apparent consequence,
from some principle in itself known and evident, and
granted by all : otherwise it would not be a demon
stration, but an infinite progress.

Now this being supposed ; in case any one shall
so disprove the Trinity, as to shew that it really con
tradicts some such principle of reason evident in it
self, and universally granted by the unprejudiced
apprehensions of mankind, I should not be afraid
to expunge this article out of my creed, and to
discharge any man living from a necessity of be
lieving it : for God cannot enjoin any thing absurd
or impossible. But for any man to assent to two
contradictory propositions, as true, while he per
ceives them to be contradictory, is the first-born of
impossibilities.

Reason therefore is undeservedly and ignorantly
traduced, when it is set up and shot at, as the ir-
reconcileable enemy of religion. It is indeed the

ON COLOSSIANS II. 2. 203

very crown and privilege of our nature ; a ray of
divinity sent into a mortal body ; the star that guides
all wise men to Christ ; the lantern that leads the
eye of faith, and is no more an enemy to it, than an
obedient handmaid to a discreet mistress. Those
indeed, whose tenets will not bear the test of it, and
whose ware goes off best in the dark rooms of igno
rance and credulity, and whose faith has as much
cause to dread a discovery as their works ; these, I
say, may decry reason ; and that indeed not without
reason.

For ask such, upon what grounds they believe the
truth of Christian religion, whereas others so much
oppose it : and here, instead of rational inducements
and solid arguments, we shall have long harangues
of the kingdom of Jesus Christ; of rolling upon the
promises i of the spirit ®f assurance; and the pre-
ciousness of gospel dispensations ; with many other
such like words, as shew that they have followed
their own advice to others, and wholly renounced
their reason themselves.

But I cannot think or persuade myself, that God
gave us eyes only that we may pluck them out, and
brought us into the world with reason, that being
born men, we might afterwards grow up and improve
into brutes, and become elaborately irrational. No,
surely : reason is both the gift and image of God ; and
every degree of its improvement is a further degree
of likeness to him. And though I cannot judge it
a fit saying for a dying Christian to make, that
wish of Averroes, Sit anima mea cum philosophis ;
yet, while he lives, I think no Christian ought to be
ashamed to wish, Sit anima mea cum philosophia.
And for all these boastings of new lights, inbeamings,

204 A SERMON

and inspirations, that man that follows his reason,
both in the choice and defence of his religion, will
find himself better led and directed by this one guide,
than by an hundred Directories. And thus much
for the first condition.

2. The second condition required to denominate
a thing properly a mystery is, That it be above the
reach of reason to find it out, and that it be first
knowable only by revelation. This, I suppose, I shall
not be called upon to prove ; it being a thing clear
in itself.

But we have been told by some, that there are
some hints and traces of the article of the Trinity
to be found in some heathen writers, as Trismegistus
and Plato, who are said to make mention of it. To
which I answer, first, that if there do occur such
hints of a Trinity in such writers, yet it follows not
hence, that they owed them to the invention of
their own reason, but received them from others by
tradition, who themselves first had them from reve
lation. But, secondly, to the case in hand, I answer
more fully, that it cannot be denied, but that some
Christians have endeavoured to defend the truth im
prudently and unwarrantably, by bad arts, and falsi
fying of ancient writers ; and that such places as
speak of the Trinity are spurious, or at least sus
picious ; as the whole book that now goes under the
name of Trismegistus, called his Pcemander, may
justly be supposed to be.

But that we may a little aid and help out our ap
prehensions in conceiving of this great mystery, let
us endeavour to see, whether, upon the grounds and
notions of reason, we can frame to ourselves any
thing that may carry in it some shadow and resem-

ON COLOSSIANS II. 2. 205

blance at least of one single, undivided nature's cast
ing itself into three subsistences, without receding
from its own unity. And for this purpose, we may
represent to ourselves an infinite rational mind,
which, considered under the first and original per
fection of being or existence, may be called the Fa
ther ; inasmuch as the perfection of existence is the
first and productive of all others. Secondly, in the
same infinite mind may be considered the perfection
of understanding, as being the first great perfection
that issues from the perfection of existence, and so
may be called the Son, who also is called o Aoyo*-, the
Word, as being the first emanation of that infinite
mind. And then, thirdly, when that infinite mind,
by its understanding, reflects upon its own essential
perfections, there cannot but ensue an act of volition
and complacency in those perfections, arising from
such an intellectual reflection upon them ; which
may be called the Holy Ghost, who therefore is
said to proceed both from the Father and the Son,
because there must be not only existence, but also
understanding, before there can be love and volition.
Here, then, we see, that one and the same mind is
both being, understanding, and willing; and yet
we can neither say that being is understanding, nor
that understanding is willing ; nor, on the contrary,
that understanding is merely being, nor that willing
is understanding: forasmuch as the proper natural
conception of one is not the conception of the other,
nor yet commensurate to it. And this I propose,
neither as a full explication, nor much less as a just
representation of this great mystery ; but only (as I
intimated before, and intend no more now) as some
remote and faint resemblance or adumbration there-

206 A SERMON

of. For still this is and must be acknowledged un-
conceivably above the reach and ken of any human
intellect ; and as a depth, in which the tallest reason
may swim, and, if it ventures too far, may chance to
be swallowed up too.

Nay, I think that it was a thing, not only locked
up from the researches of reason, amongst those that
were led only by reason, I mean the gentiles, but
that it was also concealed from, or at best but ob
scurely known by the Jewish church. And Peter
Galatine assigns a reason, why God was not pleased
to give the Jews any express revelation of this mys
tery ; namely, that people's great stupidity and gross-
ness of apprehension, together with their exceeding
proneness to idolatry ; by reason of the former of
which, they would have been apt to entertain very
uncouth and mistaken conceptions of the Godhead
and the three Persons, as if they had been three
distinct Gods, and thereupon to have been easily in
duced to an idolatrous worship and opinion of them ;
and therefore, that the unfolding of this mystery
was reserved till the days of the Messias, by which
time the world should, by a long increase of know
ledge, grow more and more refined, and prepared for
the reception of this so sublime and mysterious an
article.

This was his reason for God's concealing it from
the Jews ; for that God did so, the Old Testament,
which is the great ark and repository of the Jewish
religion, seems sufficiently to declare ; there being no
text in it, that plainly and expressly holds forth a
Trinity of Persons in the Godhead. Several texts
are indeed urged for that purpose, though (whatever
they may allude to) they seem not yet to be of that

ON COLOSSIANS II. 2. 20?

force and evidence, as to infer what some undertake
to prove by them. Such as are,

1. Those words in the first of Genesis, Sara
Elohim ; where Elohim signifying God, and being
of the plural number, is joined with bar a, creavit, a
verb of the singular. Whence some collect, that the
former word imports a plurality of persons, and the
latter an unity of essence. But others deny, that any
such peculiar meaning ought or can be gathered
from that which is indeed no more than an idiom and
propriety of the Hebrew language. So that Elohim,
applied to others besides God, is often joined with a
singular number.

2. Another place alleged for the same purpose is
that in Gen. i. 26, Let us make man in our own
image ; where they say, that there is a consultation
amongst many persons in the Godhead. But to this
also it is answered, that the term, Let us make,
does not of necessity imply any plurality, but may
import only the majesty of the speaker ; kings and
princes being accustomed to speak of themselves in
the plural number : as, " We will and require you ;"
and, " It is our royal will and pleasure." This is the
common dialect of kings ; and yet it infers in the
speaker no plurality, for then surely a king would
speak very unlike a monarch.

3. There is a third place also, in Isai. vi. 3, where
the threefold repetition of holy, holy, holy, applied to
God, is urged by some to relate distinctly to the
three hypostases of the Godhead. But this is thought
by others to have so little of an argument in it, as
scarce to merit any answer ; it being so usual with
all nations and languages to express any thing vehe
ment or extraordinary by thrice repeating the word

208 A SERMON

used by them : suitable to which are those expres
sions that occur in classic authors, as, Tergeminis
tollit konoribus, and O ter felices, and Illi robur et
<ES triplex circa pectus erat, with infinite the like
instances ; in all which, the manner of speaking serves
only to express the greatness of the thing spoke of.
So that these and such like places of scripture carry
not in them any such evident proof of the Trinity,
as to persuade us that the Jewish church could from
hence arrive to any clear knowledge of this article.
The forementioned Galatine indeed affirms the Tal-
mudists to speak several things concerning it very
plainly ; and from hence concludes, that in regard the
Talmud is a collection of the several sayings and writ
ings of the old Jewish doctors upon the Old Testa
ment, it must import, that since they wrote such
things of the Trinity and the Messias, there was
then a knowledge of these things in the Jewish
church. But I fear the authority of those Talmud-
ical writings will weigh so little in this case, that if
the letter of the scripture will not otherwise speak a
Trinity, but as it is helped out and expounded by
the Talmud, few sober persons will seek for it there.
The only solid proof, that makes towards the evic
tion of a Trinity from thence, I conceive to lie in
those texts that prove the divine nature of the Mes
sias, whose coming was then expected by all the
Jews. Otherwise, surely, the knowledge of this ar
ticle could but very obscurely be gathered from
the bare writings of Moses and the prophets, and
consequently was by no means received with that
explicitness in the ancient Jewish church, that it is
now in the Christian.

As for the opinion of the modern Jews touching

ON COLOSSIANS II. 2. 209

this matter, we shall find, that these acknowledge no
such thing as a Trinity, but utterly reject and ex
plode it. And as for the Mahumetan religion, (which,
being a gallimaufry made up of many, partakes
much of the Jewish,) that also wholly denies it. And
the professors of it, in all their public performances
of religious worship, with much zeal and earnestness
frequently reiterate and repeat this article ; There
is but one God, there is but one God ; not so much
out of zeal to assert the unity of the Godhead, as
to exclude the Trinity of Persons maintained by the
Christians.

I conclude therefore, that it is very probable, that
the discovery of this mystery was a privilege reserved
to bless the times of Christianity withal, and that
the Jews had either none, or but a very weak and
confused knowledge of it. It was the great arcanum
for the receiving of which the world was to be many
ages in preparing. As long as the veil of the temple
remained, it was a secret not to be looked into ; an
holy of holies, into which even the high priest him
self did not enter. And thus much for the second
condition required to make or constitute a mystery ;
namely, that it be above the strength of bare reason
to find it out before it is revealed.

3. The third and last is this; That after it is reveal
ed, it be yet difficult to be understood. And he who
thinks the contrary, let him make trial. For although
there is nothing in reason to contradict, yet neither
is there any thing to comprehend it. We may as
well shut a mountain within a molehill, or take up
the ocean in a cockle-shell, as reach the stupendous
sacred intricacies of the divine subsistence, by the
short and feeble notions of a created apprehension.

VOL. in. p

210 A SERMON

Reason indeed proves the revelation of it by God ;
but then, having done this, here it stops, and pre
tends not to understand and fathom the nature of
the thing revealed.

If any one should plead a parity of the case, as to
this article of the Trinity, and that about transub-
stantiation ; and allege, that since we deny not a
Trinity, though we understand it not, but account
it a mystery, and so believe it ; why may we not take
transubstantiation also into the number of mysteries,
and believe it, though it be intricate, and impossible
to be understood ?

To this I answer, 1st, in general, that no man dis
coursing or proceeding rationally upon this subject,
refuses to believe transubstantiation merely upon this
account, that it is impossible to be understood. 2dly,
I affirm, that the case between transubstantiation and
the Trinity is very different ; the former being con
tradicted by the judgment of that faculty, of which
it is properly the object ; the latter being not at all
contradicted, but only not comprehended by the fa
culty, to which the judgment and cognizance of it
does belong. To make which clear, we must observe,
that both the bread and the body of Christ, about
which transubstantiation is said to be effected, being
endued with quantity, colour, and the like, are the
proper objects of sense, and so fall under the cogni
zance of the sight and touch ; which senses being en
tire, and acting as naturally they ought, they both
can and do certainly judge of their proper objects,
and upon such judgment find it to be a contradiction
for a small body retaining its own proper dimensions,
at the same time to have the dimensions of a body
forty times greater. For one body to be circumscribed,

ON COLOSSI ANS II. 2. 211

and so compassed in one place, and at the same time
to fill a thousand more, I say it is a contradiction ;
for it makes the same thing in the very same respect
to be circumscribed, and not to be circumscribed ;
circumscribed, because encompassed in such a place ;
and yet not circumscribed, because extending itself
beyond that place to many others.

But now, on the other side, the divine nature and
the Trinity are not the objects of sense, and conse
quently sense passes no judgment upon them. But
they are the objects of (and so only triable by) the
mind and the understanding ; taking in these things
from the reports not of sense, but revelation. Which
supreme faculty being thus informed by revelation,
tendering these reports to its apprehension, and
withal finding that none of those rules or principles,
by which it judges of the truth or falsity of what it
apprehends, do at all contradict what revelation thus
speaks and reports of the divine nature and the Tri
nity ; it rationally judges, that they may and ought
to be assented to.

For the stress of the point lies here, and let all
the reason of mankind prove, if it can, that where
soever the denomination of three is ascribed to any
nature, it must of necessity multiply the nature it
self, and not only its relations. Which being so,
those that make the article of the Trinity parallel to
that of transubstantiation, in point of its contrariety
to reason, if they will speak and argue to the purpose,
must undertake to prove, that for one infinite being
or nature to be in any respect, or upon any account
whatsoever, three, without a triplication of that
nature, and so a loss of its unity, is as contrary and
repugnant to some known principle of reason dis-

P 2

212 A SERMON

coursing upon the reports of revelation ; as for that
thing, which all my senses tell me to be a little piece
of bread, to be yet both for figure and dimension
really a man's body, is contradictory to all those
principles, by which sense judges of those things that
properly fall under the judgment of sense.

Let this, I say, be clearly and conclusively made
out, and the business is done. But till then, they
must give us leave to judge, that there is as much
difference between the article of the Trinity as stated
by us, and that of transubstantiation as stated by
them, as there is between difficulty and contradiction.

And now, if there be any whose reason is so un
ruly and over-curious, as to be still inquisitive and
unsatisfied, such must remember, that when we
have made the utmost explications of this article, we
pretend not thereby to have altered the nature of the
subject we have been treating of ; which, after all, is
still a mystery ; and they must know, moreover, that
when the sacred mysteries of religion are discoursed
of, the business of a Christian is sobriety and sub
mission, and his duty to be satisfied, even though he
were not convinced. The Trinity is a fundamental
article of the Christian religion ; and as he that de
nies it may lose his soul, so he that too much
strives to understand it may lose his wits. Know
ledge is nice, intricate, and tedious ; but faith is
easy ; and what is more, it is safe. And why should
I then unhinge my brains, ruin my mind, and pur
sue distraction in the disquisition of that which a
little study would sufficiently convince me to be
not intelligible ? Or why should I by chewing a pill
make it useless, which swallowed whole might be
curing and restorative ? A Christian, in these mat-

ON COLOSSIANS II. 2. 213

ters, has nothing to do but to believe; and since I can
not scientifically comprehend this mystery, I shall
worship it with the religion of submission and won
der, and casting down my reason before it, receive it
with the devotions of silence, and the humble dis
tances of adoration.

But here, having drawn the business so far, I can
not but take notice of some of those blasphemous
expressions which the Socinians use concerning the
sacred mystery of the Trinity ; their terms (as I have
collected some out of many) are such as these : Deus
tripersonatus. Idolum portentosum. Figmentum
Satance. Antichristi Cerberus. Triceps Geryon.
Idolum trifrons. Monstrum triforme. Deus in-
cognitus, adeoque procul rejiciendus, et Satance
conditori suo restituendus. Now, that the authors
of these ugly appellations shew themselves not only
bold and impious, but also (what by no means they
would be thought) very unreasonable, will, I think,
appear from these two considerations.

First, That the doctrine so broadly decried by
them is at least very difficult, and hardly compre
hensible ; and therefore, though it could not be
proved true, yet, upon the same score, it can as
hardly be proved false. But now these expressions
ought to proceed not only upon the supposition of
its bare falsity, but also upon the evidence and un
deniable clearness of its falsity ; or they must needs
be impudent and intolerable.

He that says, that it is clear that there can be no
such thing as the quadrature of the circle, makes an
impudent assertion ; for, though possibly there can be
?ally no such thing, yet since there have been such

P 3

214 A SERMON

considerable reasons for it, as to engage the greatest
wits in the search after it, no man'can rationally say,
that it is clear and manifest that there is no such
thing. But besides, in this case they deal very irra
tionally in rejecting the doctrine of the Trinity, be
cause it is not intelligible ; when not only in divi
nity, but also in philosophy, (where yet, not faith,
but strict ratiocination should take place,) they ac
knowledge many things which the best reason
will scarce be able to frame an explicit notion and
apprehension of. Such as are the composition
and division of continued quantities, and the like ;
which these men, I believe, will not deny, though
it would set them hard to give a clear account of
them.

Secondly. The same charge of absurdity lies
against these men upon this account, that they pre
fer their particular reason before the united reason
of a much greater number than themselves ; every
one of which were of as great industry to search,
and of as great abilities to understand the mysteries
of divinity, as these men can be presumed to be.

Now, as this is much beside good manners, so in
deed it is no less short of good reason ; which will
prove thus much at least ; that when a few learned
persons deny a proposition, and others forty times
more numerous, and altogether as learned, do una
nimously affirm it, it is very probable that the truth
stands rather with the majority.

For if I should demand of these men, how they
come to judge the doctrine of the Trinity to be false?
they must tell me, that they have studied the point,
considered the text, examined it by the principles of

ON COLOSSI ANS II. 2. 215

.
reason, and that by the use of these means they come

at length to make this conclusion.

But to this I answer, that others who have studied
the point as much, considered the text as exactly,
and examined it by as strong principles of reason as
their opposites could pretend to, and so standing upon
equal ground with them in point of abilities, have
much the advantage of them in point of number.

But you will say, Must I therefore conclude, that
what is affirmed by such a majority of persons so
qualified is certainly true ? I answer, No ; but this
I assert ; that it is great reason, though their asser
tion appear never so strange to me, that I should
yet suspend my judgment, and not peremptorily con
clude it false : since there is hardly any means nor
way of ratiocination used by one to prove it a falsity,
but by the very same way and means others per
suade themselves, that they as strongly prove it to
be a truth.

And thus I think, that these men's exceptions
against this great article are, to such as under
stand reason, sufficiently proved irrational. But
since these men reject the doctrine of the Trinity
upon pretence both of its impiety and absurdity, it
is but requisite, that they should acquit themselves
in all their doctrine, from holding any thing either
impious or absurd. But yet, that they cannot do
so, these following positions maintained by them
will, I believe, demonstrate :

1. To assert, as Volkelius, in his second book De
VeraReligione, and the fourth chapter, not obscurely
does, the matter of the universe to be a passive prin
ciple eternally coexisting with God, the active, is im-

p 4

216 A SERMON

pious, and not consistent with God's infinite power ;
for if matter has its being from itself, it will follow,
that it can preserve itself in being against all oppo
sition, and consequently, that God cannot destroy
it, which makes him not omnipotent.

2. To allow God's power to be infinite, and yet
his substance to be finite, is monstrously absurd ;
but to assert, as Crellius, in his book De Attributis
Dei, in the 27th chapter, does, that his substance
is circumscribed within the compass of the highest
heaven, is clearly to make it finite.

3. To allow all God's prophecies and predictions
recorded in scripture, of future contingent passages,
depending upon the free choice of man's will, to
have been certain and infallible, and yet his pre
science or foreknowledge of the same contingent
things not to be certain, but only conjectural, as
Socinus, in the 8th chapter of his Prelections, does
affirm, is out of measure absurd and ridiculous.

4. To affirm Christ to be a mere creature, and no
more, and yet to contend, that he is to be invoked
and worshipped with divine worship, is exceedingly
absurd, and contrary to all the discourses of right
reason ; and withal, as offensive and scandalous to
Jews and Turks, and such like, as the bare affirma
tion of his divine nature can be pretended to be.
But Socinus, though he denies this, yet is so earnest
for the divine adoration and invocation of Christ,
that he affirms, that of the two, it is better to be a
Trinitarian, than not to ascribe this to him.

5. To assert, that the people of God, under the
Jewish economy, lay under the obligation of no pre
cept to pray to God, as Volkelius, in his 4th book

ON COLOSSIANS II. 2. 217

De Vera Religione, and the 9th chapter, positively
affirms, is an assertion highly impious, and to all
pious minds abominable.

6. To assert, that it is lawful for a man to tell a
He, to secure himself from some great danger or in
convenience, as the same Volkelius, in the 4th book,
and 19th chapter, does, is such a thing, as not only
consists not with piety and sincerity, but tends to
drive even common honesty and society out of the
world.

7. To assert, that it is unlawful for Christians in
any case to wage war, as Socinus himself does in
his 2d epistle to Christophorus Morstinus, a Polo-
nian commander, in which he allows him to bring
his army into the field in terrorem hostium, pro
vided that he neither strikes a stroke, nor draws
blood, nor cuts off a limb : this, I say, is grossly ab
surd and unnatural, and contrary to the eternal
principle of self-preservation ; as engaging men,
even for conscience sake, to surrender their lives
and fortunes to any thief or murderer, that shall
think fit to require them. Neither can Socinus, in
reason, so urge those words of our Saviour, (in Matt,
v. 39?) of not resisting evil, in this case, if he will
be but true to his own principle. For in his 3d
book De Christo Servatore, and the 6th chapter,
disputing against Christ's satisfaction, he pleads,
" that in regard it is," as he says, " contrary to reason,
" though the scripture should never so often affirm
" it, yet it ought not to be admitted or assented to."
Now, if this be his rule, I demand of him, whether,
for a man to preserve himself, and that even with
the destruction of the life of the person assailing
him, supposing that he cannot possibly do it other-

218 A SERMON

wise, be not as undeniable a dictate or principle of
natural reason, as any that he can pretend to be
contradicted by Christ's satisfaction. And there
fore, if he can lay aside Christ's satisfaction, though
the scripture were never so express for it, in regard
of the contrariety he pretends in it to reason ; why
may not we, upon the same grounds, assert the ne
cessity of self-preservation in the instance of war,
though the scripture expressly forbids it ? Since
for a man to relinquish his own defence, is indubi
tably contrary to the dictates of nature, and conse
quently of reason.

But we need not recur to this, for the warranting
men under the gospel to defend their lives, though
with the destruction of those that would take them
away. Only this I allege as an argument ad ho-
minem, which sufficiently shews how slight and de-
sultorious this man is in his principles and way of
arguing, while at one time he frames to himself a
principle for his present turn, and at another makes
assertions, and raises discourses, which that prin
ciple most directly overthrows. Now all the fore-
mentioned absurdities (with many more that might
be reckoned) are the tenets of those who deny the
article of the Trinity, because, forsooth, it is im
pious and absurd ; that is, who strain at one gnat,
having already swallowed so many vast camels.
And yet these are the persons, who in all their
writings have the face to own themselves to the
world for those heroes, whom God, by his special
providence, has raised up to explain Christian reli
gion, and to reform the doctrine of the church. I
suppose, just in the same sense, that the school of
Calvin was to reform her discipline.

ON COLOSSfANS II. 2. 219

And now in the last place ; because this article is
of so great moment, and stands, as it were, in the
very front of our religion, so that it is of very high
concernment to all to be sound and throughpaced
in the belief of it ; I shall shew,

1. What have been the causes that have first un
settled, and at the last destroyed the belief of it
in some. And,

2. What may be the best means to settle and pre
serve the belief of it in ourselves and others.

For the first of these. There are three things,
which I think have been the great causes that have
took some off from the belief of this article. As,

1. That bold, profane, and absurd custom of
some persons, in attempting to paint and represent
it in figure. He who paints God, does a contra
diction ; for he attempts to make that visible, which
he professes to be invisible. The ministers of Tran
sylvania and Sarmatia, rank assertors of the Soci-
nian heresy, in a certain book a, (wherein they make
confession of their faith as to these articles,) insist
upon nothing so much, nor indeed so plausibly, for
their rejection of the article of the Trinity, as those
several strange pictures and images of the Trinity,
which some persons had set up in several of their
churches : sometimes describing it by one head
carved into three faces, to which, so set up in a cer
tain church, they subjoin this distich ;

Mense trifrons isto Janum pater urbe bifrontem
Expulit, ut solus regnet in orbe trifrons ;

that is to say, that the God having three faces had
driven, or, if you will, outfaced poor Janus out of

a See a Latin book in 410, quosdam in Sarmatia et Tran-
entitled, Pr&monitiones Chris- sylvania, &c.
ti et apostolorum, per ministros

220 A SERMON

the world, who had but two. And likewise else
where such another ;

Jane biceps, anni tacite labentis origo ;
Trifrontem pellas, ni miser esse veils.

Sometimes also they represent it by a ring set with
three diamonds, in three equidistant places of it ;
and sometimes by the picture of three men of an
equal pitch sitting together at one table, and upon
one seat : and sometimes the same is expressed by
the image of an old man, a child, and a dove ; one
signifying the Father, one the Son, and the third
the Holy Ghost. All which things, being so contrary
to the very natural notions which reason has of God,
have brought many sober parts of the world to nau
seate and abhor our whole religion, and to reject
Christianity as only a new scheme of the old gentile
idolatry ; and withal have warranted the foremen-
tioned heretics to think they had cause for all those
vile and wretched appellations, with which we shew
how they bespattered this divine mystery : which
blasphemies will, no doubt, be one day laid at the
door, not of those only who denied, but of those also
who painted the Trinity; and by so doing, made
others to deny it. And indeed so far has the com
mon sort of mankind took offence at these things,
that if the belief of a God were not very deeply im
printed in man's nature, such men's cursed irrational
boldness, in presuming to paint him, would go very
near to bring all those about them, by degrees, to
question the very Deity itself.

2. A second cause of the same evil, is the equally
bold and insignificant terms which some of the
schoolmen have expressed this great article by;
who, pursuing their own phenomena as undoubted
truths, speak as peremptorily and confidently of this

ON COLOSSIANS II. 2. 221

profound mystery, as if it were a thing obvious to
the first apprehensions of sense. It was a good and
a pious saying of an ancient writer, Periculosum est
de Deo etiam vera dicere. No wonder, therefore,
if these men, discoursing of the nature and subsist
ence of God, in a language neither warrantable nor
apprehensible, have by their modalities, suppositali-
ties, circumincessions, and twenty such other chi
meras, so misrepresented this adorable article of the
Trinity to men's reason, as to bring them first to
loathe, and at length to deny it.

3. A third cause, which has much weakened
some men's belief of this article, has been the impru
dent building it upon some texts of scripture, which
indeed will evince no such thing. Such as those
places which I mentioned out of the Old Testament ;
and such as one of the ancients once brought for a
proof of the eternal generation and deity of the
Word, from that expression of David, in Psal. xlv. 1.
Quisquamne dubitat, says he, de divinitate Filii,
cum legerit illud Psalmistce, Cor meum eructavit
verbum bonum ? Concerning which and the like
allegations, I shall only make one very obvious, but
as true, and perhaps too true, a remark, that what
soever is produced and insisted upon in behalf of
any great and momentous point of religion, if it
comes not fully close and home to the same, it is al
ways found much more effectual to expose the truth
it is brought for, than to support it, and to confirm
the heretic it is brought against, than to convince
him.

And thus having shewn some of the causes that
undermine men's belief of the article of the Trinity,
I shall now assign some means also to fix and con-

222 A SERMON

tinue it in such minds, as do already embrace it.
And these shall be briefly two.

1. To acquiesce in the bare revelation of the thing
itself, and in those expressions under which it is
revealed. As for the thing itself, God has expressly
said, that there are three above the rank of created
beings, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
And as for the words, in which he has conveyed
this to us, they are few, easy, and intelligible, and
to be believed just as they are proposed; that is,
simply, and in general, and without entering too far
into particulars.

2. To suppress all nice and over-curious inqui
ries into the peculiar nature, reason, and manner of
this mystery. For God having not thought fit to
reveal this to us any further, than he has yet actu
ally done, sufficiently declares it to have been his
intent, that it should indeed be no further known,
nor indeed searched into by us ; and perhaps so far
as it is yet unknown, it may, to a created reason,
be also unknowable. For when we are once assured
that the thing itself is ; for us to amuse ourselves,
and others, with bold perplexing questions, (as they
can be no better,) how, and which way it comes to
be so, especially in matters relating to Almighty
God, must needs be equally irreverent and imperti
nent. Those words of an ancient commentator upon
St. John contain in them an excellent rule, and al
ways to be attended to, Firmam fidem, says he,
mysterio adhibentes, nunquam, in tarn subllmibus9
illud quomodo aut cogitemus, aut proferamus.
Which rule, had it been well observed, both in this
and some other articles of our religion, not only the
peace of particular churches and consciences, but

ON COLOSS1ANS II. 2. 223

also the general peace of Christendom, might in great
measure have been happily preserved by it.

Let this therefore be fixed upon, that there is no
obedience comparable to that of the understanding ;
no temperance, which so much commends the soul
to God, as that which shews itself in the restraint
of our curiosity. Besides which two important con
siderations, let us consider also, that an over-anxious
scrutiny into such mysteries is utterly useless, as to
all purposes of a rational inquiry. It wearies the
mind, but not informs the judgment. It makes us
conceited and fantastical in our notions, instead of
being sober and wise to salvation. It may provoke
God also, by our pressing too much into the secrets
of heaven, and the concealed glories of his nature,
to desert and give us over to strange delusions.
For they are only things revealed, (as Moses told
the Israelites, in Deut. xxix. 29.) which belong to
the sons of men to understand and look into, as the
sole and proper privilege allowed them by God, to
exercise their noblest thoughts upon : but as for such
high mysteries as the Trinity, as the subsistence of
one nature in three Persons, and of three Persons in
one and the same individual nature, these are to be
reckoned in the number of such sacred and secret
things, as belong to God alone perfectly to know,
but to such poor mortals as we are, humbly to fall
down before, and adore.

To which God, incomprehensible in his nature,
and wonderful in his ivorks, be rendered and
ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might,
majesty, and dominion, both noiv and for ever
more. Amen.

Ill-disposed affections, both naturally and penally
the cause of darkness and error in the judgment.

IN

TWO DISCOURSES

UPON 2THESS. II. 11.

PART I.

2 THESSALONIANS ii. 11.

And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion,
that they sliould believe a lie.

OF all the fatal effects of sin, none looks so dread
fully, none strikes so just an horror into considering
minds, as that every sinful action a man does natu
rally disposes him to another ; and that it is hardly
possible for him to do any thing so ill, but that it
proves a preparative and introduction to the doing of
something worse. Upon which account, that notable
imprecation of the Psalmist, upon his own and the
Church's enemies, in Psal. Ixix. 27, namely, that
they may fall from one wickedness to another , is
absolutely the bitterest and most severe of any ex
tant in the whole book of God, as being indeed the
very abridgment of that grand repository of curses,
the 28th chapter of Deuteronomy ; and that with
the addition of something besides, and of so much a
more killing malignity, than all of them put together ;
by how much the evil of sin is confessedly greater,

ON 2 THESSALONIANS II. 11. 225

the evil of any suffering for it whatsoever. The
like instances to which we have in the text now be
fore us, of a sort of men, first casting off the love of
the truth, and from thence passing into a state of
delusion ; and lastly, settling in a steady, fixed be
lief of a lie. By such wretched gradations is it, that
sin commonly arrives at its full a^p?, or maturity.
So that in truth it is the only perpetual motion
which has yet been found out, and needs nothing but
a beginning to keep it incessantly going on. Accord
ingly, as every immoral act, in the immediate and
direct tendency of it, is certainly a step downwards,
and a very large one too, so, in all motions of descent,
it is seldom or never found, that a thing so moving
makes any stop in its fall, till it is fallen so far, that
it is past falling any further. And much the same
is the case with a man as to his spirituals ; after he
has been long engaged in a course of sinning, his pro
gress in it grows infinite, and his return desperate.

Now in the words I have here pitched upon, as
they stand in coherence with the precedent and sub
sequent verse, there are these two things to be con
sidered.

First, A severe judgment denounced against a cer
tain sort of men ; namely, that God would send
them such strong delusion, that they should believe
a lie. And,

Secondly, The meritorious procuring cause of this
judgment in the foregoing verse ; to wit, their not
receiving the love of the truth.

Where it is manifest, that by the words truth and
a lie, are not to be here meant all truth and falsehood
generally or indefinitely speaking, nor yet more par
ticularly all that is true or false upon a philosophical

VOL. III. Q

226 A SERMON

account. For these truths or falsehoods the apostle
does not in this place concern himself about ; but
such only as belong properly to religion, with refe
rence to the worship of Almighty God, and the sal
vation of men's souls. In a word, by truth here is
meant nothing else but the gospel, or doctrine of
Christianity ; nothing being more frequent with the
inspired penmen of holy writ, than to express the
Christian religion by the name of truth ; and that
sometimes absolutely, and without any epithet or
addition, and sometimes with some additional term
of specification ; as in Titus i. 1 , it is called, the truth
according to godliness ; and in Ephes. iv. 15, the
truth as it is in Jesus ; with the like in several other
places. So that still the great ennobling characteris
tic of the gospel is truth ; truth eminently and tran-
scendently such ; and for that cause, by a distinguish
ing excellency, called the truth ; from whence, by
irrefragable consequence, it must also follow, that
whatsoever is not truth can be no part of Christian
religion. A bottom so firm and sure for Christianity
to rest upon, that it cannot be placed upon a surer
and more unshakeable; besides this further advantage
accruing to it thereby, that as truth and goodness, by
an eternal, indissoluble union, (as strong as nature,
or rather as the God of nature, can make it,) stand
essentially and inseparably combined, and even iden
tified with one another : so, upon the same account,
we may be assured, that the goodness of the gospel
cannot but adequately match and keep pace with the
truth of it ; both of them being perfectly commensu
rate, both of them equally properties of it, equally
included in and flowing from its very constitution.
So that the gospel being thus held forth to the world,

ON 2 THESSALONIANS II. 11. 227

as the liveliest representation and fullest transcript
of those two glorious perfections of the divine na
ture, to wit, its truth and goodness ; it must needs,
by the first of them, recommend itself to our under
standings, as the most commanding object of our
esteem, and by the other to our wills, as the most
endearing object of our choice.

Which being thus premised, if we would bring
the entire sense of the words into one proposition, it
may, I conceive, not unfitly be comprehended in
this, viz.

That the not entertaining a sincere love and affec
tion for the duties of religion, does both naturally,
and by the just judgment of God besides, dispose men
to errors and deceptions about the great truths of re
ligion.

This, I say, seems to me to take in the main, if
not whole design of the words ; for the better prose
cution of which, I shall cast what I have to say upon
them under these following particulars : as,

I. I shall shew, how the mind of man can believe
a lie.

II. I shall shew, what it is to receive the love of
the truth.

III. I shall shew, how the not receiving the love
of the truth comes to have such an influence upon
the understanding or judgment, as to dispose it to
error and delusion.

IV. I shall shew, how God can be properly said to
send such delusions.

V. Since his sending them is here mentioned as
a judgment, (and that a very great one too,) I shall
shew wherein the greatness of it consists. And,

228 A SERMON

VI. and lastly, I shall improve the point into some
useful consequences and deductions from the whole.
Of each of which in their order. And,
I. For the first of them ; to shew, how the mind
of man can believe a lie. There is certainly so great
a suitableness between truth and an human under
standing, that the understanding of itself can no more
believe a lie, than the taste rightly disposed can pro
nounce a bitter thing sweet. The formal cause of all
assent is the appearance of truth ; and if a lie is be
lieved, it can be so no further, than as it carries in it
the appearance of truth. But then, what and whence
are these appearances ? Appearance, no doubt,, is a
relative term, and must be between two ; for one thing
could not be said to appear, if there were not another
for it to appear to. So that there must be both an
object and a faculty, before there can be an appearance;
and consequently, from one of these two must spring
all falsehood at any time belonging to it. But the
question is, from which of them ? And in answer to
it, it is certain, that the object itself cannot cause a
false appearance of itself. For if so, when the mind
has conceived a false apprehension of God, God, who
is the object, would be the cause of that false appre
hension. But it is certain, that objects operate not
efficiently upon the faculties; for if they should,
since the object is the same to all, viz. both those
who entertain true, and those who entertain false
apprehensions of it, it would be impossible for the
same thing, so far as it is the same, to produce such
contrary effects. It is the same body which appears
to one of such a shape, and to another of a quite dif
ferent. And therefore the difference must needs be

ON 2 THESSALONIANS II. 11. 229

on the beholder's side, and rest in the faculty of per
ception, not in the thing perceived. This we may
pronounce confidently and truly, that the object duly
circumstantiated is never in fault, why it is not
rightly apprehended. Objects are merely passive ;
and if they were not so, men would certainly be both
learneder and better than they are ; for neither can
learning nor religion thrust itself into the heads or
hearts of men, whether they will or no. Truth
shews itself to be truth, and falsehood represents it
self as falsehood, (and so far is a good representer,)
whether men apprehend them so or no. For the
object is not to be condemned for the failures of the fa
culty, any more than a man, who speaks audibly and
intelligibly, is to be blamed for not being heard ; no
body being bound to find words and ears too.

Well then ; since a lie cannot be believed, but un
der the appearance of truth, and since a lie cannot
give itself any such appearance, it is evident, that if
any man believes a lie, it is from something in him
self that he does so. There are lies, errors, and he
resies about the world, both plausible and infinite,
but then they naturally appear what they are ; and
if truth be naked to the skin, error is and must be
so to the boner and the fairest falsehood can no
more oblige assent, than the best dressed evil can
oblige the choice.

And thus having given both falsehood, and the
Devil, the father of it, their due, and cleared even
the grossest He from being the cause that it is be
lieved, and thereby left it wholly at the door of
him who believes it ; let us in the next place inquire,
what may be the causes on the believer's part, which
make any object, and particularly a lie, appear other-

Q3

230 A SERiMON

wise to him than really it is, and upon that account
gain his belief. Now these are two.

1. An undue distance between the faculty and its
proper object.

2. An indisposition in the faculty itself. And,

1. For the first of these. As approximation is one
necessary condition of perception ; so, too much dis
tance prevents and hinders it, by setting the object
too far out of our reach : and if the apprehensive fa
culty offers at an object so placed, and falls short of
the apprehension of it, the fault is not in the object,
but in that. And here, by distance, I mean not only
an interval in point of local position, which, if too
great, certainly hinders all corporeal perception ; but
likewise a distance, or rather disparity, of natures ;
such as is between finite and infinite, material and
spiritual beings, consisting in the great disproportion
there is between one and the other. And from
hence it is, that the mind of man is uncapable of ap
prehending any thing almost of God, or indeed of
angels ; the distance between their natures being so
exceeding great. For though God, as the evangelist
St. Luke tells us in Acts xvii. 27, be not Jar from
every one of us ; nay, as it is in the next verse, that
he is so near, or rather intimate to us, that in him
we live, and move., and have our being, so that it is
as impossible for us to exclude him, as it is to com
prehend him ; yet still the vast difference of his na
ture from ours makes the distance between them so
unspeakably great, that neither can our corporeal
nor intellectual powers form any true idea of him.
And from hence it is, that there is nothing about
which the mind and apprehensive faculties of man
have so frequently and foully blundered, as about the

ON 2 THESSALONIANS II. 11. 231

divine nature and persons, and (what is founded
upon both) the divine worship. But,

2. The other cause, which makes any object, and
particularly a lie, appear otherwise than really it is,
is the indisposition of the intellectual faculty ; which
indisposition, in some degree or other, is sure to
follow from sin, both original and actual. For so
much as there is of deviation from the eternal rules
of right reason or morality in the soul, so much
there will of necessity be of darkness in it too ; and
so much of darkness as there is in it, so far must it
be unavoidably subject to pass a false judgment
upon most things that come before it. Otherwise
there is nothing in reason, considered purely and
simply as such, which is or can be unsuitable to re
ligion, or indeed to the nature of any thing ; but so
much the contrary, that if we could imagine a man
all reason, without any bias from his sensitive part,
it were impossible but that, upon the first sufficient
offer, he should, as we may so express it, with both
arms embrace religion. But the case has been much
altered since the fall of our first parents, and the
fatal blow thereby given to all the powers of men's
mind ; besides the further debilitation and distem
per brought upon it by many actual and gross sins.
So that now the understandings of men are become
like some bodily eyes, disabled from an exact dis
cernment of their proper object, both by a natural
weakness and a supervening soreness too.

And thus I have accounted for the true cause
which sometimes prostitutes the noble understand
ing of man to the lowest of dishonours, the belief
of a lie ; namely, either the remoteness of the fa
culty (whether in point of distance or difference)

Q 4

232 A SERMON

from its object, or some weakness or disorder in it ;
either of which will be sure to pervert its operation :
and then a fault in the first apprehension of any
thing will not fail to produce a false judgment, and
that a false belief likewise about the same. And
so I proceed to the

Second particular proposed, viz. to shew what it
is to receive the love of the truth.

And this we shall find implies in it these two
things.

1. An high esteem and valuation of the real worth
and excellency of it ; this is the first and leading
act of the mind. Truth must be first enthroned in
our judgment, before it can reign in our desires ;
and as it is the leading faculty, so it is the measure
of the rest : for no man's love of any thing can rise
above his esteem of it, nor can his appetites exert
themselves upon any object, not first vouched by his
apprehensions. For which cause, the Holy Ghost
in scripture, the better to advance religion in our
thoughts, represents it by things of all others the
most highly accounted of in the world, as crowns,
thrones, kingdoms, hidden treasure, and the like;
all which expressions, though far from being in
tended according to the strict and philosophical
truth of things, but rather as allusions to them, yet
still were founded in the universally acknowledged
course of nature, which ever was and will be, for
men to be first allured by the worth of things, be
fore they can desire the property or possession of
them ; and to consider the value, before they design
the purchase. But, be the matter as it may, our af
fections, to be sure, will bid nothing for any thing,
till our judgment has set the price. Thus St. Paul

ON 2 THESSALONIANS II. 11. 233

evinces his love to Christ from his transcendent
esteem of him ; / account all things, says he, but
dung and dross, that I may win Christ, Phil. iii. 8.
And he who accounts a thing as dung will no doubt
trample upon it as such. The rule of contrarieties
will be found a clear illustration of the case. For
hatred generally begins in contempt, or something
very like it ; and it is certain in matter of fact, as
well as reason, that we leave off to love any thing or
person, as soon as we begin to despise them. He
who in scorn turns away his eye from looking upon
an object, will hardly be brought to reach out his
hand after it. Let a man therefore set his under
standing faculty on work, and put it to examine and
consider, to view and review the intrinsic value of
religion, what it is and what it offers, before he
proceeds to make it his portion so far, as to be ready
to quit all the world for it, should they both come
to rival his choice as competitors ; let him, I say, by
a strict and impartial inquiry, descend into himself,
and see whether he can upon these terms (for lower
and easier it knows none) judge it absolutely eligible;
and if not, let him assure himself, that without a
passport from the judgment, it will never gain a
free and full admittance into the affections. For
still it is through the eye that love enters into the
heart : nay, so mighty an influence has the judging
faculty in this case, that it is much disputed, whether
the last dictate of the judgment about any object
does not necessarily determine and draw after it the
choice of the will ; and perhaps there is scarce any
point in moral philosophy of a nicer speculation and
an harder decision : for as the affirmation of this, on
the one side, seems to border upon stoicism, and to

234 A SERMON

intrench upon the freedom of the will ; which, after
the supposal of all things requisite to its acting,
ought nevertheless still to retain a power to exert or
not exert an act of volition ; so, on the other side, to
affirm, that after the understanding has made the
last proposal of the object to the will, the will may
yet refuse it, and go contrary to it, seems to in
fer this great inconvenience, that the will, in order
to its acting, needs not the preceding act or conduct
of the intellect to make a sufficient proposal of the
object to it, since after it is so proposed, it may not
withstanding divert its actings quite another way ;
and then, if it can in this manner proceed without a
guide, the will is not so blind a faculty as the schools
make it. For he who goes one way, when his guide
directs him another, manifestly shews that he both
can and does go without him. But I shall dispute
this point no further ; it being, as I conceive, suffi
cient for our present purpose, that the act of the un
derstanding proposing the object, must of necessity
precede, whether the act or choice of the will follow
it or no. Though for my own part I cannot see,
that the holding the necessity of the will's following
the last dictate or proposal of the understanding,
does at all prejudice its freedom, (which is rather
opposed to coaction from without, than to a deter
mination from within ;) forasmuch as it was in the
power of the will to have diverted the understanding
from its application to any object, before it came to
form its last judgment of it ; and consequently, the
whole proceeding of the understanding being under
the free permission of the will, the act of the will
closing with this last determination, was originally
and virtually free, though formally and immediately,

ON 2 THESSALONIANS II. 11. 235

in this latter sense, necessary. As God necessarily
does what he first absolutely decreed, and yet the
whole act is free, since the decree itself was the free
issue and result of his will. But I beg pardon, if I
have dwelt too long upon this point. It was, be
cause I thought it requisite to shew what is the
part and office, and how great the force and power
of the understanding, in recommending the truths of
religion to the souls of men ; that so they may not
acquiesce in a slight, superficial judgment or appre
hension of them ; which, we may rest satisfied, will
never have any considerable effect, or work any
thorough change upon the heart ; and if so, all will
come to nothing ; for the foundation is ill laid, and
the superstructure cannot be firm. And upon this
account, no doubt, it is, that the scripture ascribes so
much to faith ; indeed, in effect, the whole work of
man's salvation ; and yet it is but an act of the under
standing, and properly and strictly speaking can be
no more : yet nevertheless, of such a mighty and
controlling influence upon the will is it, that, if it be
strong, vigorous, and of the right kind, it draws the
whole soul after it, and works all those wonders
which stand recorded of it in the llth of the He
brews, which from first to last is but a panegyric
upon the invincible strength and heroic achieve
ments of this grace. In a word, if a man, by faith,
can bring his understanding to receive and enter
tain the divine truths of the gospel so as to look
upon the promises of it as conveying the greatest
good arid happiness to man that a rational nature is
capable of, and the threatenings of it as denouncing
the bitterest and most insupportable evils that a
created being can sink under, and both of them as

236 A SERMON

things of certain and infallible event ; this is for a
man truly to value his religion, arid to lay such a
foundation of it in his judgment, as shall never
disappoint or shame his practice. Accordingly, in
the

Second place, the other thing implied in and
intended by the receiving the love of the truth, is
the choice of it, as of a thing transcendently good,
and particularly agreeable to our condition. Gene
rals, we commonly say, are fallacious ; but it is cer
tain that they are always faint. And therefore it is
not merely what is good, as to the general notion of
it, (which can minister to little more than bare
theory and discourse,) but particularly what is good
for me, which must engage my practice. To esteem
a thing, we have shewn, is properly an act of the
understanding; but to choose it, is the part and
office of the will. And choosing is a considerable
advance beyond bare esteem ; forasmuch as it is
the end of it, and consequently perfects it, as the
end does every action which is directed to it. It is
the most proper, genuine, and finishing act of love.
For the great effect of love is to unite us to the
thing we love ; and the will is properly the uniting
faculty, and choice the uniting act, which brings the
soul and its beloved object together. Judgment and
esteem, indeed, is that which offers and recommends
it to the soul ; but it is choice which makes the
match. For the truth is, the soul of man can do no
more, nor reach further, than first to esteem an ob
ject, and then to choose it. And therefore, till we
have made religion our fixed choice, it only floats in
the imagination, and is but the business of talk and
fancy. But it is the heart, after all, which must ap-

ON 2 THESSALONIANS II. 11. 237

propriate and take hold of the great truths of Chris
tianity for its portion, its happiness, and chief good.
And then, and not till then, a man is practically and
in good earnest a Christian ; and that which before
was but notion and opinion, hereby passes into
reality and experience ; and from a mere name, into
the nature and substance of religion. For still, if a
man would make his faith or religion a vital prin
ciple for him to live and act by, it must be such an
one as the apostle tells us works by love; there
must be something of this blessed flame to invigo
rate and give activity to it. But where a man nei
ther loves nor likes the thing he believes, it is odds
but in a little time he may be brought also to cast
off the very belief itself; and, in the mean while, it
is certain, that it can have no efficacy, no operation
or influence upon his life or actions ; which is worse
than no belief at all ; for better, a great deal, none,
than to no purpose.

And thus having shewn what is meant by and
implied in the receiving the love of the truth, it
may, I conceive, help us to an easy and natural ac
count of its opposite or contrary ; to wit, the reject
ing, or not receiving the same ; the great sin, as we
before observed, for which the persons here in the
text stand concluded under so severe a doom. For
the further explication of which, we may very ra
tionally suppose the condition of those men to have
been this, viz. that upon the preaching of Christi
anity, the truth of it quickly overpowered their as
sent, and broke in upon their apprehensions with
the highest evidence and conviction ; but the search
ing purity and spirituality of the same doctrines
equally encountering their worldly interests and

238 A SERMON

their predominant beloved corruptions, soon caused
in their minds a secret loathing of the severity of
those truths, and so by degrees a direct hatred and
hostility against them, as the great disturbers of
those pleasures, and interrupters of the caresses of
those lusts, which had so bewitched their hearts and
seized their affections. It is wonderful to consider
what a strange combat and scuffle there is in the
soul of man, when clear truths meet with strong
corruptions ; one faculty or power of it embracing
a doctrine, because true ; and another, with no less
fury, rising up against it, because severe and disa
greeable. Thus, what should be the reason that
those high and excellent precepts of Christianity,
requiring purity of heart, poverty of spirit, chastity
of mind, hatred of revenge, and the like, find so
cold a reception, or rather so sharp a resentment in
the world? Is it because men think they are not
truths ? By no means ; but because they are severe,
grating, uneasy truths ; they believe them sufficient
ly, and more than they desire, but they cannot love
them ; and for that reason, and no other, they are
rejected and thrown aside in the lives and practices
of men ; not because they cannot or do not convince
their understandings, but because they thwart and
bid defiance to their inclinations. Truth is so con
natural to the mind of man, that it would certainly
be entertained by all men, did it not by accident
contradict some beloved interest or other. The thief
hates the break of day ; not but that he naturally
loves the light, as well as other men ; but his condi
tion makes him dread and abhor that, which of all
things he knows to be the likeliest means of his dis
covery. Men may sometimes frame themselves to

ON 2 THESSALONIANS II. 11. 239

hear and attend to the mortifying truths of Christi
anity ; but then they hear them only as they use to
hear of the death of friends, or the story of a lost
estate; they are true, but troublesome and vexa
tious : so often does the irksomeness of the thing
reported make men angry with the truth of the re
port, and sometimes with the very person of the re
porter too. And therefore, let none wonder, if God
inflicts so signal a judgment upon this sort of sin :
for when men shall resolutely reject clear, pregnant,
and acknowledged (as well as important) truths, only
because they press hard upon their darling sin, and
would knock them off from the pleasing embraces
of the world and the flesh, and from dying in them ;
what do they else but sacrifice the glory of their
nature, their reason, to their brutality? and make
their noblest perfections bow down, and stoop to their
basest lusts ? What do they, I say, but crush and
depress truth, to advance some pitiful, sensual plea
sure in the room of it ; and so, like Herod, strike off
the Baptist's head, only to reward the dances of a
strumpet? This is the great load of condemnation
which lies so heavy upon the world, as St. John tells
us, that men see the light, hut love darkness ; bend
before the truth of a doctrine, but abhor its strict
ness and spirituality : the doctrine of Christianity
being in this, like that forerunner of Christ just now
mentioned by us, who was indeed, as our Saviour
himself styled him, a shining', but withal a burning"
light. And as the shining both of the one and the
other, in the glorious evidence of truth beaming out
from both, could not but, even in spite of sin and
all the powers of darkness, be infinitely pleasing to
all who had the sight thereof; so its burning qua-

240 A SERMON

lity exerting itself in the searching precepts of self-
denial and mortification, was, no doubt, to all vicious
and depraved minds, altogether as tormenting and
intolerable. And so I proceed to the

Third particular proposed by us ; which was to
shew, how the not receiving the love of the truth
into the will and affections, comes to dispose the un
derstanding to error and delusion. Now, I conceive,
it may do it these following ways.

1. By drawing off the understanding from fixing
its contemplation upon a disgusted offensive truth.
For though it is not in the power of the will, when
the understanding apprehends a truth clearly and
distinctly, to countermand its assent to it ; yet it
has so great an influence upon it, that it is able an
tecedently to hinder it from taking that truth into a
full and thorough consideration. And while the
mind is not taken up with an actual attention to the
truth proposed to it, so long it is obnoxious to the
offers and impressions of the contrary error. For
the first adherencies, or rather applications of the
soul to truth, are very weak and imperfect, till they
are furthered and confirmed by a frequent converse
with it, and so by degrees come to have the general
notions of reason endeared and made familiar to the
mind by renewed acts of attention and speculation ;
which ceasing, if a falsehood comes recommended to
the soul with any advantage, that is to say, with
agreeableness, though without argument, it is ten to
one but it enters, and takes possession. And then
the poison is infused ; let the man get it out again
as he can. He who will not insist attentively and
closely upon the examination of any truth, is never
like to have his mind either clearly informed of it,

ON 2 THESSALONIANS II. 11. 241

or firmly united to it. For want of search is really
and properly the keeping off the due approximation
of the object, without which a true apprehension of
it is impossible. So that if a man has corrupt affec
tions, averse to the purity and excellency of any
truth, it is not imaginable that they will suffer his
thoughts to dwell long upon it, but will do their ut
most to divert and carry them off to some other ob
ject, which he is more inclined to and enamoured
with ; and then, what wonder is it, if, under such
circumstances, the mind is betrayed by the bias of
the affections, and so lies open to all the treacherous
inroads of fallacy and imposture? As for instance,
he whose corrupt nature is impatient of any restraint
from morality or religion, will be sure to keep his
mind off from them as much as possibly he can ; he
will not trouble himself with any debates or dis
courses about the truth or evidence of such things
as he heartily wishes were neither evident nor true.
In a word, he will not venture his meditations upon
so unwelcome and so afflicting a subject. And thus
having rid himself of such notions, the contrary do
cuments of atheism and immorality still bringing
with them a compliance with those affections which
all thoughts of religion were so grievous to, will soon

ind an easy, unresisted admittance into an under
standing, naked and unguarded against the several

irts and stratagems of the grand deceiver. A man
indeed may be sometimes so surprised, as not to be
able to prevent the first apprehension and sight of a
truth ; but he is always able to prevent the consi
deration of it ; without which the other can work

upon him very little. For though apprehension
VOL. in. R

242 A SERMON

shews the object, it must be consideration which ap
plies it. But again,

2. A will vitiated, and grown out of love with the
truth, disposes the understanding to error and delu
sion, by causing in it a prejudice and partiality in
all its reflections upon and discourses about it. He
who considers of a thing with prejudice, has judged
the cause before he hears it, and decided the matter,
not as really it is, but as it either crosses or com
ports with the principles which he is already pre
possessed with : the understanding, in such a case,
being like the eye of the body, viewing a white thing
through a red glass ; it forms a judgment of the co
lour, not according to the thing it sees, but accord
ing to that by which it sees. And upon the like
account it is, that the will and the affections never
pitch upon any thing as odious, but that sooner or
later they bribe the judgment to represent it to them
as ugly too. We know the miracles, the astonish
ing works, and excellent discourses of our Saviour
could not strike the hearts of those whom he preach
ed to, through the mighty prejudice they had con
ceived against his person and country. But that
they still opposed all, even the most cogent and de
monstrative arguments he could bring for his doc
trine, with that silly exception, Is not this the car
penter's son ? And that one ridiculous proverb, that
no good could come out of Galilee, (as slight as it
was,) yet proved strong enough to obstruct their as
sent, and arm their minds against that high convic
tion and mighty sway of evidence, which shined
forth in all his miraculous works ; so that this sense
less saying alone fully answered, or (which was as

ON 2 THESSALONIANS II. 11. 243

effectual for their purpose) absolutely overbore them
all. In like manner, we find it elsewhere observed
by our Saviour himself, of that selfish, rotten, and
yet demure generation of men, the Pharisees, that
they could not believe, because they received ho
nour one of another, John v. 44. They had, it
seems, bewitched the people into an extravagant
esteem and veneration of their sanctity, and by that
means had got no small command over their purses,
their tables, and their families ; nay, and more than
ordinary footing and interest in the Jewish court it
self. So that they ruled without control, getting the
highest seats in synagogues, that is, in their chief
assemblies or consistories ; and they loved also to
feed as high as they sat, still providing themselves
with the best rooms, and not the worst dishes (we
may be sure) at feasts. Nor would ever such pre
tenders have fasted twice a week, but that they
knew it afforded them five days besides to feast in ;
so that having thus found the sweets of a crafty,
long-practised hypocrisy, from which they had reaped
so many luscious privileges, they could not but have
an horrible prejudice against the strictness of that
doctrine, which preached nothing but self-denial, hu
mility, and a contempt of the honours and emolu
ments of the world, which they themselves so pas
sionately doted upon ; and therefore no wonder if
they threw it off as a fable and an imposture, though
recommended with all the attestations of divine
power, which had in them a fitness to inform or
convince the reason of man. So far did the corrup
tion of their will advance their prejudice, and their
prejudice destroy their judgment. But,

The third and last reason which I shall assign

Ro
AM

244 A SERMON

for proving that the will's not embracing the love of
the truth, betrays the understanding to error and
delusion, is from the peculiar malignity which is in
every vice, or corrupt affection, to darken and besot
the mind, the vove, the great guide and superintend-
ant of all the faculties of the soul ; for so near a con
nection, or rather cognation is there between the
moral and intellectual perfection of it, (as I have
elsewhere observed a,) that a great flaw in the former
never fails in the issue to affect the latter ; though
possibly how this is done is not so easily accounted
for. Nevertheless, that irrefragable argument expe
rience sufficiently proves many things, which it is
not able to explain, nor indeed pretends to be so.
Aristotle has observed of the vices of the flesh, (and
his observation is in a great degree true of all other,)
that they do peculiarly cloud the intellect, and de
base a man's notions, emasculate his reason, and
weaken his discourse ; and, in a word, make him,
upon ah1 these accounts, much less a man than he
was before. And for this cause, no doubt, has the
same author declared young men, in whom the fore-
mentioned sort of vices is commonly most predomi
nant, not competent auditors of moral philosophy,
as having turned the force of their minds to things
of a quite contrary nature. But this mischief reaches
much further ; for sure it is, that when wise men (be
their years what they will) become vicious men, their
wisdom leaves them; and there appears not that
keenness and briskness in their apprehensive and
judging faculties, which had been all along observed

a The reader may please to 292, where this subject is more
cast his eye upon a sermon in professedly and largely treated
the second volume, p. 261 — of.

ON 2 THESSALONIANS II. 11. 245

in them, while attended with temperance, and guard
ed with sobriety. So that, upon this fatal change,
they do not argue with that strength, distinguish
with that clearness, nor, in any matter brought into
debate, conclude with that happiness and firmness of
result, which they were wont to do.

Shew me so much as one wise counsel or action
of Marcus Antonius, a person otherwise both va
liant and eloquent, after that he had subdued his
understanding to his affections, and his affections to
Cleopatra. How great was Lucullus in the field,
and how great in the academy ! But, abandoning
himself to ease and luxury, Plutarch tells us that he
survived the use of his reason, grew infatuated, and
doted long before he died, though he died before he
was old.

All which tends to demonstrate, that such is the
nature of vice, that the love thereof entering into
the will, and thrusting out the love of truth, it is
no wonder, if the understanding comes to sink into
infatuation and delusion ; the ferment of a vicious
inclination lodged in the affections, being like an
intoxicating liquor received into the stomach, from
whence it will be continually sending thick clouds
and noisome steams up to the brain. Filth and
foulness in the one will be sure to cause darkness in
the other. Was ever any one almost observed to
come out of a tavern, an alehouse, or a jolly meeting,
fit for his study, or indeed for any thing else, requir
ing stress or exactness of thought? The morning,
we know, is commonly said to be a friend to the
muses, but a morning's draught was never so. And
thus having done with the third particular proposed
from the text, come we now to the

R 3

246 A SERMON

Fourth ; viz. to shew, how God can be properly
said to send men delusions. God, says the apostle,
1 John i. 5, is light, and in kirn there is no darkness
at all. And that which in no respect is in him,
cannot, we may be sure, proceed from him. Upon
which account, it must needs be very difficult to
shew and demonstrate, how God can derive igno
rance, darkness, and deception into the minds of
men. And the great difficulty of giving a rational
and good account of this and such like instances,
drove Manes, an early heretic, with his followers,
(called all along the Manichees, or Manicheans,) to
assert two first, eternal, independent beings, one the
cause of all good, the other the cause of all evil ; as
concluding, that the evil which is in the world
must needs have some cause, and that a being infi
nitely good could not be the cause of it ; and conse
quently, that there must be some other principle
from the malignity of whose influence flowed all the
ignorance, all the wickedness and villainy, which
either is or ever was in the world. But the gene
rally received opinion of the nature of evil, viz. that
it is but a mere privation of good, and consequently
needs not an efficient, but only a deficient cause, as
owing its production and rise, not to the force, but to
the failure of the agent; this consideration, I say,
has rendered that notion of Manes, of a first inde
pendent principle of evil, as useless and impious in
divinity, as it is absurd in philosophy.

This principle therefore being thus removed, let
us see how it can comport with the goodness and
absolute purity of the divine nature, to have such
effects ascribed to it, and how, without any deroga
tion to the glorious attribute of God's holiness, he

ON 2 THESSALONIANS II. 11. 247

can be said to send the delusions, mentioned in the
text, into the minds of men. Now, I conceive, he
may be said to do it these four ways.

1. First by withdrawing his enlightening influence
from the understanding. This, I confess, may seem
at first an obscure, enthusiastic notion to some ; but
give me leave to shew, that there is sufficient ground
for it in reason. And for this purpose, I shall ob
serve to you, that it was the opinion of some philo
sophers, particularly of Aristotle, and since him of
Averroes, Avicenna, and some others, that there was
one universal soul belonging to the whole species, or
race of mankind, and indeed to all things else ac
cording to their capacity : which universal soul, by
its respective existence in, and communication of it
self to each particular man, did exert in him those
noble acts of understanding and ratiocination pro
per to his nature ; and those also in a different de
gree and measure of perfection, according as the dif
ferent crasis or disposition of the organs of the body
made it more or less fit to receive the communica
tion of that universal soul; which soul only (by
the way) they held to be immortal; and that every
particular man, both in respect of body and spirit,
was mortal ; his spirit being nothing else but a more
refined disposition and elevation of matter.

Others, detesting the impiety of this opinion, did
allow to every individual person a distinct immortal
soul, and that also endued with the power and fa
culty of understanding and discourse inherent in it.
But then, as to the soul's use and actual exercise of
this faculty, upon their observing the great diffe
rence between the same object, as it was sensible, and
affected the sense, and as it was intelligible, and mov-

R 4

248

A SERMON

ed the understanding, they held also the necessity of
another principle without the soul, to advance the
object, a gradu sensibili ad gradum intelligibilem,
as they speak, and so to make it actually fit to
move and affect the intellect. And this they called
an intellectus agens ; so that although the soul was
naturally endued with an intellective power, yet,
by reason of the great distance of material, corpo
real things from the spiritual nature of it, it could
never actually apprehend them, till this intellectus
agens did irradiate and shine upon them, and so
prepare and qualify them for an intellectual percep
tion. And this intellectus agens, some, and those
none of the lowest form in the Peripatetic school,
have affirmed to be no other than God himself, that
great light which enlightens not only every man,
but every thing (according to its proportion) in the
world.

The result and application of which discourse to
my present purpose is this ; that certainly a those

a For it is ascribed to no less
persons than to Plato, and Ari
stotle after him, (as borrowing
it from him,) and that by seve
ral of the most eminent inter
preters of the latter, both an
cient and modern ; all of them
proceeding upon this ground,
that in order to the actual in
tellection of any object, there is
a spiritual, intellectual light ne
cessary to enable the object to
move or affect the intellective
faculty, which yet the object
canno't give to itself, nor yet
strike or move the said faculty
without it. And therefore they
say, that there is required an in
tellectus agcns, or being distinct

both from the object and the
faculty too, which may so ad
vance and spiritualize the ob
ject, by casting an higher light
upon it, as to render it fit and
prepared thereby for an intel
lectual perception. And foras
much as every thing which is
such or such secondarily, and
by participation from another,
supposes some other to be so
primarily and originally by and
from itself; and since God is
the primum intelligibile in the
intellectual world, as the sun is
the primum visibile in the sen
sible and material world ; they
affirm the same necessity of a
superior and intellectual light

ON 2 THESSALONIANS II. 11.

249

great masters of argument and knowledge could not
but have some weighty and considerable reasons thus
to interest an external principle in the intellectual
operations of man's mind. And so much of reason
do I, for my part, reckon to be at the bottom of
this opinion, that I have been often induced to think,
that if we should but strip things of mere words and
terms, and reduce notions to realities, there would
be found but little difference (so far as it respects
man's understanding) between the intellectus agens
asserted by some philosophers, and the universal
grace, or common assistances of the Spirit, asserted
by some divines, (and particularly by John Good
win, calling it, the pagans' debt and dowry ;) and
that the assertors of both of them seem to found their
several assertions upon much the same ground ; name
ly, upon their apprehension of the natural impotence
of the soul of man, immersed in matter, to raise it-

issuing from God, in order to
move the intellect, and form in
it an intellectual apprehension
of things, which there is of a
light beaming from the sun, for
the causing an act of vision in
the visive faculty. And this
they insist upon, not only as a
similitude for illustration, but
as a kind of parallel case, as to
this particular instance, how
widely soever the things com
pared may differ from one an
other upon many other accounts.
This, I say, was held by several
of the most noted of the Peri
patetic tribe ; though others, I
know, who are professedly of
the same, do yet in this matter
go quite another way; allow
ing indeed that there is and
must be an intellectus agens, but

that it is no more than a diffe
rent faculty of the same soul, or
a different function of the same
faculty; but by no means an
agent, or intelligent being dis
tinct from it. This, I confess,
is of very nice speculation, and
made so by the arguments pro
ducible on both sides, and con
sequently not so proper to make
a part in such a popular dis
course as I am here engaged
in ; nor should I have ever
mentioned it barely as a philo
sophical point, but as I con
ceived it improvable into a
theological use, as I have endea
voured to improve it in the dis
course itself; to which therefore
I have chose rather to annex
this by way of annotation, than
to insert it into the body thereof.

250 A SERMON

self to such spiritual and sublime operations, as we
find it does, without the assistance of some higher
and divine principle. And accordingly, this being
admitted, that the soul is no otherwise able to exert
its intellectual acts, than by a light continually flow
ing in upon it, from the great fountain of light, (whe
ther that light assists it by strengthening the faculty
itself, or brightening the object, or both, it matters
not, since the result of both, as to the main issue of
the action, will be the same ;) I say, this being ad
mitted, that God beams this light into man's under
standing, and that, as a free agent, by voluntary
communications ; so that he may withdraw or sus
pend what he thus communicates, as he pleases ; how
natural, how agreeable to reason is it to conceive,
that God, being provoked by gross sins, may deliver
the sinner to delusion and infatuation, by a suspen
sion and substraction of this light ? For may not
God blast the understanding of such an one, by shut
ting up those influences which were wont to enliven
his reason in all its discourses and argumentations.
Certain it is, that this frequently happens ; and that
the wit and parts of men, who hold the truth in un
righteousness, are often blasted, so that there is a
visible decay of them, a strange unusual weakness
and failure in them ; and this not to be ascribed to
any known cause in the world, but to the just judg
ment of God, stopping that eternal fountain from
which they had received their continual supplies.
This to me seems very intelligible, and equally ra
tional : and accordingly may pass for the first way,
by which God may be said to send delusion into the
minds of men. But,

2. God may be said to do the same, by giving com-.

ON 2 THESSALONIANS II. 11. 251

mission to the great deceiver, and spirit of falsehood,
to abuse and seduce the sinner. A signal and most
remarkable example of which we have in 1 Kings
xxii. 22. When Ahab was grown full ripe for de
struction, we find this expedient for his ruin pitched
upon ; viz. that he was to be persuaded to go up to
Ramoth-gilead, to fall there. But how and by what
means was this to be effected ? Why, the text tells us,
that there came forth a spirit, and stood before the
Lord, and said, I will persuade him. And the Lord
said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will
go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth
of all his prophets. And God said, Thou shalt
persuade him, and prevail also : go forth, and do
so. We see here the evil spirit sent forth, and fully
empowered by Almighty God to accomplish his de
lusions upon a bold, incorrigible sinner. And what
method God took then, we cannot deny, or prove it
unreasonable, but that he may take still, where the
same sins prepare and fit men for the same perdition.
How the Devil conveys his fallacies to the minds
of men, and by what ways and arts he befools their
understandings, I shall not here dispute ; nor, being
sure of the thing itself, from the word of God, that
it is so, shall I be much solicitous about the manner
how. But thus much we may truly, and, by conse
quence, safely say, that since it is too evident that
the Devil can make false resemblances and repre
sentations of things pass before our bodily eyes, so
that we shall be induced to believe that we see that,
which physically and indeed we do not see ; why
may he not also suggest false images of things both
to the imagination and to the intellectual eye of the
mind, (as different as they are from one another,)

252 A SERMON

and so falsify our notions, and disorder our appre
hensions ? It is plainly asserted, in 2 Cor. iv. 4, that
the God of this world has blinded the minds of them
which believe not. The great sophister and prince
of darkness (God permitting him) can strangely
blindfold our reason and muffle our understanding ;
and, no doubt, the chiefest cause that most of the
obstinate, besotted sinners of the world are not sen
sible that the Devil blinds and abuses them is, that
he has indeed actually done so already.

For how dreadfully did God consign over the hea
then world to a perpetual slavery to his deceits !
They worshipped him, they consulted with him, and <
so absolutely were they sealed up under the ruling
cheat, that they took all his tricks and impostures
for oracle and instruction. And the truth is, when
men, under the powerful preaching of the gospel,
(such as the church of England has constantly af
forded,) will grow heathens in the viciousness of
their practices, it is but just with God to suffer them
(by a very natural transition) to grow heathens too
in the grossness of their delusions.

3. A third way by which God may be said to
send men delusions is, by a providential disposing
of them into such circumstances of life, as, through
a peculiar suitableness to their corruption, have in
them a strange efficacy to delude and impose upon
them. God, by a secret, unobserved trace of his pro
vidence, may cast men under an heterodox, seducing
ministry, or he may order their business and affairs
so, that they shall light into atheistical company,
grow acquainted with heretics, or possibly meet with
pestilent books, and with arguments subtilly and
speciously urged against the truth : all which falling

ON 2 THESSALONIANS II. 11.

253

in with an ill-inclined judgment and worse-order
ed morals, will wonderfully recommend and set off
the very worst of errors to a mind thus prepared
for their admission ; no guard being sufficient to
linder their entering, and taking possession, but
re caution and virtue keep the door. The want
of which quality has been the grand, if not sole
cause, which in all ages has brought so many over
to, and in the issue settled and confirmed them in
some of the foulest sects and absurdest heresies that
ever infested the Christian church ; and so deeply
have the wretches drank in the delusion, that they
have lived and died in it, and transmitted the sur
viving poison of it to posterity. And yet, as far and
wide as such heresies have reigned and raged in
their time, and as woful an havock as they have
made of souls, they have been often taken up at first
by mere accident, or upon some slight, trivial, un-
projected occasion, no less unperceivable in their
rise, than afterward formidable in their progress.
But as what is said of affliction in Job v. 6, may
with equal truth and pertinence be said of every
notable event, bad as well as good, namely, that it
comes not out of the dust, so the direction of all
such small and almost undiscernible causes to such
mighty effects as often follow from them, can pro
ceed from nothing but that all-comprehending Pro
vidence which casts its superintending eye and go
verning influence over all, even the most minute and
inconsiderable passages in the world ; inconsiderable
indeed in themselves, but in their consequences by
no means so.

And therefore, as we find it expressed of him who
kills a man unwillingly, and by some undesigned

254 A SERMON

stroke or accident, that God delivers that man into his
hands, Exod. xxi. 13, so when a man, by such odd,
unforeseen ways and means as we have before men
tioned, comes to be drawn into any false, erroneous
belief or persuasion, it may, with as true and solid
consequence, be affirmed, that by all this God sends
such a man a delusion. As for instance, when, by
the special disposal of God's providence, Hushai the
Archite suggested that counsel to Absalom, in 2 Sam.
xvii. 11, 12, which he believed, and followed to his
destruction, we may say, and that neither improperly
nor untruly, that God sent him that deception ; for
it is expressly added, in the fourteenth verse, that
God had appointed to defeat the counsel ofAhitho-
phel, to the intent that he might bring evil upon
Absalom. Likewise how emphatically full and preg
nant to the same purpose is that instance of a false
prophet accustomed to deceive himself and others,
in Ezek. xiv. 9- If the prophet, says God, be de
ceived when he has spoken a thing, I the Lord
have deceived that prophet. God here names and
appropriates the action to himself by a way of pro
ceeding incomprehensible indeed, but unquestionably
just.

Let this therefore pass for a third way by which
God delivers over a sinner to error and circumven
tion. Which point I shall conclude with those ex
clamatory words of St. Paul, so full of wonder and
astonishment, in Rom. xi. 33, How unsearchable are
his judgments, and his ways past finding out! So
many windings and turnings, so many untraceable
meanders are there in the providence of God, to
carry on the delusion of those sinners who have been
first so sedulous and industrious to delude themselves.

ON 2 THESSALONIANS II. 11. 255

In all which passages, nevertheless, (how unaccount
able soever they may be to us,) still the delusion is
in him alone who embraces it a sin, but in God, who
sends it, undoubtedly a judgment only, and a very
righteous one too. And now, in the

Fourth and last place ; we are not to omit an
other notable way of God's delivering sinners to de
lusion, which is mentioned in the ninth verse of the
chapter from whence our text is taken ; namely, his
permitting lying wonders to be done before them.
A miracle, in a large and general sense, is no more
but effectus aliquis manifestus, cujus causa igno-
ratur; a manifest effect, of which the cause is not
understood : but, in a more restrained and proper
sense, it is denned a work or effect evident to sense,
and exceeding the force of natural agents. Now,
whether such an one can be done to confirm and
give credit to a falsehood proposed to men's belief,
God lending his power for the trial of men, to see, or
rather to let the world see, whether they will be
drawn off from the truth or no, may well be dis
puted; though that place in Deut. xiii. 1, 2, seems
shrewdly to make for the affirmative.

But as for that former sort of miracles, which in
deed are only strange things causing wonder, and so
may proceed from mere natural causes applying
activa passivis, there is no question, but such as
these may be done to confirm a false doctrine or as
sertion. Thus, when Pharaoh hardened his heart
against the express command and declared will of
God, God permitted him to be confirmed in his de
lusion by the enchantments and lying wonders of the
magicians ; all which were done only by the power
the Devil. Forasmuch as angels, both good and

256 A SERMON

bad, having a full insight into the activity and force
of natural causes, by new and strange conjunctions
of the active qualities of some with the passive ca
pacities of others, can produce such wonderful effects
as shall generally amaze and astonish poor mortals,
whose shorter sight is not able to reach into the
causes of them.

The church of Rome has, in this respect, suf
ficiently declared the little value she has for the old
Christian truth, by the new, upstart articles she has
superadded to it ; and besides this, to confirm one
error with another, she further professes a power of
doing miracles. So that, laying aside the writings of
the apostles, we must, it seems, resolve our faith into
legends ; and old wives' fables must take place of the
histories of the evangelists. And the truth is, if non
sense may pass for miracle, tran substantiation has
carried her miracle-working gift far above all the
miracles that were ever yet wrought in the world.
But as for the many other miraculous feats which
she and her sons pretend to and boast of, I shall only
say thus much of them, that though I doubt not but
most of them are the impudent cheats of daring, de
signing persons, set afoot and practised by them to
defy God, as well as to delude men ; yet it is no
ways improbable, but that God may suffer the Devil
to do many of them above what a bare human power
is able to do, and that in a judicial and penal way,
thereby to fix and rivet both the deceivers and
deceived in a belief of those lies and fopperies, which,
in opposition to the light of reason and conscience,
they had so industriously enslaved their understand
ings to.

And now, I think, it is of as high concernment to

ON 2 THESSALONIANS II. 1 1. 257

every man, as the salvation of his soul ought to be,
to reflect with dread upon these severe and fearful
methods of divine justice. We, through an infinite
and peculiar mercy, have yet the truth set before
us ; the pure, unmixed truth of the gospel, with
great light and power held forth to us. But if we
shall now obstinately shut our eyes against it, stave
it off, and bolt it out of our consciences ; and all this
only from a secret love to some base minion lust or
corruption, which that truth would mortify, and root
out of our hearts ; let us remember, that this is the
very height of divine vengeance, that those who love
a lie should be brought at length to believe it, and,
as a natural consequent of both, to perish by it too.

Which God, the great Fountain of truth, and
Father of lights, of his infinite compassion pre
vent. To whom be rendered and ascribed, as
is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and do
minion, both now and for evermore. Amen,

VOL. III.

Ill-disposed affections both naturally and penally
the cause of darkness and error in the judgment.

PART II.

2 THESSALONIANS ii. 11.

And far this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that
they should believe a lie.

WHEN I first made an entrance upon these
words, I gathered the full sense and design of them,
as I judged, into this one proposition, viz.

That the not entertaining a sincere love and af
fection for the duties of religion > naturally, and by
the just judgment of God also, disposes men to error
and deceptions about the great truths of religion.

Which to me seeming to take in and comprehend
the full sense and drift of the words, I then cast
what I had to say upon them into these following
particulars,

I. To shew, how the mind of man can believe a
lie.

II. To shew, what it is to receive the love of the
truth.

III. To shew, how the not receiving the love of
the truth comes to have such a malign influence
upon the understanding, as to dispose it to error and
delusion.

IV. To shew, how God can be properly said to
send men delusions. And,

V. Since his sending them is here mentioned as a

A SERMON ON 2 THESS. II. 11. 259

judgment, (and a very severe one too,) the next
thing I proposed was to shew wherein the extraor
dinary greatness of it did consist. And,

Sixthly and lastly, to improve the point into some
useful consequences and deductions from the whole.

The four first of these I have already despatched
in the preceding discourse upon this text and sub
ject, and so shall now proceed to the

Fifth, which was to shew, wherein the extraordi
nary and distinguishing greatness of this judgment
did consist. For it is certain, that the text here
accounts and represents it above the ordinary rate
of judgments commonly sent by God.

And this, I conceive, will remarkably shew itself
to such as shall consider it these two ways,

1. Absolutely in itself.

2. In the consequents of it.

Under the first of which two considerations, the
peculiar dreadfulness of this judgment will more
than sufficiently appear, upon these two accounts :
as,

1. That it is spiritual; and so directly affects and
annoys the prime and most commanding part of
man's nature, his soul ; that noble copy and resem
blance of its Maker, in small indeed, but neverthe
less one of the liveliest representations of him, that
the God of nature ever drew ; and that in some of
his greatest and most amiable perfections. And if
so, can any thing be imagined to come so like a
killing blast upon it, as that which shall at once strip
it of this glorious image, and stamp the black por
traiture of the foulest of beings in the room of it ?
Besides, since nothing can either please or afflict to
any considerable degree, but by a close and intimate

s 2

260 A SERMON

application of itself to a subject capable of such im
pressions, still it must be the spirituality of a judg
ment, which, entering where body and matter cannot,
is the only thing that can strike a man in his prin
cipal capacity of being miserable ; and, consequently,
in that part which enables him (next to the angels
themselves) to receive and drink in more of the
wrath, as well as love of God, than any other
being whatsoever. In a spiritual, uncompounded
nature, the capacities of pain and pleasure must
needs be equal; though in a corporeal, or com
pounded one, the sense of pain is much acuter, and
goes deeper than that of pleasure is ever found to
do. Accordingly, as to what concerns the soul or
spirit, no doubt, our chief passive, as well as active
strengths are lodged in that ; though it being an
object too near us to be perfectly apprehended by us,
we are not able in this life to know distinctly what
a spirit is, and what it can bear, and what it cannot.
But our great Creator, who exactly knows our
frame, and had the first ordering of the whole ma
chine, knows also where and by what a soul or spirit
may be most sensibly touched and wounded, better
a great deal than we, who are animated and acted
by that soul, do or can. And therefore, where he
designs the severest strokes of his wrath, we may
be sure, that it is this spiritual part of us which
must be the great scene where such tragical things
are to be acted. So that, if an angry Providence
should at any time smite a sinner in his nearest
temporal concerns, we may nevertheless look upon
such an infliction, how sharp soever, but as a drop
of scalding water lighting upon his hand or foot ;
but when God fastens the judgment upon the spirit,

ON 2 THESSALONIANS II. 11. 261

or inner man, it is like scalding lead poured into
his bowels, it reaches him in the very centre of life ;
and where the centre of life is made the centre of
misery too, they must needs be commensurate, and
a man can no more shake off his misery than he
can himself.

Every judgment of God has a force more or less
destructive, according to the quality and reception
of ^the thing which it falls upon. If it seizes the
body, which is but of a mortal and frail make, and
so, as it were, crumbles away under the pressure,
why then the judgment itself expires through the
failure of a sufficient subject or recipient, and ceases
to be predatory, as having nothing to prey upon.
But that which comes out of its Creator's hands,
immaterial and immortal, endures and continues
under the heaviest stroke of his wrath ; and so is
able to keep pace with the infliction (as I may so
express it) both by the largeness of its perception
and the measure of its duration. He who has a
soul to suffer in, has something by which God may
take full hold of him, and upon which he may exert
his anger to the utmost. Whereas, if he levels the
blow at that which is weak and mortal, the very
weakness of the thing stricken at will elude the
violence of the stroke : as when a sharp, corroding
rheum falls upon the lungs, that part being but of
a spongy nature, and of no hard substance, little or
no pain is caused by the distillation ; but the same
ig upon a nerve fastened to the jaw, or to a
joint, (the consistency and firmness of which shall
force to the impression,) it presently causes the
[uickest pain and anguish, and becomes intolerable,
cannon bullet will do terrible execution upon
s 3

262 A SERMON

a castle-wall or a rampart, but none at all upon a
woolpack.

The judgments which God inflicts upon men
are of several sorts, and intended for several ends,
and those very different. Some are only probative,
and designed to try and stir up those virtues which
before lay dormant in the soul. Some again are
preventive, and sent to pull back the unwary sinner
from the unperceived snares of death, which he is
ignorantly approaching to. And some, in the last
place, are of a punitive or vindictive nature, and in
tended only to recompense or revenge the guilt of
past sins ; as part of the sinner's payment in hand,
and as so many foretastes of death, and earnests of
damnation.

Accordingly, we are to observe, that the malig
nity of spiritual judgments consists chiefly in this,
that their end, most commonly, is neither trial nor
prevention, but vengeance and retribution. They
are corrosives, made not to heal, but to consume.
And surely, such an one is the judgment of being
sealed up under a delusion. Sampson, we read, en
dured many hardships and affronts, and yet sunk
under none of them ; but when an universal sottish-
ness was fallen upon all his faculties, and God's
wonted presence had forsook him, he presently be
came, as to all the generous purposes of life and ac
tion, an useless and a ruined person.

Whereas, on the other side, suppose, that God
should visit a man with extreme poverty ; yet still,
he, who is as poor as Job, may be as humble, as pa
tient, and as pious as Job too ; and such qualities
will be always accounted pearls and treasures, though
found upon the vilest dunghill: or what if God

ON 2 THESSALONIANS II. 11. 263

should dash a man's name and reputation, and make
him a scorn and a by-word to all who know him ;
yet still the shame of the cross was greater, and one
may be made the way and passage to a crown, as
well as the other. It was so, we are assured, to
our great spiritual head ; and why may it not, in
its proportion, prove the same likewise to his spiri
tual members ? For the conjunction between them
is intimate, and the inference natural. Or what
again, if God should think fit to smite a man with
sores, sickness, and noisome ulcers in his body ? yet
even these, as offensive as they are, cannot unqualify
a Lazarus for Abraham's bosom. And so for all
other sorts of calamities incident to this mortal
state ; should we ransack all the magazines of God's
temporal judgments, not one of them all, nor yet all
of them together, can reach a man in that, which
alone can render him truly happy or miserable.
For though the mountains (as the Psalmist expresses
it) should be carried into the sea, and the whole
world about him should be in a flame, yet still (as
Solomon says) a wise and a good man shall be
satisfied from himself; his happiness is in his own
keeping ; he has it at home, and therefore needs not
seek for it abroad. But,

2. The greatness of the judgment of being brought
under the power of a delusion, consists not only in
the spirituality of it, whereby it possesses and per
verts the whole soul in all the powers and offices of
it, but more particularly, that it blasts a man in
that peculiar, topping perfection of his nature, his
understanding : for ignorance and deception are the
very bane of the intellect, the disease of the mind,
and the utmost dishonour of reason : there being no

S4

264 A SERMON

sort of reproach which a man resents with so keen
and so just an indignation, as the charge of folly.
The very word fool draws blood, and nothing but
death is thought an equivalent to the slander : for
asmuch as it carries in it an insulting negative upon
that, which constitutes the person so charged pro
perly a man ; every degree of ignorance being so far
a recess and degradation from rationality, and con
sequently from humanity itself. Nor is this any
modern fancy or caprice lately taken up, but the
constant and unanimous consent of all nations and
ages. For what else, do we think, could make the
heathen philosophers so infinitely laborious, and,
even to a miracle, industrious in the quest of know
ledge ? What was it that engrossed their time, and
made them think neither day nor night, nor both of
them together, sufficient for study ? But because
they reckoned it a base and a mean thing to be de
ceived, to be put off with fallacy and appearance, in
stead of truth and reality, and overlooking the sub
stance and inside of things, to take up with mere
shadow and surface. It was a known saying of the
ancients, ano (rwfj.aTO$ vocrov, aTTO tpvj^fc a^dBeiOLV. Keep
off ignorance from thy soul, as thou wouldest a dis
ease or a plague from thy body. For when a man
is cursed with a blind and a besotted mind, it is a
sure, and therefore a sad sign, that God is leading
such an one to his final doom ; it is both the cause
and the forerunner of his destruction. For when
the malefactor comes once to have his eyes covered,
it shews that he is not far from his execution. In
a word, he who has sunk so far below himself, as to
have debased the governing faculties of his soul, and
given up his assent to an imperious, domineering

ON 2 THESSALONIANS II. 11. 265

error, is fit for nothing but to be trumped and tram
pled upon, to be led by the nose, and enslaved to
the designs of every bold encroacher, either upon
his interest or his reason. And such, he may be
sure, he shall not fail to meet with ; especially, if his
lot casts him upon a country abounding with public,
countenanced, religious cheats, both natives and fo
reigners, broachers of heresies, leaders of sects, tools
and under-agents to our Romish back-friends, who
can willingly enough allow them all conventicles for
the only proper places to serve God in, and the
church, if need be, to serve a turn by ; of which
and the like impostors, it may be truly said, with
reference to their abused proselytes, that they wear
and carry the trophies of so many captivated rea
sons about them ; that they clothe themselves with
the spoil of their wretched intellectuals, and so, in
effect, tread the very heads of their disciples under
their feet. This is the treatment which they are
sure to find from such sanctified deceivers; these
the returns, which delusion, submitted to, still re
wards her votaries with. And may God, I beseech
him, in his just judgment, order matters so, that
such practices and such rewards may inseparably
accompany and join one another, not only by an oc
casional, but by a fixed and perpetual communion.

In the mean time, if slavery be that which all
generous and brave spirits abhor ; and to lose the
choicest of nature's freeholds, and that in the most
valuable of things, their reason, be the worst of sla
veries ; then surely it must be the most inglorious
condition that can befall a rational creature, to be
possessed, rid, and governed by a delusion. For
still (as our Saviour has told us in John viii. 32) it

266 A SERMON

is the truth which must make us free ; the truth
only, which must give a man the enjoyment, the
government, and the very possession of himself. In
a word, truth has set up her tribunal in the soul,
and sitting there as judge herself, there can be no
exception against her sentence, nor appeal from her
authority.

But besides all this, there is yet something fur
ther, which adds to the misery of this kind of slavery
and captivity of the mind under error ; and that is,
that it has a peculiar malignity to bind the shackles
faster upon it, by a strange, unaccountable love,
which it begets of itself, in a man's affections. For
no man entertains an error, but, for the time that
he does so, he is highly pleased and enamoured with
it, and has a more particular tenderness and fond
ness for a false notion than for a true, (as some for
a bastard, more than for a son ;) for error and decep
tion, by all (who are not actually under them) are
accounted really the madness of the mind. And
madness, it must be owned, naturally keeps off me
lancholy, (though often caused by it.) For it makes
men wonderfully pleased with their own extrava
gancies ; and few, how much soever out of their
wits, are out of humour too in bedlam.

Now the reason of this different acceptableness of
truth and error in the first offers of them to the
mind, and the advantage which the latter too often
gets over the former, is, I conceive, from this, that
it is natural for error to paint and daub, to trim,
and use more of art and dress to set it off to the
mind, than truth is observed to do. Which, trust
ing in its own native and substantial worth, scorns
all meretricious ornaments, and knowing the right

ON 2 THESSALONIANS II. 11. 267

it has to our assent, and the indisputable claim to
all that is called reason, she thinks it below her to
ask that upon courtesy, in which she can plead a
property ; and therefore rather enters than insi
nuates, and challenges possession instead of begging
admission. Which being the case, no wonder if
error, oiled with obsequiousness, (which generally
gains friends, though deserves none worth having,)
has often the advantage of truth, and thereby slides
more easily and intimately into the fool's bosom,
than the uncourtliness of truth will suffer it to do.
But then again, we are to observe withal, that there
is nothing which the mind of man has a vehement
and passionate love for, but it is so far enslaved,
and brought into bondage to that thing. And if so,
can there be a greater calamity, than for so noble a
being as the soul is, to love and court the dictates
of a commanding absurdity ? Nothing certainly be
ing so tyrannical as ignorance, where time, and long
possession enables it to prescribe ; nor so haughty
and assuming, where pride and self-conceit bids it
set up for infallible.

But now, to close this point, by shewing how
vastly the understanding differs from itself, when
informed by truth, and when abused by error ; let
us observe how the scripture words the case, while
it expresses the former by a state of light, and the
latter by a state of darkness. Concerning both
which, as it is evident that nothing can be more
amiable, suitable, and universally subservient both
to the needs and to the refreshments of the crea
ture, than light : so nothing is deservedly accounted
so dismal, hateful, and dispiriting, as darkness is ;
darkness, I say, which the scripture makes only

268 A SERMON

another word for the shadow of death ; and always
the grand opportunity of mischief, and the surest
shelter of deformity. For though to want eyes be
indeed a great calamity, yet to have eyes and not to
see, to have all the instruments of sight and the
curse of blindness together, this is the very height
and crisis of misery, and adds a sting and a reproach
to what would otherwise be but a misfortune. For
nothing envenoms any calamity, but the crime which
deserves it.

I come now to consider the distinguishing great
ness of the judgment of God's sending men strong
delusion, by taking a view of the effects and conse
quents of it ; and we need cast our eyes no further
than these two. As,

1. That it renders the conscience utterly useless, as
to the great office to be discharged by it in the re
gulation and super visal of the whole course of a
man's life. A blind watchman (all must grant) is
equally a nuisance and an impertinence. And such
a paradox, both in reason and practice, is a deluded
conscience, viz. a counsellor who cannot advise, and
a guide not able to direct. Nothing can be more
close and proper to the point now before us, than
that remark of our Saviour in Matth. vi. 23, If the
light that is in thee be darkness, how great must
that darkness be! Why, as great, no doubt, and of as
fatal consequence to the affairs and government of the
microcosm, or lesser world, as if, in the greater, God
should put out the sun, and establish one great, uni
versal cloud in the room of it ; or as if the moon and
stars, instead of governing the night, should be go
verned by it, and the noble influences of the one
should, for usefulness, give place to the damps and

ON 2 THESSALONIANS II. 11. 269

deadening shades of the other. All which would
quickly be granted to be monstrous and preposterous
things ; and yet not more so, than to imagine a man
guided by a benighted conscience in the great con
cerns of eternity; and to have that put out, which
God had set up as the sovereign light of the soul, to
sit and preside there as the great pilot to steer us in
all our choices, and to afford us those standing dis
criminations of good and evil, by which alone a ra
tional agent can proceed warrantably and safely in all
his actions.

As for the will and the affections, they are made
to follow and obey, not to lead or to direct. Their
office is not apprehension, but appetite ; and there
fore the schools rightly affirm, that the will, strictly
and precisely considered, is cceca potentia, a blind
faculty. And therefore, if error has perverted the
order and disturbed the original economy of our fa
culties, and a blind will thereupon comes to be led
by a blind understanding, there is no remedy, but it
must trip and stumble, and sometimes fall into the
noisome ditch of the foulest enormities and immo
ralities. But now, whether this be not one of the
highest instances of God's vindictive justice, thus to
confound a man with an erroneous, deceived con
science, a little reflection upon the miseries of one in
such a condition will easily demonstrate. For see
the tumult and anarchy of his mind ; having done a
good and a lawful action, his conscience alarms him
with scruples, with false judgments and anxious re
flections ; and perhaps, on the other hand, having
done an act in itself evil and unlawful, the same con
science excuses and acquits him, and sooths him into
such complacencies in his sin, as shall prevent his re-

270 A SERMON

pentance, and so ascertain his perdition. But now,
what shall a deluded person do in this sad dilemma
of sin and misery ? For, if the trumpet gives an un
certain sound, who can prepare himself for the bat
tle ? If it sounds a charge when it should sound a
retreat, how can the soldier direct his course ? But,
being thus befooled by the very methods and means
of safety, must of necessity find himself in the jaws
of death before he is aware, and betrayed into his
enemy's hands, without any possibility of help or re
lief from his own. In like manner, where a delusion
enters so deep into, and gets such fast hold of the
conscience, that it corrupts or justles out the first
marks and measures of lawful and unlawful, and
thereby overthrows the standing rules of morality ;
a man, in such a woful and dark estate, can hardly
be accounted in the number of rational agents : for
if he does well, it is by chance, neither by rule nor
principle ; nor by choice, but by luck ; and if on the
contrary he does ill, yet he is not assured that he
does so, being acted, in all that he goes about, by a
blind impetus, without either forecast or distinction.
Both the good and evil of his actions is brutish and
accidental, and in the whole course of them he pro
ceeds as if he were throwing dice for his life, or at
cross and pile for his salvation. And this brings me
to the other killing consequence, wherein appears
the greatness of this judgment of being delivered
over to a delusion. And that is,

2. Final perdition mentioned by the Apostle in the
verse immediately following the text. God, says he,
shall send them strong delusion, that they should be
lieve a lie ; that they all might be damned who believ
ed not the truth. This is the utmost period to which

ON 2 THESSALONIANS II. 11. 271

delusion brings the sinner, but no less than what was
intended by it from the very first. Every error is in
the nature of it destructive. I do not say that it al
ways actually destroys ; since the tendency of an
action is one thing, but the event another. For as
in the body there is hardly any sore or distemper, (how
curable soever by art or physic,) but what in the
malignity of its nature, and the utmost improvement
of that malignity, tends to the ruin and demolition of
the whole constitution : so in the soul there is no consi
derable error which at any time infects it, (especially
if it disposes to practice,) but, being suffered to con
tinue and exert its progressive and diffusive quality,
will be still spreading its contagion, and by degrees
eating into the conscience, till it festers into a kind of
spiritual gangrene, and becomes mortal and incurable.
I must confess, I cannot imagine that those he
retics who err fundamentally, and by consequence
damnably, took their first rise, and began to set up
with a fundamental error, but grew into it by insen
sible encroaches and gradual insinuations, inuring,
and as it were training up their belief to lesser essays
of falsehood, and proceeding from propositions only
suspicious, to such as were false, from false to dan
gerous, and at length from dangerous to downright
destructive. Hell is a deep place, and there are many
steps of descent to the bottom of it ; many obscure
vaults to be passed through before we come to
utter darkness. But still the way of error is the
way to it. And as surely and naturally as the first
dusk and gloom of the evening tends to, and at
last ends in the thickest darkness of midnight, so
every delusion, sinfully cherished and persisted in,
(how easily soever it may sit upon the conscience for

272 A SERMON

some time,) will, in the issue, lodge the sinner in the
deepest hell and the blackest regions of damnation.
And so I come to the

Sixth and last thing proposed for the handling of
the words ; and that was, to draw some useful con
sequences and deductions from the five foregoing
particulars. As,

First of all. Since the belief of a lie is here un
doubtedly noted for a sin ; and since Almighty God
in the way of judgment delivers men to it for not re
ceiving the love of the truth; it follows, by most clear
and undeniable consequence, that it is no ways in
consistent with the divine holiness to affirm, that he
may punish one sin with another. Though the man
ner how God does so is not so generally agreed upon
by all. For some here affirm that sin is said to be
the punishment of sin, because in most sinful actions
the committer of them is really a sufferer in and by
the very sin which he commits. As for instance, the
envious man at the same time contracts the guilt
and feels the torment of his sin ; the same thing de
files and afflicts too ; merits an hell hereafter, and
withal anticipates one here. The like may be said
of theft, perjury, uncleanness, and intemperance ;
the infamy and other calamities inseparably attending
them, render them their own scourges, and make the
sinner the minister of God's justice in acting a full
revenge upon himself. All this, I must confess, is
true, but it reaches not the matter in question ;
which compares not the same sin with itself, where
of the consequences may undoubtedly be afflictive,
but compares two distinct sins together, and in
quires concerning these, whether one can properly be
the punishment of the other ?

ON 2 THESSALONIANS II. 11. 273

Besides, if we weigh and distinguish things ex
actly, when the envious man groans under the gnaw-
ings and convulsions of his base sin, and the lewd
person suffers the brand and disrepute of his vice ;
in all this, sin is not properly punished with sin ; but
the evil of envy is punished with the trouble of envy,
and the sin of intemperance with the infamy of in
temperance ; but neither is a state of trouble nor a
state of disgrace or infamy properly a state of sin ;
these are natural, not moral evils ; and opposed to the
quiet and tranquillity, not to the virtue of the soul ;
for a man may be virtuous without either ease or
reputation. This way therefore is short of resolving
the problem inquired into ; which precisely moves
upon this point, viz. Whether for the guilt of one
sin God can, by way of penalty, bring the sinner
under the guilt of another ?

Some seem to prove that he cannot, and that in
the strength of this argument, that every punishment
proceeding from God, as the author of it, is just
and good ; but no sin is or can be so ; and therefore
no sin can be made by God the punishment of an
other.

But nevertheless, the contrary is held forth in
scripture, and that as expressly as words can well
declare a thing ; for besides the clear proof thereof,
which the very text carries with it, it is yet further
proved by those two irrefragable places in Rom. i. 24.
The apostle has these very words, Wherefore God
also gave them up to uncleanness ; and again in the
26th verse, For this cause God gave them up to
vile affections. Besides several other places pregnant
to the same purpose, both in the Old Testament and
the New. From all which it is certain, that God may

VOL. III. T

274 A SERMON

make one sin the punishment of another. Though still
it is to be remembered, that it is one thing for God
to give a man over to sin, and quite another for God
to cause him to sin ; the former importing in it no
more than God's providential ordering of a man's
circumstances so, that he shall find no check or hin-
derance in the course of his sin ; but the latter imply
ing also a positive efficiency towards the commission
or production of a sinful act ; which God never does
nor can do ; but the other he both may, and in a ju
dicial way very often does.

To the argument therefore alleged, I answer thus ;
that it is very consonant both to scripture and reason,
to distinguish in one and the same thing several re
spects ; and accordingly in sin, we may consider the
moral irregularity of it; and so being in the very
nature of it evil, it is impossible that there should be
any good in it ; or we may consider sin, as to the
penal application of it to the person who committed
it, and as a means to bring the just judgment of God
upon him for what he had done ; and so some good
may be said to belong to it, though there be none at
all in it.

Or to express the same thing otherwise, and per
haps more clearly and agreeably to vulgar apprehen
sions. Sin may be considered either, 1st, With refe
rence to the proper cause of it, the will of man com
mitting or producing it, and so it is absolutely and
entirely evil. Or, 2dly, It may be considered as it re
lates to the supreme Judge and Governor of the
world, permitting, ordering, disposing, and overrul
ing the existence and event of it, to the honour of
his wisdom and justice ; and so far it may be called
good, and consequently sustain the nature of a pu-

ON 2 THESSALONiANS II. 11. 2?5

nishment proceeding from God. But you will reply,
Can sin be any ways good ? I answer, that naturally
and intrinsically it cannot, but extrinsically, accident
ally, and occasionally, as ordered to a subserviency
to God's glory, it may ; and the providence of God
is no further concerned about it : that is to say, it is
good and just, that God should so order and dispose
of an obstinate sinner, (as he did once of Pharaoh,)
that he should, through his own corruption, fall into
further sin, in order to his further punishment : but
surely this does by no means infer, that the sins he
thus falls into are good, though God's ordering of
them may be so ; and darkness will be darkness still,
though God can and often does bring light out of it.
That the Jews having rejected the gospel so power
fully preached to them, should be delivered to hard
ness of heart and final impenitence, was just, and, by
consequence, good. But this is far from inferring,
that their hardness of heart and impenitence were so
too. Sin may give occasion for a great deal of good
to be exercised upon it and about it, though there
be none inherent in it ; and upon that account, when
any good is ascribed to it, or affirmed of it, it is purely
by an extrinsic denomination, and no more.

Now these distinctions, rightly weighed and ap
plied, will fully and clearly accord the doctrine laid
down by us both with the notions of human reason,
and the holiness of the divine nature ; arid conse
quently render all objections and popular exclama
tions against either of them empty and insignificant.

Nor indeed is it very difficult, and much less im
possible, to give some tolerable account, how God de
livers a sinner over to further sins. For it may be
very rationally said, that he does it partly by with-

T 2

276 A SERMON

holding his restraining grace, and leaving corrupt
nature to itself, to the full swing and freedom of its
own extravagant actings : whereby a man adds sin
to sin, strikes out furiously and without control, till
he grows obstinate and incurable. And God may be
said to do the same also by administering objects and
occasions of sin to such or such a sinner, whose cor
rupt nature will be sure to take fire at them, and so
actually to throw itself into all enormities. In all
which, God is not at all the author of sin, but only
pursues the great works and righteous ends of his
providence, in disposing of things or objects in them
selves good or indifferent towards the compassing of
the same ; howbeit, through the poison of men's vi
cious affections, they are turned into the opportuni
ties and fuel of sin, and made the occasion of their
final destruction.

But now, of all the punishments which the great
and just God in his anger inflicts, or brings upon a
man for sin, there is none comparable to sin itself.
Men are apt to go on securely, pleasing themselves
in the repeated gratifications of their vice ; and they
feel not God strike, and so are encouraged in the
progress of their impiety. But let them not, for all
that, be too confident ; for God may strike, though
they feel not his stroke, and perhaps the more ter
ribly for their not feeling it. Forasmuch as in judg
ments of this nature, insensibility always goes deep
est ; and the wrath of God seldom does such killing
execution when it thunders, as when it blasts. He
has certainly some dreadful design carrying on against
the sinner, while he suffers him to go on in a smooth,
uninterrupted course of sinning; and what that de
sign is, and the dreadfulness of it, probably will not be

ON 2 THESSALONIANS II. 11. 277

known to him, till the possibilities of repentance are
cut off, and hid from his eyes ; at present, it looks like
the suffering a man to perish and die by a lethargy,
rather than jog or awaken him. Believe it, it is a
sad case, when the sinner shall never perceive that
God is angry with him, till he actually feels the ef
fects of his anger in another world, where it can
neither be pacified nor turned away.

2. The second great consequence from the doc
trine hitherto treated of by us, of the naturalness of
men's going off from the love of the truth to a dis
belief of the same, shall be to inform us of the surest
and most effectual way to confirm our faith about
the sacred and important truths of religion ; and
that is, to love them for their transcendent worth
and purity; to fix our inclinations and affections
upon them ; and, in a word, not only to confess, own,
and acknowledge them to be truths, but also to be
willing that they should be so ; and to rejoice with
the greatest complacency, that there should be such
things prepared for us, as the scripture tells us there
are. For we shall find, that truth is not so much
upon terms of courtesy with the understanding,
(which upon a clear discovery of itself it naturally
commands,) as it is with the will and the affec
tions, which (though never so clearly discovered to
them) it is always almost forced to woo and make
suit to.

I have been ever prone to take this for a principle,
and a very safe one too, viz. that there is no opinion
really good, (I mean good in the natural, beneficent

n sequences thereof,) which can be false. And ac-

•rdingly, when religion, even natural, tells us, that
there is a God, and that he is a rewarder of every

T 3

A SERMON

man according to his works ; that he is a most wise
Governor, and a most just and impartial Judge, and
for that reason has appointed a future estate, where
in every man shall receive a retribution suitable to
what he had done in his lifetime. And moreover,
when the Christian religion further assures us, that
Christ has satisfied God's justice for sin, and pur
chased eternal redemption and salvation for even
the greatest sinners, who shall repent of and turn
from their sins ; and withal has given such excel
lent laws to the world, that if men perform them,
they shall not fail to reap an eternal reward of hap
piness, as the fruit and effect of the foremeritioned
satisfaction ; as on the other side, that if they live
viciously, and die impenitent, they shall inevitably
be disposed of into a condition of eternal and insup
portable misery. These, I say, are some of the prin
cipal things which religion, both natural and Chris
tian, proposes to mankind.

And now, before we come to acknowledge the
truth of them, let us seriously and in good earnest
examine them, and consider how good, how expe
dient, and how suitable to all the ends and uses of
human life it is, that there should be such things ;
how unable society would be to subsist without them ;
how the whole world would sink into another chaos
and confusion, did not the awe and belief of these
things (or something like them) regulate and con
trol the exorbitances of men's headstrong and un
ruly wills. Upon a thorough consideration of all
which, I am confident, that there is no truly wise
and thinking person, who, could he suppose that
the forecited dictates of religion should not prove
really true, would not however wish at least that

ON 2 THESSALONIANS II. 11. 279

they were so. For allowing, (what experience too
sadly demonstrates,) that an universal guilt has
passed upon all mankind through sin ; and suppos
ing withal that there were no hopes or terms of
pardon held forth to sinners ; would not an univer
sal despair follow an universal guilt? And would
not such a despair drive the worship of God out of
the world ? For certain it is, that none would pray
to him, serve, or worship him, and much less suffer
for him, who despaired to receive any good from
him. And, on the other side, could sinners have
any solid ground to hope for pardon of sin, without
an antecedent satisfaction made to the divine jus
tice, so infinitely wronged by sin ? Or could the ho
nour of that great attribute be preserved without
such a compensation ? And yet further, could all
the wit and reason of man conceive how such a sa
tisfaction could be made, had not religion revealed
to us a Saviour, who was both God and man, and
upon that account only fitted and enabled to make
it ? And, after all, could the benefits of this satisfac
tion be attainable by any, but upon the conditions
of repentance and change of life ; would not all piety
and holy living be thereby banished from the socie
ties of men ? So that we see from hence, that it is
religion alone which opposes itself to all these dire
consequences, and (like the angel appointed to guard
paradise with a flaming sword) stands in the breach
against all that despair, violence, and impiety, which
would otherwise irresistibly break in upon and infest
mankind in all their concerns, civil and spiritual.

And this one consideration (were there no further
arguments for it, either from faith or philosophy) is
to me an irrefragable proof of the truth of the docs

T 4

280 A SERMON

trines delivered by it. For that a falsehood (which,
as such, is the defect, the reproach, and the very de
formity of nature) should have such generous, such
wholesome, and sovereign effects, as to keep the
whole world in order, and that a lie should be the
great bond or ligament which holds all the societies
of mankind together, keeping them from cutting
throats, and tearing one another in pieces, (as, if re
ligion be not a truth, all these salutary, public bene
fits must be ascribed to tricks and lies,) would be
such an assertion, as, upon all the solid grounds of
sense and reason, (to go no further,) ought to be
looked upon as unmeasurably absurd and unna
tural.

But our Saviour prescribes men an excellent and
unfailing method to assure themselves of the truth
of his doctrine, John vii. 17. If any one, says he,
will do the will of the Father, he shall know of my
doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak
of myself. If men could but be brought to look
upon the agenda of Christianity as suitable, they
would never judge the credenda of it irrational.
There is a strange intercourse and mutual corrobo-
ration between faith and practice. For as belief
first engages practice, so practice strengthens and
confirms belief. The body first imparts heat to the
garment, but the garment returns it with advantage
to the body. God beams in peculiar evidences and
discoveries of the truth, to such as embrace it in
their affections, and own it in their actions. There
may be, indeed, some plausible, seeming arguments
brought against the truth, to assault and shake our
belief of it : but they generally prevail, not by their
own strength, but by our corruption ; not by their

ON 2 THESSALONIANS II. 11. 281

power to persuade, but by our willingness to be de
ceived. Whereas, on the contrary, true piety would
effectually solve such scruples, and obedience answer
all objections. And so I descend now to the

Third and last of the consequences deducible from
the doctrine first proposed by us ; and this shall be
to give some account of the true cause and original
of those two great evils which of late have so dis
turbed these parts of the world ; to wit, atheism and
fanaticism. And,

1. For atheism. Most sure it is, that no doctrine
or opinion can generally gain upon men's minds, but
(let it be never so silly and fantastical) it must yet
proceed from some real cause ; and more particu
larly either from the seeming evidence of the thing
forcing a belief of itself upon a weak intellect, or
from some strange, unaccountable inclination of the
will and the affections to such an hypothesis. For
the first of these, I would fain see some of those co
gent, convincing arguments, by which any one will
own himself persuaded that there is no God, or that
he does not govern the affairs of the world so as to
take a particular cognizance of men's actions, in de
signing to them a future retribution, according to
the nature and quality of them here : it being all
one to the world, whether there be no God, or none
who governs it.

But how pitiful and ridiculous are the grounds
upon which such men pretend to account for the
very lowest and commonest phenomena of nature,
without recurring to a God and Providence ! Such
as, either the fortuitous concourse of infinite little
bodies of themselves, and by their own impulse
(since no other nature or spirit is allowed by these

282 A SERMON

men to put them into motion) falling into this cu
rious and admirable system of the universe : accord
ing to which notion, the blindest chance must be ac
knowledged to surpass and outdo the contrivances
of the exactest art : a thing which the common
sense and notion of mankind must, at the very first
hearing, rise up against and explode. But if this
romance will not satisfy, then in comes the eternity
of the world, (the chief and most avowed opinion
set up by the atheists to confront and answer all the
objections from religion ;) and yet, after all these
high pretences, so great and inextricable are the
plunges and absurdities which these principles cast
men into, that the belief of a being distinct from the
world, and before it, is not only towards a good life
more conducible, but even for the resolution of these
problems more philosophical. And I do accordingly
here leave that old, trite, common argument, (though
nevertheless venerable for being so,) drawn from a
constant series or chain of causes, leading us up to
a supreme mover, (not moved himself by any thing
but himself,) a being simple, immaterial, and incor
poreal ; I leave this, I say, to our high and mighty
atheists to baffle and confute it, and substitute some
thing more rational in the room of it, if they can ;
and in order thereunto, to take an eternity to do
it in.

But if this be the case, why then is it made a
badge of wit, and an argument of parts, for a man
to commence atheist, and to cast off all belief of
Providence, all awe and reverence of religion ? As
suredly, in this matter, men's conviction begins not
at their understandings, but at their wills, or rather
at their brutish appetites ; which being immersed in

ON 2 THESSALONIANS II. 11. 283

the pleasures and sensualities of the world, would by
no means, if they could help it, have such a thing as
a Deity, or a future estate of souls to trouble them
here, or to account with them hereafter. No ; such
men, we may be sure, dare not look such truths as
these in the face, and therefore they throw them off,
and had rather be befooled into a friendly, favour
able, and propitious lie ; a lie which shall chuck
them under the chin, and kiss them, and at the
same time strike them under the fifth rib. To be
lieve that there is no God to judge the world, is
hugely suitable to that man's interest, who assuredly
knows, that upon such a judgment he shall be con
demned ; and to assert, that there is no hell, must
needs be a very benign opinion to a person engaged
in such actions as he knows must certainly bring
him thither. Men are atheists, not because they
have better wits than other men, but because they
have corrupter wills ; nor because they reason bet
ter, but because they live worse.

2. The next great evil which has of late infested
the Christian church, and that part of it in our na
tion more especially, is fanaticism ; that is to say, a
pretence to and profession of a greater purity in re
ligion, and a more spiritual, perfect way of worship
ping Almighty God, than the national established
church affords to those in communion with it. This,
I say, was and is the pretence ; but a pretence so
utterly false and shamefully groundless, that in com
parison of the principle which makes it, hypocrisy
may worthily pass for sincerity, and Pharisaism for
the truest and most refined Christianity.

But as for those who own and abet such separa
tions, to the infinite disturbance both of church and

284 A SERMON

state, I would fain have them produce those mighty
reasons, those invincible arguments which have
drawn them from the communion of the church
into conventicles, and warranted them to prefer
schisms and divisions before Christian unity and
conformity. No ; this is a thing which we may ex
pect long enough, before they will so much as offer
at, and much less perform ; there being but little of
argument to be expected from men professing no
thing but inspiration, and the impulse of a principle
discernible by none but by themselves. And for my
own part, I must sincerely declare, that upon the
strictest search I have been able to make, I could
never yet find, that these men had any other reason
or argument to defend themselves and their prac
tices by, but that senseless and impolitic encourage
ment which has been all along given them. But for
all that, men who act by conscience, as well as pre
tend it, will do well to consider, that in human laws
and actions it is not the penalty annexed which
makes the sin, nor consequently the withdrawing it
which takes away the guilt, but that the sanctions
of men, as well as the providence of God, may suffer,
and even serve to countenance many things in this
world, which shall both certainly and severely too
be reckoned for in the next.

In the mean time, to give a true but short ac
count of the proceedings and temper of these sepa
ratists. It was nothing but a kind of spiritual pride
which first made them disdain to submit to the dis
cipline, and from thence brought them to despise
and turn their backs upon the established worship
of our church ; the sober, grave, and primitive plain
ness of which began to be loathed by such brainsick,

ON 2 THESSALONIANS II. 11. 285

fanciful opiniators, who could please themselves in
nothing but novelty, and the ostentation of their
own extemporary, senseless effusions ; fit to proceed
from none but such as have the gift of talking in
their sleep, or dreaming while they are awake.

And for this cause, no doubt, God, in his just and
severe judgment, delivered them over to their own
sanctified and adored nonsense, to confound and lose
themselves in an endless maze of error and seduc
tion : so that, as soon as they had broke off from the
church, (through the encouragement given them by
a company of men which had overturned all that
was settled in the nation,) they first ran into pres-
byterian classes, from thence into independent con
gregations : from independents they improved into
anabaptists ; from anabaptists into quakers : from
whence being able to advance no further, they are
in a fair way to wheel about to the other extreme of
popery : a religion and interest the most loudly de
cried, and most effectually served by these men, of
any other in the world besides.

But whosoever, in the great concerns of his soul,
would pitch his foot upon sure ground, let him be
ware of these whirlpools, and of turning round and
round, till he comes to be seized with such a giddi
ness, as shall make him fall finally and irrecoverably,
not from the church only, but even from God him
self, and all sense of religion. And therefore, to pre
vent such a fatal issue of things, let a man, in the
next place, consider, that the way to obtain a settled
persuasion of the truth of religion, is to bring an ho
nest, humble, and unbiassed mind, open to the em
braces of it ; and to know withal, that if he chooses

286 A SERMON ON 2 THESS. II. 11.

the truth in simplicity, God will confirm his choice
with certainty and stability.

To which God, the Father of lights, and the
Fountain of all truth, be rendered and as
cribed, as is most due, all praise, might, ma
jesty, and dominion, both now and for ever
more. Amen.

Covetousness proved no less an absurdity in reason^

than a contradiction to religion, nor a more

unsure way to riches, than riches

themselves to happiness.

IN

TWO DISCOURSES

UPON

LUKE XII. 15.

PART I.

LUKE xii. 15.

And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetous*
ness : for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of
the things which he possesseth.

O -L

J.N these words our Saviour cautions his disciples,
and the rest of his hearers, against covetousness ;
a vice, which, by striking in with some of the most
active principles of our nature, and at the same
time perverting them too, has ever yet been, and
will no doubt ever be too hard for all the rules and
arguments brought against it from bare morality.
So that as a grammarian once answered his prince,
offering to enter into a dispute with him upon a
grammatical point, " that he would by no means
" dispute with one who had twenty legions at his
" command;" so as little success is like to be found
in managing a dispute against covetousness, which
sways and carries all before it in the strength of

288 A SERMON

that great queen regent of the world, money ; the ab
solute comman dress of fleets and armies, and, which
is more, very often of their commanders too. So hard
has common experience found it for some to draw
their swords heartily even against an enemy, who
has first drawn his purse to them ; such an univer
sal influence has this mighty vice : a vice which, by
a kind of amphibious quality, is equally strong by
sea and land, and consequently never out of its ele
ment, whatsoever place, station, or condition it may
be in. From which and too many the like instances,
it will, I fear, prove but too evident, that let phi
losophers argue and rhetoricians declaim never so
much against this always decried, but yet always
practised vice, covetousness will hardly ever lose
its reputation and credit in men's minds, (whatsoever
it may in their mouths,) so long as there shall be
such a thing in the world as money, to hold them
fast by.

The words contain in them these two general
parts.

I. A dehortation or dissuasive from covetousness.
Take heed, and beware of covetousness.

II. A reason enforcing it, and coupling the latter
part of the text with the former, by the causal par
ticle for ; for a marts life consisteth not in the
abundance of the things which he possesseth.

If we take the whole complex of the dehortation
and the reason of it together, as they are joined in
the text, we shall find that they are intended as an
answer to a tacit argumentation apt to be formed by
the minds of men in the behalf of covetousness, and
founded upon these three principles.

1. That it is natural (and I may add also, allow-

ON LUKE XII. 15. 289

able) for every man to endeavour to make his con
dition in this life as happy as lawfully he can.

2. That to abound with the good things of this
world seems the direct and ready way to procure
this happiness. And,

3. That covetousness is the proper and effectual
means to acquire to a man this abundance.

Upon these three principles, I say, is built that
plea or discourse, with which the heart of every
worldling, upon the face of the earth, endeavours to
satisfy itself of the reasonableness of covetousness.
It being impossible, without some pretence of reason,
for a rational agent to maintain a quiet mind in
any ill course or practice whatsoever : no man ever
doing any thing, which, at the time of his doing it,
he does not actually judge that he has reason to do
the same, whether that judgment be right or wrong,
true or false. And therefore, since our Saviour, in
the text we are upon, first supposes, and then sets
himself to confute this plea, by overthrowing some
of those sophistical, or sophistically applied prin
ciples, upon which it leaned, the particular know
ledge of them was regularly to be premised by us,
as the basis and groundwork of the whole prosecu
tion of the subject now before us. In which we
shall begin with the first general part of the text,
to wit, the dehortation itself; and so confining our
discourse wholly to this at present, we will consider
in it these three following particulars.

1 . The author of this dehortation, who was Christ
himself; the great instructor, as well as Saviour of
the world.

2. The thing he dehorts us from ; to wit, the
VOL. in. u

290 A SERMON

meanest and most sordid of all vices, covetousness.
And,

3dly and lastly, The way prescribed by him, as
the most sovereign and effectual preservative from
it ; to wit, a constant guard and a watchful eye
over it. Take heed, says he, and beware of it ;
the present danger and the consequent mischief
making the utmost caution against it no more than
sufficient.

All which particulars put together, viz. the quality
of the person dehorting us, the nature of the thing
he dehorts us from, and the certainty of the remedy
he advises us to, make it disputable, whether we
are to take the words of the text as the absolute
command of a legislator, or the endearing counsel of
a friend. I think we have great reason to account
them both, and that the text will sufficiently justify
the assigning a double ground of the precept, where
the doubling of that must needs also double our
obligation to the practice ; while as a counsel we
ought to follow it, and as a command we are bound
to obey it.

To proceed therefore upon the forementioned
particulars ; we shall treat of each of them in their
order. And,

1. For the great author of the dehortation or dis
suasion here set down, who was Christ himself. He
said unto them, Beware of covetousness. That is,
he emphatically, he with a peculiar significance.
For in all persuasions to, or dissuasions from any
thing, the arguments enforcing both, must be either
founded upon the authority of the person proposing
them, or the reason and evidence of the thing pro-

ON LUKE XII. 15. 291

posed. As to the first of which, can any thing in
nature be imagined more convincing, than the asser
tion or word of one, whose infinite knowledge makes
it impossible for him to be deceived, and whose infi
nite goodness makes it equally impossible for him to
deceive ? The first of which must be abundantly
sufficient to oblige our belief, and the other to claim
our obedience. But both of them inseparably ac
companied the words of our Saviour ; who, as the
evangelist tells us, speaking as one having authority,
and, by the very testimony of his enemies, as none
ever spoke before him, could not sink below this
high character in his discourses upon any occasion
or subject whatsoever ; but upon none more emi
nently did he or could he shew it, than upon this of
covetousness ; where nothing but the superlative
abilities of the speaker could reach the compass of
the subject spoken to, nor any thing but the un
blemished virtue of the reprover put the thing re
proved out of countenance, or all defence of itself
imaginable. For it is innocence which enables elo
quence to reprove with power ; and guilt attacked
flies before the face of him who has none. And
therefore, as every rebuke of vice comes or should
come from the preacher's mouth, like a dart or arrow
thrown by some mighty hand, which does execution
proportionably to the force or impulse it received
from that which threw it ; so our Saviour's match
less virtue, free from the least tincture of any thing
immoral, armed every one of his reproofs with a
piercing edge and an irresistible force : so that
truth, in that respect, never came naked out of his
mouth, but either clothed with thunder, or wrapped
up in all the powers of persuasion ; still his person

u 2

292 A SERMON

animated and gave life and vigour to his expression;
all his commands being but the transcript of his own
life, and his sermons a living paraphrase upon his
practice ; thus, by the strongest way of argumenta
tion, confuting and living down covetousness long
before he preached against it. For though it is
most true, that in hearing the word men should
consider only the nature of the matter delivered to
them, (which, if it contains a duty, will be sure to
make good its hold upon them, be the quality of him
who delivers it what it will ;) yet since also the na
ture of man is such, that in all addresses to him, the
person himself will be still as much considered as
his discourse, and perhaps more ; and since the cir
cumstances of his condition will always have a
mighty, determining influence upon the credibility
of his words, we will consider our Saviour discoursing
against covetousness under these two qualifications.

1. As he was Lord of the universe. And,

2. As he was depressed to the lowest estate of po
verty.

By the former of which he possessed the fulness
of the Godhead bodily ; by the latter, he humbled,
and (according to the apostle's phrase) even emptied
himself to the abject estate of a servant. For he
who was the first, or rather only begotten of the
Almighty, and consequently, by all rights, heir of all
things, and so had an universal, unlimited claim to all
that was great or glorious within the whole compass
of nature, yet had so little of this claim in posses
sion, that he tells us he was in a poorer and more for
lorn condition than the very foxes of the field or
the fowls of the air, as to the common accommoda
tions of life. It was a saying in the Jewish church,

ON LUKE XII. 15. 293

and received with an universal reverence, both by
the learned and unlearned, that the world was made
for the Messias. And we Christians hold, that it
was made by him too. For he was (as the prophet
Esay styles him) the mighty God, and consequently
the creator of all that was not God. The son of
Abraham by one nature, and eternally before Abra
ham by another. And yet this wonderful almighty
person, whom the whole world could not circum
scribe, by reason of the divinity and immensity of
his being, had not so much in the same world as
where to lay his head, by reason of the meanness of
his condition. From all which it follows, that since
the quality of the person persuading makes one great
part or ingredient in the persuasion, nothing could
come more invincibly, by way of argument, against
covetousness, than a discourse against it from the
mouth of him who created, governed, and had a
rightful title to all things, and yet possessed nothing.
And thus much for the first thing to be considered
in the dehortation ; namely, the person dehorting,
who was Christ himself. Pass we now to the

Second thing to be considered in it, to wit, the
thing we are dehorted from, which is covetous-
ness. And here, one would think, it might well be
supposed, that there needed no great pains to explain
what this is, if we may rationally conclude, that men
know the things they practise, or (in other words)
understand what they do ; yet since the very near
ness of the object sometimes hinders the sight of it,
and nothing is more usual than for men to be
most of all strangers at home, and to overlook the
darling sin lying in their own bosoms, where they
think they can never sufficiently hide it, (especially

u 3

294 A SERMON

from themselves,) I shall endeavour to give some
account of the nature of this vice. And that,

1. Negatively, by shewing what it is not. And

2. Positively, by declaring what it is, and wherein
it does consist ; for there is often a fallacy on both
sides. And

1. For the negative. Covetousness is not that
prudent forecast, parsimony, and exactness, by which
men bound their expenses according to the propor
tion of their fortunes. When the river is shallow,
surely it is concerned to keep within its own banks.
No man is bound to make himself a beggar, that
fools or flatterers may account him generous ; nor to
spend his estate, to gratify the humour of such as are
like to be the first who shall despise and slight him,
when it is spent. If God bestows upon us a blessing,
we may be confident that he looks upon it as worth
our keeping. And he only values the good provi
dence of God for giving him an estate, who uses
some providence himself in the management of it ;
and by so doing, puts it into his power to relieve the
poverty of the distressed, and to recover a sinking
friend, when the circumstances of things shall stamp
his liberality with the name of charity and religion.
For indeed he only is in a true sense charitable, who
can sacrifice that to duty, which otherwise he knows
well enough both how to prize and make use of him
self; and he alone can be said to love his friend really,
who can make his own convenience bow to his friend's
necessity, and thereby shews that he values his friend
ship more than any thing that his friend can receive
from him. But he who with a promiscuous undistin-
guishing profuseness does not so much dispense, as
throw away what he has, proclaims himself a fool to

ON LUKE XII. 15. 295

all the intelligent world about him ; and is utterly
ignorant, both of what he has and what he does ;
till at length, having emptied himself of all, he comes
to have his purse and his head both alike.

We never find the scripture commending any pro
digal but one, and him too only for his ceasing to be
so. Whose courses if we reflect upon, we shall see
his prodigality bringing him from his revelling com
panions and his riotous meats, to the swine and to
the trough ; and from imitating their sensuality, by
a natural consequence, to take up with their diet too.
Prodigality is the devil's steward and purse-bearer,
ministering to all sorts of vice ; and it is hard, if not
impossible, for a prodigal person to be guilty of no
other vice but prodigality. For men generally are
prodigal, because they are first intemperate, luxuri
ous, or ambitious. And these, we know, are vices too
brave and costly to be kept and maintained at an
easy rate ; they must have large pensions, and be fed
with both hands, though the man who feeds them
starves for his pains. From whence it is evident,
that that which only retrenches, and cuts off the
supplies of these gaping, boundless appetites, is so
far from deserving the ugly name of avarice, that it
is a noble instrument of virtue, a step to grace, and
a great preparation of nature for religion. In a word,
so far as parsimony is a part of prudence, it can be
no part of covetousness.

And thus having shewn negatively what the co
vetousness here condemned by our Saviour is not,
let us now shew positively what it is, and wherein
it does consist. And we shall find that it consists in
these following things.

1. An anxious, carking care about the things of

u 4

2% A SERMON

this world : such a care as is expressed in Matth. vi.

28, by taking thought; the Greek word is T/ /x^p/are,
and in the 31st verse, as p? ovv pepipvyvyre. A word
importing such a thoughtfulness as distracts, and, as
it were, divides the mind, and after it has divided it,
unconscionably takes both parts to itself. In short,
such a care is here meant, as lies like a kind of wolf
in a man's breast, perpetually gnawing and corrod
ing it, and is elsewhere expressed by St. Luke xii.

29, by being of doubtful mind. As when a man,
after all his labours in the sober, rational, and indus
trious pursuit of his lawful calling, yet distrusts the
issues of God's providence for a competent support
therein, and dares not cast himself upon that good
ness of God which spreads its fatherly bounty over
all, even the least, the lowest, and most contemptible
parts of the creation. Such an one is a direct reproach
to his great Lord and Maker, while he can find in
his heart to think him so careful of the very mean
est rank of beings, as in the mean time to overlook
the wants of his noblest creatures, whom he made
to lord it over all the rest, and, as a further honour,
designed themselves for his own peculiar service ; but
yet so, that he never intended that they should serve
even him, the Lord of all, for nothing. No ; the me
thods of Providence are far from being so preposterous,
as, while it adorns the lilies, and clothes the very
grass of the field, to leave him naked, who was or
dered by God and nature to set his feet upon both,
and while it feeds the fowls of the air, and the
beasts of the land, to suffer him to starve, for whose
food both of them were made. Besides, that man
has a claim also to a promise for his support and
sustenance, which none ever missed of, who came up

ON LUKE XII. 15. 297

to the conditions of it. And now, can God require
an easier and more reasonable homage from the sons
of men, than that they should trust him, who neither
will nor can fail them ? And withal rest satisfied,
quiet, and composed in their thoughts while they do
so ? For surely the infinite power and goodness of
God may much more rationally be depended upon,
than a man's own pitiful projects and endeavours, so
much subject to chance and disappointment, be the
man himself never so skilful, never so laborious. See
with what strength of reason our Saviour argues
down this solicitous, restless temper of mind, in the
forementioned 6th of St. Matthew, from this one un
answerable consideration, that if God so carefully and
tenderly provides for mankind in their greatest con
cernments, surely he will not relinquish them in
those, where the difficulty of a supply is less, and yet
their inability to supply themselves altogether as
great. Is not the life, says our Saviour, more than
meat, and the body than raiment? And shall we
commit the former to the common mercies of Provi
dence, but wholly distrust it for the latter ? And in
stead thereof, fly for succour to our own short, falli
ble contrivances ? When it is certain, that our think
ing can no more of itself work an alteration in our
civil, than it can in our natural estate ; nor can a
man, independently upon the overruling influence of
God's blessing, care and cark himself one penny
richer, any more than one cubit taller : the same all-
disposing power no less marking out the exact bounds
and measures of our estates, than determining the
just stature of our bodies; and so fixing the bulk and
breadth of one, as well as the height of the other.
We vainly think we have these things at the disposal

298 A SERMON

of our own wills ; but God will have us know, that
they are solely the result of his. But,

2. Covetousness implies in it also a rapacity in
getting. When men, as it were, with open mouth
fly upon the prey, and catch with that eagerness, as
if they could never open their hands wide enough,
nor reach them out far enough to compass the ob
jects of their boundless desires. So that, had they
(as the fable goes of Briareus) each of them an hun
dred hands, they would all of them be employed in
grasping and gathering, and hardly one of them in
giving or laying out ; but all in receiving, and none
in restoring; a thing in itself so monstrous, that
nothing in nature besides is like it, except it be
death and the grave, the only things I know which
are always robbing and carrying off the spoils of the
world, and never making restitution. For other
wise, all the parts of the universe, as they borrow of
one another, so they still pay what they borrow, and
that by so just and well-balanced an equality, that
their payments always keep pace with their receipts.
But, on the contrary, so great and so voracious a
prodigy is covetousness, that it will not allow a man
to set bounds to his appetites, though he feels him
self stinted in his capacities ; but impetuously pushes
him on to get more, while he is at a loss for room to
bestow, and an heart to enjoy what he has already.
This ravenous, vulture-like disposition the wise man
expresses by making haste to be rich, Prov. xxviii.
20, adding withal, that he who does so shall not be
innocent. The words are a meiosis, and import
much more than they express, as there is great rea
son they should ; for so much of violence is there in
the course or practice here declared against, that

ON LUKE XII. J5. 299

neither reason nor religion, duty nor danger, shall
be able to stop such an one in his career, but that he
will leap over all mounds and fences, break through
right and wrong, and even venture his neck in pur
suit of the design his head and his heart are so set
upon. And this, I confess, is haste with a witness,
but not one degree more than what is implied in
making haste to be rich. For from hence it is, that
we see some estates, like mushrooms, spring up in
a night, and some who were begging or borrowing
at the beginning of the year, ready to be purchasers
before it comes about. But this is by no means the
course or method of nature ; the advances of which
are still gradual, and scarce discernible in their mo
tions ; but only visible in their issue. For nobody
perceives the grass grow, or the shadow move upon
the dial, till after some time and leisure we reflect
upon their progress. In like manner, usually and na
turally, riches, if lawful, rise by degrees, and rather
come dropping by small proportions into the honest
man's coffers, than pouring in like a torrent or
land-flood, which never brings so much plenty where
at length it settles, but it does as much mischief
all along where it passes.

Upon the whole matter, the greedy getter is like
the greedy eater ; it is possible that by taking in too
fast he may choke or surfeit, but he will hardly nou
rish and strengthen himself, or serve any of the noble
purposes of nature, which rather intends the security
of his health, than the gratification of his appetite.

And in this respect covetousness, a thing of itself
bad enough, is heightened by the conjunction of an
other every whit as bad, which is impatience ; a
quality sudden, eager, and insatiable, which grasps

300 A SERMON

at all, and admits of no delay, scorning to wait God's
leisure, and attend humbly and dutifully upon the
issues of his wise and just providence. Such persons
would have riches make themselves wings to fly to
them, though one, much wiser than they, has assured
us, Prov. xxiii. 5, that when they make themselves
wings, they intend to fly away.

But certainly, in this business of growing rich,
poor men (though never so poor) should slack their
pace, (how open soever they found the way before
them,) and (as we may so express it) join something
of the cripple to the beggar, and not think to fly or
run forthwith to a total and immediate change of
their condition, but to consider, that both nature and
religion love to proceed leisurely and gradually, and
still to place a middle state between two extremes.
And therefore, when God calls needy, hungry persons
to places and opportunities of raising their fortunes,
(a thing which of late has happened very often,) it
concerns them to think seriously of the greatness of
the temptation which is before them, and to con
sider the danger of a full table to a person ready to
starve. But generally such as in this manner step
immediately out of poverty into power know no
bounds, but are infinite and intolerable in their ex
actions. So that, in Prov. xxviii. 3, Solomon most
elegantly compares a poor man oppressing the poor,
to a siveeping rain, which leaves no food; a rain
which drives and carries off all clean before it ; the
least finger of a poor oppressor being heavier than
the loins of a rich one ; for while one is contented to
fleece the skin, the other strips the very bones : and
all this to redeem the time of his former poverty,
and at one leap, as it were, to pass from a low and

ON LUKE XII. 15. 301

indigent into a full and magnificent condition.
Though, for the most part, the righteous judgment
of God overtakes such persons in the issue, and
commonly appoints this for their lot, that estates
sudden in the getting are but short in the continu
ance. They rose, as I shew, like land-floods, and like
them they fell.

3. Covet ousn ess implies in it all sinister and illegal
ways of getting. And if we dwell fully upon this, we
shall find, that it is not for nothing that covetousness
is called by the apostle, 1 Tim. vi. 10, the root of all
evil; a root as odious for its branches, as the branches
for their fruit ; a root fed with dirt and dunghills,
and so no wonder if of as much foulness as fertility;
there being no kind of vice whatsoever, but covetous-
ness is ready to adopt and make use of it, so far as
it finds it instrumental to its designs ; and such is
the cognation between all vices, that there is hardly
any, but what very often happens to be instrumental
and conducing to others besides itself. It is covetous-
ness which commands in chief in most of the insur
rections and murders which have infested the world ;
and most of the perjuries and pious frauds which
have shamed down religion, and even dissolved so
ciety, have been resolved into the commanding dic
tates of this vice. So that, whatsoever has been pre
tended, gain has still been the thing aimed at, both
in the grosser outrages of an open violence, and the
sanctified rogueries of a more refined dissimulation.
None ever acted the traitor and the Judas expertly
and to the purpose, but still there was a Qtiid da-
bitis behind the curtain. Covetousness has been all
along, even in the most villainous contrivances, the
principal, though hidden spring of motion ; and lying,

302 A SERMON

cheating, hypocritical prayers and fastings, the sure
wheels by which the great work (as they called it) has
still gone forward. Nay, so mighty a sway does this
pecuniary interest bear even in matters of religion,
that toleration itself, (as sovereign a virtue as it is
said to be of, for preserving order and discipline in
the church,) yet without contribution, would hardly
be able to support the separate meetings of the dis
senting brotherhood ; but that, if the people should
once grow sullen, and shut up their purses, it is
shrewdly to be feared, that the preachers themselves
would shut up the conventicles too : at present, it is
confessed, the trade is quick and gainful, but still,
like other trades, not to be carried on without money.
Gold is the best cordial to keep the good old cause
in heart ; and there is little danger of its fainting,
and much less of starving, with so much of that in
its pocket.

The truth is, covetousness is a vice of such a ge
neral influence and superintendency over all other
vices, that it will serve its turn even by those which,
at first view, seem most contrary to it. So that it
will command votaries to itself even out of the tribe
of Epicurus, and make uncleanness, drunkenness,
and intemperance itself minister to its designs ; for
let a man be but rich and great, and there shall be
enough to humour him in his lusts, that they may go
sharers with him in his wealth ; enough to drink,
and sot, and carouse with him, if, by drinking with
him, they may come also to eat, and drink, and live
upon him, and, by creeping into his bosom, to get
into his pocket too : so that we need not go to the
cozening, lying, perjured shopkeeper, who will curse
himself into hell forty times over, to gain twopence

ON LUKE XII. 15. 303

or threepence in the pound extraordinary, and sits
retailing away heaven and salvation for pence and
halfpence, and seldom vends any commodity, but he
sells his soul with it, like brown paper, into the bar
gain. I say, we need not go to these forlorn wretch
es, to find where the covetous man dwells ; for some
times we may find him also in a clean contrary
disguise, perhaps gallanting it with his ladies, or
drinking and roaring, and shaking his elbow in a
tavern with some rich young cully by his side, who,
from his dull, rustic converse, (as some will have it,)
is newly come to town to see fashions and know
men, forsooth ; and having newly buried his father
in the country, to give his estate a more honourable
burial in the city.

In short, the covetous person puts on all forms
and shapes, runs through all trades and professions,
haunts all places, and makes himself expert in the
mystery of all vices, that he may the better pay his
devotions to his god Mammon. And so, in a quite
different way from that of the blessed apostle, he
becomes all things to all men, that he may by any
means gain something; for he cares not much for
gaining persons, where he can gain nothing else.

4thly and lastly, Covetousness implies in it a te-
naciousness in keeping. Hitherto we have seen it
filling its bags, and in this property we find it seal
ing them up. In the former, we have seen how ea
gerly it can catch ; and in this latter, it shews us
how fast it can gripe. And we need no other proof
of the peculiar baseness of this vice, than this. For
as the prime and more essential property of goodness
is to communicate and diffuse itself; so, in the same
degree that any thing incloses and shuts up its

304 A SERMON

plenty within itself, in the same it recedes and falls
off from the nature of good. If we cast our eyes
over the whole creation, we shall find every part of
the universe contributing something or other, either
to the help or ornament of the whole. The great bu
siness of Providence is to be continually issuing out
fresh supplies of the divine bounty to the creature,
which lives and subsists like a lamp fed by continual
infusions from the same hand which first lights and
sets it up. So that covetousness is nothing so much as
a grand contradiction to Providence, while it termi
nates wholly within itself. The covetous person lives
as if the world were made altogether for him, and not
he for the world, to take in every thing, and to part
with nothing. Charity is accounted no grace with
him, nor gratitude any virtue. The cries of the poor
never enter into his ears ; or if they do, he has al
ways one ear readier to let them out, than the other
to take them in. In a word, by his rapines and ex
tortions, he is always for making as many poor as he
can, but for relieving none whom he either finds or
makes so : so that it is a question, whether his heart
be harder, or his fist closer. In a word, he is a pest
and a monster ; greedier than the sea, and barrener
than the shore ; a scandal to religion, and an excep
tion from common humanity ; and upon no other ac
count fit to live in this world, but to be made an
example of God's justice in the next.

Creditor and debtor divide the world ; and he
who is not one, is certainly the other. But the co
vetous wretch does not only shut his hand to the
poor in point of relief, but to others also in point of
debt. Upon which account the apostle James up
braids the rich men, in James v. 4. "Behold, says

ON LUKE XII. 15. 305

he, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down
your fields, which is of you kept back, crieth. These,
it seems, being the men who allow neither servants
nor workmen any other wages than, as the saying
is, their labour for their pains. Men generally as
the world goes are too powerful to be just, and too
rich to pay their debts. For whatsoever they can
borrow, they look upon as lawful prize, and ex
tremely despise and laugh at the folly of restitution.
But well it is for the poor orphan and the oppressed,
that there is a court above, where the cause of both
will be infallibly recognized, and such devourers be
forced to disgorge the widows' houses they had
swallowed, and the most righteous Judge be sure to
pay those their due, who would never pay any else
theirs.

The truth is, the covetous person is so bad a pay
master, that he lives and dies as much a debtor to
himself as to any one else : his own back and beUy
having an action of debt against him ; while he pines,
and pinches, and denies himself, not only in the ac
commodations, but also in the very necessities of
nature ; with the greatest nonsense imaginable, liv-
ipg a beggar, that he may die rich, and leave behind
him a mass of money, valuable upon no other ac
count in the world, but as it is an instrument to com
mand and procure to a man those conveniencies of
life, which such an one voluntarily and by full choice
deprives himself of.

Nor does this vice stop here ; but, as I verily be
lieve, one great reason which keeps some persons
from the blessed sacrament, may be resolved into
their covetousness. For God, in that duty, certainly
calls for a remembrance of the poor ; and therefore

VOL. III. X

30G A SERMON

there must be something offered, as well as received,
by the worthy communicant. But this the covetous
wretch likes not, who perhaps could brook the duty
well enough, were it an ordinance only for receiving
and taking in : but since it requires also something
to be parted with, he flies from the altar, as if he
were to be sacrificed upon it ; and so, turning his
back upon his Saviour, chooses rather to forget all
the benefits of his precious death and passion, than
to cast in his portion into the poor's treasury ; a
strange piece of good husbandry certainly, for a man
thus to lose his soul, only to save his pelf.

And thus much for the second thing considerable
in the dehortation ; namely, the thing we are therein
dehorted from, which is that mean, sordid, and de
grading vice of covetousness : the nature of which I
have been endeavouring to make out, both nega
tively, by shewing what it is not ; and positively, by
shewing what it is, and wherein it consists. I pro
ceed now to the

Third and last thing to be considered in the de
hortation ; which is, the way and means whereby
we are taught to avoid the thing we are thus de
horted from. And that is, by using a constant care
and vigilance against it ; Take heed, and beware of
covetousness. Concerning which we must observe,
that as every thing to be avoided is properly an evil
or mischief, so such an evil as is to be avoided by a
singular and more than ordinary caution, is always
attended with one or both of these two qualifications.

1. An exceeding aptness to prevail upon us.

2. An equal difficulty in removing it, when it has
once prevailed. In both which respects we are emi
nently cautioned against covetousness. And first, we

ON LUKE XII. 15.

307

shall find, that it is a vice marvellously apt to pre
vail upon and insinuate into the heart of man ; and
that upon these three accounts.

1. The near resemblance which it often bears to
virtue.

2. The plausibility of its pleas and pretences.
And,

3. The great reputation which riches generally
give men in the world, by whatsoever ways or means
they were gotten. And,

1. It insinuates, by the near resemblance it bears
to virtue. Virtue and vice dwell upon the confines
of each other; always most distant in their natures,
though the same too often in appearance, like the
borderers of two kingdoms or countries, the greatest
enemies, and yet the nearest neighbours : so that it
must needs require no small accuracy of judgment
(and such as few are masters of) to state the just
limits of both : and a man must go nearer than the
covetous person himself, to hit the dividing point,
and to shew exactly where the virtue ends and the
vice begins ; a small accident or circumstance often
changing the whole quality of the action, and of
lawful or indifferent, rendering it culpable and un
lawful. Covetousness is confessedly a vice, could we
but know where to find it. But when it is con
fronted with prodigality, it is so apt to take shelter
under the name and shew of good husbandry, that it
is hard to discern the reality from the pretence, and
to represent nature in its true shape. Parsimony
and saving, determined by due circumstances, are,
questionless, the dictates of right reason, and so
far not allowable only, but commendable also. For
surely there can be no immorality in sparing, where

308 A SERMON

there is no law whatsoever that obliges a man to
spend. It is the common and received voice of the
world, that nothing can be more laudably got, than
that which is lawfully saved. Saving, as I hinted
before, being nothing else but a due valuation of the
favours of Providence, and a fencing against one of
the greatest of miseries, poverty, which, Solomon tells
us, comes like an armed man upon the lavish and
the prodigal ; and when it comes, is of itself a curse
and a temptation, and too often makes a man as
wicked as he is poor. But such is the frailty of hu
man nature, and its great proneness to vice, that,
under the mask of lawful parsimony, that amor sce-
leratus habendi, covetousness insensibly steals upon
and gets possession of the soul, and the man is en
tangled and enslaved, and brought under the power
of an ill habit, before he is so much as alarmed with
its first approaches; and ready to be carried off by
the plague, or some mortal distemper, before he is
aware of the infection. But,

2dly, Covetousness is apt to insinuate also by the
plausibility of its pleas. Amongst which, none more
usual and general, than the necessity of providing
for children and posterity ; whom, all will grant, pa
rents should not be instrumental to bring into the
world, only to see them starve when they are here.
Nor are just the necessities of a bare subsistence to
be the only measure of their care for them ; but some
consideration is to be had also of the quality and
condition to which they were born, and consequently
were brought into, not by choice, but by descent.
For it seems not a suitable to the common and most

a But much different was the great confident of the rebels in
advice of a certain lawyer, a the time of their reign ; who,

ON LUKE XII. 15.

309

impartial judgment of mankind, that one of a noble
family and extraction should be put to hedging and
ditching, and be forced to support himself with the
labour of his hands and the sweat of his brow. It
is hard measure to be nobly born and basely en
dowed ; to wear a title above one's circumstances,
and so serve only as a foil to an elder brother. But
now, by such provisions for posterity, the reason and
measure of men's gains, from personal, is like to
grow infinite and perpetual ; and yet no charge of
covetousness seems here able to take place ; it being
impossible for a man to be covetous in that, in which
no getting can be superfluous. The first plea of
avarice therefore is, provision for posterity.

But then, if a man's condition be such, that all
his cares are to terminate in his own person, and
that he has neither sons nor daughters to lay up for,
but that his whole family lives and dies with him,
and one grave is to receive them all, why then co
vetousness will urge to him the necessity of hoard
ing up against old age, against the days of weak
ness and infirmity, when the strength of his body
and the vigour of his mind shall fail him, and when
the world shall measure out their friendships and
respects to him only according to the dimensions
of his purse. Upon which account, one would

upon a consult held amongst
them, how to dispose of the
duke of Gloucester, youngest
son of king Charles the first,
then in their hands, with great
gravity (forsooth) declared it
for his opinion, that they should
bind him out to some good
trade, that so he might eat his
bread honestly. These were

his words, and very extraordi
nary ones they were indeed.
Nevertheless, they could not
hinder him from being made a
judge in the reign of king
Charles the Second. A practice
not unusual in the courts of
some princes, to encourage and
prefer their mortal enemies be
fore their truest friends.

x3

310 A SERMON

think, that all a man's gettings and hoardings up,
during his youth, ought to pass but for charity and
compassion to his old age ; which must either live
and subsist upon the stock of former acquisitions,
or expect all that misery, which want, added to
weakness, can bring upon it. The sight of an old
man, poor and destitute, crazy and scorned, unable
to help himself, or to buy the help of others, is a
shrewd argument to recommend covetousness to
one, even in his greenest years, and to make the
very youngest and j oiliest sparks, in their most flou
rishing age, look about them. It having been the
observation and judgment of some, who have wanted
neither wisdom nor experience, that an old man has
no friend but his money. And I heartily wish I
could confute the observation.

But the like and no less plausible a plea will this
vice also put in for providing against times of perse
cution, or public calamity ; calling to a man's mind
all the hardships of a civil war, all the plunders and
rapines, when nothing was safe above-ground ; but
a man was forced to bury his bags, to keep himself
alive. And therefore, though, at present, there
should be peace, and all about us calm and quiet ;
yet who knows how soon a storm may arise, and
the spirit of rebellion and fanaticism put it into
men's heads once more to raise armies to plunder
and cut throats in the Lord; and then, believe it,
when the great work shall be thus carrying on, and
we shall see our friends and our neighbours re
formed out of house and home as formerly, it
will be found worth while to have secured a friendly
penny in a corner, which may bid us eat, when
we should otherwise starve, and speak comfort

ON LUKE XII. 15. 311

to us, when our friends will not so much as know
us.

With these and such like reasonings, fallaciously
applied, will covetousness persuade a man both of
the necessity and lawfulness of his raising heap upon
heap, and joining house to house, and putting no
bounds to his gains, when his hand is once in. And
it must be confessed, that there is some shew of rea
son for what has been alleged. But when again
we shall consider, that the foremen tioned cases are
all but future contingencies, which are by no means
to be the rule of men's actions, our duty is only to
look to the precept, and the obligation of it, which
is plain and present, and may be easily known ; and
for the rest, to commit ourselves to the good provi
dence of God. For while we are solicitously pro
viding against the miseries of age and persecution,
how do we know, whether we shall ever live to be
old ? or to see the calamity of our country ? or the
persecution of our persons ? But however, if God
shall see it for his honour to try and humble us with
the miseries of any of these conditions, it is not all
our art and labour, all our parsimony and provi
dence, which can prevent them. And therefore,
how plausible soever the pleas of covetousness may
seem, they are far from being ration ah But,

3dly and lastly, Covetousness is apt to prevail
upon the minds of men, by reason of the reputation
which riches generaUy give men in the world, by
whatsoever ways or means they were gotten. It is
a very great, though sad and scandalous truth, that
rich men are at the very same time esteemed and
honoured, while the ways by which they grew rich
are abhorred and detested : for how is griping and

312 A SERMON

avarice exclaimed against ! how is oppression
branded all the world over ! All mankind seems
agreed to run them down ; and yet, what addresses
are made, what respects shewn, what high enco
miums given to a wealthy miser, to a rich and flou
rishing oppressor ! The lucky effect seems to have
atoned for and sanctified its vile cause; and the
basest thing covered with gold, lies hid itself, and
shines with the lustre of its covering.

Virtue, charity, and generosity, are indeed splendid
names, and look bright in sermons and panegyrics,
(which few regard :) but when we come to practice
and common life, virtue, if poor, is but a sneaking
thing, looked upon disdainfully, and treated coldly ;
and when charity brings a man to need charity, he
must be content with the scraps from the table of
the rich miser or the great oppressor. For no in
vitations are now made, like that in the gospel,
where messengers ^are sent, with tickets, to bring in
guests from the hedges and highways. No, it is
not the way in our days to spread tables or furnish
out banquets for the poor and the blind, the hungry
and the indigent. For in our times, (to the just
shame of the fops our ancestors, as some call them,)
full bellies are still oftenest feasted; and to them
who have shall be given, and they shall have more
abundantly. This is the way of the world ; be the
discourse of it what it will.

And as this is the general practice of the world,
so it must needs be the general observation of the
world too ; for while men reproach vice, and caress
the vicious; upbraid the guilt of an action, but adore
its success ; they must not think, that all about
them are so without eyes or common sense, as not

ON LUKE XII. 15. 313

to spy out the prevarication, and to take an estimate
of their real value of things and persons, rather by
what they do, than by what they talk. Since there
fore it is so natural for every one to desire to live
with as good esteem and reputation in the world as
he can, it is no wonder, if covetousness makes so
strong a plea for itself in the hearts of men, by pro
mising them riches, which they find so certain a
way to honour and respect. And thus much for
the first general reason of the caution, given by our
Saviour, against covetousness ; namely, its great apt
ness to prevail upon and insinuate into men's
minds.

2. The other general reason is, the exceeding
great difficulty of removing it, when it has once pre
vailed. In which and the like cases, one would
think it argument sufficient to caution any man
against a disease, if we can but convince him of the
great likelihood of his falling into it ; and not only
of that, but, in case he should fall into it, of the ex
treme difficulty (sometimes next to an impossibility)
of his recovering, and getting out of it. Both which
considerations together, certainly should add some
thing more than ordinary to the caution of every
wise man, and make him double his guards against
so threatening a mischief. And as for covetousness,
we may truly say of it, that it makes both the alpha
and omega in the Devil's alphabet, and that it is
the first vice in corrupt nature which moves, and
the last which dies. For look upon any infant, and
as soon as it can but move an hand, we shall see it
reaching out after something or other which it
should not have ; and he who does not know it to
be the proper and peculiar sin of old age, seems

314 A SERMON

himself to have the dotage of that age upon him,
whether he has the years or no. For who so intent
upon the world commonly, as those who are just
going out of it? Who so diligent in heaping up
wealth, as those who have neither will nor time to
spend it ?

If we should insist upon the reason of things, no
thing seems more a prodigy, than to observe, how-
catching and griping those are, who are utterly void
of all power and capacity of enjoying any of these
things which they so eagerly catch at. All which
shews, how fast this vice rivets itself into the heart,
which it once gets hold of; how it even grows into
a part of nature, and scarce ever leaves the man,
who has been enslaved by it, till he leaves the
world.

Now, if we inquire into the reason of the difficult
removal of this vice, we shall find, that all those
causes, which promoted its first insinuation and en
trance into men's affections, contribute also to its
settlement and continuance in the same ; as the
same sword which enables to conquer, enables also
to reign and rule after the conquest. Covetousness,
we shew, prevailed by its likeness and resemblance
to virtue, by the plausibility of its pleas, and by the
reputation of its effects. All which, as they were so
many arguments to the soul, first to admit and take
in the vice, so they are as potent persuasives not to
part with it. But the grand reason, I conceive,
which ties the knot so fast, that it is hardly to be
untied, is this; that covetousness is founded upon
that great' and predominant principle of nature,
which is self-preservation. It is indeed an ill-built
superstructure, but yet it is raised upon that lawful

ON LUKE XII. 15. 315

and most allowed foundation. The prime and main
design of nature, whether in things animate or in
animate, being to preserve or defend itself; which
since it cannot do, but by taking in relief and suc
cour from things without, and since this desire is so
very eager and transporting, it easily overshoots in
the measure of what it takes in, and thereby incurs
the sin and contracts the guilt of covetousness ;
which is properly an " immoderate desire and pur-
" suit of even the lawful helps and supports of na-
" ture."

Men dread want, misery, and contempt, and
therefore think they can never be enough provided
with the means of keeping off these evils : so that,
if want, misery, and contempt were not manifestly
enemies to, and destructive of the enjoyments of na
ture ; and nature were not infinitely concerned to
secure and make good these enjoyments ; and riches
and plenty were not thought the direct instruments
to effect this ; there could be no such thing as co
vetousness in* the world. But even money (the de
sire of all nations) would sink in its value, and gold
itself lose its weight, though it kept its lustre. For
to what rational purpose should men prowl and la
bour for that, without which nature could continue
in its full, entire fruition of whatsoever was either
needful for its support, or desirable for its pleasure ?
But it is evident, that men live and act under this
persuasion, that unless they have wealth and plenty
enough, they shall be needy, miserable, and despised,
and that the way to have enough, is to let nothing,
if possible, go beside them. So that herein lies the
strength of covetousness, that it acts in the strength
of nature, that it strikes in with its first and most

316 A SERMON

forcible inclination; which is to secure itself, both
in the good it actually has, and against the evil it
fears.

In short therefore, to recapitulate the foregoing
particulars. If caution and vigilance be ever neces
sary for the prevention of any evil, it must be of
such an one as insinuates itself easily, grows upon
a man insensibly, and sticks to him immovably;
and in a word, scarce ever loses its hold where it
has once got it. So that a man must be continually
watching and fencing against it, or he shall be sure
to fall by it.

And thus much for the first general part of the
text, to wit, the dehortation from covetousness, ex
pressed in these words, Take heed, and beware of
covetousness. A vice, which no character can reach
the compass, or fully express the baseness of, holding
fast all it can get in one hand, and reaching at all
it can desire with the other. A vice which may
but too significantly be called the a /3wA//x/«, or ap-
petitus canmus of the soul, perpetually disposing it
to a course of alternate craving and swallowing,
and swallowing and craving; and which nothing
can cure, or put an end to, but that which puts an
end to the man himself too. In a word, of so kill
ing a malignity is it, that wheresoever it settles, it
may be deservedly said of it, that if it has enriched
its thousands, it has damned its ten thousands. An
hard saying, I confess ; but it is the truth of it which
makes it so. And therefore happy, no doubt, is
that man, who maturely takes the warning which
oAir Saviour so favourably gives him ; and by sHun-

a Viz. Insatiabilis edendi cupiditas ; sive morbus, quo labo-
rantes, etiam post cibum esuriunt. Tusanus.

ON LUKE XII. 15.

317

ning the contagion of a vice so peculiarly branded
and declared against, neither contracts the guilt,
nor comes within the number of those whom God
himself, in Psalm x. 3, expressly tells us he abhors.

To which God (who so graciously warns us
here, that he may not condemn us hereafter)
be rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all
praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both
now and for evermore. Amen.

Covetousness proved no less an absurdity in reason,

than a contradiction to religion, nor a more

unsure way to riches, than riches

themselves to happiness.

PART II.

LUKE xii. 15.

And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetous-
ness : for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of
the things which he possesseth.

W HEN I entered upon the prosecution of these
words, I observed in them these two general parts.

I. A dehortation, or dissuasive from covetousness
in these words ; Take heed, and beware of covetous-
ness.

II. A reason enforcing it, and joining the latter
part of the text with the former by the causal par-
ticlejfor; for a man's life consisteth not in the abun
dance of the things which he possesseth.

As for the first of these two, viz. the dehortation,
or dissuasion from covetousness ; I have already des
patched that in a discourse by itself, and so proceed
now to the

Second general part, to wit, the reason enforcing
the said dehortation, and expressed in these words ;
for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of
the things which he possesseth.

In the foregoing discourse I shew, that these

ON LUKE XII. 15. 319

words were an answer of our Saviour to a tacit ar
gumentation formed in the minds of most men in
the behalf of covetousness ; which, grounding itself
upon that universal principle, that all men desire to
make their life in this world as happy as they can,
proceeded to the main conclusion by these two steps ;
to wit, that riches were the direct and proper means
to acquire this happiness ; and covetousness the pro
per way to get and obtain riches.

The ground of which arguments, namely, that
every man may design to himself as much happiness
in this life, as by all lawful means he can compass,
our Saviour allows, and contradicts not in the least ;
as being indeed the first and most native result of
those principles which every man brings into the
world with him. But as for the two consequences
drawn from thence ; the first of them, viz. that riches
were the direct and proper means to acquire happi
ness, our Saviour denies, as absolutely false ; and the
second, viz. that covetousness is the proper way to
obtain riches, he does by no means allow for certain
ly true ; though he does not, I confess, directly set
himself to disprove it here ; but in the text now be
fore us insists only upon the falsehood of the former
consequence, as we, in the following discourse, shall
likewise do ; though even the latter of these conse
quences also shall not be passed over in its due
place.

Accordingly, our Saviour here makes it the chief,
if not sole business of his present sermon, (and that
in defiance of the common sentiments of the world,)
to demonstrate the inability of riches for the attain
ment of true happiness, and thereby to make good
the grand point insisted upon, viz. that ci man's life

320 A SERMON

consisteth not in the abundance of the things which
he possesseth. Where, by life, I suppose, there can
be no need of proving, that our Saviour does not
here mean life barely and physically so taken, and
no more ; which is but a poor thing, God knows ;
but by life, according to a metonymy of the subject
for the adjunct, understands the happiness of life in
the very same sense wherein St. Paul takes this
word in 1 Thess. iii. 8. Now, says he, we live, if
ye stand fast in the Lord. That is, we live with
comfort, and a satisfactory enjoyment of ourselves.
And conformable to the same, is the way of speak
ing in the Latin, as Istuc est vivere, and Non est vi-
vere, sed valere vita. In which, and many the like
expressions, vivere and vita import not the mere
physical act of living ; but the pleasure, happiness,
and accommodations of life ; without which, life it
self is scarce worthy to be accounted life ; but only
a power of breathing, and a capacity of being mi
serable.

Now, that riches, wealth, and abundance (the
things which swell so big in the fancies of men, pro
mising them mountains, but producing only a mouse)
are not, as they persuade themselves, such sure, un
failing causes of that felicity, which the grand de
sires of their nature so eagerly press after, will ap
pear from these following considerations.

1. That no man, generally speaking, acquires, or
takes possession of the riches of this world, but with
great toil and labour, and that very frequently even
to the utmost fatigue. The first and leading curse,
which God pronounced upon mankind in Adam, was,
that in the sweat of his brows he should eat his
bread, Gen. iii. 19- And if it be a curse for a man

ON LUKE XII. 15. 321

to be forced to toil for his very bread, that is, for the
most necessary support of life ; how does he heighten
and multiply the curse upon himself, who toils for
superfluities, and spends his time and strength in
hoarding up that which he has no real need of, and
which it is ten to one but he may never have any
occasion for. For so is all that wealth which ex
ceeds such a competence, as answers the present oc
casions and wants of nature. Arid when God comes
to account with us, (let our own measures be what
they will,) he will consider no more.

Now certain it is, that the general, stated way of
gathering riches must be by labour and travail, by
serving other men's needs, and prosecuting their bu
siness, and thereby doing our own. For there is a
general commutation of these two, which circulates
and goes about the world, and governs all the affairs
of it ; one man's labour being the stated price of an
other man's money ; that is to say, let my neighbour
help me with his art, skill, or strength, and I will
help him in proportion with what I possess. And
this is the original cause and reason, why riches
come not without toil and labour, and a man's ex
hausting himself to fill his purse. This, I say, is the
original cause ; for I know, that, the world being
once settled, estates come to be transmitted to many
by inheritance ; and such need nothing else to render
them wealthy, but only to be born into the world.
Sometimes also riches fall into men's hands by fa
vour or fortune ; but this is but seldom, and those
who are thus the favourites of Providence make but
a small number in comparison of those who get what
they have by dint of labour and severe travail. And
therefore, (as I said at first,) this is the common,

VOL. III. Y

322 A SERMON

stated way which Providence allows men to grow
rich by.

But now, can any man reconcile temporal happi
ness to perpetual toil? Or can he enjoy any thing
truly who never enjoys his ease ? I mean that law
ful ease, which God allows and nature calls for, upon
the vicissitudes of rest and labour. But he who will
be vastly rich must bid adieu to his rest, and resolve
to be a slave and a drudge all his days. And at last,
when his time is spent in heaping up, and the heap
is grown big, and calls upon the man to enjoy it, his
years of enjoyment are past, and he must quit the
world, and die like a fool, only to leave his son or
his heir a rich man ; who perhaps will be one of the
first who shall laugh at him for what he left him,
and complain, if not also curse him, for having left
him no more. For such things have happened in
the world ; and I do not find that the world much
mends upon our hands. But if this be the way of it,
(as we see it is,) what happiness a man can reap from
hence, even upon a temporal account, needs a more
than ordinary invention to find out. The truth is,
the absurdity of the practice is so very gross, that it
seems to carry in it a direct contrariety to those
common notions and maxims which nature would
govern the actions of mankind by.

2. Men are usually forced to encounter and pass
through very great dangers, before they can attain to
any considerable degrees of wealth. And no man,
surely, can rationally account himself happy in the
midst of danger. For while he walks upon the very
edge and brink of ruin, it is but an equal cast,
whether he shall succeed or sink, live or die, in the
attempt he makes. He who (for instance) designs

ON LUKE XII. 15.

323

to raise his fortunes by merchandise, (as a great part
of the world does,) must have all his hopes floating
upon the waves, and his riches (the whole support of
his heart) entirely at the mercy of things which
lave no mercy, the seas and the winds. A sudden
storm may beggar him ; and who can secure him
from a storm in the place of storms ? A place, where
whole estates are every day swallowed up, and
which has thereby made it disputable, whether there
are more millions of gold and silver lodged below
the salt waters or above them ; so that, in the same
degree that any man of sense desires wealth, he
must of necessity fear its loss ; his desires must still
measure out his fears ; and both of them, with refe
rence to the same objects, must bear proportion to
)ne another; which in the mean time must needs
lake the man really miserable, by being thus held
a continual distraction between two very uneasy
>assions. Nevertheless, let us, after all, suppose that
this man of traffic, having passed the best of his days
in fears and dangers, comes at length to triumph so
far over both, as to bring off a good estate from the
mouth of the devouring element, and now thinks to
sit down and solace his old age with the acquisitions
of his younger and more daring years ; let him, how
ever, put what is past and what is present into the
ime balance, and judge impartially, whether the pre-
mt enjoyment, which he reaps from the quiet and
)lenty of this poor remainder of his age, (if he reaps
my,) can equal those perpetual fears and agonies,
rhich not only anticipated, and brought age upon him
ifore its time, but likewise, by a continual racking
solicitude of thought, cut him off from all pleasure in
the proper days of pleasure, and from those youthful

Y 2

324 A SERMON

satisfactions which age must by no means pretend to.
/ am this day fourscore years old, (said the aged
and rich Barzillai, in 2 Sam. xix. 35,) and can I yet
taste what I eat or what I drink ? But, it seems, as
dull as his senses were, he was severely sensible of
the truth of what he said. And whosoever lives to
Barzillai's years, shall not, with all Barzillai's wealth
and greatness, (sufficient, as we read, to entertain a
king and his army,) be able to procure himself a
quicker and a better relish of what shall be set be
fore him, than Barzillai had. For all enjoyment
must needs be at an end, where the powers of enjoy
ing cease. And if, in the next place, we should pass
from the delicacies of fare to the splendour of habit,
(another thing which most of the world are so much
taken with,) what could the purple, and the scarlet,
and all the fineries of clothing avail a man, when the
wearer himself was grown out of fashion ? In a word,
every man must be reckoned to have just so much
of the world as he enjoys of it. And the covetous
man (we have shewn) will not, and the old man can
not enjoy it.

But some again (the natural violence of their tem
per so disposing them) are for advancing and enrich
ing themselves (if possible) by war : a course cer
tainly, of all others, the most unaccountable and pre
posterous. For is it not highly irrational for a man
to sacrifice the end to the means ? to hazard his life
for the pursuit of that, which for the sake and sup
port of life only can be valuable ? Well indeed may
the man who has been bred up in, and accustomed
to camps, battles, and sieges, look death and danger
boldly in the face ; but yet, let him not think to look
them out of countenance too ; these being evils, no

ON LUKE XII. 15. 325

doubt, too great for mortality, with but common
sense and reason about it, to defy. Nay, suppose we,
likewise, the man of arms so fortunate, as in his
time to have fought himself into an estate, (as se
veral such have done,) yet may not even this also
prove a very slight and contemptible purchase, if, as
soon as it is made, the man himself should drop out
of this world, and so become wholly uncapable of
taking possession of what he had bought with his
life, but only by his grave ?

Thus, I say, it often fares with those soldiers of
fortune, or field-adventurers, (as we may call them,)
from whom, if we cast our eye a little further, upon
another sort of men, no less eager after gain and gran
deur from their management of state-affairs, shall
we find their condition at all more secure ? their
happiness more firmly fixed ? and less at a venture
than that of those of the forementioned tribe ? No
surely, no less hazards meet the statesman at the
council-board, than accost the soldier in the field ;
and one had need be as good a fencer, as the other
ought to be a fighter, to defend himself: the oppo
sitions he is to contest with being altogether as ter
rible and fatal, though not in the same dress. For
he has the changeable will of his prince or superiors,
the competition of his equals, and the popular rage
of his inferiors, to guard and secure himself against.
And he must walk with a wary eye and a steady
foot indeed, who never trips nor stumbles at any of
these cross blocks, which, sometime or other, will as
suredly be cast before him ; and it is well if he car
ries not only his foot, but his head too, so sure, as to
fall by neither of them : many wise men, I am sure,
have fallen so. For it is not wisdom, but fortune

Y 3

326 A SERMON

which must protect such an one ; and fortune is no
man's freehold, either to keep or to command.

Which being truly his case, I cannot judge that
man happy, who is in danger to be ruined every mo
ment, and who can neither bring the causes of his
ruin within the reach of his prospect, nor the avoid
ance of them within the compass of his power ; but,
notwithstanding all his art, wit, and cunning, lies
perpetually open to a thousand invisible, and, upon
that account, inevitable mischiefs. And thus I have
shewn the dangers which attend the several ways
and passages by which men aspire to wealth and
greatness ; the things upon which the abused rea
son of mankind so much dotes, and in which it
places so much felicity, and finds so little. But,

3. Men are frequently forced to make their way
to great possessions, by the commission of great sins,
and therefore the happiness of life cannot possibly
consist in them. It has been a saying, and a re
markable one it is, that there is no man very rich,
but is either an unjust person himself, or the heir of
one or other who was so. I dare not pronounce so
severe a sentence universally : for I question not, but,
through the good providence of God, some are as in
nocently, and with as good a conscience rich, as
others can be poor : but the general baseness and
corruption of men's practices has verified this harsh
saying of too many ; and it is every day seen, how
many serve the god of this world to obtain the riches
of it. It is true, the full reward of a man's unjust
dealing never reaches him in this life ; but if he has
not sinned away all the sense, tenderness, and appre-
hensiveness of his conscience, the grudges and re
grets of it will be still like death in the pot, and give

ON LUKE XII. 15. 327

a sad grumbling allay to all his comforts ; nor shall
his heart ever find any entire, clear, unmixed con
tent in the wealth he has got, when he shall reflect
upon the manner of his getting it ; and assure him,
that nothing of all that which he possesses in the
world is yet paid for ; so that, if the justice of God
should exact his soul in payment of that vast score,
which his sinful gains have run him into, when this
sad debt came once to be cleared off, who then would
be the gainer ? or what could be got, when the soul
was lost ?

One man, perhaps, has been an oppressor and an
extortioner, and waded to all his wealth through the
tears of widows and orphans. Another with blood
and perjury, falsehood and lying, has borne down all
before him, and now lords it in the midst of a great
estate ; and the like may be said of others, who, by
other kinds of baseness, have done the same. But
now, can any of these thriving miscreants be esteem
ed or called happy in such a condition ? Is their
mind clear, their conscience calm and quiet, and
their thoughts generally undisturbed? For there
can be no true happiness, unless they are so ; foras
much as all happiness must pass through the mind
and the apprehension. But God has not left him
self so without witness, even in the hearts of the
most profligate sinners, as to suffer great guilt and
profound peace to cohabit in the same breast. Jonah
must not think to disobey, and then to sleep secure
ly and unmolested. No, the storm will quickly be
about his ears, and the terrible remembrancer within
will be rubbing up old stories, and breaking in upon
his false repose with secret intimations of an impend
ing wrath. So that, if the tempter, at any time, be

Y 4

328 A SERMON

at one elbow, to induce a man to sin ; conscience
will not fail to be jogging him at the other, to re
mind him what he has done, and what he is to ex
pect thereupon. This has been the case of the most
prosperous sinners in the world ; these remorses and
forebodings have stuck close to them in the midst of
all their plenty, power, and splendour ; a sufficient
demonstration doubtless, how thin and counterfeit
all the joys of these grandees are, in spite of all the
flourishes and fine shows they make in the opinion
of the foolish world, which sees and gazes upon their
glistering outside, but knows not the dismal stings
and secret lashes which they feel within.

And thus much for the first general argument,
proving, that true happiness consists not in any
earthly abundance, taken from the consideration of
those evils through which men commonly pass into
the possession of it. The

Second general argument shall be taken from the
consideration of such evils as attend men, when they
come to be actually possessed of this abundance. As,

1. Excessive, immoderate cares. The very ma
nagement of a great estate is a greater and more
perplexing trouble than any that a poor man can be
subject to. Great riches superinduce new necessi
ties ; necessities added to those of nature, but ac
counted much above them ; to wit, the necessities of
pomp, grandeur, and a suitable port in the world.
For he who is vastly rich, must live like one who is
so ; and whosoever does that, makes himself thereby
a great host, and his house a great inn ; where the
noise, the trouble, and the charge is sure to be his,
but the enjoyment (if there be any) descends upon
the persons entertained by him ; nay, and upon the

ON LUKE XII. 15.

329

very servants of his family, whose business is only to
please their master, and live upon him, while the
master's business is to please all that come about
him, and sometimes to fence against them too. For
a gainer by all his costs and charges, by all that he
can give or spend, he shall never be. Such being
the temper of most men in the world, that though
they are never so kindly used and so generously en
tertained, yet they are not to be obliged ; but go
away, rather envying their entertainer's greatness,
than acknowledging his generosity. So that a man,
by widening or enlarging his condition, only affords
the malicious world about him so many more handles
to lay hold of him by, than it had before. It is in
deed impossible that riches should increase, and
that care, with many malign accidents besides, should
not increase with them. This is the dark shadow,
which stiU follows those shining bodies. And care
is certainly one of the greatest miseries of the mind ;
the toil and very day-labour of the soul. And what
felicity, what enjoyment can there be in uncessant la
bour ? For enjoyment is properly attractive, but la
bour expensive. And all pleasure adds and takes
in something to the stores of nature ; while work
and labour is still upon the exporting and the spend
ing hand. Care is a consuming and a devouring
thing, and, with a kind of spiteful as well as craving
appetite, preys upon the best and noblest things of a
man, and is not to be put off with any of the dainties
of his full table : but his thoughts, his natural rest
and recreations, are the viands which his cares feed
upon. And is not that wealthy great one, think
we, very happy, whose riches shall force him to lie
awake, while his very porter is asleep ? and whose

330 A SERMON

greatness shall hardly allow him so much as time to
eat ? Certainly such an one sustains all the real mi
series of want, no less than he who seeks his meat
from door to door. For he is as much starved, who
cannot find when, as he who cannot find what to
eat ; and he dies as surely, who is pressed to death
with heaps of gold and silver, as he who is crushed
under an heap of stones or dirt. The malignity and
corroding quality of care is, to all intents and pur
poses of mischief, the same, be the causes of it ne
ver so different. And whether poverty or riches
produce the vexation, the impression it makes upon
the heart is alike from both. They who will be
rich, says St. Paul, 1 Tim. vi. 9, pierce themselves
through with many sorrows ; and those, it seems,
sorrows not of the lighter and more transient sort,
which give the mind but feeble touches and short
visits, and quickly go off again ; but they are such
as strike daggers into it ; such as enter into the
innermost parts and powers of it ; and, in a word,
pierce it through and through, and draw out the
very life and spirit through the wound they make.
These are the peculiar and extraordinary sorrows
which go before, accompany, and follow riches ; and
there is no man, though in never so low a station,
who sets his heart upon growing rich, but shall, in
his proportion, be sure to have his share of them.
But then, let us cast our eye upon the highest con
dition of wealth and abundance which this world
affords ; to wit, the royal estate of princes : yet nei
ther can this be truly esteemed an estate of happi
ness and fruition ; but as much advanced, above all
other conditions, in care and anxiety, as it is in
power and dignity. The greatest and the richest

ON LUKE XII. 15.

331

prince can have but the enjoyment of one man ; but
he sustains the united cares and concerns of as many
millions as he commands. The troubles of the whole
nation concentre in the throne, and lodge themselves
in the royal diadem. So that it may, in effect, be
but too truly said of every prince, that he wears
a crown of thorns together with his purple robe,
(as the greatest of princes once did,) and that his
throne is nothing else but the seat imperial of care.
But,

2. The second evil which attends the possession
of riches is an insatiable desire of getting more,
Eccles. v. 10. He who loves money shall not be
satisfied with it, says Solomon. And I believe it
would be no hard matter to assign more instances of
such as riches have made covetous, than of such
as covetousness has made rich. Upon which ac
count, a man can never truly enjoy what he actually
has, through the eager pursuit of what he has not ;
his heart is still running out ; still upon the chace of
a new game, and so never thinks of using what it
has already acquired. And must it not now be one
of the greatest miseries, for a man to have a perpe
tual hunger upon him, and to have his appetite grow
fiercer and sharper amidst the very objects and op
portunities of satisfaction ? Yet so it is usually with
men hugely rich. They have, and they covet ;
riches flow in upon them, and yet riches are the only
things they are still looking after. Their desires are
answered, and while they are answered they are en
larged; they grow wider and stronger, and bring
such a dropsy upon the soul, that the more it takes
in, the more it may : just like some drunkards, who
even drink themselves athirst, and have no reason in

332 A SERMON

the world for their drinking more, but their having
drank too much already.

There cannot be a greater plague, than to be al
ways baited with the importunities of a growing ap
petite. Beggars are troublesome, even in the streets,
as we pass through them ; but how much more,
when a man shall carry a perpetually clamorous
beggar in his own breast, which shall never leave off
crying, Give, give, whether the man has any thing
to give or no ? Such an one, though never so rich, is
like a man with a numerous charge of children, with
a great many hungry mouths about him to be fed, and
little or nothing to feed them with. For he creates
to himself a kind of new nature, by bringing himself
under the power of new necessities and desires.
Whereas nature, considered in itself, and as true to
its own rules, is contented with little, and reason
and religion enables us to take up with less, and so
adds to its strength, by contracting its appetites, and
retrenching its occasions.

There is no condition so full and affluent, but con
tent is and will be a necessary supplement to make
a man happy in it ; and to compose the mind in the
want of something or other, which it would be other
wise hankering after. And if so, how wretched
must that man needs be, who is perpetually impove
rishing himself by new indigences founded upon new
desires and imaginary emptiness, still disposing him
to seek for new reliefs and accessions to that plenty,
which is already become too big for consumption
and the just measures of nature ; which never finds
any real pleasure, but in the satisfaction of some real
want !

But as for the unsatiable miser, whom we are now

ON LUKE XII. 15. 333

speaking of, what difference is there between such
an one, and a man over head and ears in debt, and
dogged by his creditors wheresoever he goes ? For
the miser is as much disquieted, dunned, and called
upon by the eagerness of his own desires, as he whose
door is haunted and rapped at every hour, by those
who come crying after him for what he owes them ;
both are equally pulled and haled to do that which
they are unable to do : for as the poor man cannot
satisfy his creditors, so neither can the rich man sa
tisfy his grasping, endless desires. And this is the
direct and natural result of increasing wealth. Riches
are still made the reason of riches; and men get
ily that they may lay up, and lay up only that
they may keep. Upon which principle it is evident,
that the covetous person is always thinking himself
in want, and consequently as far from any true relish
of happiness, as he must needs be, who apprehends
himself under that condition, which of all things in
the world he most abhors.

3. The third evil which attends men in the pos
session of the abundance of this world is, that such
a condition is the proper scene of temptation. It
brings men, as the apostle tells us in the forecited
1 Tim. vi. 9, into a snare, and into many foolish
and hurtful lusts, and such as drown men in de
struction and perdition. So hard is it for the cor
ruption of man's nature not to work, where it has such
plenty of materials to work upon. For who so strongly
tempted to pride, as he who has riches to bear it out ?
Who so prone to be luxurious, as he who has wealth
to feed and maintain his luxury ? Who so apt to be
sot himself with idleness, as he who can command
and have all things, and yet do nothing ? It is a mi-

334 A SERMON

racle almost for a rich man not to be overrun with
vice, having both such strong inclinations to it from
within, and such inducements and opportunities to
it from without. To be rich in money and rich in
good works too, rarely concur. All opportunity and
power to gratify a man's vicious humour is a shrewd
temptation to him actually to do so. Where riches
are at hand, all impediments and obstructions vanish.
For what is it which gold will not command ? What
sin so costly which the rich man may not venture
upon, if he can but stretch his conscience to the
measures of his purse? Such an one's condition
places him in the very high way to damnation;
while it surrounds and besets him with all those al
lurements which are apt to beguile and ruin souls.
And a man must have a rare mastery of himself,
and control of his affections, to be able to look a
pleasing vice in the face, and to despise it, when the
affluence of his fortune shall give him his free choice
of all those pleasures which his nature so mightily
importunes him to. But it is scarce an age that can
give us an instance of such an impregnable and re
solved abstemiousness under such circumstances ;
men are generally treacherous and false to them
selves and their greatest concerns ; wretchedly weak
and pliant to their innate viciousness, when it is
once called forth and inflamed by the provocations
it receives from the wealth and plenty they wallow
in.

Whence it is, that many hopeful young men de
bauch and drown themselves in sensuality, and come
at length to lose both their souls and their wits too ;
and that only because it was their lot to be born to
great estates, and thereby to have money enough to

ON LUKE XII. 15.

335

keep pace with their lewd desires, and to answer
them with full and constant supplies ; while others,
in the mean time, whose nature and temper was
perhaps not at all better than their own, have took
to the ways of industry and virtue, and so made
themselves both useful in their lives, and happy after
their death, only through the mercy of Providence
stinting their worldly fortunes, and thereby cutting
off those incentives of lust and instruments of sin,
which have inveigled and abused others, and brought
them headlong to destruction. Certain it is, that a
rich man must use greater caution to keep himself
clear from sin, and add greater strength and force
to his resolutions to make himself virtuous, than
men in other circumstances need to do : for he has
greater temptations to break through than they have ;
and consequently cannot make good his ground at
the same rate of vigilance and activity, which per
sons less assaulted may : which being his case, it is
hard to conceive what happiness there can be in that
condition, which renders virtue, a thing in itself so
difficult, infinitely more difficult ; which turns the
strait gate into a needle's eye, and makes hell itself,
which is so broad already, ten times broader than it
was before.

4. The fourth evil attending men in the posses
sion of this earthly abundance is, the malice and
envy of the world round about them. The bounties
of Providence are generally looked upon with an evil
eye by such as are not the objects of them them
selves. And some have no other fault so much as
objected against them, to provoke the invectives and
satires of foul mouths, but only that they thrive in
the world, that they have fair estates, and so need

336 A SERMON

not herd themselves with the rabble, nor lick the spit
tle of great ones, nor own any other dependences,
but upon God in the first place, and upon themselves
in the next. So long as malice and envy lodge
in the breasts of mankind, it is impossible for a man
in a wealthy, flourishing condition not to feel the
stroke of men's tongues, and of their hands too, if
occasion serves. The fuller the branches are, the
more shall the tree be flung at. What impeached
Naboth of treason and blasphemy, but his spacious
vineyard, too convenient for his potent neighbour,
to let the owner enjoy it long ? What made the king
of Babylon invade Judea, but the royal stores and
treasures displayed and boasted of by Hezekiah be
fore the Chaldean ambassadors, to the supplanting
of his crown, and the miserable captivity of his pos
terity ? In Sylla's bloody proscription, matters came
to that pass in Rome, that if a man had but a fair
garden, a rich jewel, or but a ring of value, it was
enough to get his name posted up in the cut-throat
roll, and to cost him his life, for having any thing
worth the taking from him. Seldom do armies in
vade poor day-labouring countries ; they are not the
thin weather-beaten cottages, but the opulent trad
ing cities, which invite the plunderer ; and war goes
on but heavily, where there is no prospect of spoil
to enliven it. So that, whether we look upon socie
ties or single persons, still we shaU find them both
owing this to their great wealth, that it gives them
the honour to be thought worth ruining, and a fit
prey for those who shall think they deserve that
wealth better than themselves ; as, they may be sure,
enough will.

And thus much for the second general argument,

ON LUKE XII. 15. 337

proving, that true happiness consists not in any
earthly abundance, taken from the consideration of
those evils, which, for the most part, if not always,
attend and go along with it. But,

The third general argument for the proof of the
same, shall be taken from the utter inability of the
greatest earthly riches to remove those things which
chiefly render men miserable. And this will appear
to us, if we reflect,

1. Upon what affects the mind. And,

2. Upon what affects the body. And here,

1. First for that which affects a man's spiritual
part, his mind. Suppose that to be grieved, and la-

mring under the most pressing and unsupportable
)f all griefs, trouble of conscience ; and what can
riches, power, or honour contribute to its removal ?
Can they pluck out any of those poisoned arrows,
which the apprehension of God's wrath fastens in
the soul? Can they heal the wounds and assuage
the anguish of a conscience groaning and even gasp
ing under the terrors of the Almighty ? Nay, let the
grief arise but from a temporal cause, as suppose the
death and loss of a dear friend, the diminution of a
man's honour, or the like, and what miserable com
forters, in any of these cases, are the heaviest bags
and the fullest coffers ? The pleasure arising from
all other temporal enjoyments cannot equal the
smart which the mind endures from the loss of any
one of them. For what pleasure did David find in
his crown and sceptre, and all his royal greatness,
when his dear (though sottishly beloved) Absalom
was torn from him ? What enjoyment had Haman
in all his court-preferments, his grandeur, and inte
rest in his royal master's affection, when Mordecai,

VOL. in. z

338 A SERMON

his most maligned enemy, refused to cringe to him
in the gate ? Why, just none at all, if we may take
his word for it, who should know his own mind best.
For, in Esther v. 11, 12, when he had reckoned up
all his wealth, glory, and greatness,, together with
his numerous offspring, designed, as he thought, to
inherit all of it, he adds in the 13th verse, (and a
remarkable passage it is,) Yet all this availeth me
nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting
at the king's gate. The pride of his swelling heart,
and the envy of his malicious eye, racked and tor
mented him more than all that the splendour and
magnificence of the Persian court (the greatest then
in the world) could delight or gratify him with. And
now, what poor contributors must these earthly enjoy
ments needs be to a man's real happiness, when an
hundred pleasures shall not be able to counterbalance
one sorrow ? But that one cross accident shall sour
the whole mass of a man's comforts : and the mind
shall as really droop, languish, and pine away, while
a man is surrounded with vast treasures, rich at
tendance, and a plentiful table, as if he had neither
where to lay his head, nor wherewithal to fill his
mouth. For all the delight he does or can reap from
his other comforts, serves only to quicken and in
crease the sense of that calamity which has actually
took possession of him. But, in the

Second place, let us consider the miseries which
affect the body ; and we shall find, that the greatest
pleasure, arising from any degree of wealth or plenty
whatsoever, is so far from reaching the soul, that it
scarce pierces the skin. What would a man give to
purchase a release, nay, but a small respite from the
extreme pains of the gout or stone ? And yet, if he

ON LUKE XII. 15. 339

could fee his physician with both the Indies, neither
art nor money can redeem, or but reprieve him from
his misery. No man feels the pangs and tortures of
his present distemper (be it what it will) at all the
less for his being rich. His riches indeed may have
occasioned, but they cannot allay them. No man's
fever burns the gentler for his drinking his juleps in
a golden cup. Nor could Alexander himself, at the
price of all his conquests, antidote or recall the poi
sonous draught, when it had once got into his veins.
When God shall think fit to cast a man upon his bed
of pain or sickness, let him summon about him his
thousands and his ten thousands, his lands and his
rich manors, and see whether he can bribe, or buy
off, or so much as compound with his distemper but
for one night's rest. No ; the sick bed is so like the
grave, which it leads to, that it uses rich and poor,
prince and peasant all alike. Pain has no respect of
persons, but strikes all with an equal and an impar
tial stroke.

We know how God reproved the foolish world
ling, (as our Saviour tells us,) in Luke xii. 20, Thou
fool, says he, this night shall thy soul be required
of thee ; and then whose shall all those thing's be
which thou hast hoarded up? But we may bring
the sentence here pronounced much lower, and yet
render it dreadful enough, even within the compass
of this life, and say, Thou fool, this night, this day
shall thy health and strength be taken from thee ;
and then what pleasure, what enjoyment will all thy
possessions afford thee ? God may smite thee with
some lingering, dispiriting disease, which shall crack
the strength of thy sinews, and suck the marrow out
of thy bones ; and then, what pleasure can it be to

340 A SERMON

wrap thy living skeleton in purple, and rot alive in
cloth of gold ? when thy clothes shall serve only to
upbraid the uselessness of thy limbs, and thy rich
fare stand before thee only to reproach and tantalize
the weakness of thy stomach ; while thy consump
tion is every day dressing thee up for the worms ?
All which, I think, is a sufficient demonstration, that
plenty and enjoyment are not the same thing. They
are the inward strength and sufficiency of a man's
faculties, which must render him a subject capable
of tasting or enjoying the good things which Provi
dence bestows upon him. But as it is God only who
creates, so it is he alone who must support and pre
serve these ; and when he withdraws his hand, and
lets nature sink into its original weakness and insuf
ficiency, all a man's delights fail him, all his enjoy
ments vanish. For no man (to be sure) can enjoy
himself any longer than he can be said to be him
self.

But now, if riches are thus wholly unable of them
selves to effect any thing towards a man's relief
under a corporal malady, how can they, as such, de
serve the name of felicity ? For what are they good
for ? What can they do for him ? The man is sick,
and his disease torments, and death threatens him ;
and can they either remove the one, or keep off the
other ? Nothing less. But it will be answered per
haps, that when a man is well and healthy, they
may serve him for many conveniences of life. They
may do so, I confess ; but then this also is as true,
that he who is healthy and well, may enjoy all the
necessary satisfactions which his nature calls for,
though he has no other riches in the world but those
poor incomes which he daily earns with the labour

ON LUKE XII. 15. 341

of his hands or the working of his brain. So that
the sum and result of all their efficacy towards a
man's happiness amounts but to this ; that riches
may indeed minister something to the making of
that person happy, who is in such a condition of
health and strength as may enable him, if he pleases,
to make himself happy without them. For a bare
competence, and that a very slender one too, will
answer all the needs of nature ; and where a com
petence is sufficient, an abundance, I am sure, can
not be necessary. And this introduces the

Fourth and last argument, to prove, that man's
happiness consists not in any earthly abundance,
taken from this consideration ; that the greatest hap
piness which this life is capable of, may be, and ac
tually has been enjoyed without this abundance ; and
consequently cannot depend upon it. Now that un
doubtedly is the chief happiness of life, for the at
tainment of which all other things are designed but
as the means and subservient instruments. And
what else can this be, but the content, quiet, and
inward satisfaction of a man's mind ? For why,
or for what other imaginable reason, are riches,
power, and honour so much valued by men, but
because they promise themselves that content and
satisfaction of mind from them, which, they fully be
lieve, cannot otherwise be had ? This, no doubt, is
the inward reasoning of men's minds in the present
case. But the experience of thousands (against
which all arguments signify nothing) irrefragably
evinces the contrary. For was there not a sort of
men, whom we read of in the former ages of the
world, called the ancient philosophers, who, even
while they lived in the world, lived above it, and in

342 A SERMON

a manner without it; and yet all the while accounted
themselves the happiest men in it ? And from tljese,
if we pass to the professors and practisers of an
higher philosophy, the apostles and primitive Chris
tians, who ever so overflowed with spiritual joy as
they did? a joy unspeakable and full of glory, as
St. Peter terms it ; a joy not to be forced or ravished
from the heart once possessed of it, as our Saviour
himself, the great giver of it, has assured us. Hear
St. Paul and Silas singing out this joy aloud in the
dismal prison, where they sat expecting death every
moment. And from hence to proceed to the next
ages of the church : who could be fuller of and
more transported with a joyous sense of their condi
tion, than the martyrs of those primitive times, who
were so far from any of the accommodations of this
world, that their only portion in it was to live in
hunger, nakedness, and want, and stripped of every
thing but the bodies, in and through which they
suffered all these afflictions? And as this internal,
spiritual comfort is doubtless the highest that hu
man nature is capable of, and may serve instead of
all others, so it descends even to those of the lowest
condition. And the poor labouring peasant, with
his coarse fare, and a good conscience to season and
make a feast of it, feeds as cheerfully, and with as
much inward satisfaction, as his great landlord or
flourishing neighbour can ; there being, for the most
part, as much of real enjoyment under the meanest
cottage, as within the walls of the stateliest and
most magnificent palaces. For does not the honest
ploughman, whose strength is his whole estate, and
his day's work his revenue, carry about him as light
an heart and as clear a breast, as he who commands

ON LUKE XII. 15. 343

armies, or can call thirty-five millions his own ? No
doubt he does ; and his experience (an evidence too
great to be borne down) will vouch the same. Ac
cordingly, let any one shew me that enjoyment or
pleasure which men seek for from a vast estate in
land or monies ; and I will shew the same, or some
thing equal to it, full as high and satisfactory, in that
man, who cannot call one foot of land in the whole
world his own, and whose purse never reached
beyond the present, nor knew what it was to lay up
for the morrow. Many, doubtless very many such
there are, who eat their bread with as much relish,
sleep as soundly, think as cheerfully, and rejoice as
much in their homely dame and ragged children,
together with their high-shoed companions, as those
who can command sea and land to their tables,
domineer over kingdoms, and set their foot upon the
necks of conquered nations.

Content is the gift of Heaven, and not the cer
tain effect of any thing upon earth ; and it is as
easy for Providence to convey it without wealth
as with it ; it being the undeniable prerogative of the
first cause, that whatsoever it does by the media
tion of second causes, it can do immediately by it
self without them. The heavens can and do every
day derive water and refreshment upon the earth
without either pipes or conduits, though the weak
ness of human industry is forced to fly to these
little assistances to compass the same effects. Hap
piness and comfort stream immediately from God
himself, as light issues from the sun, and sometimes
looks and darts itself into the meanest corners,
while it forbears to visit the largest and the noblest
rooms. Every man is happy or miserable, as the

7. 4

344 A SERMON

temper of his mind places him, either directly under,
or beside the influences of the divine nature ; which
enlighten and enliven the disposed mind with se
cret, ineffable joys, and such as the vicious or unpre
pared mind is wholly unacquainted with. We have
nothing, and yet we possess all things, says the
apostle, in 2 Cor. vi. 10. And can a greater hap
piness be imagined, than that which gives a man here
all things in possession, together with a glorious
eternity in reversion ? In a word, it is not what a
man has, but what he is, which must make him
happy : and thus, as I have demonstrated the utter
insufficiency of riches to make men happy, so to
confirm the high reason of our Saviour's dissuasive
from covetousness, against all objections, or so much
as pretences to the contrary ; we shall further ob
serve, that covetousness is by no means a certain
way to procure riches ; and if neither riches can
make a man happy, nor covetousness make him
rich, all pleas for it must needs be torn up by the
very roots. And for this we need not assign any
other ground or cause of the strange and frequent
disappointments which covetousness meets with in
the ends it drives at, if we consider the nature of
the means and instruments which it makes use
of for the bringing of these ends about. Such as
are fraud and force, schism and sedition, sacrilege
and rebellion, all of them practices carrying the
curse of God inseparably cleaving to them and in
herent in them. And to shew this in the principal
of them, the violation of things sacred, who ever
knew any family made rich by sacrilege? or any
robber of the altar, but sooner or later he fell a just
sacrifice to the shrine he robbed ? Covetousness

ON LUKE XII. 15. 345

may possibly sometimes procure such an one a
broad estate for the present, but a long one never.
Wealth may brave and flourish it for a while in the
front and forepart of his life, but poverty generally
brings up the rear. For the justice of God is never
in jest, nor does it work by halves in such cases ;
but whether by a speedy or lingering execution, by
striking or eating through the cursed thing, it will
be sure to make good its blow at last. A notable
instance of which, we have in the faction which car
ried all before it in the grand rebellion of forty-one.
Men were then factious and rapacious, because they
were first covetous ; and none more so, than a pack
of incendiaries, who had usurped the name of mi
nisters of the gospel. For these were the men,
who with such rage and vehemence preached down
episcopacy and the established government of the
church, in hopes to have had a great part, at least, of
the revenues of it bestowed upon them for their pains.
But, alas, poor tools ! they understood not the work
they were employed in ; for the lay-grandees, their
masters, (who had more wit with their godliness,)
meant no such thing : no, the hunters never in
tended that the hounds should eat the hare ; but
though their throats, their noise, and their fangs
were made use of to run it down, and catch it, yet,
being once caught, they quickly found that it was to
be meat only for their masters ; and that, whatsoever
became of the constitution of the church, effectual
care was taken that the lands of it should go another
way. And in good earnest it would fare but very
ill with mankind, if all that the mouth gapes for,
the hand should be able to grasp. But, thanks be
to God, innumerable are the ways which Providence

346 A SERMON

has, (some of them visible, and some secret and in
visible, but all of them certain,) by which it crosses
and confounds the greedy wretch even in his most
refined contrivances and arts of getting ; and there
by gives the world a convincing proof, one would
think, (if experience could convince men,) that it is
God, and God alone, who (as Moses said to the Is
raelites) must teach men to get wealth, as well as
enable them to enjoy it. And consequently, that
for a man to be covetous and poor too, a miser
and yet a beggar, is no such paradox, as to imply
either an inconsistency in the thing itself, or a con
tradiction in the terms.

And now, in the last place, having finished the
subject before us, in the several particulars proposed
to be discoursed of by us ; let us sum up, and re
capitulate all in a few words, viz. that since it is
natural for men to design to make their lives as
happy as they can ; and since they promise them
selves this happiness from riches, and thereupon use
covetousness as the surest means to attain these
riches ; and yet, upon all the foregoing accounts, it is
manifest, that neither can covetousness certainly
procure riches, nor riches certainly procure a man
this happiness ; it must follow, by an unavoidable in
ference, that covetousness must needs be in the
same degree irrational, in which riches are to this
great end ineffectual ; and consequently, that there
is as little reason for avarice, as there is religion in
it. And therefore that the covetous person (what
soever he may seem, either in his own or the world's
opinion, is in truth neither rich, reasonable, nor re
ligious ; but chargeable with all that folly, and liable
to all that misery, which is justly the shame and

ON LUKE XII. 15. 317

portion of those, who, according to those other ex
cellent words of our Saviour, in the 21st verse of
this chapter, lay up treasure for themselves, and
are not rich towards God.

To whom (as the sole giver of all happiness,
whether with or without riches] be rendered
and ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might,
majesty, and dominion, both now and for ever
more. Amen.

A DISCOURSE

PREACHED AT CHRIST CHURCH, OXON,
BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY,

OCTOBER 15, 1699.

MATTH. vi. 21.
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

AS man is naturally a creature of great want and
weakness, so he does as naturally carry a most inti
mate and inseparable sense of that want and weak
ness about him : and because a state of want must
needs be also a state of uneasiness, there is nothing
which nature puts a man with so much force and
earnestness upon, as to attempt a supply and relief
of the wants which he is so sensible of, and so in
commoded by. Insomuch that the whole course of
his actings, from first to last, proceeds in this method.
First, that every action which a man does, is in
order to his compassing or obtaining to himself some
good thereby. And secondly, that he endeavours to
compass or obtain this good, because he desires it.
And thirdly and lastly, that he desires it, because he
wants it ; or at least thinks that he does so. So that
the first spring, which sets all the wheels and facul
ties of the soul agoing, is a man's apprehension of.
some good wanting to complete the happiness of his
condition.

But as every good is not in the same degree con-
tributive to this happiness, so neither is it in the

ON MATTHEW VI. 21. 349

same degree desirable : and therefore, since want,
as we have noted, is still the measure, as well as
ground of desire, that which answers all the wants,
and fills all the vacuities of a rational nature, must
needs be the full and ultimate object of its desires.
And this was called by the philosophers, man's sum-
mum bonum ; and here, by our Saviour, man's trea
sure; both expressions importing a good, so compre
hensively great, and equal to all the appetites of na
ture, that the presence and possession of this alone
renders a man happy, and the want or absence of it
miserable. Upon which account, though it be im
possible that this prime or chief good should admit
of any plurality, so as to be really more than one,
yet in regard men take it in by their apprehensions,
which are so exceedingly subject to error and decep
tion, even in their highest concerns, and since error
is various, and indeed infinite ; hence it is, that this
treasure, or summum bonum, falls under a very
great multiplicity; this man proposing to himself
one thing, and that man another, and a third some
thing else for his chief good ; and that, from which
alone he expects all that happiness and satisfaction,
which the condition of his nature renders him either
capable or desirous of.

Now the words of the text may be considered
two ways.

I. As they are an entire proposition in themselves.
And,

II. As they are an argument relating to and en
forcing of a foregoing precept, in the 19th and 20th
verses : and accordingly, in the prosecution of them,
we shall take in both considerations.

350 A SERMON

And first, if we take them, as they are an entire
proposition in themselves, so they offer us these two
things.

1. Something supposed, which is, that every man
has something or other which he accounts his trea
sure, or chief good. And,

2. Something expressly declared, namely, that
whatsoever a man accounts his treasure, or chief
good, upon that he places his heart, his whole de
sires and affections. And,

1. For the thing supposed or implied in the
words ; to wit, that every man has something or
other which he accounts his treasure, or chief good.
The truth and certainty of which proposition will
appear founded upon these two things.

1 . The activity of man's mind. And,

2. The method of his acting. And,

1. For the first of these. The mind of man is
of that spirituous, stirring nature, that it is perpe
tually at work. Something it is still in pursuit of,
either by contemplation or desire : the foundation
of which latter, I shew, was want ; and consequently,
as man will be always wanting something or other,
so he will be always sending forth his desires to
hunt after, and bring that thing in, which he wants :
which is so true, that some men having compassed
the greatest and noblest objects of their desires, (so
that desire could no longer ascend, as being already
at the top,) they have betook themselves to inferior
and ignoble exercises ; so that amongst the Roman
emperors, (then lords of a great part of the world,)
we find Nero at his harp, Domitian killing flies, and
Commodus playing the fencer ; and all this only to

ON MATTHEW VI. 21. 351

busy themselves some way or other ; nothing being
so grievous and tedious to human nature as perfect
idleness.

But now, there is not any thing (though never so
mean and trivial) which a man does, but he antece
dently designs himself some satisfaction by the do
ing of it ; so that he advances to every action as to
a degree of happiness, as to something which, ac
cording to its measure and proportion, will gratify
or please him, and without which he would be in
that degree uneasy and troublesome to himself.
The spirit of a man, like a flame, being of such an
operative, and withal of such a catching quality,
that it is still closing in with some desirable, suit
able good, as the food that nourishes, and the sub
ject that supports it ; so impossible is it, that desire
should wholly lie still. For though the soul had
actually all that it could enjoy, yet then desire
would run out into the future, and from the present
fruition project the continuance and preservation of
its beloved object. In short, what blood is to the
body, that desire is to the soul ; and as the blood
will circulate while the body lives, so desire will act
and range about while the soul subsists ; and no
thing but the annihilation of one can supersede or
stop the motion of the other.

And the truth is, this innate restlessness of desire
implanted in the soul of man, is the great engine
by which God would draw it to himself : and if men
would be so far true to themselves, and to the most
ruling principles of their nature, as to keep desire
still upon the advance, till it fixed upon something
which would absolutely and fully satisfy it, it were
impossible but that, in the issue, it should terminate

352 A SERMON

in God. But that which makes this great principle
so ineffective of any true happiness to man is, that
he does not carry it constantly and directly forward,
but often suffers it to recur, or turn aside to former
false satisfactions ; first tasting an object, and then,
upon trial, leaving it for its emptiness ; and yet
afterwards returning to it again, from a vain hope
to speed better than he had done before. So that
by this means there is a continual restless circulation
from one empty thing to another. The soul, in this
case, being just like a sick man, still altering his
postures in order to his ease ; though, when he has
tried all, he finds no more ease in one than in an
other ; a certain demonstration, that the soul itself,
in the present state of nature, is in a most deplora
bly sick and disordered condition. But,

Secondly, the second argument to prove, that every
man has something or other which he accounts his
treasure, his peculiar, or chief good, shall be taken
from the method of his actings, which still proceeds
by a direction of means to one great and last end.
For as an infinite progress is exploded in all matters
of ratiocination, as absurd and impossible, so it is
equally absurd in matters of practice ; it being not
more necessary to assign and fix some first princi
ple of discourse, than to state some last end of act
ing : all a man's practicks hanging loose and uncer
tain, unless they are governed and knit together by
the prospect of some certain end.

Now it is the same thing which sustains these
several denominations of last end, chief good, or
treasure; all and every one of them signifying
neither more nor less than the grand and ultimate
term, to which a rational agent directs all his actions

ON MATTHEW VI. 21.

and desires : every man naturally and necessarily
intending some one principal thing ; to the acquir
ing of which, all that he does, thinks, or desires, is
subservient, and in which, as in a kind of centre, all
his actions meet and unite.

For though a man has not continually and ac
tually the prospect of that end in every one of his
actions, yet he has it habitually and virtually ; for
asmuch as, being once designed by him, all his ac
tions tend to and promote the compassing of it :
as it is not necessary that a traveller should have
his journey's end in his thoughts every step that he
takes ; but it is enough that he first designs it, and
in the strength of that design is by every step car
ried nearer and nearer to it : every man has some
prime, paramount object, which employs his head,
and fills his heart, rules his thoughts, and, as it were,
lies in his bosom ; and is to him above and instead
of ail other enjoyments whatsoever. And thus much
for the thing supposed or implied in the words,
namely, that every man has some peculiarly valued
thing, which he accounts his treasure, or chief good.
But,

2. The other thing to be considered by us is
that which is expressly declared in the text, namely,
that whatsoever a man places his treasure or his
chief good in, upon that he places his heart also.
Where, according to the language of scripture, the
word heart compendiously denotes to us all the
powers and faculties of man's soul, together with
their respective motions and operations. And since
the word treasure is a metaphorical term for a man's
prime or chief good, we are to take an account how
a man prosecutes this good, from the analogy of

VOL. III. A a

354 A SERMON

those actions which he exerts with reference to a
treasure; and which, I conceive, may be reduced to
these four. As,

1. A restless and laborious endeavour to acquire
and possess himself of it. There is no man, who
heartily and in good earnest desires to be rich, or
great, or learned, who can be idle. For desire is
the spring of diligence, and the heart infallibly sets
both head and hands, and every thing else on work.
Great desire is like a great fire, and all difficulties
before it are like stubble ; it will certainly make its
way through them, and devour them. From whence
it is, that it generally proves so dangerous, and too
often fatal, to stand between a man (especially if
in place and power) and that which he most desires ;
and many innocent and brave persons have to their
cost found it so. For dangers and death itself shall
be nothing; conscience and religion nothing; nay,
the very hopes of heaven and the fears of hell shall
be accounted as nothing, when a furious, headstrong
desire shall resolve to break through them all ; and,
like Hannibal in his march, cut through rocks and
mountains, till it either finds or makes a way to its
beloved object. What made Jacob think those
seven years of hard service for Rachel but a few
days, as it is said in Gen. xxix. 20, but the extraor
dinary and invincible love which he bore to her ?
And what makes the trader into foreign countries
defy the winds and the seas, and hazard the safety
which he actually has and loves, but the wealth
which he loves more ? All the stupendous instances
of courage, patience, industry, and the like, which
have so swelled the volumes of history, and amused
the world, have been but the effects of great and

ON MATTHEW VI. 21. 355

victorious desire ; they are all of them but the in
struments of love, to compass the things which men
have first set their hearts upon : so that when cou
rage takes the field for battle, we may be sure that
it is desire which leads it on ; filling the mind with
glorious ideas of the prize it contends for. All the
noble violences done to nature have been resolvable
into this cause ; nay, the very restraints of appetite
have been but the effects of an appetite more con
trolling and predominant.

What is it that a man more naturally affects than
society and converse ? (it being a kind of multipli
cation of himself into every person of the company
he converses with.) And what, by consequence,
can be more uneasy to this %&ov KOXITIKOV, this so
ciable creature, than the dry, pensive retirements of
solitude? Nevertheless, when a nobler thing shall
have seized his imagination, and his desires have
took a flight above the first inclinations of his na
ture, by inspiring him with the diviner love of
knowledge, or being serviceable to his country ; why
then, he can with delight retreat into his cell,
dwell with himself, and converse with his own
thoughts, and, in those higher speculations, forget all
his merry-meetings and companions ; nay, and his
very food and rest, and live not only above the plea
sures, but almost above the wants of nature too. In
Prov. xviii. 1, Solomon tells us, that, through desire,
a man having separated himself, seeketh and in-
termeddleth with all wisdom. So that it is this
mighty thing, desire, which makes a man break off,
and sequester himself from all those jollities, those
airy, empty diversions, which use to court and win
the appetites of vulgar souls. Thus nature, we see,

A a 2

356 A SERMON

is forced to bend to art; art is the daughter and
issue of necessity ; and the standard and measure
of this necessity is desire ; desire, which nothing al
most can withstand or set bounds to ; which makes
paths over the seas ; turns the night into day ; and,
in a word, charges through hunger and poverty, and
all those hardships which human nature is so apt
to shrink under ; but it will, at length, arrive at the
satisfaction which it is in pursuit of.

What high and vast achievements does the apo
stle, in the llth of the Hebrews, ascribe to faith !
As the subduing of kingdoms, stopping the mouths
of lions, quenching the violence of fire, out of weak
ness making men strong, and that to such a degree,
as to endure tortures, cruel mockings, scourgings,
bonds and imprisonments; nay, and to be stoned,
sawn asunder, and slain with the sword. But
how did faith do all this ? Why, in the strength of
love ; faith being properly the eye of the soul, to spy
out and represent to it those excellent, amiable
things, the love and desire of which should be hotter
than fire and stronger than death ; bearing a man
through and above all the terrors of both, for the
obtaining of so transcendent a good. In short, faith
shews the soul its treasure ; which being once seen
by it, naturally inflames the affections ; and they
as naturally engage all the faculties and powers of
soul and body, in a restless, indefatigable endeavour
after it. And thus, in all those heroic instances of
passive fortitude, faith wrought by love, and there
fore it wrought wonders.

2. Whatsoever a man accounts his treasure, that
he places his whole delight in ; it entertains his eye,
refreshes his fancy, feeds his thoughts, and, next to

ON MATTHEW VI. 21. 357

his conscience, affords him a continual feast. It fills
and answers all his capacities of pleasure ; and to
please, we know, is much more than barely to sup
port. It is the utmost limit of enjoyment ; the
most refined part of living ; and, in a word, the last
and highest thing which nature looks for. It
quenches a man's thirst, not only as water, which
just keeps nature alive, but as wine, which both sus
tains and gratifies it too ; and adds a pleasure, as
well as serves a necessity.

Nothing has so strong and fast an hold upon the
nature and mind of man, as that which delights it :
for whatsoever a man delights to do, by his good
will he would be always doing : delight being that
which perpetuates the union between the will and
the object, and brings them together, by the surest,
the most voluntary and constant returns. And
from hence, by the w^ay, we may affirm it as a cer
tain, unfailing truth, that no man ever was or can
be considerable in any art or profession whatsoever,
which he does not take a particular delight in ; for
that otherwise he will never heartily and assidu
ously apply himself to it ; nor is it morally possible
that he should.

Men indeed, in the course of this world, are
brought to do many things, mere necessity enforcing
them, and the want and weakness of their condition
creating that necessity. But still, in all such cases,
the man goes one way, and his desires another ; for
he acts but as a slave under the eye of a severe mas
ter ; the dread of some greater suffering making
him submit to the disciplines of a less. But un
shackle his nature, and turn his desires loose, and
then you shall see what he will choose in order to

A a 3

358 A SERMON

his pleasure, and the free unrestrained enjoyment of
himself. An epicure may be brought to confine him
self to his chamber, and take physic, (as none gene
rally need it more ;) but will he look upon the potion
with the same eye with which he uses to see the
wine sparkle in the glass ? or rejoice in the com
pany of his physician as much as in that of his boon
companions ? No, the actions of pleasure carry
quite differing signs and marks upon them from
such as are forced ; marks, above all the arts of dis
simulation or the powers of compulsion. For so far
as any thing pleases the heart, it commands it ; and
the command is absolute, and the obedience cheer
ful.

3. Whatsoever a man accounts his treasure, from
that he derives the last support of his mind in all
his troubles. Let an ambitious man lose his friends,
his health, or his estate ; yet, if the darling of his
thoughts, his honour and his fame, continue entire,
his spirit will still bear up. And let a voluptuous
man be stripped of his credit and good name, his
pleasures and sensuality, in the midst of all his dis
grace, shall relieve him. And lastly, to name no
more, let a covetous miser have both pleasure and
honour taken from him, yet so long as his bags are
full, and the golden heaps glister in his eyes, his heart
will be at ease, and other losses shall affect him little ;
they may possiby raze the surface, but they descend
not into the vitals of his comforts.

The reason of all which is, because an ambitious
person values honour, a voluptuous man pleasure,
and a covetous wretch wealth, above any other en
joyment in the world ; all other things being but
tasteless and insipid to them, in comparison of that

ON MATTHEW VI. 21. 359

one which is the sole minion of their fancy, and
the idol of their affections. And accordingly it would
be found but a vain and fruitless attempt, to go
about to move the heart of any of these persons, but
by touching upon the proper string that ties and
holds it ; so that the way to humble and bring down
an ambitious, aspiring man, is to disparage him, to
expose and shew his blind-side, (which such kind of
persons never fail to have ;) and the most effectual
course to make a covetous man miserable, in the
right sense, is to impoverish him : and when such a
change of condition once passes upon such persons,
they become like men without either life or spirit, the
most pitiful, forlorn, abject creatures under heaven,
and full of that complaint of Micah, in Judges xviii.
24, Ye have taken away my gods, and what have I
more ? For whatsoever a man accounts his chief
good, so as to suffer it to engross and take up all his
desires, that he makes his god, that he deifies and
adores, whether he knows so much or no. For cer
tain it is, that if he would lay out himself never so
much in the acts of religion, he could do no more even
to God himself than love him, trust in him, and rely
upon him, and, in a word, give him his heart ; nor
indeed does God require any more ; for it is a man's
all. Take the heart, and you have the man by con
sequence. Govern the spring, and you command
the motion. The whole man (as I may so express it)
is but the appendix of his own heart.

4thly and lastly, Whatsoever a man accounts his
treasure, for the preservation of that he will part
with all other things, if he cannot enjoy that and
them together. See a merchant in a storm at sea,

A a 4

360 A SERMON

and what he values most he will be sure to throw
overboard last ; every man, when he is exposed to
any great and imminent danger, marshals his enjoy
ments just as Jacob did his family, when he was to
meet his brother Esau, whom he was in such fear of,
Gen. xxxiii. 2 ; the handmaids and their children he
put foremost ; Leah and her children next ; but
Rachel and her children the hinder most of all. The
reason of which was, because he had set his heart
most upon her5 and therefore would have her fur
thest from the danger, if it might be escaped, and
last in the suffering, if it proved unavoidable. A
father will be rather stripped .of his estate, than be
reaved of his children ; and if he cannot keep them
all, he will (though with the loss of the rest) redeem
the son of his affections.

It is possible indeed, that a man himself may not
always perfectly know what he loves most, till some
notable trial comes, which shall separate between him
and what he has, and call for all his enjoyments one
after another ; and then presently his eyes shall be
opened, and he shall plainly find, that the garment
which sits nearest to him, shall by his good-will be
last torn from him. Bring a man under persecu
tion, and that shall tell him, whether the peace of
his conscience, or the security of his fortune, be the
thing which he prefers and values most. That shall
tell him, whether he had rather be plundered or per
jured ; and whether the guilt of rebellion and sacri
lege does not strike a greater horror into him, than
all the miseries of an ejectment or sequestration.
But if, at the critical time of trial, such an one shall
surrender up his conscience, that he may continue

ON MATTHEW VI. 21. 361

warm in his house and his estate, let him no longer
doubt what it is that is his treasure, and what lies
deepest in his heart. For it is that which he can
most hardly be without. But his conscience, it seems,
he can easily shake hands with ; and therefore,
wheresoever he may place his religion, it is certain
that he places his happiness somewhere else.

Skin for skin, and all that a man has will he
give for his life, (commonly speaking ;) but let a
man love any thing better than his life, and life it
self shall be given for it. And the world has seen
the experiment ; for some have loved their country
better than their lives, and accordingly have died for
it : and some their parents, some their honour, to that
degree, as to sacrifice their dearest blood for the pre
servation of one, and vindication of the other. But
still, this is the sure, infallible test of love, that the
measure of its strength is to be taken by the fast
ness of its hold. Benjamin was apparently dearest
to his father, because he was still kept with him,
while the rest of his brethren were sent from him.
He was to him as the apple of his eye ; and there
fore no wonder if he could not endure to have him
out of it.

And thus I have done with the first consideration
of the words ; namely, as they are an entire proposi
tion in themselves. I come now to the

Second ; to wit, as they are an argument relating
to, and enforcing of the foregoing precept in the 1 9th
and 20th verses, Lay not up for yourselves trea
sures on earth, where moth and rust do corrupt, and
thieves break through and steal: but lay up for
yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither
moth nor rust do corrupt, nor thieves break through

362 A SERMON

and steal. For where your treasure is, there will
your heart be also. The force of which argument
is founded upon this clear and convincing ratiocina
tion ; to wit, that it is infinitely foolish, and below
a rational creature, to place his heart upon that,
which is by no means worth the placing of his heart
upon ; and therefore, since it is undeniably evident,
that a man will place his heart upon that which he
makes his treasure, it follows, that he cannot with
out extreme folly make any thing his treasure, which
can neither be secured from rapine nor preserved
from corruption ; as it is certain that nothing in this
world can.

This, I say, is the sum and force of our Saviour's
argument : in pursuit of which, we are to observe,
that there are two things which offer themselves to
mankind, as rivals for their affections ; to wit, God
and the world; the things of this present life and
of the future. And the whole strength of our Sa
viour's discourse bears upon this supposition, that it
is impossible for a man to fix his heart upon both.
No man can make religion his business, and the
world too : no man can have two chief goods. It is
indeed more impossible than to serve two masters ;
forasmuch as the heart is more laid out upon what a
man loves, than upon what he serves. Besides that
the soul is but of a stinted operation; and cannot exert
its full force and vigour upon two diverse, and much
less contrary objects. For that one of them will be
perpetually counterworking the other ; and so far
as the soul inclines to one, it must in proportion
leave, and go off from the other ; so that an equal
adhesion to them both implies in it a perfect contra
diction. For why else should the word of truth so

ON MATTHEW VI. 21. 363

positively tell us, that if we love the world, the love
of the Father is not, cannot be in us? I John ii. 15.
Men, I know, think to join both, but it is because
they understand neither. For a man must first have
two hearts, and two souls, and two selves, before he
can give an heart to God and an heart to the world
too. And therefore Christ does not state this mat
ter upon a bare priority of acquisition, as if he had bid
men first lay up treasures for themselves in heaven,
and after that allowed them, with the same earnest
ness, to provide themselves treasures here on earth
likewise, (and so by that means successively grasp
the full happiness of both worlds :) for he knew that
the very nature of the thing itself made this imprac
ticable, and not to be effected ; forasmuch as the ac
quisition of either world would certainly engage and
take up the whole man, and consequently leave no
thing of him to be employed about acquiring the
other.

Whereupon Abraham speaking to the rich man in
the gospel, who had flourished in his purple and
fine linen, and fared deliciously every day, tells
him, that he, in his lifetime, had received his good
things. His they are called emphatically, his by pe
culiar choice. They were the things he chiefly va
lued and pitched upon, as the most likely to make
him happy ; and consequently, having actually en
joyed them, and thereby compassed the utmost of his
desires, his happiness was at an end : he had his op
tion ; and there was no further provision for him in
the other world : nor indeed was it possible that he
should find any, where he had laid up none. Those
words of our Saviour being most assuredly true,
whether applied to men's endeavours after the things

364 A SERMON

of this life, or of another ; that verily they^ have their
reward. That is to say, the result and issue of their
labours will still be suitable to the end which go
verned and directed them. For where men sow,
there they must expect to reap ; it being infinitely
absurd to bury their seed in the earth, and to expect
a crop in heaven. And accordingly, in the llth of
the Hebrews, .we find, that at the same time the
saints of old (there spoken of) declared themselves
expectants of a land of promise hereafter, they
also declared themselves strangers and pilgrims here.
And therefore, let not men mock and deceive them
selves, by thinking to compass heaven with one
hand, and earth with the other ; and so to reign as
princes in both. For the wisdom of God has de
creed it otherwise ; and judged one world enough for
one man, though it gives him his choice of two.

It being clear therefore, that a man cannot set his
heart both upon God and the world too, as his trea
sure, or chief good; let us, in the next place, see
which of these two bids highest for this great prize,
the heart of man. And since there are but these
two, there cannot be a more expedite way to evince
that it belongs to God, than by proving the absurdi
ty of placing it upon the world. And that will ap
pear upon a double account.

1. If we consider the world in comparison with
the heart or mind of man. And,

2. If we consider it absolutely in itself. And,

1. If we consider it in comparison with the heart
of man, we shall find that the heart has a superlative
worth and excellency above any thing in this world
besides ; and therefore ought by no means to be be
stowed or laid out upon things so vastly inferior to

ON MATTHEW VI. 21. 365

itself. For it is that noble part of man which God
has drawn and imprinted a lively portraiture of his
own divine nature upon ; that part which he has de
signed for his own peculiar use. For God made the
heart for no other purpose but that he might dwell
in it ; giving us understandings able to pierce into
and look through the fairest and most specious offers
of this world, together with affections large enough
to swallow and take down all that the whole crea
tion can set before them, and yet remain hungry and
unsatisfied still. And are such faculties as these,
think we, fit to be entertained only with froth and
wind, emptiness and delusion ? And those things
can be no more, which are always promising satis
faction, but never give it. For surely such low en
joyments as meat, drink, and clothes, are not suffi
cient to satisfy or make a man happy ; and yet all
the necessities of the natural life are fully answered
by these ; and whatsoever, upon that account, is de
sired more, is but the result of a false appetite,
founded in no real want, but only in fancy and opi
nion. Nevertheless, there are, I confess, spiritual
wants, which nothing can satisfy but what is super
natural.

And therefore the great and good God, who gave
us our very being, and so can need nothing that we
either are or have, yet vouchsafes to solicit, and
even court our affections ; and sets no other price
upon heaven, glory, and immortality, nay, and upon
himself too, but our love ; there being nothing truly
great and glorious, which a creature is capable of en
joying, but God is ready to give it a man in ex
change for his heart.

How high is reason, and how strong is love ! and

3G6 A SERMON

surely God never gave the soul two such wings, only
that we might creep upon the ground, and place our
heart and our foot upon the same level. Let the
epicure therefore, or voluptuous man, from amongst
all his pleasures, single out that one which he reckons
the best, the fullest, and most refined of all the rest,
and offer it to his reason and affections, and see
whether it can so acquit itself to the searching im
partial judgment of the one, and the unlimited ap
petite of the other, that, when he shall have took
his utmost fill of it, and gone off from the enjoy
ment, he shall be able to say, Here have I found all
the satisfaction that could be thought of, or imagined ;
or his affections be able to tell him, Here have we
had all the sweetness that could be wished for or
desired. But, on the contrary, do they not rather
depart thirsty and melancholy, and abashed with the
present sense of their disappointment, and still cast
ing about for something or other, to piece up the
flaws and defects of such broken fruitions ? So vast
a difference is there in these matters between surfeit
and satisfaction.

The heart of man is intimately conscious to itself
of its own worth and prerogative ; and therefore is
never put to search for any thing of enjoyment here
below, but it does it with a secret regret and dis
dain, scorn and indignation; like a prince imprisoned,
and forced to be ruled and fed by his own subjects :
for so it is with that divine being, the soul, while de
pressed by the body to a condition so much below
itself.

But God sent not man into the world with such
mighty endowments, so much to enjoy it, as to have
the honour of despising it ; and, upon a full expe-

ON MATTHEW VI. 21. 367

rience of its woful vanity, to find cause in all his
thoughts and desires to return and fly back to his
Maker ; like the dove to the ark, when it could rest
no where else. But,

2. We are to consider the world absolutely in
itself; and so we shall find the most valued enjoy
ments of it embased by these two qualifications.
1. That they are perishing. And, 2. That they are
out of our power. One of them expressed by moths
and rust corrupting them, and the other by thieves
breaking through, and stealing them. The first re
presenting them as subject to decay from a prin
ciple within ; the second, as liable to be forced from
us by a violence from without ; and so upon both
accounts utterly unable to make men happy, and
consequently unworthy to take possession of their
hearts.

1 . And first for the perishing state and quality of
all these worldly enjoyments : a thing so evident, or
rather obvious to common sense and experience,
that no man in his right wits can really doubt of it,
and yet so universally contradicted by men's prac
tice, that scarce any man seems to believe it. No,
though the Spirit of God in scripture is as full and
home in the character it gives of these things, as ex
perience itself can be ; sometimes expressing them
by fashions, which, we know, are always changing ;
and sometimes by shadows, which no man can take
any hold of; and sometimes by dreams, which are
all mockery and delusion : thus degrading the most
admired grandeurs of the world from realities to
bare appearances, and from appearances to mere
nothings.

Nor do they fail only, and lose that little worth

368 A SERMON

they have, but they do it also by the vilest and
most contemptible things in nature ; by rust and
cankers, moths and vermin, things which grow out
of the very subject they destroy, and so make the
destruction of it inevitable. And how can any bet
ter be expected, when men will rather dig their trea
sure and comforts from beneath, than fetch them
from above ? For it is impossible for such mortals to
put on immortality, or for things, in the very nature
of them calculated but for a few days, to last for
ever. All sublunary comforts imitate the change-
ableness, as well as feel the influence of the planet
they are under. Time, like a river, carries them all
away with a rapid course ; they swim above the
stream for a while, but are quickly swallowed up,
and seen no more. The very monuments men raise
to perpetuate their names, consume and moulder
away themselves, and proclaim their own mortality,
as well as testify that of others. In a word, all
these earthly funds have deficiencies in them never
to be made up.

But now, on the other side, the enjoyments above,
and the treasures proposed to us by our Saviour, are
indefectible in their nature, and endless in their du
ration. They are still full, fresh, and entire, like
the stars and orbs above, which shine with the same
undiminished lustre, and move with the same un
wearied motion, with which they did from the first
date of their creation. Nay, the joys of heaven will
abide when these lights of heaven shall be put out ;
and when sun and moon, and nature itself shall be
discharged their stations, and be employed by Provi
dence no more, the righteous shall then appear in
their full glory ; and, being fixed in the divine pre-

ON MATTHEW VI. 21. 369

sence, enjoy one perpetual and everlasting day ; a
day commensurate to the unlimited eternity of God
himself; the great Sun of righteousness, who is
always rising, and never sets.

2. The other degrading qualification of these
worldly enjoyments is, that they are out of our
power. And surely that is very unfit for a man to
account his treasure, which he cannot so much as
call his own ; nor extend his title to, so far as the
very next minute ; as having no command nor hold
of it at all beyond the present actual possession ;
and the compass of the present, all know, is but one
remove from nothing. A rich man to-day, and a
beggar to-morrow, is neither new nor wonderful in
the experience of the world : for he who is rich
now, must ask the rapacity of thieves, pirates, and
tyrants, how long he shall continue so; and rest
content to be happy for just so much time as the
pride and violence, the cruelty and avarice of the
worst of men shall permit him to be so ; a comfort
able tenure, doubtless, for a man to hold his chief
happiness by.

But now, on the contrary, nothing is so absolutely
and essentially necessary to render any thing a man's
treasure or chief good, as that he have a property in
it and a power over it ; without which, it will be
impossible for him to be sure of any relief from it
when he shall most need it. For how can he be
sure of that, of which he has no command ? And
how can he command that, which a greater force
than his own shall lay claim to ? For let those puny
things, called law and right, say what they will to
the contrary, if the matter comes once to a dispute,
all the good things a man has of this world will be

VOL. in. Bb

370 A SERMON

his, who has the strongest arm and the sharpest
sword, or the corruptest judge on his side. They
are the prey of the mighty, and the prize of vic
torious villainy ; subject to be torn and ravished
from him upon all occasions.

Nor has the providence of God thought it worth
while to secure and protect the very best of men in
their rights to any enjoyment under heaven ; and
all this to depress and vilify these things in their
thoughts ; that so they may every day find a ne
cessity of placing them above, arid of bestowing their
pains upon that which, if they pursue, they shall
certainly obtain ; and if they obtain, they shall im-
pregnably keep. My peace I leave with you, my
peace I give unto you, says our Saviour ; not as the
ivorld giveth, give I unto you. Why ? What was
the difference ? He tells us in John xvi. 22, Your
joy no man takethfrom you. It was such a joy or
peace as was to be above the reach of either fraud
or force, artifice or assault ; which can never be said
of any earthly enjoyment whatsoever, either as to
the acquisition or possession of it : God having made
no man any promise, that, by all his virtue and in
nocence, all his skill and industry, he shall be able to
continue in health, wealth, or honour ; but that, after
his utmost endeavour to preserve those desirable
things, he may in the issue lose them all.

But God has promised and engaged to mankind,
that whosoever shall faithfully and constantly per
severe in the duties of a pious, Christian life, shall
obtain an eternal crown of glory, and an inhe
ritance that fadeth not away. A man cannot in
deed by all his piety secure his estate, but he may
make his calling and election sure; which is in-

ON MATTHEW VI. 21.

371

finitely and unspeakably more valuable, than all the
estates, pleasures, and greatness of the world. For
all these are without him, and consequently may be
taken from him, and, which is yet worse, may do
him no good, even while they stay with him. But
the conscience is a sure repository for a man to
lodge and preserve his treasure in, and the chest of
his own heart can never be forced open.

Now the use and improvement of the foregoing
particulars shall be briefly to convince us of the ex
treme vanity of most men's pretences to religion.
A man's religion is all the claim he has to the fe
licities of another world. But can we think it pos
sible in nature, for a man to place his greatest hap
piness where he does not place his strongest affec
tions ? How little is the other world in most men's
thoughts, and yet they can have the confidence to pre
tend it to be the grand object of their desires. But
why should men, in their greatest concern, be so
false to their own experience, and those constant ob
servations which they make of themselves in other
matters ? For let any man consult and ask his own
heart, whether, having once fixed his love upon any
thing or person, his thoughts are not always running
after it ? Strong love is a bias upon the thoughts ;
and for a man to love earnestly, and not to think
almost continually of what he loves, is as impossible,
as for him to live, and not to breathe.

But besides this, we have shewn several other
marks and properties, by which men may infallibly
judge of the truth and firmness of their love to God
and to religion ; as for instance, can they affirm re
ligion to be that which has got such hold of their
hearts, that no time, cost, or labour, shall be thought

B b 2

372 A SERMON

too much to be laid out upon it? Is it the prize
they run for ? Is it the thing they delight in ? the
thing with which, in all their distresses, they support
and keep up their sinking spirits ? And lastly, is it
that which they value to such a degree, as to be will
ing to part with all the world rather than lose or
renounce it ? These are great things, I confess ; and
yet nothing less will reach the measures of Christi
anity.

But the lives of men (unanswerable arguments in
this case) are a sad demonstration how few they are
who come up to these terms. Men may indeed now
and then bestow some scattering thoughts upon their
souls and their future estate, provided they be at full
leisure from their business and their sports, (which
they seldom or never are ;) and if at any time they
should be so, this could amount to no more than
their being religious when they have nothing else to
do. Likewise, when the solemn returns of God's
public worship, and the law and custom of the nation
shall call them off from their daily employments to
better things, they may perhaps, by a few devout
looks and words, put on something of an holy day dress
for the present ; which yet, like their Sunday clothes,
they are sure to lay aside again for the whole week
after. All which, and a great deal more, is far short
of making religion a man's business, though yet, if it
be not so, it is in effect nothing.

And this men know well enough, when they are
to deal in matters of this world ; in which no pains
nor importunity shall be thought too great, no at
tendance too servile, nothing (in a word) too hard to
be done or suffered, either to recruit a broken for
tune, or to regain a disgusted friend ; though, after

ON MATTHEW VI. 21.

373

all, should a man chance to recover both, he cannot
be sure of keeping either. In like manner, let the
trading person suffer any considerable damage in the
stock with which he trades ; what care, what parsi
mony, what art shall be used to make up the breach,
and keep the shop still open ? And the reason of all
this is, because the man is in earnest in what he
does, and accordingly acts as one who is so. Where
as, in men's spiritual affairs, look all the world over,
and you shall every day see, that the sins which
wound and waste, and make havock of the con
science, which divide and cut it off from God, are
committed easily, and passed over lightly, and owned
€onfidently; with a bold front and a brazen face,
able to look the pillory itself out of countenance ; nor
does any one almost think himself so mortally struck,
even by the foulest guilt, as to need the balsam of
an immediate repentance, and a present suing out
of pardon at the throne of grace. And yet if a man
dies, as to his temporal condition, poor and bank
rupt, he is not at all the worse ; but if he goes out
of the world unreconciled to God, it had been good
for him that he had never come into it. For what
can it avail a man to pass from misery to misery,
and to make one wretched life only a preparative to
another ?

In fine, this we may with great boldness venture
to affirm, that if men would be at half the pains to
provide themselves treasures in heaven, which they
are generally at to get estates here on earth, it were
impossible for any man to be damned. But when we
come to earthly matters, we do ; when to heavenly,
we only discourse : heaven has our tongue and talk ;
but the earth our whole man besides.

Bb3

374 A SERMON ON MATTHEW VI. 21.

Nevertheless, let men rest assured of this, that God
has so ordered the great business of their eternal
happiness, that their affections must still be the fore
runners of their persons, the constant harbingers ap
pointed by God to go and take possession of those
glorious mansions for them ; and consequently, that
no man shall ever come to heaven himself, who has
not sent his heart thither before him. For where
this leads the way, the other will be sure to follow.

Now to him who alone is the great Judge of
hearts, and Rewarder of persons, be rendered
and ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might,
majesty, and dominion, both now and for ever
more. Amen.

TO THE REVEREND, LEARNED, AND VERY WORTHY

DR. ROBERT FREIND,

HEAD MASTER OF WESTMINSTER SCHOOL;

TOGETHER WITH THE OTHER

SUBORDINATE MASTERS OF THE SAME ;

AS LIKEWISE TO ALL SUCH AS HERETOFORE IN THEIR

SEVERAL TIMES HAVE BEEN, AND THOSE WHO

AT PRESENT ACTUALLY ARE,

MEMBERS OF THAT ROYAL FOUNDATION,

NEXT IN FAME TO ITS

GLORIOUS FOUNDRESS QUEEN ELIZABETH;

ROBERT SOUTH

HUMBLY DEDICATES THIS FIFTH VOLUME a OF

HIS SERMONS,

AS STANDING FOR EVER OBLIGED
BY THE MOST SACRED TIES OF GRATITUDE ;

AND THE WORK ITSELF NO LESS OWING ALL, THAT IS
VALUABLE IN IT,

(IF ANY THING THEREIN OUGHT TO BE ACCOUNTED
REALLY SO,)

TO THE AUTHOR'S EDUCATION IN THAT

RENOWNED SEMINARY
OF LEARNING, LOYALTY, AND RELIGION.

» This refers to the twelve sermons next following.

AN

ADVERTISEMENT

TO

THE READER

CONCERNING THE FOLLOWING SERMON.

WHOSOEVER shall judge it worth his time to peruse
the following discourse, (if it meets with any such,) he is de
sired to take notice, that it was penned and prepared to have
been preached at Westminster abbey, at a solemn meeting
of such as had been bred at Westminster school. But the
death of king Charles II. happening in the mean time, the
design of this solemnity fell to the ground together with
him, and was never resumed since ; though what the reason
of this might be, I neither know, nor ever thought it worth
while to inquire : it being abundantly enough for me, that I
can with great truth affirm, that I never offered myself to
this service, nor so much as thought of appearing in a
post so manifestly above me ; but that a very great person a
(whose word was then law, as well as his profession) was
pleased mero motu (to speak in the prerogative style, as best
suiting so commanding a genius) to put this task upon me, as
well as afterwards to supersede the performance of it : the
much kinder act this of the two, I must confess, and that in
more respects than one, as saving me the trouble of deliver
ing, and at the same time blushing at so mean a discourse,
and the congregation also the greater, of hearing it. But
what further cause there was or might be of so much uncer
tainty in this whole proceeding, I cannot tell, unless pos
sibly, that what his lordship as chief justice had determined,
he thought fit as chancellor to reverse.

a The lord Jefferys.

378 ADVERTISEMENT.

Nevertheless, out of an earnest (and I hope very justi
fiable) desire, partly to pass a due encomium (or such an one
at least as I am able) upon so noble a seat of the Muses as
this renowned school has been always accounted hitherto,
and partly to own the obligation and debt lying upon me to
the place of my education, I have here at length presumed to
publish it. So that although neither at the time appointed
for that solemn meeting, nor ever since, have I had any op
portunity given me to preach this sermon myself, yet, how
that it is printed, possibly some other may condescend to
do it, as before in several such cases the like has been too
well known to have been done.

The virtuous education of youth the surest, if not
sole way to an happy and honourable old age.

IN

A DISCOURSE

UPON

PROVERBS XXII. 6.

Train up a child in the way he should go : and when he is
old, he will not depart from it.

W HEN I look back upon the old infamous rebellion
and civil war of forty-one, which, like an irresistible
torrent, broke in upon and bore down the whole
frame of our government both in church and state,
together with the principal concerns of private fa
milies, and the personal interests of particular men,
(as it is not imaginable, that where a deluge overtops
the mountains it should spare the valleys ;) and when
I consider also, how fresh all this is in the remembrance
of many, and how frequent in the discourse of most,
and in both carrying the same face of horror, (as in
separable from such reflections;) I have wondered
with myself, and that even to astonishment, how it
should be possible, that in the turn of so few years
there should be so numerous a party of men in these
kingdoms, who (as if the remembrance of all those
dismal days between forty and sixty were utterly
erased out of the minds of men, and struck out of
the annals of time) are still prepared and ready,
nay, eager, and impetuously bent to act over the
same tragical scene again. Witness, first of all, the
many virulent and base libels spread over the

380 A SERMON

whole nation against the king and his government ;
and in the next place, the design of seizing his
royal person, while the parliament was held in Ox
ford in the year 1682 ; and likewise the Rye-
conspiracy, formed and intended for the assassi
nation of the king and of the duke his brother, in
the year 1683; and lastly, (though antecedent in
time,) the two famous a city cavalcades of clubmen,
in the two years of 1679 and 1680, countenanced and
encouraged under that silly pretence of burning the
pope, but carried on with so much insolence and au
dacious fury, and such an open, barefaced contempt
of all authority, as if the rabble had in plain terms
bid the government do its worst, and touch or med
dle with them, if it durst. So hard has the experi
ence of the world found it, for the pardon of a guilt
(too big for the common measures of pardon) to
produce any thing better than the same practices
which had been pardoned before.

But since nothing can happen without some cause
or other, I have been further considering with myself
what the cause of this terrible evil, which still looks
so grim upon the government, should be. And to
me it seems to be this ; that as the forementioned
rebellion and civil war brought upon the nation a
general dissolution of order, and a corruption and
debauchment of men's manners, so the greatest part
of the nation by much now alive has been born, or
at least bred, since that fatal rebellion. For surely
those who are now about or under fifty years of age
make a much greater number in the kingdom than
those who are above it ; especially so much above

a R. C. said he had tossed up is to say, Extortion began the
the ball, and his successor P. W. dance, and Perjury would carry
said he would keep it up. That it on.

ON PROVERBS XXII. 6. 381

it, as to have passed their youth before the time of
the late confusions ; which have since so perfectly
changed and new modelled, or rather extinguished
the morality, nay, the very natural temper of the
English nation.

For this is certain, that wise and thinking men
observe with sorrow that the change is so very great
and bad, that there is no relation in society or com
mon life but has suffered and been the worse for it.
For look into families, and you will find parents
complaining, that their children pay them not that
duty and reverence, which they have heard and read
that children used to shew their parents heretofore.
Masters also complain, that servants are neither so
obedient nor so trusty as in former times. And
lastly, for the conjugal relation, (a thing of the
greatest and most direct influence upon the weal or
woe of societies of any other thing in the world be
sides,) it is but too frequent a complaint, that neither
are men so good husbands, nor women so good wives,
as they were before that accursed rebellion had made
that fatal leading breach in the conjugal tie between
the best of kings and the happiest of people. But
now, how comes all this to pass ? why, from the ex
orbitant licence of men's education. They were bred
in lawless, ungoverned times, and conventicle, fana
tic academies, in defiance of the universities, and
when all things were turned topsyturvy, and the
bonds of government quite loosed or broken asunder.
So that, as soon as they were able to observe any
thing, the first thing which they actually did observe,
were inferiors trampling upon their superiors ; serv
ants called by vote of parliament out of their mas
ters' service to fight against their prince, and so to

382 A SERMON

complete one rebellion with another; and women
running in whole shoals to conventicles, to seek
Christ forsooth, but to find somebody else. By which
liberties having once leaped over the severity and
strictness of former customs, they found it an easy
matter, with debauched morals and defloured con
sciences, to launch out into much greater. So that
no wonder now, if, in an age of a more grown and
improved debauchery, you see men spending their
whole time in taverns, and their lives in duels ; in
flaming themselves with wine, till they come to pay
the reckoning with their blood : and women spend
ing both time and fortune, and perhaps their honour
too, at balls, plays, and treats. The reason of all
which is, that they are not now bred as they were
heretofore : for that which was formerly their diver
sion only, is now their chief, if not sole business ;
and in case you would see or speak with them, you
must not look for them at their own houses, but at
the playhouse, if you would find them at home.
They have quite cashiered the commandment, which
enjoins them six days doing what they have to do,
and substituted to themselves a new and very diffe
rent one in the room of it ; according to which they
are for six days to go to plays and to make visits,
setting apart a seventh to go to church to see and to
be seen. A blessed improvement doubtless, and such
as the fops our ancestors (as some use to call them)
were never acquainted with. And thus I have in
some measure shown you the true grievance which
this poor and distracted kingdom groans under. A
grievance (without the help of a vote) properly so
called. A grievance springing from a boundless, im
mense, and absurd liberty. For though the zealous

ON PROVERBS XXII. 6. 383

outcry and republican cant still used to join those
two tinkling words liberty and property together,
(in a very different sense from what belonged to
them,) to make a rattle for the people ; yet I am
sure the intolerable excess of liberty has been the
chief thing which has so much contributed to the
curtailing their properties; the true, if not only
cause, which of late years has made such numbers
so troublesome to the government as they have
been.

Well, but if it be our unhappiness that the mis
chief is become almost general, let us at least pre
vent the next degree of it, and keep it from being
perpetual. And this is not to be done but by a re
medy which shall reach as far and deep as the dis
temper : for that began early, and therefore the cure
must do so too, even from the childhood of the pa
tient, and the infancy of the disease. There must be
one instauratio magna of the methods and princi
ples of education, and the youth of the nation, as it
were, new cast into another and a better mould.

And for this we have the counsel and conduct of
the wisest of men, Solomon himself, who knew no
other course to insure a growing flourishing practice
of virtue in a man's mature or declining age, but by
planting it in his youth ; as he that would have his
grounds covered and loaded with fruit in autumn,
must manure and dress them in the spring. Train
up a child, says he, in the way that he should go :
the way, non qua itur, sed qua eundum est. Man
is of an active nature, and must have a way to walk
in, as necessarily as a place to breathe in. And se
veral ways will be sure to offer themselves to his
choice ; and he will be as sure to choose one of them.

384 A SERMON

His great concern is, that it be a safe one : since, as
the variety of them makes the choice difficult, so
the illness of some of them must make it dangerous.
For, as the same Solomon tells us, there is a way
which seems right in a man's own eyes, when yet
the tendency of it is fatal. An easy, pleasant, and a
broad way, a way always thronged with passengers,
but such that a man is never the safer for travelling
in company. But this is not the way here chalked
out to us : but rather a rugged, strait, and narrow
way ; and, upon that account, the lesser, and conse
quently the younger any one is, the easier may he
get into it, and pass through it. In a word, it is the
path of virtue, and the high road to heaven, the via
ad bonos mores ; the entrance into which, some say,
is never too late, and, I am sure, can never be too
soon. For it is certainly long and laborious ; and
therefore, whosoever hopes to reach the end of it, it
will concern him to set out betimes ; and his great
encouragement so to do is, that this is the likeliest
means to give him constancy and perseverance in it.
He will not, says Solomon, forsake it when he is
old. And such is the length of the stage, that it
will be sure to hold him in his course, and to keep
him going on till he is grown so.

It is, in my opinion, very remarkable, that not
withstanding all the rewards which confessedly be
long to virtue in both worlds, yet Solomon, in the
text, alleges no other argument for or motive to the
course here recommended to us, but the end of it :
nor enjoins us the pursuit of virtue in our youth,
upon any other reason mentioned in the words, but
that we may practise it in our age. And no doubt it
is an excellent one, and will have many others fall

ON PROVERBS XXII. 6. 385

in with it, for the enforcement of the duty here pre
scribed to us.

For can any thing in nature be more odious and
despicable, than a wicked old man ; a man, who,
after threescore or fourscore years spent in the world,
after so many sacraments, sermons, and other means
of grace, taken in, digested, and defeated, shall con
tinue as errant an hypocrite, dissembler, and mas-
querader in religion as ever, still dodging and dou
bling with God and man, and never speaking his
mind, nor so much as opening his mouth in earnest,
but when he eats or breathes.

Again, can any thing be so vile and forlorn, as an
old, broken, and decrepit sensualist, creeping (as it
were) to the Devil upon all four ? Can there be a
greater indecency than an old drunkard? or any
thing more noisome and unnatural, than an aged,
silver-haired wanton, with frost in his bones, and
snow upon his head, following his lewd, senseless
amours ? a wretch so scorned, so despised, and so
abandoned by all, that his very vices forsake him.

And yet, as youth leaves a man, so age generally
finds him. If he passes his youth juggling, shuffling,
and dissembling, it is odds but you will have him at
the same legerdemain, and shewing tricks in his
age also : and if he spends his young days whoring
and drinking, it is ten to one but age will find him
in the same filthy drudgery still, or at least wishing
himself so. And lastly, if death (which cannot be
far off from age) finds him so too, his game is then
certainly at the best, and his condition (which is the
sting of all) never possible to be better.

And therefore, whosoever thou art, who hast en
slaved thyself to the paltry, bewitching pleasures of

VOL. TIT. c c

386 A SERMON

youth, and lookest with a wry face and a sour eye
upon the rough, afflicting severities of virtue ; con
sider with thyself, that the pleasures of youth will
not, cannot be the pleasures of old age, though the
guilt of it will. And consider also, what a dismal,
intolerable thing it must needs be, for a man to feel
a total declension in his strength, his morals, and his
esteem together. And remember, that for all the
disciplines of temperance, the hardships of labour,
and the abridgments of thy swelling appetites, it
will be a full, sufficient, and more than equivalent
recompence, to be healthful, cheerful, and honour
able, and (which is more than all) to be virtuous
when thou art old.

The proposition then before us is this.

That a strict and virtuous education of youth is
absolutely necessary to a man's attainment of that
inestimable blessing, that unspeakable felicity of be
ing serviceable to his God, easy to himself, and use
ful to others, in the whole course of his following
life.

In order to the proof of which, I shall lay down
these six propositions.

I. That in the present state of nature there is in
every man a certain propensity to vice, or a corrupt
principle more or less disposing him to evil : which
principle is sometimes called the flesh, sometimes
concupiscence, and sometimes sensuality, and makes
one part of that which we call original sin. A prin
ciple, which, though it both proceeds from sin, and
disposes to sin, yet, till it comes to act, the doctors
of the Romish church deny to be in itself sinful.
And the Pelagians deny that there is any such thing
at all; especially our modern, orthodox, and more

ON PROVERBS XXII. 6. 387

authentic Pelagians. For though our church indeed,
in her ninth article, positively and expressly asserts
both ; yet there having been given us, not very long
since, a new and more correct draught of discipline,
to reconcile us to the schismatics, it is not impos
sible but that in time we may have a new draught
of doctrine also, to reconcile us to the Socinians.

II. The second proposition is this, That the fore-
mentioned propensity of the sensual part, or principle,
to vice, being left to itself, will certainly proceed to
work, and to exert itself in action ; and, if not hin
dered and counteracted, will continue so to do, till
practice passes into custom or habit, and so by use
and frequency comes to acquire a domineering
strength in a man's conversation.

III. The third proposition is, That all the disor
ders of the world, and the confusions that disturb
persons, families, and whole societies or corporations,
proceed from this natural propensity to vice in par
ticular persons, which being thus heightened by ha
bitual practice, runs forth into those several sorts of
vice which corrupt and spoil the manners of men.
Whence come wars and fightings ? says the apostle,
James iv. 1 ; come they not hence, even from your
lusts that war in your members ? And indeed it is
hard to assign any mischief befalling mankind, but
what proceeds from some extravagance either of
passion or desire, from lust or anger, covetousness
or ambition.

IV. The fourth proposition is, That when the
corruption of men's manners, by the habitual im
provement of this vicious principle, comes from per
sonal to be general and universal, so as to diffuse
and spread itself over a whole community ; it natu-

c c 2

388 A SERMON

rally and directly tends to the ruin and subversion
of the government where it so prevails : so that
Machiavel himself (a person never likely to die for
love of virtue or religion) affirms over and over in
his Political Discourses upon Livy, " that where
" the manners of a people are generally corrupted,
" there the government cannot long subsist." I say,
he affirms it as a stated, allowed principle ; and I
doubt not, but the destruction of governments may
be proved and deduced from the general corruption
of the subjects' manners, as a direct and natural
cause thereof, by a demonstration as certain as any
in the mathematics, though not so evident ; for that,
I confess, the nature of the thing may not allow.

V. The fifth proposition is, That this ill principle,
which being thus habitually improved, and from
personal corruptions spreading into general and na
tional, is the cause of all the mischiefs and disorders,
public and private, which trouble and infest the
world, is to be altered and corrected only by disci
pline, and the infusion of such principles into the
rational and spiritual part of man, as may power
fully sway his will and affections, by convincing his
understanding that the practice of virtue is prefer
able to that of vice ; and that there is a real happi
ness as well as honesty in the one, and a real misery
as well as a turpitude in the other ; there being no
mending or working upon the sensual part, but by
well principling the intellectual.

VI. The sixth and last proposition is, That this
discipline and infusion of good principles into the
mind, which only can and must work this great and
happy change upon a man's morals, by counterwork
ing that other sensual and vicious principle, which

ON PROVERBS XXII. 6. 389

would corrupt them, can never operate so kindly, so
efficaciously, and by consequence so successfully, as
when applied to him in his minority, while his mind
is ductile and tender, and so ready for any good im
pression. For when he comes once to be in years,
and his mind, having been prepossessed with ill prin
ciples, and afterwards hardened with ill practices,
grows callous, and scarce penetrable, his case will be
then very different, and the success of such applica
tions very doubtful, if not desperate.

Now the sum of these six propositions in short is
this : That there is in every man naturally (as na
ture now stands) a sensual principle disposing him
to evil. That this principle will be sure, more or
less, to pass into action ; and, if not hindered, to
produce vicious habits and customs. That these vi
cious habits are the direct causes of all the miseries
and calamities that afflict and disturb mankind.
That when they come to spread so far, as from per
sonal to grow national, they will weaken, and at
length destroy governments. That this ill principle
is controllable and conquerable only by discipline,
and the infusion of good and contrary principles into
the mind. And lastly, that this discipline or infu
sion of good principles is never like to have its full
force, efficacy, and success upon the minds of men,
but during their youth.

Which whole deduction or chain of propositions,
proceeding upon so firm and natural, and withal so
clear and evident a connection of each proposition
with the other, I suppose there can need no further
demonstration to prove it as absolutely necessary, as
the peace of mankind, public and private, can be,
that the minds of youth should be formed and sea-

c c 3

390 A SERMON

soned with a strict and virtuous, an early and pre
venting education.

Let us now, in the next place, see who they are
whose province it is to be so great a blessing to so
ciety, so vast a benefit to the world, as to be the
managers of this important trust.

And we shall find that it rests upon three sorts of
men, viz.

1. Parents. 2. Schoolmasters. And, 3, the clergy;
such especially as have cure of souls.

1. And first for parents. Let them endeavour to
deserve that honour which God has commanded their
children to pay them ; and believe it, that must be
by greater and better offices than barely bringing
them into this world ; which of itself puts them only
in danger of passing into a worse. And as the good
old sentence tells us, that it is better a great deal to
be unborn, than either unbred, or bred amiss ; so it
cannot but be matter of very sad reflection to any
parent, to think with himself, that he should be in
strumental to give his child a body only to damn his
soul. And therefore, let parents remember, that as
the paternal is the most honourable relation, so it is
also the greatest trust in the world, and that God
will be a certain and severe exacter of it ; and the
more so, because they have such mighty opportuni
ties to discharge it, and that with almost infallible
success. Forasmuch as a parent receives his child,
from the hand of God and nature, a perfect blank, a
mere rasa tabula, as to any guilt actually contracted
by him, and consequently may write upon him what
he pleases, having the un valuable advantage of mak
ing the first impressions, which are of so strong and
so prevailing an influence to determine the practice

ON PROVERBS XXII. 6. 391

either to vice or virtue, that Buxtorf, in the third
chapter of his Synagoga Judaica, tells us, that the
Jewish fathers professedly take upon themselves the
guilt of all their children's sins till they come to be
thirteen years old ; at which age the youth is called
filius prcecepti, as being then reckoned under the
obligation of the law, and so by a solemn discharge
left to sin for himself.

Now these and the like considerations (one would
think) should remind parents what a dreadful ac
count lies upon them for their children ; and that,
as their children, by the laws of God and man, owe
them the greatest reverence, so there is a sort of re
verence also that they as much owe their children ;
a reverence, that should make them not dare to speak
a filthy word, or to do a base or an undecent action
before them. What says our Saviour to this point ?
Matt, xviii. 6. Whosoever shall offend one of these
little ones, it were better for him that a millstone
were hanged about his neck, and he were drowned
in the depth of the sea. And surely he, who teaches
these little ones to offend God, offends them with a
witness : indeed so unmercifully, that it would be
much the less cruelty of the two, if the wretch their
father should stab or stifle those poor innocents in
their nurse's arms. For then he might damn him
self alone, and not his children also ; and himself,
for his own sins only, and not for theirs too.

And therefore, with all imaginable concern of con
science, let parents make it their business to infuse
into their children's hearts early and good principles
of morality. Let them teach them from their very
cradle to think and speak awfully of the great God,
reverently of religion, and respectfully of the dis
ci c 4

392 A SERMON

pensers of it ; it being no part of religion any where,
but within the four seas, to despise and scoff at the
ministers of it. But above all, next to their duty to
God himself, let them be carefully taught their duty
to their king ; and not so much as to pretend to the
fear of the one, without the honour of the other ;
let them be taught a full and absolute (so far as le
gal) obedience and subjection to him (in all things
lawful,) the true and glorious characteristic of the
church of England ; for I know no church else, where
you will be sure to find it. And to this end, let
parents be continually instilling into their children's
minds a mortal and implacable hatred of those twin
plagues of Christendom, fanaticism and rebellion ;
which cannot be more compendiously, and withal
more effectually done, than by displaying to them
the late unparalleled rebellion in its flaming and true
colours.

For this was the method which God himself pre
scribed to his own people, to perpetuate the remem
brance of any great and notable providence towards
them ; and particularly in the institution of the prime
instance of their religion, the passover, Exod. xii. 26,
27. And it shall come to pass, when your children
shall say unto you, WHiat mean you by this service ?
that you shall say, It is the Lord's passover;
who passed over the houses of the children of
Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians,
and delivered our fathers, &c. So say I to all
true English parents : When your children shall ask
you, Why do we keep the thirtieth of January as a
fast ? and the twenty-ninth of May as a festival ?
What mean you by this service ? Then is the time
to rip up and lay before them the tragical history

ON PROVERBS XXII. 6. 393

of the late rebellion and unnatural civil war. A war
commenced without the least shadow or pretence of
right, as being notoriously against all law. A war be
gun without any provocation, as being against the just-
est, the mildest, arid most pious prince that had ever
reigned. A war raised upon clamours of grievances,
while the subject swam in greater plenty and riches
than had ever been known in these islands before,
and no grievances to be found in the three kingdoms,
besides the persons who cried out of them. Next
to this, let them tell their children over and over, of
the villainous imprisonments, and contumelious trial,
and the barbarous murder of that blessed and royal
martyr, by a company of cobblers, tailors, draymen,
drunkards, whoremongers, and broken tradesmen ;
though since, I confess, dignified with the title of the
sober part of the nation. These, I say, were the illus
trious judges of that great monarch. Whereas the
whole people of England, nobles and commons toge
ther, neither in parliament nor out of parliament,
(as that great judge a in the trial of the regicides
affirmed,) had power by law to touch one hair of his
head, or judicially to call him to account for any of
his actions. And then, in the last place, they are to
tell their children also of the base and brutish cruel
ties practised by those bloodhounds in the plunders,
sequestrations, decimations, and murders of their
poor fellow subjects : likewise of their horrid oaths,
covenants, and perjuries ; and of their shameless, in
satiable, and sacrilegious avarice, in destroying the
purest church in the world, and seizing its revenues ;
and all this under the highest pretences of zeal for
religion, and with the most solemn appeals to the
* Sir Orlando Bridgman, lord chief baron.

394 A SERMON

great God, while they were actually spitting in his
face.

These things, I say, and a thousand more, they
are to be perpetually inculcating into the minds of
their children, according to that strict injunction of
God himself to the Israelites, Deut. vi. 6, 7. These
words shall he in thine heart, and thou shalt dili
gently teach them thy children, and shalt talk of
them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou
walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and
when thou risest up. Such discourses should open
their eyes in the morning, and close them in the
evening. And I dare undertake, that if this one
thing had been faithfully and constantly practised,
even but since the late restoration, (which came upon
these poor kingdoms like life from the dead,) the fa
natics had never been so considerable, as to cause
those terrible convulsions in church and state, and
those misunderstandings between the king and his
people, which we have seen and trembled at, and
must expect to see, as long as the same spirit, which
governed in forty-one, continues still so powerful (as
it does) amongst us. For I am sure no king and
that can ever reign quietly together.

But some perhaps may here very sagely object.
Is not this the way to sour and spoil the minds of
children, by keeping the remembrance of the late re
bellion always fresh upon them ? I answer, No ; no
more than to warn them against poisons, pits, and
precipices is likely to endanger their lives ; or to tell
them by what ill courses men come to the gallows is
the ready way to bring them thither. No ; nothing
can be too much hated by children, which cannot be
too much avoided by men. And since vice never

ON PROVERBS XXII. 6. 395

loses its hold where it keeps its reputation, the
minds of youth can never be sufficiently fortified
against villainous and base actions, but by a deep
and early abhorrence, caused by a faithful representa
tion of them. So preposterous a method will it be
found to bring a crime out of fashion, by making
panegyrics upon the criminal.

In short, let parents prevent and seize the very
first notions and affections of their children, by en
gaging them, from the very first, in an hatred of re
bellion ; and that, if possible, as strong as nature, as
irreconcileable as antipathy ; and so early, that they
themselves may not remember when it began, but
that, for ought they know, it was even born with
them. Let them, I say, be made almost from their
very cradle to hate it, name and thing ; so that
their blood may rise, and their heart may swell at
the very mention of it. In a word, let them by a
kind of preventing instinct abhor it, even in their
minority, and they will be sure to find sufficient rea
son for that abhorrence when they shall come to
maturity. And so much for parents.

2. The second sort of persons intrusted with the
training up of youth are schoolmasters. I know not
how it comes to pass, that this honourable employ
ment should find so little respect (as experience shews
it does) from too many in the world. For there is
no profession which has, or can have, a greater in
fluence upon the public. Schoolmasters have a nega
tive upon the peace and welfare of the kingdom.
They are indeed the great depositories and trustees
of the peace of it, as having the growing hopes and
fears of the nation in their hands. For generally,
subjects are and will be such as they breed them. So

396 A SERMON

that I look upon an able, well principled schoolmaster
as oiie of the most meritorious subjects in any prince's
dominions that can be ; and every such school, under
such a master, as a seminary of loyalty and a nursery
of allegiance.

Nay, I take schoolmasters to have a more power
ful influence upon the spirits of men than preachers
themselves. Forasmuch as they have to deal with
younger and tenderer minds, and consequently have
the advantage of making the first and deepest im
pressions upon them. It being seldom found that
the pulpit mends what the school has marred, any
more than a fault in the first concoction is ever cor
rected by the second.

But now, if their power is so great and their in
fluence so strong, surely it concerns them to use it
to the utmost for the benefit of their country. And
for this purpose let them fix this as an eternal rule
or principle in the instruction of youth ; that care is
to be had of their manners in the first place, and of
their learning in the next. And here, as the foun
dation and groundwork of all morality, let youth be
taught betimes to obey, and to know that the very
relation between teacher and learner imports supe
riority and subjection. And therefore, let masters be
sure to inure young minds to an early awe and reve
rence of government, by making the first instance
of it in themselves, and maintaining the authority
of a master over them sacred and inviolable ; still
remembering, that none is or can be fit to be a
teacher, who understands not how to be a master.
For every degree of obstinacy in youth is one step to
rebellion. And the very same restive humour which
makes a young man slight his master in the school,

ON PROVERBS XXII. 6. 397

and despise his tutor in the university, (a thing lately
much in fashion,) will make him fly in his prince's
face in the parliament house. Of which, not many
years since, we have had some scurvy experiments.

There is a principle of pride universally wrapt up
in the corrupt nature of man. And pride is naturally
refractory, and impatient of rule ; and (which is most
material to our present case) it is a vice which works
and puts forth betimes ; and consequently must be
encountered so too, or it will quickly carry too high
an head, or too stiff a neck to be controlled. It is the
certain companion of folly ; and both of them the
proper qualifications of youth ; it being the insepa
rable property of that age to be proud and ignorant,
and to despise instruction the more it needs it. But
both of them are nuisances which education must
remove, or the person is lost.

And it were to be wished, I confess, that the con
stitution of *man's nature were such, that this might
be done only by the mild addresses of reason and
the gentle arts of persuasion, and that the studies
of humanity might be carried on only by the ways
of humanity ; but unless youth were all made up of
goodness and ingenuity, this is a felicity not to be
hoped for. And therefore it is certain, that in some
cases, and with some natures, austerity must be used ;
there being too frequently such a mixture in the
composition of youth, that while the man is to be in
structed, there is something of the brute also to be
chastised.

But how to do this discreetly, and to the benefit
of him who is so unhappy as to need it, requires, in
my poor opinion, a greater skill, judgment, and ex
perience, than the world generally imagines, and

398 A SERMON

than, I am sure, most masters of schools can truly
pretend to be masters of. I mean those plagosi or-
bilii, those executioners, rather than instructors of
youth; persons fitter to lay about them in a coach or
cart, or to discipline boys before a Spartan altar, or
rather upon it, than to have any thing to do in a
Christian school. I would give those pedagogical
Jehus, those furious schooldrivers, the same advice
which, the poet says, Phoebus gave his son Phaeton,
(just such another driver as themselves,) that he
should parcere stimulis, (the stimulus in driving
being of the same use formerly that the lash is now.)
Stripes and blows are the last and basest remedy,
and scarce ever fit to be used, but upon such as carry
their brains in their backs ; and have souls so dull
and stupid, as to serve for little else but to keep their
bodies from putrefaction.

Nevertheless, since (as I have shewn) there are
some cases and tempers which make these boisterous
applications necessary, give me leave, for once, to
step out of my profession so far, (though still keeping
strictly within my subject,) as to lay before the edu
cators of youth these few following considerations ;
for I shall not, in modesty, call them instructions.

1. As first, let them remember that excellent and
never to be forgotten advice, that boys will be men;
and that the memory of all base usage will sink so
deep into, and grow up so inseparably with them,
that it will not be so much as in their own power
ever to forget it. For though indeed schoolmasters
are a sort of kings, yet they cannot always pass
such acts of oblivion as shall operate upon their
scholars, or perhaps, in all things, indemnify them
selves.

ON PROVERBS XXII. 6. 399

2. Where they find a youth of spirit, let them en
deavour to govern that spirit without extinguishing
it ; to bend it, without breaking it ; for when it comes
once to be extinguished, and broken, and lost, it is
not in the power or art of man to recover it : and
then (believe it) no knowledge of nouns and pronouns,
syntaxis and prosodia, can ever compensate or make
amends for such a loss. The French, they say, are
extremely happy at this, who will instruct a youth
of spirit to a decent boldness, tempered with a due
modesty ; which two qualities, in conjunction, do
above all others fit a man both for business and ad
dress. But for want of this art, some schools have
ruined more good wits than they have improved;
and even those which they have sent away with
some tolerable improvement, like men escaped from
a shipwreck, carry off only the remainder of those
natural advantages, which in much greater plenty
they first brought with them.

3. Let not the chastisement of the body be ma
naged so as to make a wound which shall rankle and
fester in the very soul. That is, let not children,
whom nature itself would bear up by an innate,
generous principle of emulation, be exposed, cowed,
and depressed with scoffs and contumelies, (founded
perhaps upon the master's own guilt,) to the scorn and
contempt of their equals and emulators. For this is,
instead of rods, to chastise them with scorpions ; and
is the most direct way to stupify and besot, and
make them utterly regardless of themselves, and of
all that is praiseworthy ; besides that it will be sure
to leave in their minds such inward regrets, as are
never to be qualified or worn off. It is very unde-
cent for a master to jest or play with his scholars ;

400 A SERMON

but not only undecent, but very dangerous too, in
such a way to play upon them.

4. And lastly; let it appear in all acts of penal ani
madversion, that the person is loved while his fault is
punished ; nay, that one is punished only out of love
to the other. And (believe it) there is hardly any one
so much a child, but has sagacity enough to perceive
this. Let not melancholy fumes and spites, and se
cret animosities pass for discipline. Let the master
be as angry for the boy's fault as reason will allow
him ; but let not the boy be in fault only because the
master has a mind to be angry. In a word, let not
the master have the spleen, and the scholars be
troubled with it. But above all, let not the sins, or
faults, or wants of the parents be punished upon the
children ; for that is a prerogative which God has
reserved to himself.

These things I thought fit to remark about the
education and educators of youth in general, not that
I have any thoughts or desires of invading their pro
vince ; but possibly a stander-by may sometimes look
as far into the game as he who plays it ; and perhaps
with no less judgment, because with much less con
cern.

3. The third and last sort of persons concerned in
the great charge of instructing youth are the clergy.
For as parents deliver their children to the school
master, so the schoolmaster delivers them to the mi
nister. And for my own part, I never thought a pulpit,
a cushion, and an hourglass, such necessary means of
salvation, but that much of the time and labour which
is spent about them might be much more profitably
bestowed in catechising youth from the desk ; preach
ing being a kind of spiritual diet, upon which peo-

ON PROVERBS XXII. 6. 101

pie are always feeding, but never full; and many
poor souls, God knows, too, too like Pharaoh's lean
kine, much the leaner for their full feed.

And how, for God's sake, should it be otherwise ?
For to preach to people without principles, is to
build where there is no foundation, or rather where
there is not so much as ground to build upon. But
people are not to be harangued, but catechised into
principles ; and this is not the proper work of the
pulpit, any more than threshing can pass for sowing.
Young minds are to be leisurely formed and fashioned
with the first plain, simple, and substantial rudi
ments of religion. And to expect that this should
be done by preaching, or force of lungs, is just as if a
smith, or artist who works in metal, should think to
frame and shape out his work only with his bellows.

It is want of catechising which has been the true
cause of those numerous sects, schisms, and wild
opinions, which have so disturbed the peace, and bid
fair to destroy the religion of the nation. For the
consciences of men have been filled with wind and
noise, empty notions and pulpit-tattle. So that
amongst the most seraphical illuminati, and the
highest Puritan perfectionists, you shall find people
of fifty, threescore, or fourscore years old, not able
to give that account of their faith, which you might
have had heretofore from a boy of nine or ten. Thus
far had the pulpit, by accident, disordered the
church, and the desk must restore it. For you
know the main business of the pulpit in the late
times (which we are not throughly recovered from
yet, and perhaps never shall) was to please and pam
per a proud, senseless humour, or rather a kind of
spiritual itch, which had then seized the greatest

VOL. III. D d

402 A SERMON

part of the nation, and worked chiefly about their
ears ; and none were so overrun with it, as the holy
sisterhood, the daughters of Sion, and the matrons
of the new Jerusalem, (as they called themselves.)
These brought with them ignorance and itching
ears in abundance; and Holderforth equalled them
in one, and gratified them in the other. So that
whatsoever the doctrine was, the application still
ran on the surest side ; for to give those doctrine
and use-men, those pulpit-engineers, their due, they
understood how to plant their batteries and to
make their attacks perfectly well ; and knew that,
by pleasing the wife, they should not fail to preach
the husband in their pocket. And therefore, to pre
vent the success of such pious frauds for the future,
let children be well principled, and, in order to that,
let them be carefully catechised.

Well ; but when they are thus catechised, what
is to be done next ? Why then let them be brought
to the bishop of the diocese to be confirmed by him,
since none else, no not all the presbyters of a diocese,
(nor Presbyterians neither,) can perform this apostoli
cal act and office upon them. For though indeed a
bishop may be installed, and visit, and receive his
revenues too, by deputation or proxy ; yet I am sure
he can no more confirm than ordain by proxy : these
being acts purely and incommunicably episcopal.

The church of Rome makes confirmation a sacra
ment ; and though the church of England does not
affirm it to be such, yet it owns it of divine and
apostolical institution. And as to the necessity of
it, I look upon it as no less than a completion of
baptism in such as outlive their childhood ; and for
that cause called by the ancients reAe/W/f. It is

ON PROVERBS XXII. 6. 403

indeed a man's owning that debt in person, which
passed upon him in his baptism by representation ;
and his ratifying the promises of his sureties, by his
personal acknowledgment of the obligation.

It is also expressly instituted for the collation of
those peculiar assistances and gifts of the Spirit, by
the imposition of episcopal hands, which the rubric
represents as requisite to bear him through his
Christian course and conflict with comfort and suc
cess. For till a person be confirmed, he cannot
regularly and ordinarily partake of that high and
soul-supporting ordinance, the sacrament of the
Lord's supper. And these are the considerations
which render the confirmation of children necessary,
and the neglect of it scandalous, unchristian, and
utterly unjustifiable upon any account whatsoever.
For is there so much as the least shadow of excuse
allegeable for parents not bringing their children to
the bishop to be confirmed by him ? or for the bi
shop not to confirm them when duly brought ? The
chief and general failure in this duty is no doubt
chargeable upon the former ; the grand rebellion of
forty-one, and the dissolution of all church-order
thereupon, absolutely unhinging the minds of most
of the nation, as to all concern about religion ; never
theless, if, on the other side also, both the high im
portance of the ordinance itself, and the vast num
bers of the persons whom it ought to pass upon, be
duly pondered, it will be found next, at least, to a
necessity, (if at all short of it,) that there should be
episcopal visitations more than once in three years,
if it were only for the sake of confirmations ; espe
cially since the judges of the land think it not too
much for them to go two circuits yearly. And some

404 A SERMON

are apt to think that no less care and labour ought to
be employed in carrying on the discipline of the gospel,
than in dispensing the benefits of the law. For cer
tainly the importance of the former, with those who
think men's souls ought to be regarded in the first
place, is no ways inferior to that of the latter ; at
least many wise and good men of the clergy, as well
as others, (who hope they may lawfully wish what
they pretend not to prescribe,) have thought the pro
posal not unreasonable. For confirmation being, as
we hinted before, the only proper, regular inlet, or
rather authentic ticket of admission to the Lord's
supper, and yet withal the sole act of the bishop ; if
people who desire to obtain it should find that they
cannot, would they not be apt to think themselves
hardly dealt with, that, when Christ has frankly in
vited them to his table, they should, for want of con
firmation, find the door shut against them when
they come ?

Besides that nothing can be imagined more for
the episcopal dignity and preeminence, than that
after Christ has thus prepared this heavenly feast for
us, he yet leaves it to his bishops (by lodging this
confirming power in their hands) to qualify, and put
us into a regular capacity of appearing at that di
vine banquet, and of being welcome when we are
there. And therefore, in short, since the power of
confirming, no less than that of ordaining itself, is,
as we have shewn, so peculiar to the episcopal cha
racter, as to be also personal and incommunicable ;
all wellwishers to the happy estate of the church
must needs wish, that as the laws of it have put a
considerable restraint upon unlimited ordinations, so
they would equally enforce the frequency of confir-

ON PROVERBS XXII. 6. 405

mations ; since a defect or desuetude of these latter
must no less starve the altar, than a superfluity of
the former overstock the church : both of them, I
am sure, likely to prove fatal to it.

But to proceed ; as the minister, having suffi
ciently catechised the youth of his parish, ought to
tender them to the bishop, to be confirmed by him ;
and the bishop, for his part, to give his clergy as fre
quent opportunities of doing so as possibly he can ;
so after they are thus confirmed, he is to take them
into the further instructions of his ministry, and ac
quaint them with what they have been confirmed
in. And here, the better to acquit himself in this
important trust, let him take a measure of what
good the pulpit may do, by the mischief which it has
already done. For in the late times of confusion, it
was the pulpit which supplied the field with sword-
men, and the parliament house with incendiaries.
And let every churchman consider, that it is one of
the principal duties of the clergy to make the king's
government easy to him, and to prepare him a willing
and obedient people. For which purpose, the canons
of our church enjoin every minister of it to preach
obedience, and subjection to the government, four
times a year at least. And this I am sure cannot
be better and more effectually done, than by repre
senting the faction, which troubles and undermines
it, as odious, ridiculous, and unexcusable, as with
truth he can ; and by exposing those villainous
tricks and intrigues by which they supplanted and
overturned the monarchy under king Charles I. and
would have done the same again under king Charles
II. though he had obliged them by a mercy not to
be paralleled, and an oblivion never to be forgot.

Dd 3

406 A SERMON

Let every faithful minister, therefore, of the church
of England, in a conscientious observance of the laws
laid upon him by the said church, make it his busi
ness to undeceive and disabuse the people committed
to his charge, by giving them to understand, that
most of that noise which they have so often heard
ringing in their ears, about grievances and arbitrary
power, popery and tyranny, persecution and oppres
sion of tender consciences, court-pensioners, and the
like, has been generally nothing else but mere flam
and romance, and that there is no kingdom or go
vernment in Christendom less chargeable with any
of these odious things and practices than the Eng
lish government, under his present majesty, both is
and ever has been ; and consequently, that all these
clamours are only the artifices of some malecontents
and ambitious demagogues, to fright their prince
to compound with them, by taking them off (as
the word is) with great and gainful places ; and
therefore, that they bark so loud, and open their
mouths so wide, for no other cause than that some
preferment may stop them ; the common method, I
own, by which weak governors and governments
use to deal with such as oppose them ; till in the
issue, by strengthening their enemies, they come to
ruin themselves, and to be laughed at for their pains.
For that governor, whosoever he is, who prefers his
enemy, makes him thereby not at all the less an
enemy, but much more formidably so, than he was
before.

And whereas yet further, there have been such
vehement invectives against court-pensioners ; let
the people, who have been so warmly plied with
this stuff, be carefully informed, that those very

ON PROVERBS XXII. 6. 407

men, who raise and spread these invectives, do not
indeed (as they pretend) hate pensioners so much,
but that they love pensions more ; and have no other
quarrel to them, but that any should be thought
worthy to receive them but themselves.

And then, as for the next clamour, about the per
secution and oppression of tender consciences. Let
every conscientious preacher throughly and impar
tially instruct his congregation, that there is no such
thing ; that from the very restoration of the king,
they have been all along allowed (and that by a law
made for that purpose) to worship God after their
own way in their own families with five more per
sons besides : so that all the oppression and persecu
tion of these men amounts but to this, that the go
vernment will not suffer them to meet in troops,
regiments, and brigades; and so form themselves
into an army, and under colour of worshipping God,
to muster their forces, and shew the government
how ready they are, when occasion serves, for a
battle : so that, in truth, it is not so much liberty of
conscience, as liberty from conscience, which these
men contend for. Likewise, let the faithful minister
teach his people, that as the main body of the na
tion hates and abhors popery with the utmost aver
sion ; so that old stale pretence of the danger of its
being every day ready to return and break in upon
us, while this general aversion to it continues, and
the laws against it stand in full force, (as at present
they certainly do,) is all of it, from top to bottom,
nothing else but an arrant trick and term of art,
and a republican engine to rob the church, and run
down the clergy, (the surest bulwark against popery ;)
as the very same plea had effectually served them

D d4

408 A SERMON

for the same purpose once before. And lastly, let
the youth of the nation be made to know, that all
the bustle and stir raised by schismatics and dissent
ers against the rites and ceremonies of the church
of England, (which after so much noise are but
three in number, and those not only very innocent,
but very rational too,) has been intended only for
a blind and a cheat upon those lamentable tools,
the unthinking rabble, whom these leading impos
tors are still managing and despising at the same
time. For can any man of sense imagine, that those
whose conscience could serve them to murder their
king, (and him the most innocent and pious of
kings,) do or can really scruple the use of the sur
plice, the cross in baptism, or kneeling at the sacra
ment ? Alas ! they have a cormorant in their con
science, which can swallow all this, and a great deal
more. But the thing they drive at by this noisy,
restless cant, is to get the power and revenues of the
church into their comprehensive clutches ; and, ac
cording to a neighbouring pattern, having first pos
sessed themselves of the church, to make their next
inroads upon the state. I say, it is power and
wealth, and nothing else, which these pretenders de
sign, and push so hard for; and when they have
once compassed it, you shall quickly see, how ef
fectually these men of mortification will mortify all
who differ from them ; and how little favour and in
dulgence they will shew those who had shewed
them so much before. Such is the cruelty and in
gratitude of the party.

All which and the like important heads of dis
course, so nearly affecting not only the common in
terest, but the very vitals of the government, had

ON PROVERBS XXII. 6. 409

the parochial clergy frequently and warmly insisted
upon to their respective congregations, and to the
younger part of them especially ; such a course could
not, but in a short time, have unpoisoned their per
verted minds, and rectified their false notions, to
such a degree, as would in all likelihood have pre
vented those high animosities, those divisions and
discontents, which have given such terrible shocks
both to church and state, since the late happy, but
never yet duly improved restoration.

And now I must draw towards a close, though I
have not despatched the tenth part of what I had to
say upon this useful, copious, and indeed inexhausti
ble subject. And therefore for a conclusion, I have
only two things more to add, and by way of request
to you, great men ; you who are persons of ho
nour, power, and interest in the government ; and, I
hope, will shew to what great and good purposes you
are so.

1. And the first is, that you would employ the
utmost of this your power and interest, both with
the king and parliament, to suppress, utterly to sup
press and extinguish, those private, blind, conven-
ticling schools or academies of grammar and philo
sophy, set up and taught secretly by fanatics, here
and there all the kingdom over. A practice which,
I will undertake to prove, looks with a more threat
ening aspect upon the government, than any one fa
natical or republican encroachment made upon it
besides. For this is the direct and certain way to
bring up and perpetuate a race of mortal enemies
both to church and state. To derive, propagate, and
immortalize the principles and practices of forty -one

410 A SERMON

to posterity, is schism and sedition for ever, faction
and rebellion in scecula sceculorum; which I am
sure no honest English heart will ever say Amen to.
We have, I own, laws against conventicles ; but, be
lieve it, it would be but labour in vain to go about
to suppress them, while these nurseries of disobedi
ence are suffered to continue. For those first and
early aversions to the government, which these shall
infuse into the minds of children, will be too strong
for the clearest after-convictions which can pass
upon them when they are men. So that what these
underground workers have once planted a briar, let no
governor think, that, by all the arts of clemency and
condescension, or any other cultivation whatsoever,
he shall be able to change into a rose. Our ances
tors, to their great honour, rid the nation of wolves,
and it were well, if (notwithstanding their sheep's
clothing) the church could be rid of them too ; but
that neither will nor can ever be, so long as they
shall be suffered to breed up their litters amongst us.
Good God ! can all history shew us any church or
state since the creation, that has been able to settle
or support itself by such methods ? I can, I thank
God, (looking both him and my conscience in the
face,) solemnly and seriously affirm, that I abhor
every thing like cruelty to men's persons, as much
as any man breathing does or can ; but for all that,
the government must not be ruined, nor private in
terests served to the detriment of the public, though
upon the most plausible pretences whatsoever. And
therefore it will certainly concern the whole nobility,
gentry, and all the sober commonalty of the nation,
for the sake of God, their prince, their country, and

ON PROVERBS XXII. 6. 411

their own dear posterity, to lay this important mat
ter to heart. For unless these a lurking subterrane
ous nests of disloyalty and schism be utterly broken
up and dismantled, all that the power and wit of man
can do to secure the government against that faction,
which once destroyed it, will signify just nothing.
It will be but as the pumping of a leaky vessel,
which will be sure to sink for all that, when the de
vouring element is still soaking and working in an
hundred undiscerned holes, while it is cast out only
at one.

2. My other request to you, great men, is, that
you would, in your respective stations, countenance
all legal, allowed, free grammar-schools, by causing
(as much as in you lies) the youth of the nation to
be bred up there, and no where else ; there being
sometimes, and in some respects, as much reason why
parents should not breed, as why they should not
baptize their children at home.

But chiefly, and in the first place, let your kind
and generous influences upon all occasions descend
upon this royal and illustrious school, the happy
place of your education. A school, which neither
disposes men to division in church, nor sedition in
state ; though too often found the readiest way (for
churchmen especially) to thrive by; but trains up
her sons and scholars to an invincible loyalty to their
prince, and a strict, impartial conformity to the church.

* The reader is desired to cast of this nation ; humbly offered
his eye upon a printed piece, en- to the consideration of the
titled, A Letter from a Coun- grand committee of parliament
try Divine to his Friend in Lon- for religion, now sitting. Print-
don, concerning the education ed at London for Robert Cku-
of the dissenters, in their pri- veil in St. Paul's Church-yard,
vate academies, in several parts 1703.

412 A SERMON

A school so untaintedly loyal, that I can truly and
knowingly aver, that in the very worst of times (in
which it was my lot to be a member of it) we really
were king's scholars, as well as called so. Nay, upon
that very day, that black and eternally infamous day of
the king's murder, I myself heard, and am now a wit
ness, that the king was publicly prayed for in this
school but an hour or two (at most) before his sacred
head was struck off. And this loyal genius always con
tinued amongst us, and grew up with us ; which made
that noted corypheus a of the independent faction,
(and some time after, viz. 1651, promoted by Crom
well's interest to the deanery of Christ-Church in
Oxford,) often say, that it would never be well with
the nation, till this school was suppressed ; for that
it naturally bred men up to an opposition to the go
vernment. And so far indeed he was in the right.
For it did breed up people to an opposition to that
government which had opposed and destroyed all
governments besides itself; nay, and even itself too
at last ; which was the only good thing it ever did-
But if, in those days, some four or five bred up in
this school, (though not under this master,) did un
worthily turn aside to other by-ways and principles ;
we can however truly say this of them, that though
they went out from us, yet they were never of us.
For still the school itself made good its claim to that
glorious motto of its royal foundress, Semper eadem ;
the temper and genius of it being neither to be cor
rupted with promises, nor controlled with threats.

For though, indeed, we had some of those fellows
for our governors, (as they called themselves,) yet,
thanks be to God, they were never our teachers ; no,
a Dr. John Owen.

ON PROVERBS XXIi. 6. 413

not so much as when they would have perverted us,
from the pulpit. I myself, while a scholar here,
have heard a prime preacher a of those times, thus
addressing himself from this very pulpit, to the lead
ing grandees of the faction in the pew under it.
" You stood up," says he, " for your liberties, and you
" did well." And what he meant by their liberties,
and what by their standing up for them, I suppose,
needs no explication. But though our ears were still
encountered with such doctrines in the church, it was
our happiness to be taught other doctrine in the
school ; and what we drank in there, proved an effec
tual antidote against the poison prepared for us here b.
And therefore, as Alexander the Great admo
nished one of his soldiers (of the same name with
himself) still to remember that his name was Alex
ander, and to behave himself accordingly ; so, I
hope, our school has all along behaved itself suitably
to the royal name and title which it bears ; and that
it will make the same august name the standing
rule of all its actings and proceedings for ever ; still
remembering with itself, that it is called the king's
school, and therefore let nothing arbitrary or tyran
nical be practised in it, whatsoever has been prac
tised against it. Again, it is the king's school, and
therefore let nothing but what is loyal come out of
it, or be found in it ; let it not be so much as tinc
tured with any thing which is either republican or
fanatical ; that so the whole nation may have cause
to wish, that the king may never want such a school,
nor the nation may ever want such a king. A prince,

a Mr. William Strong.

b Viz. Westminster-abbey, where this sermon was appointed
to have been preached.

414 A SERMON ON PROV. XXII. 6*.

great in every thing which deserves to be accounted
great ; a prince, who has some of all the Christian
royal blood in Europe running in his veins ; so that
to be a prince, is only another word for being of kin
to him : who, though he is the princely centre of so
many royal lines, meeting in his illustrious person,
is yet greater for his qualifications than for his ex
traction ; and upon both accounts much likelier to
be envied, than equalled, by any or all the princes
about him. In a word, and to conclude all ; a prince
so deservedly dear to such as truly love their coun
try and the prosperity of it, that, could it be war
rantable to pray for the perpetuity of his life amongst
us, and reign over us, we could not do it in words
more proper and significant for that purpose, than
that God would vouchsafe to preserve the one, and
continue the other, till we should desire to see a
change of either.

To which God, the great King of kings and
Lord of lords, be rendered and ascribed, as
is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and
dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen.

A SERMON

PREACHED BEFORE

KING CHARLES THE SECOND,

AT HIS

CHAPEL IN WHITEHALL,

ON THE

THIRTIETH DAY OF JANUARY, 1662-3.

BEING THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE EXECRABLE MURDER OF THE
LATE KING CHARLES I. OF GLORIOUS MEMORY.

TO THE

ILLUSTRIOUS, BLESSED, AND NEVER-DYING MEMORY

OF

CHARLES THE FIRST,

KING OF GREAT BRITAIN, FRANCE, AND IRELAND,
DEFENDER OF THE FAITH, &c.

Causelessly rebelled against, urihumanly imprisoned, and at length barba
rously murdered before the gates of his own palace, by the
worst of men, and the most obliged of subjects.

JUDGES xix. 30.

And it was so, that all that saw it said, There was no such
deed done nor seen from the day that the children of Israel
came up out of the land of Egypt unto this day : consider
of it, take advice, and speak your minds.

JL HE occasion of these words was a foul and de
testable fact, which had happened in one of the
tribes of Israel ; and the occasion of that fact was
(as the text not obscurely intimates) the want of
kingly government amongst the Israelites at that

416 A SERMON

time : it being noted as a thing of particular remark,
in Judges xxi. and the last, that this villainy was
committed when there was no king in Israel ; and
when (as a natural consequent thereof) men resolved
to live at large ; every one, without check or con
trol, doing, as the text tells us, what was right in
his own eyes ; or (according to the more sanctified
language of our late times) as the Spirit moved him.
Such a liberty of conscience, it seems, had they then
got, for serving the Devil after his and their own
way.

As for the infamous actors in this tragical scene,
we have them boldly owning their shameless fact in
open field, avowing it with sword in hand, and for
some time defending the same with victory and suc
cess against their brethren, then the peculiar people
and church of God, twice routed and slaughtered
before them in a righteous cause ; a cause managed
by all the rest of the tribes engaged in it, and that
not more with the proper arms of war in one hand,
than with a commission from God himself in the
other. In which and the like respects, so great a
resemblance must needs be acknowledged between
this and the late civil war amongst ourselves here in
England, that the proceedings of forty-one, and some
of the following years, may well pass for the Devil's
works in a second edition, or a foul and odious copy,
much exceeding the foulness of the original.

I profess not myself either skilled or delighted in
mystical interpretations of scripture ; nor am I for
forcing or wiredrawing the sense of the text, so as
to make it designedly foretell the king's death and
murder ; nor to make England, Scotland, and Ire
land (as some enthusiasts have done) the adequate

ON JUDGES XIX. 30. 417

scene for the prophetic spirit to declare future events
upon ; as if, forsooth, there could not be so much as
a few houses fired, a few ships taken, or any other
calamitous accident befall this little corner of the
world, but that some apocalyptic ignoramus or other
must presently find and pick it out of some abused,
martyred prophecy of Ezekiel, Daniel, or the Reve
lation. No; I pretend not to any such illumina
tions. I am neither prophet nor prophetic prelate,
but account it enough for my purpose, if I can bring
my present business and the text together, not by
design, but accommodation ; and as the words them
selves are very apposite and expressive, so I doubt
not but to find such a parallel in the things expressed
by them, that it may be a question, whether the sub
ject of the text, or of this mournful day, may have a
better claim to the expression.

The crime here set off with such high aggrava
tions, was an injury done to one single Levite, in
the villainous rape of his concubine; a surprising
passage, I confess, to us, who have lived in times
enlightening men to the utmost hatred and contempt
of the ministry, as a principal part (or rather whole)
of their religion : nevertheless we see how, even in
those dark times of the law, (as our late saints used
to call them,) the resentment of the wrong done to
this poor Levite rose so high, that it was looked
upon as a sufficient ground for a civil war ; and ac
cordingly made the concern of all Israel to revenge
this quarrel upon the whole tribe of Benjamin, for
abetting the villainy. This was the unanimous judg
ment of the eleven tribes, and a war was hereupon
declared; in which the conduct and preeminence
was by divine designation appointed to the royal

VOL. in. E e

418 A SERMON

tribe of Judah ; the sceptre being judged by God
himself most concerned to assert the privileges of,
and revenge the injuries done the crosier ; the crown
to support the mitre ; and, in a word, the sovereign
authority to vindicate and abet the sacerdotal, as
well as to be blessed by it.

But now, to come to the counterpart of the story,
or the application of it to our present case. He who
dates the murder of king Charles the First from the
fatal blow given upon the scaffold, judges like him
who thinks, that it is only the last stroke which fells
the tree. No ; the killing of his person was but the
consummation of the murder first begun in his pre
rogative : and Pym, and some like him, did as really
give a stroke towards the cutting down this royal
oak, as Ireton or Cromwell himself. Few, I believe,
but have heard of that superfine, applauded inven
tion of theirs, of a double capacity in the king, per
sonal and politic : and, I suppose, the two noted
factions, which then carried all before them, distin
guished in him these two, that so, to keep pace with
one another, each of them might destroy him under
one.

For as for those a whose post-dated loyalty now
consists only in decrying that action, which had been
taken out of their hands by others more cunning,
though no less wicked than themselves ; who, hav
ing laid the premises, afterwards ridiculously pro
test against the conclusion ; they do but cover their
prevarication with a fig-leaf, there being no more
difference between both parties, but only this, that
the former used all their art, skill, and industry to
give these infamous contrivers of this murder the
a The presbyterian faction.

ON JUDGES XIX. 30. 419

best colour and disguise they could ; whereas their
younger brother, the Independent, thought it the
safest and surest way to disguise only the execu
tioner.

Well, then, when a long sunshine of mercy had
ripened the sins of the nation, so that it was now
ready for the shakings of divine vengeance, the seeds
of faction and rebellion having for a long time been
studiously sowed by seditious libels, and well watered
with schismatical lectures ; the first assault was made
against the clergy, by a pack of inveterate avowed
enemies to the church, the fury of whose lust and
ambition nothing could allay, but a full power and
liberty (which they quickly got) to seize her privi
leges, prostitute her honours, and ravish her reve
nues ; till at length, being thus mangled, divided,
and broke in pieces, (as the Levite's concubine was
before her,) she became a ghastly spectacle to all be
holders, to all the Israel of God.

Such, therefore, was then the woful condition of
our church and clergy, upon the Puritans' invasion
of their rights, at the breaking out of the late civil
war : in which, as we hinted before in the Levite's
case, so amongst ourselves also, the cause of our
oppressed church was owned and sheltered by the
royal standard, and the defence of the ministry (as
most properly it should be) managed by the de
fender of the faith. But, alas ! the same angry Pro
vidence still pursuing the best of kings and causes
with defeat after defeat, the lion falling before the
wolf, as Judah (the royal tribe) sometimes did before
Benjamin, the king himself came to be in effect first
unkinged, and all his royalties torn from him, be
fore the year forty-five ; and then at last, to com-

E e 2

420 A SERMON

plete the whole tragedy in his person as well as of
fice, Charles was murdered in forty-eight.

And this is the black subject and occasion of this
day's solemnity.1 In my reflections upon which, if a
just indignation, or indeed even a due apprehension
of the blackest fact which the sun ever saw since he
hid his face upon the crucifixion of our Saviour,
chance to give an edge to some of my expressions,
let all such know, the guilt of whose actions has
made the very strictest truths look like satires or
sarcasms, and bare descriptions sharper than invec
tives ; I say, let such censurers (whose innocence
lies only in their indemnity) know, that to drop the
blackest ink and the bitterest gall upon this fact, is
not satire, but propriety.

And now, since the text here represents the whole
matter set forth in it, in these most significant and
remarkable words, that there was no such deed done
or seen for many ages before; and with which
words I shall clothe the sad subject before us ; I
conceive the most proper prosecution thereof, as ap
plied to this occasion, will be to shew wherein the
unparalleled strangeness of this deed consists. And
for this, since the nature is not to be accounted for,
but from a due consideration of the agent, the ob
ject, and all that retinue of circumstances which do
attend and specify it under a certain denomination,
I shall accordingly distribute my discourse into these
materials.

I. I shall consider the person that suffered.

II. I shall shew the preparation and introduction
to his suffering.

III. Shew the quality of the agents who acted in
it.

ON JUDGES XIX. 30. 421

IV. Describe the circumstances and manner of the
fact. And,

V. Point out the dismal and destructive conse
quences of it.

Of all which in their order ; and,

I. For the first of them ; the person suffering.
He was a king ; and, what is more, such a king, not
chosen, but born to be so ; that is, not owing his
kingdom to the vogue of the populace, but to the
suffrage of nature. He was a David, a saint, a king,
but never a shepherd. Some of all the royal blood
in Christendom ran in his veins, that is to say, many
kings went to the making of this one.

And his improvements and education fell no ways
below his extraction. He was accurate in all the
recommending excellencies of human accomplish
ments, able to deserve, had he not inherited a king
dom ; of so controlling a genius, that in every science
he attempted, he did not so much study as reign ;
and appeared not only a proficient, but a prince.
And to go no further for a testimony, let his own
writings witness so much, which speak him no less
an author than a monarch ; composed with such an
unfailing accuracy, such a commanding majestic pa
thos, as if they had been writ, not with a pen, but
with a sceptre. And for those whose virulent and
ridiculous calumnies ascribe that incomparable piece
to others, I say, it is a sufficient argument that those
did not write it, because they could not write it. It
is hard to counterfeit the spirit of majesty, and the
unimitable peculiarities of an incommunicable genius
and condition.

At the council-board he had the ability still to
give himself the best counsel, but the unhappy mo-

E e 3

422 A SERMON

desty to diffide in it ; indeed his only fault ; for mo
desty is a paradox in majesty, and humility a sole
cism in supremacy.

Look we next upon his piety and unparalleled
virtues ; though without an absurdity I may affirm,
that his very endowments of nature were superna
tural. So pious was he, that had others measured
their obedience to him by his obedience to God, he
had been the most absolute monarch in the world ;
as eminent for frequenting the temple, as Solomon
for building one. No occasions ever interfered with
his devotions, nor business of state ate out his times
of attendance in the church. So firm to the pro-
testant cause, though he conversed in the midst of
temptation, in the very bosom of Spain, and though
France lay in his, yet nothing could alter him, but
that he espoused the cause of religion even more
than his beloved queen.

He every way filled the title under which we
prayed for him. He could defend his religion as a
king, dispute for it as a divine, and die for it as a
martyr. I think I shall speak a great truth, if I
say, that the only thing that makes protestantism
considerable in Christendom is the church of Eng
land ; and the great thing that does now cement
and confirm the church of England is the blood of
this blessed saint.

He was so skilled in all controversies, that we
may well style him in all causes ecclesiastical, not
only supreme governor, but moderator, nor more fit
to fill the throne than the chair ; and withal so ex
act an observer and royal a rewarder of all such
performances, that it was an encouragement to a
man to be a divine under such a prince.

ON JUDGES XIX. 30. 423

Which eminent piety of his was set off with the
whole train of moral virtues. His temperance was
so great and impregnable, amidst all those allure
ments with which the courts of kings are apt to
melt even the most stoical and resolved minds, that
he did at the same time both teach and upbraid the
court ; so that it was not so much their own vice,
as his example, that rendered their debauchery un-
excusable. Look over the whole list of our kings,
and take in the kings of Israel to boot, and who
ever kept the bond of conjugal affection so inviolate?
David was chiefly eminent for repenting in this
matter, Charles for not needing repentance. None
ever of greater fortitude of mind, which was more
resplendent in the conquest of himself, and in those
miraculous instances of passive valour, than if he
had strewed the field with all the rebels' armies, and
to the justness of his own cause joined the success
of theirs. And yet withal so meek, so gentle, so
merciful, and that even to a cruelty to himself, that
if ever the lion and the lamb dwelt together, if ever
courage and meekness united, it was in the breast
of this royal person.

And, which makes the rebellion more ugly and
intolerable, there was scarce any person of note
amongst his enemies, who, even fighting against him,
did not wear his colours, i. e. carry some peculiar
mark of his former favours and obligations. Some
were his own menial servants, and ate bread at his
table, before they lifted up their heel against him.
Some received from him honours, some offices and
employments. I could mention particulars of each
kind, did I think their names fit to be heard in a

E e 4

424 A SERMON

church, or from a pulpit. In short, he so behaved
himself towards them, that their rebellion might be
malice indeed, but it could not be revenge.

And these his personal virtues shed a suitable in
fluence upon his government. For the space of
seventeen years, the peace, ple'hty, and honour of the
English, spread itself even to the envy of all neigh
bour nations. And when that plenty had pampered
them into such an unruliness and rebellion as soon
followed it, yet still the justness of his government
left them at a loss for an occasion ; till at length
ship-money was pitched upon, as fit to be reformed
into excise and taxes, and the burden of the sub
ject to be took off by plunders and sequestrations.

The king, now, to scatter that cloud which be
gan to gather and look black both upon church
and state, made those condescensions to their impu
dent petitions, that they had scarce any thing to
make war for, but what was granted them already ;
and having thus stript himself of his prerogative, he
made it clear to the world, that there was nothing
left them to fight for, but only his life. Afterwards,
in the prosecution of this unnatural war, what over
tures did he make for peace ! Nay, when he had his
sword in his hand, his armies about him, and a cause
to justify him before God and man, how did he
choose to compound himself into nothing, to depose
and unking himself, by their hard, unconscionable,
unhuman conditions ! But all was nothing ; he
might as well compliment a mastiff, or court a tiger,
as think to win those who were now hardened in
blood, and thoroughpaced in rebeUion. The truth
is, his conscience uncrowned him, as having a mind

ON JUDGES XIX. 30. 425

too pure and defecate to admit of those maxims
and practices of state, that usually make princes
great and successful.

Having thus, with a new, unheard of sort of loy
alty, fought against, and conquered him, they com
mit him to prison ; and then the king himself notes,
that it has been always observed, that there is but
little distance from the prisons of kings to their
graves. To which I further subjoin, that where the
observation is constant, there must needs be some
certain standing cause of the connexion of the things
observed. And indeed it is a direct transition from
the prison to the grave, a carceribus ad me tarn, the
difference between them being only this ; that he
who is buried is imprisoned under ground, and he
who is imprisoned is buried above it. And I could
wish, that as they thus slew and buried his body, so
we had not also buried his funeral.

But to finish this poor imperfect description,
though it is of a person so renowned, that he neither
needs the best, nor can be injured by the worst ;
yet in short, he was a prince whose virtues were as
prodigious as his sufferings, a true pater patrice, a
father of his country, if but for this only, that he
was the father of such a son.

And yet, this the most innocent of men, and the
best of kings, so pious and virtuous, so learned and
judicious, so merciful and obliging, was rebelled
against, driven out of his own house, pursued like a
partridge upon the mountains, and like an exile in
his own dominions, unhumanly imprisoned, and at
length, for a catastrophe of all, barbarously mur
dered ; though in this his murder was the less of

426 A SERMON

the two, in that his death released him from his
prison.

II. Having thus seen the quality and condition of
the person who suffered, let us in the next place
see the engines and preparations by which they
gradually ascended to the perpetration of this bloody
fact. And indeed it would be but a poor, prepos
terous discourse, to insist only upon the consequent,
without taking notice of the antecedent.

It were too long to dig to the spring of this re
bellion, and to lead you to the secrecies of its first
contrivance. But, as David's phrase is upon another
occasion, it was framed and fashioned in the lowest
parts of the earth, and there it was fearfully and
wonderfully made, a work of darkness and retire
ment, removed from the eye of all witnesses, even
that of conscience also ; for conscience was not ad
mitted to their councils.

But the first design was to procure a Levite to
consecrate their idol, that is to say, a factious mi
nistry to christen it the cause of God. They still
owned their party for God's true Israel ; and being
so, it must needs be their duty to come out of Egypt,
though they provided themselves a red sea for their
passage. .

And then for their assistance they repair to the
northern steel a ; and bring in an unnatural, mer-

a This is no reflection upon lion, which invaded England

the Scotch nation, nor intended with an army, in assistance of

for such, there having been per- the rebels, and together with

sons as eminent for their loy- them made a shift to destroy

alty, piety, and virtue, of that the monarchy and the church

country as of any other : but it in both kingdoms,
reflects upon that Scotch fac-

ON JUDGES XIX. 30. 427

cenary army, which like a shoal of locusts covered
the land. Such as inherited the character of those
whom God brought as scourges upon his people the
Jews. For still we shall read that God punished
his people with an army from the north. Jer. 1. 3.
Out of the north there cometh up a nation which
shall make her land desolate. Jer. iv. 6. / will
bring evil from the north, and a great destruc
tion.

Now, to endear and unite these into one interest,
they invented a covenant, much like those who are
said to have made a covenant with hell, and an
agreement with death. It was the most solemn
piece of perjury, the most fatal engine against the
church, and bane of monarchy, the greatest snare of
souls, and mystery of iniquity, that ever was ham
mered by the wit and wickedness of man. I shall
not, as they do, abuse scripture language, and call
it the blood of the covenant, but give it its proper
title, it was the covenant of blood. Such an one as
the brethren Simeon and Levi made, when they
were going about the like design. Their very pos
ture of taking it was an ominous mark of its intent,
and their holding up their hands was a sign that
they were ready to strike.

It was such an oglio of treason and tyranny, that
one of their assembly a, of their own prophets, gives
this testimony of it, in his narrative upon it, and his
testimony is true ; " that it was such a covenant,
" whether you respect the subject-matter or occasion
" of it, or the persons that engaged in it, or lastly, the
" manner of imposing it, that was never read nor
" heard of, nor the world ever saw the like." The
a Mr. Philip Nye.

428 A SERMON

truth is, it bears no other likeness to ancient cove
nants, but that as at the making of them they slew
beasts, and divided them, so this also was solemnized
with blood, slaughter, and division.

But that I may not accuse in general, without a
particular charge, read it over as it stands before
their synod's works, I mean their catechism ; to
which it is prefixed, as if, without it, their system
of divinity were not complete, nor their children
like to be well instructed, unless they were schooled
to treason, and catechised to rebellion. I say, in
the covenant, as it stands there, in the third article
of it. After they had first promised to defend the
privileges of parliament, and the liberties of the
kingdoms, at length they promise also a defence of
the king ; but only thus, " that they will defend his
" person in the preservation and defence of the true
" religion and liberties of the kingdoms." 'In which
it is evident, that their promise of loyalty to him is
not absolute, but conditional ; bound hand and foot
with this limitation, " so far as he preserved the true
" religion and liberties of the kingdoms."

From which I observe these two things.

1. That those who promise obedience to their
king, only so far as he preserves the true religion,
and the kingdoms' liberties ; withal reserving to
themselves the judgment of what religion is true,
what false, and when these liberties are invaded,
when not ; do by this put it within their power to
judge religion false, and liberty invaded, as they
think convenient, and then, upon such judgment, to
absolve themselves from their allegiance.

2. That those very persons, who thus covenant,
had already, from pulpit and press, declared the re-

ON JUDGES XIX. 30. 429

ligion and way of worship established in the church
of England, and then maintained by the king, to be
popish and idolatrous ; and withal, that the king
had actually invaded their liberties. Now, for men
to suspend their obedience upon a certain condition,
which condition at the same time they declared not
performed, was not to profess obedience, but to re
monstrate the reasons of their intended disobedi
ence.

And for a further demonstration of what has been
said, read the speech of that worthy knight a, at his
execution upon Tower-hill, on the 14th of June last.
Where, in the third page, he says, that what the
house of commons did in their acting singly, and by
themselves, (which was no less than trying and mur
dering the king, proscribing his son, and voting
down monarchy ; with much more, which he there
says lay yet in the breast of the house,) was but a
more refined pursuit of the designs of the covenant.
For the testimony of which person in this matter, I
have thus much to say ; that he who, having been
sent commissioner from hence into Scotland, was
the first author and contriver of the covenant there,
was surely of all others the most likely to know the
true meaning of it ; and being ready to die, was
most likely then, if ever, to speak sincerely what
he knew.

We see here the doctrine of the covenant; see
the use of this doctrine, as it was charged home
with a suitable application in a war raised against
the king, in the cruel usage and imprisonment, kill
ing, sequestering, undoing all who adhered to him,
voting no addresses to himself; all which horrid
a Sir Henry Vane.

430 A SERMON

proceedings, though his majesty now stupendously
forgives, yet the world will not, cannot ever forget ;
for his indemnity is not our oblivion.

And therefore, for those persons who now cla
mour and cry out that they are persecuted, because
they are no longer permitted to persecute ; and who
choose rather to quit their ministry, than to disown
the obligation of the covenant ; I leave it to all un
derstanding, impartial minds to judge, whether they
do not by this openly declare to the world, that they
hold themselves obliged by oath, as they shall be
able, to act over again all that has been hitherto
acted by virtue of that covenant ; and consequently,
that they relinquish their places, not for being non
conformists to the church, but for being virtually
rebels to the crown. Which makes them just as
worthy to be indulged, as for a man to indulge a
dropsy or a malignant fever, which is exasperated
by mitigations, and inflamed by every cooling infu
sion.

But to draw the premises closer to the purpose.
Thus I argue. That which was the proper means,
that enabled the king's mortal enemies to make a
war against him, and upon that war to conquer, and
upon that conquest to imprison him ; and lastly,
upon that imprisonment inevitably put the power
into the hands of those, who by that power in the
end murdered him ; that, according to the genuine
consequences of reason, was the natural cause of his
murder. This is the proposition that I assert, and
I shall not trouble myself to make the assumption.

And indeed those who wipe their mouths and
lick themselves innocent, by clapping this act upon
the army, make just the same plea that Pilate did

ON JUDGES XIX. 30. 431

for his innocence in the death of Christ, because he
left the execution to the soldiers ; or that the sol
diers themselves may make, for clearing themselves
of all the blood that they have spilt, by charging it
upon their swords.

I conclude therefore, that this was the gradual
process to this horrid fact ; this the train laid, to
blow up monarchy ; this the step by which the king
ascended the scaffold.

III. Come we now in the third place to shew, who
were the actors in this tragical scene : when, through
the anger of Providence, a thriving army of rebels
had worsted justice, cleared the field, subdued all
opposition and risings, even to the very insurrections
of conscience itself; so that impunity grew at length
into the reputation of piety, and success gave rebel
lion the varnish of religion ; that they might con
summate their villainy, the gown was called in to
complete the execution of the sword ; and, to make
Westminster-hall a place for taking away lives, as
well as estates, a new court was set up, and judges
packed, who had nothing to do with justice, but so
far as they were fit to be the objects of it. In which,
they first of all begin with a confutation of the civi
lians' notion of justice and jurisdiction, it being with
them no longer an act of the supreme power, as it
was ever before defined to be. Such an inferior
crew, such a mechanic rabble were they, having not
so much as any arms to shew the world, but what
they wore and used in the rebellion, that when I
survey the list of the king's judges, and the witnesses
against him, I seem to have before me a catalogue
of all trades, and such as might better have filled
the shops in Westminster-hall, than sat upon the

432 A SERMON

benches. Some of which came to be possessors of
the king's houses, who before had no certain dwell
ing but the king's highway. And some might have
continued tradesmen still, had not want, and inabi
lity to trade, sent them to a quicker and surer way
of traffick, the wars.

Now, that a king, that such a king, should be
murdered by such, the basest of his subjects, and not
like a Nimrod, (as some sanctified, railing preachers
have called him,) but, like an Actaeon, be torn by a
pack of bloodhounds ; that the steam of a dunghill
should thus obscure the sun ; this so much enhances
the calamity of this royal person, and makes his
death as different from his who is conquered and
slain by another king, as it is between being torn by
a lion, and being eaten up with vermin : an expres
sion too proper, I am sure, as coarse as it is ; for
where we are speaking of beggars, nothing can be
more natural than to think of vermin too.

For that the feet should trample upon, nay, kick
off the head, who would not look upon it as a mon
ster ? But indeed, of all others, these were the fittest
instruments for such a work : for base descent and
poor education disposes the mind to imperiousness
and cruelty ; as the most savage beasts are bred in
dens, and have their extraction from under ground.
These therefore were the worthy judges and con-
demners of a great king, even the refuse of the
people, and the very scum of the nation ; that is, at
that time both the uppermost and the basest part
of it.

4. Pass we now, in the fourth place, to the cir
cumstances and manner of procedure in the manage
ment of this ugly fact. And circumstances, we know,

ON JUDGES XIX. 30. 433

have the greatest cast in determining the nature of
all actions ; (as we commonly judge of any man's port
and quality by the nature of his attendants.)

First of all then, it was not done, like other works
of darkness, in secret, nor (as they used to preach) in a
corner, but publicly, coloured with the face of justice,
managed with openness and solemnity, as solemn as
the league and covenant itself. History indeed af
fords us many examples of princes who have been
clandestinely murdered; which, though it be vil
lainous, yet is in itself more excusable ; for he who
does such a thing in secret, by the very manner of
his doing it, confesses himself ashamed of the thing
he does : but he who acts it in the face of the sun,
vouches his action for laudable, glorious, and heroic.

Having thus brought him to their high court of
justice, (so called, I conceive, because justice was
there arraigned and condemned; or perhaps therefore
called a court of justice, because it never shewed any
mercy, whether the cause needed it or no,) there, by
a way of trial as unheard of as their court, they per
mit him not so much as to speak in his own defence,
but with the innocence and silence of a lamb con
demn him to the slaughter. And it had been well
for them, if they could as easily have imposed silence
upon his blood as upon himself.

Being condemned, they spit in his face, and deliver
him to the mockery and affronts of soldiers. So
that I wonder where the blasphemy lies, which some
charge upon those who make the king's sufferings
something to resemble our Saviour's. But -is it blas
phemy to compare the king to Christ in that respect
in which Christ himself was made like him ? or can
he be like us in all things, and we not like him ?

VOL. III. F f

434 A SERMON

Certainly there was something in that providence
which so long ago appointed the chapter of our
Saviour's passion to be read on the day of the king's.
And I am sure the resemblance is so near, that had
he lived before him, he might have been a type of
him. I confess there is some disparity in the case ;
for they shew themselves worse than Jews. But
however, since they make this their objection, that
we make the king like Christ, I am willing it should
be the greatest of their commendation to be accounted
as unlike Christ as they meritoriously are.

Let us now follow him from their mock tribunal
to the place of his residence till execution. Nothing
remains to a person condemned, and presently to
leave the world, but these two things. 1. To take
leave of his friends, a thing not denied to the vilest
malefactors; which sufficiently appears, in that it
has not been denied to themselves. Yet no entreaties
from him or his royal consort could prevail with the
murderers to let her take the last farewell and com
mands of a dying husband; he was permitted to
make no farewell, but to the world. Thus was he
treated, and stript of all, even from the preroga
tive of a prince to the privilege of a malefactor.
2. The next thing desired by all dying persons is
freedom to converse with God, and to prepare them
selves to meet him at his great tribunal : but with
an Italian cruelty to the soul as well as the body,
they debar him of this freedom also ; and even soli
tude, his former punishment, is now too great an en
joyment. But that they might shew themselves no
less enemies to private, than they had been to public
prayer, they disturb his retirements, and with scoffs
and contumelies upbraid those devotions which were

ON JUDGES XIX. 30. 435

then even interceding for them. And I question not
but fanatic fury was then at that height, that they
would have even laughed at Christ himself in his
devotions, had he but used his own prayer.

With these preludiums is he brought to the last
scene of mockery and cruelty, to a stage erected be
fore his own palace ; and for the greater affront of
majesty, before that part of it in which he was wont
to display his royalty, and to give audience to am
bassadors, where now he could not obtain audience
himself in his last addresses to his abused subjects.
There he receives the fatal blow, there he dies, con
quering and pardoning his enemies; and at length
finds that faithfully performed upon the scaffold,
which was at first so frequently and solemnly pro
mised him in the parliament, and perhaps in the
same sense, that he should be made a glorious king.

But even this death was the mercy of murderers,
considering what kinds of death several proposed,
when they sat in consultation about the manner of
it ; even no less than the gibbet and the halter ; no
less than to execute him in his robes, and afterwards
drive a stake through his head and body, to stand as
a monument upon his grave. In short, all those
kinds of death were proposed, which either their
malice could suggest, or their own guilt deserve.

And could these men now find in their hearts, or
have the face to desire to live, and to plead a pardon
from the son, who had thus murdered the father ? I
speak not only of those wretches who openly imbrued
their hands in the bloody sentence, but of those more
considerable traitors who had the villainy to manage
the contrivance, and yet the cunning to disappear in
the execution, and perhaps the good luck to be pre-

F f 2

436 A SERMON

ferred after it, and (for ought I know) for it too. And
as for those who now survive, by a mercy as incredible
as their crime, which has left them to the soft expi
ations of solitude and repentance, (with plenty too
attending both ;) though usually all the professions
such make of repentance are nothing else but the
faint resentments of a guilty horror, the convulsions
and last breathings of a gasping conscience ; and as
the mercy by which they live is made a visible de
fiance to government, and a standing encouragement
to these daily alarms of plots and conspiracies ; so I
beseech God, that even their supposed repentance be
not such, that both themselves and the kingdom may
hereafter have bitter cause too late to repent of it.
But if they should indeed prove such as have no con
science but horror ; who by the same crimes will be
made irreconcileable, for which they deserved to be
impardonable ; who would resume those repen tings
upon opportunity, which they made on extremity ;
and being saved from the gallows, make the usual
requital which is made for that kind of deliverance ;
I say, if such persons should be only for a time
chained and tied up, like so many lions or wolves
in the Tower, that they may gather more fierceness
to run out at length upon majesty, religion, laws,
churches, and the universities ; whether God intends
by this a repetition of our former confusions, or a
general massacre of our persons, (which is the most
likely,) the Lord in mercy fit and enable us to endure
the smart of a misimproved providence, and the in
fatuate frustration of such a miraculous deliverance.

But to return to this sacred martyr. We have
seen him murdered; and is there now any other
scene for cruelty to act ? Is not death the end of

ON JUDGES XIX. 30. 437

the murderer's malice, as well as of the life of him
who is murdered ? No ; there is another and a viler
instance of their sordid, implacable cruelty.

In the very embalming his body, and taking out
those bowels, (which, had they not relented to his
enemies, had not been so handled,) they gave order to
those to whom that work was committed diligently
to search and see (I speak it with horror and indig
nation) whether his body were not infected with
some loathsome disease a. I suppose they meant that
which some of his judges were so much troubled
with, and which stuck so close to them.

Now every one must easily see, that for them to
intimate the inquiry was, in effect, to enjoin the re
port. And here let any one judge, whether the re
morseless malice of embittered rebels ever rose to
such a height of tyranny, that the very embalming of
his body must needs be a means to corrupt his name ;
as if his murder was not complete, unless, together
with his life, they did also assassinate his fame and
butcher his reputation.

But the body of that prince, innocent and virtuous
to a miracle, had none of the ruins and gentile rot
tenness of our modern debauchery. It was firm and
clear, like his conscience ; he fell like a cedar, no
less fragrant than tall and stately. Rottenness of
heart and rottenness of bones are the badges of some
of his b murderers ; the noisomeness of whose car
cases, caused by the noisomeness of their lives, might
even retaliate and revenge their sufferings, and,
while they are under execution, poison the exe
cutioner.

a Gregory Clement knew what the disease was.
b Clement, Peters, &c.

Ff3

438 A SERMON

But the last grand, comprehensive circumstance
of this fact, which is, as it were, the very form and
spirit which did actuate and run through all the rest,
is, that it was done with the pretences of conscience
and the protestations of religion ; with eyes lift up
to heaven, and expostulations with God, pleas of pro
vidence and inward instigations ; till at length, with
much labour and many groans, they were delivered
of their conceived mischief.

And certainly we have cause to deplore this mur
der with fasting, if it were but for this reason, that it
was contrived and committed with fasting. Every
fast portended some villainy, as still a famine ushers
in a plague. But as hunger serves only for appetite,
so they never ordained an humiliation, but for the
doing of something, which, being done, might dine
them at a thanksgiving. And such a fury did ab
surd piety inspire into this church militant upon
these exercises, that we might as well meet an hun
gry bear as a preaching colonel after a fast ; whose
murderous humiliations strangely verified that ap
posite prophecy in Isaiah viii. 21, When they shall
be hungry, they shall curse their king and their
God, and look upwards ; that is, they should rebel
and blaspheme devoutly. Though, by the way, he
who is always looking upwards can little regard how
he walks below.

But was there any thing in the whole book of God
to warrant this rebellion ? any thing wrhich, instead
of obedience, taught them to sacrifice him whom
they were to obey? Why yes: Daniel dreamed a
dream; and there is also something in the Reve
lation, concerning a beast, a little horn, and the fifth
vial, and therefore the king undoubtedly ought to

ON JUDGES XIX. 30. 439

die. But if neither you nor I can gather so much,
or any thing like it, from these places, they will tell
us, it is because we are not inwardly enlightened.

But others, more knowing, though not less wicked,
insist not so much upon the warrant of scripture, but
plead providential dispensations : and then God's
works, it seems, must be regarded before his words.
And the Latin advocate a, who, like a blind adder,
has spit so much poison upon the king's person and
cause, speaks to the matter roundly : Deum sicuti
clucem, et impressa passim divina vestigia vene-
rantes, mam haud obscuram, sed illustrem, el illius
auspiciis commonstratam et patefactam ingressi
sumus b. But must we read God's mind in his foot
steps, or in his word ? This is as if, when we have
a man's hand-writing, we should endeavour to take
his meaning by the measure of his foot.

But still, conscience, conscience is pleaded as a
covering for all enormities, an answer to all ques
tions and accusations. Ask what made them fight
against, imprison, and murder their lawful sove
reign ? Why, conscience. What made them extir
pate the government, and pocket the revenue of the
church? Conscience. What made them perjure
themselves with contrary oaths ? what makes swear
ing a sin, and yet forswearing to be none? what
made them lay hold on God's promises, and break
their own ? Conscience. What made them seques
ter, persecute, and undo their brethren, rape their
estates, ruin their families, get into their places, and
then say, they only robbed the Egyptians? Why
still this large capacious thing, their conscience;

a Mr. Milton. pro Populo Anglicano, (as his

b In Praefat. ad Defensionem Latin is.)

F f 4

440 A SERMON

which is always of a much larger compass than their
understanding. In a word, we have lived under
such a model of religion, as has counted nothing im
pious but loyalty, nothing absurd but restitution.

But, O blessed God, to what an height can pros
perous, audacious impiety arise ! Was it not enough
that men once crucified Christ, but that there should
be a generation of men who should also crucify
Christianity itself? Must he who taught no defence
but patience, allowed no armour but submission, and
never warranted any man to shed any other blood
but his own, be now again mocked with soldiers,
and vouched the patron and author of all those hide
ous murders and rebellions, which an ordinary im
piety would stand amazed at the hearing of? and
which in this world he has so plainly condemned by
his word, and will hereafter as severely sentence in
his own person ? Certainly, these monsters are not
only the spots of Christianity, but so many standing
exceptions from humanity and nature : and since
most of them are Anabaptists, it is pity that, in re
peating their baptism, they did not baptize them
selves into another religion.

V. For the fifth and last place, let us view the hor-
ridness of the fact in the fatal consequences which
did attend it. Every great villainy is like a great
absurdity, drawing after it a numerous train of ho
mogeneous consequences ; and none ever spread it
self into more than this. But I shall endeavour to
reduce them all to these two sorts.

1. Such as were of a civil,

2. Such as were of a religious concern.

1. And first for the civil, political consequences
of it.

ON JUDGES XIX. 30. 441

There immediately followed a change of govern
ment, of a government whose praise had been pro
claimed for many centuries, and enrolled in the large
fair characters of the subject's enjoyment and expe
rience. It was now shred into a democracy ; and
the stream of government being cut into many chan
nels, ran thin and shallow : whereupon the subject
having many masters, every servant had so many dis
tinct servitudes.

But the wheel of Providence, which only they
looked upon, and that even to a giddiness, did not
stop here ; but by a fatal, ridiculous vicissitude, both
the power and wickedness of those many was again
revolved, and compacted into one : from that one a
again it returned to many, with several attending
variations, till at length we pitched upon oneb again ,
one beyond whom they could not go, the ne plus
ultra of all regal excellency, as all change tends to,
and at last ceases upon its acquired perfection.

Nor was the government only, but also the glory
of the English nation changed ; distinction of orders
confounded, the gentry outbraved, and the nobility,
who voted the bishops out of their dignities in parlia
ment, by the just judgment of God thrust out them
selves, and brought under the scorn and imperious
lash of a beggar on horseback ; "learning discoun-
" tenanced, and the universities threatened, their
" revenues to be sold, their colleges to be demolished;
" the law to be reformed after the same model ; the
" records of the nation to be burnt0." Such an inun
dation and deluge of ruin, reformation, and confusion

a Cromwell. Vane's villainous and mon-

b King Charles II. strous advice.

c All this was Sir Henry

442 A SERMON

had spread itself upon the whole land, that it seemed
a kind of resemblance of Noah's deluge, in which
only a few men survived amongst many beasts.

2. The other sort of consequences were of a reli
gious concernment. I speak not of the contempt,
rebuke, and discouragement lying upon the divines,
or rather the preachers3 of those days; for they
brought these miseries upon themselves, and had
more cause a great deal to curse their own seditious
sermons than to curse Meroz. They sounded the
first trumpet to rebellion, and, like true saints, had
the grace to persevere in what they first began ;
courting and recognising an usurper, calling them
selves his loyal and obedient subjects5, never endur
ing so much as to think of their lawful sovereign,
till at length the danger of tithes, their unum neces-
sarium, scared them back to their allegiance.

I speak not therefore of these. But the great de
structive consequence of this fact was, that it has
left a lasting slur upon the protestant religion. Tell
it not in Gath, publish it not in Askelon, lest the
daughters of the Philistines triumph, lest the Papacy
laugh us to scorn : as, if they had no other sort of
Protestants to deal with, I am sure they well might.

I confess, the seditious writings of some who called
themselves Protestants, have sufficiently bespattered
their religion. See Calvin warranting the three es
tates to oppose their prince, 4 Instit. ch. 20. sect.
31. See master Knox's Appeal, and in that his ar
guments for resisting the civil magistrate. Read Mr.
Buchanan's discourse de jure regni apud Scotos.

a Presbyterians and Indepen- cated to Richard Cromwell did
dents. so.

b Baxter in his book dedi-

ON JUDGES XIX. 30. 443

Read the Vindiciee contra Tyrannos, under the
name of Junius Brutus, writ by Ottoman the civi
lian. See Pareus upon the thirteenth chapter of the
epistle to the Romans, where he states atrocem all-
quam injuriam, a large term, and of very easy applica
tion, to be a sufficient reason for subjects to take up
arms against their king. A book, instead of the au
thor, most deservedly burnt by the hangman. But
shall we call this a comment upon the thirteenth
chapter of the epistle to the Romans ? It is rather
a comment upon the covenant. Both of which, as
they teach the same doctrine, so they deserved, and
justly had the same confutation a.

But these principles, like sleeping lions, lay still a
great while, and were never completely actuate, nor
appeared in the field, till the French holy league and
the English rebellion.

Let the powder-plot be as bad as it will or can,
yet still there is as much difference between the
king's murder and that, as there is between an action
and an attempt. What the papal bulls and anathe
mas could not do, factious sermons have brought
about. What was then contrived against the parlia
ment house, has been since done by it. What the
papists' powder intended, the soldiers' match has ef
fected. I say, let the powder-treason be looked
upon (as indeed it is) as the product of hell, as black
as the souls and principles that hatched it ; yet still
this reformation-murder will preponderate ; and Ja
nuary, in villainy, always have the precedency of
November.

And thus I have traced this accursed fact through

a Burnt by the common hangman in Oxon, by command of
King James the First.

444 A SERMON

all the parts and ingredients of it. And now, if we
reflect upon the quality of the person upon whom it
was done, the condition of the persons who did it,
the means, circumstances, and manner of its trans
action ; I suppose it will fill the measure and reach
the height of the words of the text : that there was
no such deed done nor seen since the day that the
children of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt
to this day.

For my own part, my apprehension of it overbears
my expression ; and how to set it off, I know not ;
for black receives no other colour. But when I call
together all the ideas of horror, rake all the records
of the Roman, Grecian, and barbarian wonders, to
gether with new-fancied instances and unheard of
possibilities, yet I find no parallel; and therefore
have this only to say of the king's murder, that it is
a thing, than which nothing can be imagined more
strange, amazing, and astonishing, except its pardon3.

And now, having done with the first part of the
text, does it not naturally engage me in the duty of
the second ? Must such a deed, as was neither seen
nor heard of, be also neither spoken of? or must it
be stroked with smooth, mollifying expressions ? Is
this the way to cure the wound, by pouring oil upon
those that made it ? And must Absalom be therefore
dealt with gently, because he was an unnatural and
a sturdy rebel ?

a This was far from being in- an equally transcendent height

tended as a reflection upon the of another; viz. by that of the

act of indemnity itself, and mercy pardoning, and by that of

much less upon the royal author the crime pardoned ; both of

of it, but only as a rhetorical them, in their several kinds,

attempt for expressing the trans- superlative,
cendent height of one thing by

ON JUDGES XIX. 30. 445

If, as the text bids, we consider of the fact, and
take advice, (that is, advise with reason and con
science,) we cannot but obey it in the following
words, and speak our minds. For could Croesus's
dumb son speak at the very attempt of a murder
upon his prince and father? and shall a preacher be
dumb, when such a murder is actually committed ?

Or do we think it is enough to make long doleful
harangues against murder and cruelty, and concern
ing the prerogative of kings, without ripping up the
particular, mysterious, diabolical arts of its first con
trivance? Can things peculiar and unheard of be
treated with the toothless generalities of a common
place ?

I will not be so uncharitable as to charge a con
sent in this particular wheresoever I find a silence :
I will only conclude such to be wiser than others,
and to wait for another turn ; and from their beha
viour rationally collect their expectation. But who
soever is so sage, so prudential, or (to speak more
significantly) so much a politicus, as to fit himself for
every change, he will find, that if ever another turn
befalls the nation, it will be the wrong side outwards,
the lowest uppermost. And therefore, for these si
lent candidates of future preferment, I wish them no
other punishment for the treason of their desire,
than to be preferred under another change.

But I have not yet finished my text, nor, accord
ing to the command of it, spoke all my mind. I have
one thing more to propose, and with that to con
clude.

Would you be willing to see this scene acted over
again ? to see that restless, plotting humour, which
now boils and ferments in many traitorous breasts,

44(5 A SERMON

once more display itself in the dismal effects of war
and desolation ? Would you see the rascality of the
nation in troops and tumults beleaguer the royal pa
lace ? Would you hear ministers absolving their con
gregations from their sacred oaths of allegiance, and
sending them into the field to lose their lives and
their souls, in a professed rebellion against their sove
reign? Would you see an insolent overturning army,
in the heart and bowels of the kingdom, moving to
and fro, to the terror of every thing which is noble,
generous, or religious ? Would you see the loyal gen
try harassed, starved, and undone by the oppression
of base, insulting, grinding committees ? Would you
see the clergy torn in pieces, and sacrificed by the
inquisition of synods, triers, and commissioners ?

And to mention the greatest last; would you have
the king, with his father's kingdoms, inherit also his
fortune ? Would you see the crown trampled upon,
majesty haled from prison to prison ; and at length
with the vilest circumstances of spite and cruelty,
bleeding and dying at the feet of bloody, unhuman
miscreants? Would you, now Providence has cast out
the destructive interest from the parliament, and the
house is pretty well swept and cleansed, have the
old unclean spirit return, and take to itself seven
spirits, seven other interests worse than itself, and
dwell there, and so make our latter end ivorse than
our beginning ?

We hear of plots and combinations, parties joining
and agreeing ; and let us not trust too much in their
opposition amongst themselves. The elements can
fight, and yet unite into one body. Ephraim against
Manasseh, and Manasseh against Ephraim ; but both
equally against the royal tribe of Judah. Now, if we

ON JUDGES XIX. 30. 447

dread these furies again being let loose upon us, oh !
let us fear the return of our former provocations. If
we would keep off the axe from our princes and no
bles, let us lay it to our sins. If we would preserve
their lives, let us amend our own. We have com
plained of armies, committees, sequestrators, triers,
and decimators. But our sins, our sins are those
that have sucked the blood of this nation ; these have
purpled the scaffold with the royal gore, these have
ploughed up so many noble families, made so many
widows, and snatched the bread out of the mouths
of so many poor orphans. It is our not fearing God,
that has made others not to honour the king; our
not benefiting by the ordinances of the church, that
has enriched others with her spoils.

And now, since I have slid into a mention of the
church of England, which at this time is so much
struck and railed at, and in danger (like its first
head) to be crucified between two thieves, I shall
say thus much of it ; that it is the only church in
Christendom we read of, whose avowed principles
and practices disown all resistance of the civil power ;
and which the saddest experience and the truest
policy and reason will evince to be the only one that
is durably consistent with the English monarchy.
Let men look both into its doctrine and into its his
tory, and they will find neither the Calvins, the
Knoxes, the Junius Brutuses, the synods, nor the
holy commonwealths of the one side ; nor yet the
Bellarmines, the Escobars, nor the Marianas of the
other. It has no fault but its revenues ; and those
too but the remainders of a potent, surfeited sacri
lege. And therefore, if God in his anger to this
kingdom should suffer it to be run down, either by

443 A SERMON

the impious nonsense and idolatry of one party, or
the sordid tyranny and fanaticism of the other ; yet
we will acquiesce in this, that if ever our church
falls, it falls neither tainted with the infamy of po
pish plots, nor of reforming rebellions ; and that it
was neither her pretended corruption or superstition,
but her own lands, and the kingdom's sins, that de
stroyed her.

For when I hear of conspiracies, seditious designs,
covenants, and plots, they do not much move or af
fright me. But when I see the same covetousness,
the same drunkenness and profaneness, that was first
punished in ourselves, and then in our sanctified ene
mies ; when I see joy turned into a revel, and de
bauchery proclaim itself louder than it can be pro
claimed against ; these, I must confess, stagger and
astonish me ; and I cannot persuade myself, that we
were delivered to do all these abominations.

But, if we have not the grace of Christians, have
we not the hearts of men ? Have we no bowels, no
relen tings? If the blood and banishment of our kings
cannot move us, if the miseries of our common mo
ther the church, ready to fall back into the jaws of
purchasers and reformers, cannot work upon us, yet
shall we not at least pity our posterity ? Shall we
commit sins, and breed up children to inherit the
curse ? Shall the infants now unborn have cause to
say hereafter, in the bitterness of their souls, Our
fathers have eaten the sour grapes of disobedience,
and our teeth are set on edge by rebellions and
confusions ?

How does any man know, but the very oath he is
swearing, the lewdness he is committing, may be
scored up by God as one item for a new rebellion ?

ON JUDGES XIX. 30. 449

We may be rebels, and yet neither vote in parlia
ments, sit in committees, or fight in armies. Every sin
is virtually a treason ; and we may be guilty of mur
der, by breaking other commands besides the sixth.
But at present we are made whole : God has by a
miracle healed the breaches, cured the maladies, and
bound up the wounds of a bleeding nation : what re
mains now, but that we take the counsel that second
ed a like miraculous cure ; Go, sin no more, lest a
worse evil come unto iliee. But since our evil has
been so superlative as not to acknowledge a worse ;
since our calamities, having reached the highest, give
us rather cause to fear a repetition, than any possi
bility of gradation ; I shall dismiss you with the like
though something altered advice, Go, sin no more,
lest the same evil befall you.

Which God of his infinite mercy prevent, even
that God by whom kings reign and princes
decree justice; by whom their thrones are
established, and by whom their blood will as
suredly be revenged. To whom therefore be
rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all
praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now
and for evermore. Amen,

VOL. III. G g

A SERMON

PREACHED

BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY,

AT

ST. MARY'S CHURCH, OXON,
ON AN ACT-SUNDAY.

2 CORINTHIANS xi. 14.

And no marvel ; for Satan himself is transformed into an
angel of tight.

JulE who has arrived to that pitch of infidelity as
to deny that there is a Devil, gives a shrewd proof
that he is deluded by him ; and so by this very de
nial does unawares infer the thing which he would
deny. There have indeed been some in all ages,
sects, and religions, who have promoted the Devil's
interests by arguing against his being. For that
which men generally most desire, is to go on in their
sin without control ; and it cannot be more their de
sire, than the Devil accounts it his interest, that they
should do so. But when they are told withal, that
he who tempts to sin now, is to execute God's wrath
for our sin hereafter, the belief of a, spirit, appointed
to so terrible an office, standing so directly between
them and their sins, they can never proceed smooth
ly in them, till such a belief be first taken out of the

A SERMON ON 2 CORINTHIANS XI. M, 451

way ; and therefore, no wonder if men argue against
the thing they hate ; and, for the freer enjoyment of
their lusts, do all they can to baffle and throw off a
persuasion, which does but torment them before
their time : this undoubtedly being the true, if not
only ground of all the disputes men raise against
demons, or evil spirits, that their guilt has made it
their concern that there should be none.

Nevertheless, on the other side, it must be consi
dered, that the proving of spirits and immaterial sub
stances from the common discourses of the world
upon this subject, has not hitherto proved so success
ful as might be wished. For that there are such
finite, incorporeal beings, as we call spirits, I take to
be a point of that moment, that the belief of it ought
to be established upon much surer proofs than such
as are commonly taken from visions, and appari
tions, and the reports which use to go of them ; it
having never hitherto been held for solid reasoning,
to argue from what seems to what exists ; or, in
other words, from appearances to things ; especially
since it has been found so frequent, for the working
of a strong fancy and a weak judgment to pass with
many for apparitions. Nor yet can I think the same
sufficiently proved from several strange effects,
chances, and alterations, which (as historians tell
us) having sometimes happened in the world, and
carrying in them the marks of a rational efficiency,
(but manifestly above all human power,) have there
fore by some been ascribed to spirits, as the proper
and immediate causes thereof. For such a conclu
sion, I conceive, cannot be certainly drawn from
thence, unless we were able to comprehend the full
force and activity of all corporeal substances, espe-

452 A SERMON

daily the celestial ; so as to assign the utmost term
which their activity can reach to, and beyond which
it cannot go ; which, I suppose, no sober reasoner or
true philosopher will pretend to.

And therefore in the present case, allowing the
forementioned common arguments all the advantage
of probability they can justly lay claim to ; yet if we
would have a certain proof of the existence of finite
spirits, good or bad, we ought, no doubt, to fetch it
from that infallible word of revelation, held forth to
us in the scriptures ; and so employ faith to piece up
the shortness and defects of science ; which, as no
thing but faith can do, so that man must by no
means pretend to faith, who will not sell his assent
under a demonstration ; nor indeed to so much as
prudence, who will be convinced by nothing but ex
perience, when perhaps the experiment may prove
his, destruction. He who believes that there is a
Devil, puts himself into the ready way to escape
him. But as for those modern Sadducees, who will
believe neither angel nor spirit, because they cannot
see them ; and with whom invisible and incredible
pass for terms perfectly equipollent ; they would do
wisely to consider, that as the fowler would certain
ly spoil his own game, should he not, as much as
possible, keep out of sight ; so the Devil never plants
his snares so skilfully and successfully, as when he
conceals his person ; nor tempts so dangerously, as
when he can persuade men that there is no tempter.
But I fear I have argued too far upon this point
already ; since it may seem something inartificial for
the sermon to prove what the text had supposed.
But since the infidelity of the present age has made
the proof of that necessary, which former ages took

ON 2 CORINTHIANS XI. 14. 453

for granted, I hope the usefulness of the subject will
atone for what may seem less regular in the prose
cution. It must therefore be allowed (and that not
only from the foregoing probable arguments, but
much more from an infallible and divine testimony)
that there is a devil, a satan, and a tempter. And
we have him here presented to us under such a
strange kind of mask or vizard, that we cannot see
him for light ; and then surely he must needs walk
undiscovered, who can make that, which discovers
all things else, his disguise. But the wonder ought
to abate, if we consider, that there is a light which
dazzles and deludes, as well as one which informs
and directs ; and that it is the former of these which
Satan clothes himself with, as with a garment. A
light so far resembling that of the stars, that it still
rules l)y night, and has always darkness both for its
occasion and companion. The badge of truth is
unity, and the property of falsehood variety ; and
accordingly the Devil appears all things, as he has
occasion ; the priest, the casuist, the reformer, the
reconciler; and in a word, any thing but himself.
He can change his voice, his dress, and the whole
scene of his fallacies ; and by a dexterous manage
ment of the fraud, present you with an Esau under
the form of a Jacob ; for the old serpent can shift
his skin, as often as he has a turn to serve by his do
ing so. For it is a short and easy transition from
darkness to light, even as near as the confines of
night and day. So that this active spirit can quick
ly pass from one to the other, and equally carry on
a work of darkness in both. We read of a dcemo-
nium meridianum, though the sun, we know, is then
highest, and the light greatest. The Psalmist, in

Gg3

454 A SERMON

Psalm xci. 6, tells us not only of a pestilence which
walks in darkness, but also of a destruction which
wasteth at noon-day ; and consequently that he who
is the great manager both of the one and the other,
is as much a devil when he shines as Lucifer, as
when he destroys as Satan.

Now the Devil, I conceive, is represented to us
thus transformed in the text, not so much in respect
of what he is in his person, as in his practice upon
men ; for none ever dissembles or conceals himself,
but he has a design upon another. And therefore, to
prosecute the sense of the words by as full a repre
sentation of his frauds as I am able to give, I shall
discourse of him in this method.

I. I shall endeavour to shew the way of his ope
ration upon the soul, in conveying his fallacies into
the minds of men.

II. I shall shew the grand instances in which he
has played an angel of light, in the several ages of
the church successively. And

III. and lastly, give caution against some princi
ples, by which he is like to repeat the same cheat
upon the world, if not prevented in time to come.

And first, for the influence he has upon the soul.

To lay open here all the ways whereby this spi
ritual engineer works upon us, to trace the serpent
in all his windings and turnings, is a thing, I believe,
as much above a mere human understanding, as that
is below an angelical ; but so far as the ducture of
common reason, scripture, and experience will direct
our inquiries, we shall find that there are three ways
by which he powerfully reaches and operates upon
the minds of men. As,

1. By moving, stirring, and sometimes altering

ON 2 CORINTHIANS XL 14. 455

the humours and disposition of the body. That the
soul in all its operations is strangely affected by and
held down to the particular crasis and constitution
of the corporeal part is indubitable. And that the
Devil can model and frame the temperament of it
to his own purpose, the woman whom Satan is said
to have bound for so many years, Luke xiii. 16, is
a convincing instance. Now this expert anatomist,
who has examined and looked into all the secret re
cesses, caverns, and little fibres both of body and
soul, (as I may so express the matter,) knows that
there is no grace but has its counterfeit in some
passion ; and no passion of the mind, but moves upon
the wheel of some humour of the body. So that it
is easy for him to refine, and, as it were, sanctify the
fire and fury of a choleric humour into zeal, and
raise the operations of melancholy to the semblance of
a mortified demureness and humiliation. On which
case of supposed sorrow for sin, but real disturbance
from some other cause, it is not to be questioned,
but many repair to the divine, whose best casuist
were an apothecary ; and endeavour to cure and
carry off their despair with a promise, or perhaps a
prophecy, which might be better done with a purge.
Poor self-deluding souls ! often misapplying the blood
of Christ under these circumstances, in which a little
effusion of their own would more effectually work
the cure ; and Luke as physician give them a much
speedier relief, than Luke as an evangelist.

2. The Devil can act upon the soul, by suggesting
the ideas and spiritual pictures of things (as they
may be not unfitly called) to the imagination. For
this is the grand repository of all the ideas and re
presentations which the mind of man can work

Gg4

456 A SERMON

either upon or by. So that Satan, our skilful artist,
can as easily slide his injections into the fancy, as
present a deluding image to the eye., From whence
it is, that poor deluded women (followers of conven
ticles, or rather of such as meet them there) talk
much of sudden joys, and raptures, and secret whis
pers of the Spirit, with a great deal more of such
cant; in all which this grand impostor is still at his
old work, and whether he speaks in the gentle
charming voice of a comforter, or roars in the terri
ble thunders of damnation, is, and ever was, a liar
from the beginning, and will be so to the end.
Again, some perhaps have had a text, of something
a peculiar significancy, cast into their fancy ; as that
for instance in Jerem. xlviii. 10, Cursed be he that
keepeth back his sword from shedding blood ;
whereupon they presently thought themselves com
missioned, by an extraordinary call from Heaven, to
cut and slay all such as fought for the crown and the
church, in the late infamous rebellion a. Likewise it
is very credible, that the same spirit can in discourse
suggest smart sentences and strictures of wit, far
surpassing the invention of the speaker ; for other
wise, whence can it be that persons, known to be de
plorably dull in other things, can yet be witty upon
a subject obscene or profane ? And no doubt, what
the Papists falsely and ridiculously said of Luther,
may with great truth be said of many leading here
tics, that the Devil furnished them with arguments.
For where the cause is his, he will never be wanting
to give it an helping hand, but will be still with the

a Such persons, principles, any government, but to be
and practices, can want nothing countenanced by it.
to enable them to overthrow

ON 2 CORINTHIANS XI. 14. 457

heretic in his study, guiding his pen, and assisting his
invention with many a lucky turn of thought and so
phistical reasoning. So that upon the whole matter,
the Devil himself may, perhaps, more properly pass
for the heretic, and Arius or Socinus only for the
amanuensis. For he is able to present images of
words and sentences to the imagination, in as clear
and perspicuous an order, as the most faithful and
methodical memory. And why should the common
word be, that the Devil stands at the liar's elbow, if
he were not to be his prompter ? But

3. The Devil can work upon the soul, by an ac
tual ingress into and personal possession of the man,
so as to move and act him ; and like a kind of vica
rious soul, use his body, and the several faculties and
members thereof, as instruments of the several ope
rations which he exerts by them. Upon which ac
count persons so possessed were heretofore called irvev-
p/xr&popoi, and evepyov^evoi. And if any one here should
doubt, that a spirit can move and impel a body,
since without quantity and dimensions on both sides
there can be no contact, and since without contact
some think all impulsions impossible, this maxim, if
too far insisted upon, would bear as hard upon the
soul itself, as to its moving the body, (allowing it to
be a spiritual immaterial substance ; which, I hope,
in a Christian auditory, needs not to be proved.)
And now, the premises thus supposed, how easy
must it be for this spirit to cast any person pos
sessed by him into a kind of prophetic ecstasy, and,
with other amazing extravagancies, to utter through
him certain sentences and opinions, and in the ut
terance thereof to intermix some things pious and
good, to take off* the suspicion, and qualify the poi-

458 A SERMON

son of the bad ? For so the sibyls used to wait, till
at a certain time the demons entered into them, and
gave answers by them, suspending the natural act
ings of their souls, and using their bodily organs of
speech, with strange prodigious convulsions, and
certain circumstances of raving and unseemly horror
attending them; as Virgil elegantly describes the
Cumaean sibyl, in his 6th JEneid.

Subito non vultus, non color unus,

Non comptae mansere comae ; sed pectus anhelum,
Et rabie fera corda tument ; majorque videri,
Nee mortale sonans, &c.

Of which words, the Quakers amongst us (as little
as they deal in Latin) have yet been the best and
fullest interpreters, by being the liveliest instances
of the thing described in them of any that I know.
And so likewise in the case of the person possessed,
Acts xix. 16. Certainly he could never have pre
vailed over so many men, had he not had something
in him stronger than man. But what needs there
any further arguing, or how is it possible for that
man to question whether the Devil can enter into
and take possession of men, who shall read how often
our Saviour cast him out ?

These, I say, are the physical ways of operation
which the Devil can employ, so as to insinuate there
by his impostures in a clever unsuspected manner :
which three general ways doubtless may be improved
by so experienced a craftsman into myriads of par
ticulars. But I shall confine myself to his dealings
with the church, and that only within the times of
Christianity ; and so pass to the second general head
proposed.

ON 2 CORINTHIANS XI. 14. 459

II. Which was to shew the grand instances in
which the Devil, under this mask of light, has im
posed upon the Christian world. And here we must
premise this general observation, as the basis of all
the ensuing particulars ; viz. that it has been the
Devil's constant method to accommodate his im
postures to the most received and prevailing notions,
and the peculiar proper improvements of each par
ticular age. And, accordingly, let us take a survey
of the several periods of them. As,

1. The grand ruling principle of the first ages of
the church, then chiefly consisting of the gentile
converts, was an extraordinarily zealous devotion
and concern for the honour and worship of one only
God, having been so newly converted from the wor
ship of many : which great truth, since the Devil
could neither seasonably nor successfully oppose then,
he saw it his interest to swim with the stream, which
he could not stem, and, by a dexterous turn of hand,
to make use of one truth to supplant another. Ac
cordingly, having met with a fit instrument for his
purpose, he sets up in Arianism, and with a bold
stroke strikes at no lower an article than the god
head of the Son of God ; and so manages this mighty
and universal hatred of polytheism, to the rejection
of a trinity of divine coequal Persons, as no ways
consistent with the unity of the divine essence. The
blasphemy of which opinion needed, no doubt, a
more than ordinary artist to give it the best gloss
and colour he could, and therefore was not to be in
troduced and ushered into the world, but by very
plausible and seemingly pious pleas.

As for instance, that the ascribing of a deity or
divine nature to Christ, was not so much a removal

460 A SERMON

of polytheism, as a change. That for Christ to de
cry the pagan gods, and yet assume the godhead to
himself, was, instead of being their reformer, to be
their rival ; and that by thus transferring divine
worship to his own person, he did not so much de
stroy idolatry, as monopolize it. Moreover, that
Christ himself professes his Father to be greater
than he; and therefore, that either he himself is
not God, or, if so, that the deity then includes not
the highest degree of perfection. For if Christ was
God, and upon that account comprehended in him
all perfections, how could the Father be greater?
which relation yet must imply a degree of perfection
above that of the Son. And if it should be here re
plied, that the Father is greater in respect of a per
sonal excellency, but not of a natural ; such as reply
so should do well to consider, how it can be, that
where essence includes all perfection, personality can
add any further. Besides, that the granting Christ
to be the Son of God will not therefore infer him
to be God. For the son of a king is but his father's
subject ; and consequently, to assert any more con
cerning Christ, seems to be only paganism refined,
and idolatry in a better dress.

These, I say, were the Arian objections against
the deity of our Saviour ; all of them extremely so
phistical and slight, and such as the heathen philo
sophers had urged all along against the Christian
religion, for near three hundred years before Arius
was born : and we shall find them grounded only
upon their not distinguishing between perfection ab
solute and relative, and their absurd arguing from
finite and created beings to a being infinite and un-
create ; as might easily be shewn in each of the fore-

ON 2 CORINTHIANS XI. 14. 461

going particulars, would the time allotted for this
exercise permit. So that it was a most true and
proper remark, that if we take from hereticks dis
puting against any article of the Christian faith what
is common to them with the heathens disputing
against the whole body of Christianity, they will
have little or nothing left them which is new, or can
be called peculiarly their own. Nevertheless, such
plausible stuff, backed with power, and managed by
the Devil, drew over most of the Christian churches,
for a considerable time, to Arianism ; and so, by a
very preposterous way of worship, made them sacri
fice the Son to the honour of the Father. But,

2. As the Arian ages had chiefly set themselves
to run down, or rather quite take away our Saviour's
divinity ; so the following ages, by an a/xerp/a T%
avQoXKYjt, a kind of contrary stretch, were no less in
tent upon paying a boundless and exorbitant devo
tion to every thing belonging to his humanity ; and
in a very particular and more than ordinary man
ner, to those who had eminently done and suffered
(especially to the degree of martyrdom) for his per
son and religion. And this was the course all along
taken by the papal heresy, from the very first that
it got footing in the church ; touching which, let
none think it strange, that I make an immediate
step from the times of Arianism to those of Popery,
as if there ought to be a greater interval put be
tween them. For though it must be confessed, that
Arianism received its mortal wound by the first coun
cil of Nice, pretty early in the fourth century ; yet
these following heresies of Macedonianism, Nesto-
rianism, Eutychianism, Monotheletism, &c. (which,
as different as they were amongst themselves, were

462 A SERMON

yet, in truth, but so many shoots out of the old Arian
stock,) continued much longer, and reached consi
derably beyond the sixth century ; about the end
whereof, and the beginning of the seventh, Popery
began to work and shew itself by degrees ; (Gregory
the Great, who lived till the year of our Lord 604,
being, not without cause, reckoned the last of the
good popes of Rome, and the first of the bad ;) so
that in truth there was no vacancy, or intermediate
chasm of time, between the Arian poison ceasing,
and the Popish ferment beginning to infest the
church. Well then, the deity of Christ having been
thus irrefragably proved, and Arianism, with its ap-
pendant heresies, at length drawing off the stage,
and another predominant principle coming on, it was
now time for the grand deceiver to change his hand,
being to work upon quite different materials, as well
as with quite different instruments ; and so to turn
that vast honour and zeal, which, as we observed,
the world bore to Christ's human nature, to the per
verting, depraving, and undermining of Christianity
itself. For from hence men came to give that inor
dinate veneration to the sacrament of Christ's body
and blood ; and for the defence thereof invented that
monster of absurdities, tran substantiation. After
which, with great industry, they got together and
kept all relicks, which any way represented his
memory, as pieces of the cross, and pictures of his
body, till at length they even adored them ; and, to
justify their so doing, they cast their practice into
a doctrine, that the crucifix was to be adored with
relative divine worship; more than which, by the
way, the heathens themselves never gave to their
idols ; but worshipped them only so far as they were

ON 2 CORINTHIANS XL 14. 46*3

representations, or rather significations of those ef
fects and benefits, for which they adored the Deity,
the great cause and original of them. But this su
perstition stopped not here, but extended itself like
wise to Christ's friends and followers, the saints ;
those especially, who, as I noted before, had sealed
their profession with their blood: the memory of
whom they celebrated with solemn invocations of
them at their sepulchres, making offerings to them
there, and bowing and falling prostrate at the very
mention of their names, till at length this reveren
tial respect grew into downright adoration. And
thus by degrees Paganism came to be christened into
a new form and name, by their setting up their divi,
or begodded tutelar saints, and prosecuting their
apotheosis with divine worship. And lest in this
they might seem to intrench upon the honour of
Christ, by treating his saints and servants upon equal
terms with himself, they made their very zeal for his
honour a plea for their making these saints their in
tercessors with him ; alleging, forsooth, their own un-
fitness and utter unworthiness to approach him by a
direct address, without such a mediation : as sub
jects do then most acceptably petition their earthly
prince, when their suits are handed to him by some
particular and beloved favourite : a shrewd argu
ment, no doubt, if God and man proceeded by the
same methods. But to go on : since religion would
be but a very lame and imperfect institution, should
not points of faith be seconded with suitable rules of
practice ; hereupon mortification and austerity of life
were, in shew at least, equally advanced, and Satan
began to play the white devil, by prohibiting, upon
pretence of higher sacerdotal purity, the marriage of

464 A SERMON

the clergy, (though at the same time reckoned by
themselves a sacrament,) forbidding also certain sorts
of meat, and enjoining others ; as likewise imposing
hair shirts, whips, scourges, with many more such
corporal severities ; for the recommending of all
which to men's use, they taught them, that these
practices were satisfactory for sin and meritorious
of heaven. And lest this might seem to derogate
from Christ's satisfaction, (as it certainly did,) they
distinguished sins into mortal and venial. And
whereas they held, that these venial sins could not
deserve eternal death ; and withal, that many men
die before they have completed their repentance;
for them they invented a certain place in the other
world, for the temporal, penal expiation of such sins ;
to wit, purgatory. And since the pains of this were
not to be eternal, but that a deliverance and redemp
tion of the souls held therein might be procured, and
that by the merit of the good works of others, to
help out those who had none of their own, they
came from hence to assert works of supererogation,
as they called them ; which good works, and the
merit of them, not being always actually employed
for the benefit of any, (and as if the world abounded
more with good works than' bad,) they are said to
be reserved in the treasury of the church, to be dis
posed of (as there should be occasion) to such as
were able and willing to ransom their suffering
friends with silver and gold, (the very best of me
tals, and always held by them a valuable price for
souls,) and this produced indulgences ; the most use
ful and profitable part of the whole Romish reli
gion.

By all which particulars put together, you may

ON 2 CORINTHIANS XL 14. 465

see the curious contexture and concatenation of the
several mysteries and intrigues of Popery ; and how
artificially one is linked to and locked within the
other, in this chain of darkness made to hold and
keep poor souls to the judgment of the great day;
and (if God be not so merciful as to save them in
spite of their religion) to condemn them in it too.
And now these tenets being advantaged by the suit
ableness of them to man's natural disposition, (which
in matters of belief is too prone to credulity and su
perstition, and in matters of practice to an arrogant
opinion of merit, every man being too apt to think
that a good action obliges God, and satisfies for an
ill one ;) these tenets, I say, were upon these terms
easily imbibed by the vulgar in those dark times of
ignorance; which ignorance also was carefully che
rished and kept up, by maintaining the sufficiency
of an implicit faith, and securing the scriptures
under the double lock of an unknown language and
a bad translation. Besides all which, that they
might not in the last place want a sure shelter and
strong hold to defend them, in case this terrible book
of the scriptures should come to be unsealed and let
loose upon them, they had two other refuges to fly
to; to wit, that of unwritten traditions, without
which they held the scriptures imperfect ; and of an
infallible judge, without which they affirmed them
to be obscure ; two qualifications which must una
voidably render the scriptures an incompetent rule
of faith. And thus the nail is driven home, and
riveted too ; and upon their being hereby made
judges in their own cause, they do and must stand
incorrigible ; forasmuch as all conviction upon these
terms is utterly impossible. And thus we have seen
VOL. in. H h

466 A SERMON

what a lofty Babel has been raised by this grand
architect of mischief and confusion, the Devil; a
Babel, with the top of it reaching to heaven, and
the foundation of it laid in hell. And we have seen
likewise the materials with which, and the arts by
which, this stupendous structure was reared: and
since neither old nor new Babel was built in a day,
we have given some account also how this master-
builder has all along suited his tools and engines to
the proper genius and condition of each several age ;
sometimes working in the light, and sometimes in
the dark ; sometimes above ground, and sometimes
under it ; but in all, like a Romish priest, still under
a disguise.

And here, I think, it may be further worth our
considering, that since the aspects and influences in
l^eaven (which are some of the chief instruments
whereby Providence governs this lower world) must
needs work considerably upon the tempers, humours,
and constitutions of men, under their several posi
tions and revolutions ; it cannot but follow, that the
same must work very powerfully about the affairs of
religion also, so far as the tempers and dispositions
of men are apt to mingle and strike in with them.
And accordingly, as I have observed that Satan
played his papal game chiefly in the times of igno
rance, and sowed his tares while the world was
asleep ; cum Augustmus haberetur inexpugnabilis
dialecticus, quod legisset categorias Aristotelis.
Cum qui Greece sciret, suspectus ; qui autem He-
braice, plane magicus putaretur; when the words
hcereticum demta were looked upon as sufficient
to warrant the taking away the life of an heretic :
so on the other side, when this mist of ignorance

ON 2 CORINTHIANS XI. 14. 467

began to clear up, and polite learning to recover, and
get footing again in the world, by the great abilities
and industry of Erasmus, Melancthon, Politian, Bu-
daeus, Calvin, and several others, men generally
then began to smell out the cheat ; and after a long
growing suspicion of the imposture they had been
held under, came at length to a resolution quite to
throw it off. But then again, lest so sudden and
mighty a stream of light, breaking in upon the prince
of darkness, might wholly overbear and baffle all his
projects, he also began wisely to light up his candle
too, in the new sect and society of Ignatius Loyola ;
a sect composed of the best wits and ablest heads, the
most learned and industrious that could be got, to
list themselves to serve the pope under him. And
by this course he quickly brought his myrmidons to
fight the Protestants at their own weapons, and for
parts and literature to vie with the reformation. For
he saw well enough that it was learning which must do
his business, when ignorance was grown out of fashion :
and that when such multitudes were resolved to have
their eyes open, it was time for him to look about
him too. Accordingly Satan, who loves to compass his
ends and amuse the world by contrary methods, (like
the evil spirit in the gospel, sometimes casting the
person possessed by him into the fire, and sometimes
into the water,) having, as we have noted, long im
posed upon Christendom by Popery, and at length
finding a new light sprung in upon a great part of it,
and mightily chasing away that darkness before it,
he thought it his interest to trump up a new scene
of things; and so, correspondently to the two main
parts of religion, speculative and practical, he fell
upon two contrary, but equally destructive extremes,

Hh 2

468 A SERMON

Socinianism and enthusiasm. Thus, like a subtle dis
putant, casting his argument into such a dilemma,
as should be sure to gain him his point, and gall his
enemy one way or other. And,

1. For the first extreme, Socinianism. Faustus
Socinus seems to have been a person so qualified by
Providence with a competent stock of parts and
measure of reason, (for the man was no miracle, either
in divinity or philosophy,) to shew, how wofully such
an one (being left to himself) might blunder, and fall
short of the right notions of religion, even in the
plainest and most important points of it. He was
indeed so bred and principled by his uncle Lelius,
that Satan thought him a fit instrument for the ad
vancement of the light of reason above that of reve
lation, by making (as he notoriously did) the former
the sole judge of the latter. Socinus's main design
(or pretence at least) was to bring all the mysteries
of Christianity to a full accommodation with the ge
neral notions of man's reason ; and so far the design
was no doubt fair and laudable enough, had it kept
within the bounds of a sober prosecution. For that
which is contrary to reason cannot be true in reli
gion ; nor can God contradict that in the book of his
revealed word, which he had writ before in the book
of nature : so much, I say, is certain, and cannot be
denied. Nevertheless, a little reason will prove also,
that many things may seem contrary to reason,
which yet really are not so ; and where this seeming
contrariety is, the question will be, whether revela
tion ought to control reason, or reason prescribe to
revelation ; which indeed is the very hinge upon
which the whole Socinian controversy turns.

But to proceed, and shew that even Socinianism

ON 2 CORINTHIANS XI. 14. 469

itself, by a kind of antiperistasis, took its rise from
Popery, as the occasion or accidental cause of it, it is
to be observed, that those nice, bold, and unjustifiable
notions, which many of the schoolmen had advanced
concerning the divine essence and persons, (things
which the mind of man can form to itself no express
idea, nor consequently any clear comprehensive know
ledge of,) caused in Socinus such an high loathing of
and aversion to that whole scheme of Christian theo
logy which then obtained in the world, that, breaking
through all, he utterly denied the divine nature of
the Son and of the Holy Ghost ; and so exploded
the whole doctrine of the Trinity, as no part or ar
ticle of the Christian religion ; frequently alleging
also, that the urging the necessity of believing no
tions so contrary (as he pretended) to the discourses
and maxims of natural reason, mightily scandalized
and kept off the Jews, Turks, and rational infidels
from embracing Christianity. And this consideration
he laid no small stress upon.

But in answer to it ; by his favour, the contra
riety of the notions here excepted against to the
maxims of natural reason (as confidently as it has
been all along supposed by him) was never yet prov
ed ; and as for the offence taken at it by Jews and
Turks, he might have remembered, that the doc
trines preached by St. Paul himself found no better
acceptance, as being to the Jews a stumblingblock,
and to the Greeks foolishness ; but neither by him
who preached it, nor by those who received it, at all
the less valued for its being so : and certainly the
Christian church would make but an ill bargain, to
barter away any one article of her faith, to gain
either Turk or Jew : and I shrewdly guess, that the

H h 3

470 A SERMON

Jews themselves understood bargaining too well, to
part with their Moses for a Socinian Christ. But fur
ther, as touching this heresy : the time when it was
vented in the world is no less observable than the
instruments by whom ; Satan suiting the work he
had to do to the peculiar qualification of the age
which he was to do it in. For as the schoolmen,
who were the greatest and most zealous promoters
of the papal interest, sacrificing both reason and re
ligion to the support of it, were in the highest vogue
for some ages before ; so the age wherein it began to
decline and go downwards had entertained a gene
ral contempt of, and aversion to, that sort of learning,
as may appear out of Sir Thomas More's Defence of
Erasmus, and other critics, against Dorpius, a great
patron and admirer of school-divinity. And as for
Socinus himself, the Folonian who wrote his life
testifies, ilium scholasticam theologiam nunquam
attigisse. Thus therefore was he qualified, it seems,
to baffle the learned part of the world ; and having
made his first adventure in denying Christ's divinity,
and bringing it much lower than ever Arius did, the
denial of his satisfaction unavoidably followed ; no
mere creature being able, in a strict sense, to merit
of God, and much less to satisfy for sin. So that we
see here how Satan, under the plausible plea of reason,
introduced a doctrine into the world, which has shook
every article of our faith ; and in the full compass of
it grasps in the most considerable heresies that ever
were ; especially those two topping ones of Photinian-
ism and Pelagianism. And whosoever shall, by a
true and impartial logic, spin it out into its utmost
consequences shall find, that it naturally tends to,
and inevitably ends in, the destruction of all religion :

ON 2 CORINTHIANS XL 14. 471

and that where Socinianism has laid the premises,
atheism cannot be kept out of the conclusion. But
now, that even reason itself is but pretended only,
and not really shewn in the doctrines of Socinus,
give me leave to demonstrate in one or two instances,
instead of many more that might be assigned.

1. That this doctrine asserts Christ to be a mere
creature, and yet ascribes to him divine worship,
and that both as to adoration and invocation ; and
this upon absolute and indispensable necessity a. So
that whereas Socinus says, that the Jews and Turks
are so scandalized at our asserting Christ's deity, I
am sure, that, by a peculiar and better grounded
aversion, they are more scandalized at idolatry.
And if Socinus will advance this proposition, that
Jesus Christ is not by nature God, let Jews, Turks,
and all infidels of common sense alone to make the
assumption, that then he is not to be worshipped
with divine worship. Christianus Francken shame
fully baffled Socinus upon this head. And it is im
possible for him, or any of his tribe, to maintain it.
But,

£. This doctrine asserts also, that God cannot
certainly foreknow future contingents ; as Socinus
positively concludes in the eleventh chapter of his
Prelections b; where, in answering, or rather eluding

a See Socinus in his cate- " aperte verbis non audeant, re

chism, discoursing of those " tamen ipsa omnino negent."

who allow not of the adoration And elsewhere : " Praestat Tri-

and invocation of Christ. "Quid " nitarium esse, quam asserere

censes," says he, " de iis, qui '* Christum non esse adoran-

ista Christo non tribuunt ?" " dum."

To which he answers : " Cen- b " Cum igitur nulla ratio,

seo illos non esse Christia- " nullus sacrarum literarum lo-

nos ; quippe qui revera Chris- " cus sit, ex quo aperte colligi

turn non habeant : et Jesum " possit, Deum omnia, quse

esse Christum licet fortasse " fiunt, scivisse, antequam fie-

H h 4

A SERMON

such scriptures as declare the contrary, he all along
with a bold impiety degrades the divine knowledge
into mere conjecture, and no more ; and so ranges
the all-knowing God with the heathen oracles, sooth
sayers, and astrologers, not allowing him any pre
eminence above them, but only a better faculty at

" rent, concludendum est mi-
" nime asserendam esse a no-
" bis istam Dei praescientiam,"
&c. Socinus, Prcslectionum ca-
pite 1 1 mo. In stating of which
point, the heretic indeed grants,
that where God has perempto
rily purposed or decreed to do
a thing, he infallibly knows,
that the thing so decreed shall
certainly come to pass, and ac
cordingly may as infallibly fore
tell it. A great matter, no
doubt. But, by his favour ;
what is this to God's foretell
ing of sinful actions, together
with many passages of great
moment depending thereupon
(all of them declared by the
prophets, many ages before the
event of them ?) For these
things, as bad as they are, have
their events, as well as the best
that happen ; and yet cannot
be ascribed to God, as the cause
or producer of them. Where
upon, since such events, ac
cording to Socinus, proceed
wholly from the free will of the
immediate agents, he denies
God to have any certain pre
science of them ; for that he
will not so much as allow them
to be in the number of things
in their nature knowable, nor
consequently to fall within the
object of omniscience itself.
Which though it extends to all
that is knowable, yet reaches

not beyond it. In answer to
which I grant, that such future
contingents as depend wholly
upon the free turn of man's
will, are not antecedently know-
able to a finite understanding ;
but that they are simply and
absolutely in the very nature of
them not knowable, this I ut
terly deny ; and on the con
trary affirm, that to an infinite
understanding they are both
knowable, and actually known
too. And the reason of this
difference is, because an infinite
understanding never looks upon
a future contingent, but it looks
beyond it too ; that is to say,
by one single act of knowledge
God sees it, both in the instant
of nature before its production,
and in the instant of nature
after it : which is the true ac
count of this matter, as being
founded in the comprehensive
ness of God's knowledge, tak
ing in past, present, and future,
by one single view. " Scien-
" tia Dei ad omnia praesentia-
" liter se habet." And how
difficult soever, if at all possible,
it may be for human reason, to
form to itself a clear notion of
the immanent acts of God ; yet
all that is or can be excepted
against the account now given
by us, will be found but mere
cavil, and not worth an an
swer.

ON 2 CORINTHIANS XL 14.

guessing than they had. So that hereby the here
tic is either for giving us a deity without infinite
perfection, or an infinite perfection without a power
of infallible prediction, or an infallibility of predic
tion without any certain knowledge of the thing
foretold : which, amongst other wretched conse
quences, must needs render God such a governor of
the world, as, in those many important affairs of it,
depending upon the free motions of man's will, shall
not be able to tell certainly what shall come to pass
in it, so much as one day before it actually happens.
He may indeed, as I shew before, shrewdly guess at
events, (and so may a wise man too,) but further than
guessing he cannot go. All which are such mon
strous assertions, and so scandalously contumelious
to the divine nature and attributes, and yet so in
evitably resulting from the position first laid down
by him, that nothing can equal the profaneness of
them, but the absurdities.

As for several others of the Socinian errors ; to
wit, about the nature of the sacraments, the divine
covenants, the ministry, and the church, with sundry
other parts of divinity, I purposely omit them ; and
mention only these two, as being in themselves not
grosser errors in divinity, than inconsistencies in phi
losophy. So that upon this turn at least we may
worthily use that remark of Grotius, in his book
concerning the satisfaction of Christ ; Mirum esse,
toties a Socino ostentari rectam rationem, ostendi
nusquam. But to shew compendiously how he
stabs, not only the Christian, but also all religions, by
one assertion ; we must know, that the chief corner
stone laid by him in this supposed rational (and by
some so much adored) doctrine, is his affirming, that

474 A SERMON

by the light of natural reason no man can know
that there is a God ; as you may see in the second
chapter of his aforementioned Prelections. For the
proof of which, amongst other places of scripture,
he wrests and abuses that in Heb. xi. 6, where the
apostle tells us, that he who comes to God must
believe that he is. Mark it, says Socinus ; it is
here said only, that he must believe this, not that
he must know, or scientifically assent to it. But
by his favour, as this is not here said, so it is as
true that it is not here denied. And this new
teacher of the world should, one would think, have
known, that the words itivrig and ma-reva, belief and
believe, are not always used in a strict philosophical
sense, for an assent upon testimony, in contradistinc
tion to an assent upon grounds of science ; but ge
nerally, and at large, for any firm assent, whether
upon one account or the other. I say, as this is
certain from the use of the word in common speech,
so there is nothing to prove, that the apostle in this
sixth verse of the aforementioned chapter uses it
otherwise than in this general, popular, and more
enlarged sense. Nevertheless, admitting, but not
granting, that he took the word in this text, in the
strict philosophical sense of it, for an assent upon
testimony, must this therefore exclude all assent
upon scientifical grounds ? Whereas it is certain,
that the same thing may be the object both of our
knowledge and belief; and that we may assent to
the same proposition, upon the discourses of reason,
drawn from the nature of the things contained in
that proposition ; and withal, upon the affirmation
of one, whom, for his knowledge and veracity, we
know worthy to be believed. No true philosopher,

ON 2 CORINTHIANS XL 14. 475

I am sure, (which Socinus never was,) either will or
can deny this.

But on the contrary, and in opposition to these
new notions, I shall proceed further, and venture to
affirm, that to believe that there is a God, only be
cause God says so, is a mere petitio principii, and
manifestly circular and ridiculous ; as supposing,
and taking for granted, the very thing, which as
yet is under inquiry, and ought to be proved. For
the being of a God is the thing here to be proved ;
and the testimony of God, whereby it is to be
proved, must presuppose, or rather imply the ante
cedent being of him whose testimony it is. Sup
posing therefore, that the first revelation made to
man of the being of God, (for it is of that only we
now speak,) was by an express, audible declaration
of himself to be God ; yet this bare affirmation could
not of itself, and in the way of a testimony, oblige a
man to believe or assent to the thing affirmed, while
he was yet ignorant who or what he was, from
whom it proceeded. For surely, in order of nature,
I must know that it is God who says a thing, be
fore I can believe it true, because God says it.
Otherwise, suppose some angel had affirmed himself
to be God, as the Devil in effect did, when he chal
lenged to himself the dominion and disposal of all
the kingdoms of the world, and required divine
worship of our Saviour thereupon ; none certainly
will pretend that such a declaration could oblige our
assent. But when God affirmed or declared him
self to be God, in the first age or ages of the world,
no doubt this declaration was made in such a trans
cendent and supernatural way, and with circum
stances so wonderfully glorious and extraordinary,

476 A SERMON

that he or they to whom it was made, and Adam in
particular, could not but perceive that the person
making it was a being much above the condition
of a creature, and consequently God. And such an
acknowledgment of, or assent to the being of a God,
was really an act of knowledge, as inferring the
cause from the effect ; and that too, such an effect,
as could issue from nothing but such a cause. For
which reason, the assent given in this case could not
be founded upon bare testimony, nor be formally an
act of belief, but an act properly and strictly scien-
tifical. From all which I conclude, that it is absurd
and irrational to "suppose, that we can believe the
being of a God upon the bare affirming this of him
self, unless we have some precedent or concomitant
knowledge, that the person so affirming it is God.
And this utterly overthrows the assertion of Socinus ;
that the being of a God is knowable only by faith,
or belief. An assertion much fitter to undermine
than establish the belief of a Deity upon the true
grounds of it ; but it was perhaps for this very pur
pose that he intended it.

And thus much for the first extreme mentioned ;
by which Satan has poisoned the principles and
theoretick part of religion ; though the poison will
be found of that spreading malignity, as to influence
the practick too. And so we come to the

Second extreme mentioned ; under which, as an
angel of light, he more directly strikes at the prac
tice of religion ; and that is enthusiasm. A thing
not more detestable in its effects, than plausible in
its occasion. For men being enraged at the magis
terial imposing of traditions upon them, as a rule of
faith equal to the written word, and being com-

ON 2 CORINTHIANS XI. 14. 4?7

manded withal to submit their reason to the cheat of
an infallible interpreter, they too naturally struck
off to his extreme, to slight and lay aside the judg
ment of all antiquity, and so to adhere only to the
bare letter of the scripture ; and then, both to secure
and authorize their errors, they made their own rea
son, or rather humour, (first surnaming it the Spirit,)
the infallible, unappealable judge of all that was de
livered in the written word. And now upon these
terms, what could keep a man so disposed from
coming over to Socinianism ; since the prime art and
engine made use of by Socinus himself, for the vent
ing of all his abominations, was a professed defiance
of the judgment of all antiquity in matters of reli
gion ? And what likewise could hinder a man (if his
temper inclined that way) from taking up in ana-
baptism, when he could neither find any clear pre
cept for infant baptism, nor express instance of it in
the scripture ; but only probable inferences from
thence, and remote consequences ; all of them per
haps too little, without the universal tradition of the
church, to found the necessity and perpetuity of
such a practice upon ? Especially having been en
countered by such specious objections, as have been
too often produced against it. And thus we see,
how both the two forementioned extremes commence
upon one and the same principle ; to wit, the laying
aside the judgment of antiquity, both in matters of
faith, and in all expositions of scripture : but Soci
nianism being, as was observed, an heresy much too
fine for the gross and thick genius of vulgar ca
pacities, the Devil found it requisite sometimes to
change his engine, and amongst such as these to set
up his standard in Familism, or enthusiasm. A

47S A SERMON

monster, from whose teeming womb have issued
some of the vilest, the foulest, and most absurd prac
tices and opinions, that the nature of man (as cor
rupt as it is) was ever poisoned and polluted with.
For these enthusiasts having first brought all to the
naked letter of scripture, and then confined that let
ter wholly to the exposition of the Spirit, (as they
called it,) they proceed further, and advance this
mystery of iniquity to its highest aK^y, by asserting
the immediate indwelling of the said Spirit in their
persons ; so that by his impulse and authority they
may, like Abraham, Phinehas, or Ehud, be carried
out to actions, otherwise, and in other men, indeed
unlawful, but in themselves sufficiently warranted
by the Spirit's dispensing with his own laws in their
behalf, and much more with the laws of men ; be
sides that, according to the same doctrine, he only
who has this Spirit can be a competent judge of
what is suggested to him by it. A principle of that
diabolical malignity, that it sets men beyond all
reach of the magistrate, and frets asunder the very
nerves of all government and society. For it owns
an impulse lawful, and yet unaccountable ; whereby
they are empowered to shake off laws, invade the
rights and properties of all about them, and, if they
please, to judge, sentence, and put to death kings ;
because the spiritual man, forsooth, judgeth all
things., but himself is judged of none. And these
were the persons who would needs set up for the
new lights of this last age : blazing comets always
portending, or rather causing wars and confusions
both in church and state ; first setting all on fire,
and then shining by the flames they raised. But
light, as we have seen, being so often made the

ON 2 CORINTHIANS XI. 14. 479

Devil's livery, no wonder if his servants affect to be
seen in it.

And now, after this short view of Popery and en
thusiasm, I hope I shall not incur the suspicion of
any bias to the former, if (as bad as it is) I prefer
it to the latter, and allow it the poor commendation
of being the less evil of the two. I confess, that
under both, the great enemy of truth strikes at our
church and state ; and that whether he acts by the
fanatic illuminati or by Vaux's lantern, the mis
chief projected by him is the same ; there being in
both a light (and something else) within, for the
blowing up of churches and kingdoms too. Never
theless, if we consider and compare these two ex
tremes together, we shall find enthusiasm the more
untractable, furious, and pernicious of the two, and
that in a double respect.

1. That the evils of Popery are really the same
in enthusiasm. And

2. That the little good which is in Popery is not
in this.

And first ; that the evils of both are equal, may
appear upon these two accounts.

1. That the enthusiasts challenge the same in
fallibility which the papal church does, but are
more intolerable in their claim ; for Popery places it
only in one person, the pretended head of the
church, the pope ; but enthusiasm claims it, as be
longing to every Christian amongst them, every par
ticular member of their church. So that upon a
full estimate of the matter, the papacy is only en
thusiasm contracted, and enthusiasm the papacy dif
fused; the evil is the same in both, with the ad
vantage of multiplication in tke latter. But

480 A SERMON

2. Both of them equally take men off from the
scriptures, and supplant their authority. For as
one does it by traditions, making them equal to the
written word; so the other does it by pretending
the immediate guidance of the Spirit, without the
rule of the said word. For see with what contempt
the father of the Familists, Henry Nicholas, casts off
the use and authority of it. See also the Quakers,
(who may pass for the very elixir, the ultimum quod
sic, and hitherto the highest form of enthusiasts
amongst us.) See, I say, how they recur only to the
light within them ; a broad hint to men of sense
and experience, how they intend to dispose of the
scriptures, when the angel of this light within them
shall think fit to screw them up to an higher dispen
sation ; for then no doubt they will judge it conve
nient to bury this dead letter out of their sight.
But,

2. As for the other proposition mentioned by us,
viz. that the little good which is in Popery is not in
enthusiasm ; this will appear upon these grounds.

1. Upon a political account. The design of the
popish religion is, in the several parts and circum
stances of it, to reach and accommodate itself, as
much as possible, to all the humours and disposi
tions of men : and I know no argument like this
universal compliance, to prove it catholic by. So
that a learned person a, in his Europe Speculum,
or survey of the religions of the western church,
pronounces Popery, upon a strict view of the artifi
cial, wonderful composure of the whole frame of it,
the greatest piece of practical wit that was ever yet
set on foot in the world. For to shew how in a de-

a Sir Edwin Sandys.

ON 2 CORINTHIANS XL 14. 481

praved sense it becomes all things to all men ; is any
one of a pious, strict, and severely disposed mind ?
There are those retirements, austerities, and mor
tifications in this religion, which will both employ
and gratify such a disposition. Or is he, on the
other side, of a loose, jolly temper? Why there is
that sufficiency placed in the opus operatum, and
the external acts of religion, pieced out with suitable
supplies from the bank of merit, which shall make
the whole practice of it easy and agreeable. And
lastly, if a man has lost his estate, broke his credit,
missed of his preferments, failed in his projects, or
the like, he may fairly and creditably take sanc
tuary in some monastery or convent, and so pre
tend piously to leave the world, as soon as he finds
that the world is leaving him.

And as for the doctrinal part of the Christian re
ligion, Escobar, with his fellow casuists, has so pared
off all the roughness of that, and suited the strictest
precepts to the largest and loosest consciences, that
it will be a much harder matter to prove a man a
sinner, than to condemn him for his being so ; so
carefully and powerfully do these men step in be
tween sin and sorrow ; so that if conscience should
at any time become troublesome, and guilt begin to
lift up its voice, and grow clamorous, it is but to go
and disgorge all in confession, and then absolution
issuing of course, eases the mind, and takes off all
that anguish and despair, which (should it lie pent
up, without vent) might overwhelm, or, as Ovid
expresses it, even choke or strangle a man, and
either send him to an halter, or prove itself instead
of one.

And thus these spiritual sinks receive and divert

VOL. III. I i

482 A SERMON

all those ill humours of desperate, discontented per
sons, which the world will never want, and which,
in all probability, would otherwise discharge and
spend themselves upon the state. For he who is
malecontent and desperate, will assuredly either let
fall his spirit, and consume himself, or keep it up,
and so (as occasion serves) wreak his spite upon the
public: for spite will be always working, and either
find or make itself an object to work upon. Cain
was the only person I have read of, who sought to
divert his discontent by building cities ; but the rea
son was, because then there were none for him to
pull down. These, I say, are some of the benefits
and benign influences which the papal constitution
bestows upon the outward and civil concerns of such
as fall within its communion.

But on the contrary, where the quicksilver or ra
ther gunpowder of enthusiasm (for the fifth of No
vember must not claim it all) has once insinuated it
self into the veins and bowels of a kingdom, it pre
sently rallies together all the distempers, all the hu
mours, all the popular heats and discontents, till it
kicks down crowns and sceptres, tramples upon
thrones, much like those boisterous vapours shut up
within the caverns of the earth, which no sooner in
spire it into a quaking fit, (as I may express it,) but
it overturns houses and towns, swallows up whole
cities, and, in a word, writes its history in ruins and
desolations, or in something more terrible than all,
called a further reformation. But,

2. Popery is likewise preferable to enthusiasm, in
respect of the nature, quality, and complexion of the
subjects in which it dwells.

The popish religion has not been of that poisonous

ON 2 CORINTHIANS XL 14. 483

influence but it has brought up men of accomplished
learning and morals, of a sublime wit, and all other
excellent parts and endowments, which human na
ture can recommend itself by : whereas enthusiasm,
on the contrary, seldom or never falls upon such
dispositions, but commonly takes up its abode in the
gloomy regions of melancholy, of an ill habit of body,
and a worse of mind ; so that the spirit of darkness,
brooding upon the ill humours of the one and the
distractions of the other, commonly hatches this
monster. For, to look back upon some of the most
noted ringleaders and promoters of our late disorders
in church and state, were they not such as were first
under some disorder themselves ? persons for the
most part cracked either in fortune or in brain, acted
by preternatural heats and ferments ; and so mistak
ing that for devotion, which was only distemper, and
for a good conscience, which too often proved little
else but a bad constitution. And in such cases cer
tainly we may well collect the malignity of that prin
ciple, which never dwells but in such venomous tem
pers ; and rationally conclude that the leprosy must
needs have seized the inhabitants, where the infec
tion sticks so close to the walls.

3. Popery is likewise much more tolerable than
enthusiasm, upon a religious account. The great
basis and foundation upon which the whole body
of Christianity rests, is the divinity of Christ's per
son, the history of his nativity, life, and death, his
actions and sufferings, and his resurrection and as
cension concluding all. But though the popish
church has presumed to make several bold additions
to, and some detractions from, the old system of our
faith, yet it always acknowledged and held sacred

484 A SERMON

the foregoing articles, without ever venturing to
make any breach upon them. Whereas on the con
trary, Familism and Quakerism, the two grand and
most thriving branches of enthusiasm, have reduced
the whole gospel to allegories and figures ; and turn
ed the history of what Christ actually and per
sonally did and suffered, into mystical and moral
significations of some virtues to be wrought within
us, or some actions to be wrought by us. And this
in truth does, and must directly strike at the very
vitals of our religion, and without more ado will (if
not prevented) effectually send Christianity packing-
out of the world. Popery indeed has forced some
bad consequences from good principles, but this de
stroys the very principles themselves.

Add to this, that the corruptions in a church are
not of so destructive an influence as schisms and di
visions from it, the constant effects of enthusiasm.
It being much in the body spiritual as in the natural ;
where that which severs and dissolves the continuity
of parts tends more to the destruction of the whole,
than that which corrupts them. You may cure a
throat when it is sore, but not when it is cut.

And so I have done with this parallel ; after which,
give me leave to recapitulate to you, in short, some
of Satan's principal and most specious abuses of reli
gion, hitherto discoursed of by us. As first, how he
made use of the church's abhorrence of polytheism,
for the introducing of Arianism, in the denial of our
Saviour's divinity ; and next, how, upon the declen
sion and fall of that heresy, he took occasion, from
the zealous adoration of Christ's person, to bring in
a superstitious worship of the virgin Mary his mo
ther, and of his picture in crucifixes, and the like ;

ON 2 CORINTHIANS XL 14. 485

and so at length appeared, in Popery, a sort of reli
gion making men in nothing more zealous than in
worshipping such things. And lastly, how, when
this also was shaken off, with the tales and legends
that chiefly supported it, and the bare scripture,
with the guidance of the Spirit, made the sole rule of
faith, without the help of a pretended infallible judge,
he then in the greater and more refined wits turned
Socinian, and in the vulgar played the enthusiast.
And thus, having pursued the impostor through all
his labyrinths, pulled off his vizard, and turned his
inside outwards, that we may now, by reflecting
upon what is past, the better fence against his me
thods for the future ; I shall here proceed to the
third and last general head proposed, and under it
very briefly set down some certain principles, by
which he is likely enough to play over his old game
again, and, if not counterworked, to trump up the
same religious cheats upon the world, with more ad
vantage than before. And these are eminently
three.

1. The stating of the doctrine of faith and free
grace so as to make them undermine the necessity
of a good life. God's mercy is indeed the crown and
beauty of all his attributes, and his grace the ema
nation of his mercy ; and whosoever goes about in
the least to derogate from it, may he (for me) find
no share in it. But, after all, has not the Devil en
deavoured to supplant the gospel in a considerable
part of it, by the very plea of grace ; while some
place an irreconcileable opposition between the effi
cacy of that and all freedom of man's will, and
thereby make those things inconsistent, which the ad
mirable wisdom of God had made so fairly subordinate.

486 A SERMON

But notwithstanding such fancies, we shall find that
religion, in the true nature of it, consists of action,
as well as notion ; of good works, as well as faith ;
and that he believes to very little purpose, whose
life is not the better for his belief.

But to state (as some do) the nature of justifying
faith in this, that he who is confident his sins are
forgiven him, is by that act of confidence completely
justified, and beyond the danger of a final apostasy,
so that all sins must for ever after be surnamed in
firmities ; what is this, but to give a man a licence
to sin boldly and safely too, and so to write a per
petual divorce between faith and good works ? The
church of England owns and maintains free grace as
much as any. But still let God be free of it, and not
men ; who, when he gives it, never makes a bare Crede
quod liabes the only title to it, or character of it.

Antinomianism, as both experience and the nature
of .the thing has sufficiently taught us, seldom ends
but in Familism. And the sum and substance of that
doctrine is, that it makes men justified from eter
nity; and faith not to be the instrument, but only
the evidence of our justification, as no more than
barely declaring to the conscience of the believer
what is already done and transacted in heaven.
Now let us see whether the former definition of faith
can stand upon any other or better bottom than
this of Antinomianism. For if the faith which jus
tifies me be a firm belief and persuasion that my sins
are remitted, it must follow, that my sins are re
mitted antecedently to that act of belief; forasmuch
as the object must needs precede the act : assent or
belief being such an act as does not produce, but
presuppose its object. But if my sins are not actu-

ON 2 CORINTHIANS XI. 14. 487

ally remitted before I believe, how can I truly be
lieve they are so? unless the believing of a false
proposition can make it true ; which would be a
piece of logic as new as this divinity. Bellarmine
indeed fixes this upon the doctrine of all the pro-
testant churches, and much triumphs in the charge,
but falsely and invidiously, and like a Jesuit, as (in
spite of the character some have given him for learn
ing and candour) he still shews himself upon this
subject. For all the reformed churches (especially
the church of England) disclaim it as a paradox in
reason, a pest in morality, and an assertion so grossly
absurd and contradictious, that not so much as the
least shadow of an argument can be brought for it,
unless Credo, quia impossibile est, may pass for one,
which it will hardly ever do, but in the case of
tran substantiation.

2. A second principle, by which in all likelihood
the Devil may and will (as opportunity serves) im
pose upon the church, is by opposing the power of
godliness irreconcileably to all forms. And what is
this, but in another instance to confront subordi
nates, and to destroy the body, because the soul can
subsist without it ? But thus to sequester the di
vine worship from all external assistances, that by
this means, forsooth, it may become wholly mental,
and all spirit, is, no doubt, a notable fetch of the
Devil, who, we know, is all spirit himself, but never
the less a Devil for being so. On the contrary, we have
rather cause to fear, that, in the strength of this pre
tence the worship of Christ may be treated as Christ
himself once was ; that is, first be stripped, and then
crucified. For would you know what the Devil drives
at in all this seemingly seraphic plea ? Why, first he

I i 4

488 A SERMON

pleads, that a set service or liturgy for divine wor
ship is superstition and formality ; and then, that
churches and a ministry are so too ; and lastly, that
the very letter of the scripture is but a mere form, (if
so much,) and accordingly to be laid aside, as in Fami-
lism and Quakerism we have shewn it actually is.
But then again some other shortsighted schismatics
were for proceeding upon that doughty principle,
that nothing ought to be allowed in the church or
worship of God, but what is expressly enjoined in
his written word : and accordingly in the strength
thereof having run down several of the constitutions
of the church of England, as forms and rules un-
commanded in the scriptures, they soon had the same
principle every whit as strongly, and more justly,
retorted upon themselves by some of the brotherhood
of another class, who (their interest leading them to
carry the argument much further) inferred from
thence, that tithes were to be taken away too. But
this, you will say, was a pinching, ill-natured infer
ence; and therefore the Presbyterians themselves
(who it seems could find matter, as well as form, in
the revenue, though none in the service of the
church) not only granted, but stiffly contended also,
that tithes were by all means to be continued and
retained in the house of God; especially since
they were so throughly convinced, that without
them they could not keep their own. Now that cer
tainly must needs be a very unkind and ungrateful
principle, which starves the persons who maintain
it ; and a very weak one too, which affords no con
sequences but what make for its own confutation.
It must be confessed, that the power of godliness, so
much and so often boasted of by some amongst us,

ON 2 CORINTHIANS XL 14. 489

has been a very plausible, well-sounding word ; and
many a foul fact has been committed under the
splendid cover of it. But it is now high time to
redeem truth from the slavery and cheat of words ;
and certainly that can never be imagined to be the
spirit or power of godliness, which teaches either to
rob or desert the church, and shews itself in nothing
but sacrilege and separation ; it being, no doubt, a
very odd and strange sort of zealfor God^s house,
which eats it up ; and a fire much likelier to come
from hell than heaven, which consumes the altar
itself. But,

3. The third and last principle which I shall
mention, whereby Satan has so much disturbed and
abused the world, and may (for ought appears to the
contrary) do so again, is the ascribing such a king
dom to Christ, as shall oppose and interfere with the
kingdoms and governments of the world. Christ is
indeed our king, and it is our honour and happiness
to be his subjects ; but where a zealous rebellion
destroys monarchy, it renders his greatest preroga
tive, which is to be King of kings, impossible.
There cannot, one would think, be a better design,
or a more unexceptionable pretence, than to advance
the sceptre of Christ in promoting the due authority
of his church : and yet even upon this the Devil can
forge such blessed maxims and conclusions as these.

1. That since Christ has two kingdoms in the
world, one his providential over all things, as he is
God ; the other his mediatorial, belonging to him as
head of his church, with a full subordination of the
former to this latter, during this world ; men are apt
to reckon of kings as his vicegerents only in the ad-

490 A SERMON

ministration of the former of these, but church-officers
as his deputies for governing the latter ; and conse
quently that the sceptre ought to submit to the
keys, and Christ's providential kingdom to come un
der his mediatorial : a principle which the pope and
some others (should opportunity serve) know how to
make no small use of.

2. That these ecclesiastical deputies of Christ, by
virtue of a power immediately derived from him,
may meet together, and consult about church affairs,
when and where they shall think fit, in any part or
place of their prince's dominions without his consent,
and, if they shall judge it requisite, excommunicate
him too. And then Buchanan tells the world, " that
" he who is thrown out of the church by excom-
" munication is not worthy to live." And he might,
if he had pleased, have told us also, in what soil
such doctrines root deepest and thrive best.

3. That these ecclesiastical deputies of Christ have
the sole cognizance and decisive power in all spiritual
causes, and in all civil also in ordine ad spiritualia.

4. That a minister of Christ uttering any thing,
though sedition or treason, in the execution of his
ministerial office, and in the pulpit, is not to be ac
countable for it to any civil court, but only to the
tribunal of Christ ; to wit, the church, (or, in other
words, to those who call themselves so ;) forasmuch
as the spirit of the prophets., they tell us, is to be
subject to, and judged by, only the prophets.

5. That when religion is in danger, (of which they
themselves are to be the sole judges,) they may en
gage in an oath or confederacy against the standing
laws of the country which they are actually of and

ON 2 CORINTHIANS XL 14.

491

belong to, and then plead, that they cannot in con
science turn to the obedience required by those laws,
because of the obligation of the said oath.

And now, if this be the grand charter and these
the fundamental laws of Christ's kingdom, and the
execution thereof be committed wholly to a sort of
ecclesiastics, (and those made such by none but them
selves,) it will in good earnest behove kings and
princes to turn their thrones into stools of repent
ance ; for, upon these terms, I know not where else
they can expect to sit safe. As for the late troubles
and confusions caused in these poor kingdoms by the
same rebellious ferment, and carried on much more
by black coats than by red, we shall find that they
all moved by the spring of a few specious, abused
words; such as the Spirit, Christian liberty, the
power of godliness, the sceptre and kingdom of
Jesus Christ, and the like. Touching which, it will
be found no such strange or new thing for Satan to
teach rebellion, as well as to manage a temptation, in
scripture phrase. He can trapan a Jephthah into a
vow and solemn oath, and then bind him, under fear
of perjury, to perform it by an horrid and unhuman
murder. And, in a word, by a bold and shameless
pretence of God's cause, he can baffle and break
through any of his commands.

And thus, at length, I have upon the matter des
patched what I had to say upon this text and sub
ject ; a subject of such vast importance, that it would
be but to upbraid any hearer, to enforce it by any
further argument than itself. For can we have an
higher concern at stake, than our happiness in both
worlds, or a subtler gamester to win it from us, than

492 A SERMON

he who understands his game so perfectly well, that
though he stakes nothing, yet never plays for less
than all, in any of his temptations ? Which being
our case, should not he who is so wise as to see the
danger he is in, be so wise also as not to cast the
least pleasing look or glance upon any of his insidious
offers ? especially in their first addresses, when they
paint and flatter most : considering that nothing
ever flatters, but what is false ; nor paints, but what,
without it, would appear exceeding ugly. There
cannot certainly be a greater and a juster reproach
to an intelligent being, than to barter away glory
and immortality for baubles and fancies, to lose pa
radise for an apple, to damn one's soul to please one's
palate, and, in a word, to be tempted with such pro
posals as the proposer himself shall extremely scorn
and laugh at us for accepting. For what is all this
but the height of mockery as well as misery, the very
sting of death, and like being murdered (as the best
of kings was) by a disguised executioner ? For such
an one the tempter ever was and will be ; never ac
costing us with a smile, but he designs us a stab ; nor
on the other hand ever frighting those whom he
would destroy. Such a course, he well knows, will
not do his work ; but that if he would attempt and
ruin a man effectually, silence and suddenness are
his surest ways ; and he must take heed of giving an
alarm, where he intends a surprise. No ; we may
be sure that he understands the arts of tempting too
well not to know, that the less he appears, the more
he is like to do ; and that the tempter himself is no
temptation. He is indeed an old, thoroughpaced,
experienced sophister, and has ways to make the

ON 2 CORINTHIANS XL 14. 493

very natures and properties of things equivocate.
He can, if need be, shroud a glutton in a fast, and a
miser in a feast ; and though the very nature of
swine hurries them into the foulest dirt and mire,
yet, to serve a turn, we read, he can make them run
as violently into the water.

Still his way is to amuse the world with shews
and shadows, surface and outside ; and thereby to
make good that old maxim in philosophy, that in all
that occurs to the eye, it is not substance, but only
colour and figure, which we see. This has been his
practice from the beginning, from the very infancy
and nonage of the world to this day; but whatsoever
it was then in those early times, shall we, whose lot
has cast us upon these latter ages, and thereby set
us upon their shoulders, giving us all the advantages
of warning, and observations made to our hands, all
the benefits of example, and the assurances of a long
and various experiencce ; shall we, I say, after all
this, suffer ourselves to be fooled with the wretched,
thin, transparent artifices of modern dissimulation?
with eyes turned up in prayer to God, but swelling
with spite and envy towards men ? with a purity
above mortal pitch, professed (or rather proclaimed)
in words, without so much as common honesty seen
in actions ? with reformation so loudly and spe
ciously pretended, but nothing but sacrilege and
rapine practised ?

This was the just and true character of the blessed
times of forty-one ; and one would think it a great
pity, that the same cheat should pass upon the same
nation twice. For nothing but the utter subversion
of church and state was driven at by Satan and his

494 A SERMON

instruments, in that was then done ; and lies, oaths,
and armies (raised in the strength of both) were the
means by which they effected it. In short, the na
tion was to be blindfolded, in order to its being buf
feted ; and Samson to have his eyes put out, before
he could be made fool enough to kill himself for com
pany. All grant, that the acts of the understanding
should, in order of nature, lead and go before the
acts of the will ; and accordingly Satan is always so
much a philosopher as to know, that there is no de
bauching the one, but by first deluding the other.

It is indeed no small degree of impudence, (as
common as it is,) for men to dare to own pretences
contrary to what they actually and visibly practise ;
and yet, to shew how much " the world is made for
" the bold," (as the saying is,) this has been the
constant course of it, with an unfailing success at
tending it. For as long as knaves will pretend, and
fools believe, (as it is seldom but they keep pace with
one another,) the Devil's interest is sure to be served
by both. And therefore if, after all this long scene
of fallacy and imposture, (so infinitely dishonourable
to our very nature,) we would effectually obviate the
same for the future, let us, in God's name, and in
the first place, resolve once with ourselves to act as
rational creatures ; that is to say, let us carry an
open, steady, and impartial eye upon what men do,
in spite of any thing which they shall or can say.
And in the next place, let us, as Christians, encoun
ter our grand enemy the tempter with these two best
of weapons put into our hands by the great Captain
of our salvation, watchfulness and prayer : and if, by
these blessed means, God shall discover and lay open

ON 2 CORINTHIANS XL 14. 495

to us his delusions, we may thank ourselves, if we fall
by his temptations.

To which God, the great Fountain and Father
of light, who alone can scatter all those mists
and defeat those stratagems which the prince
of darkness has hitherto blinded and abused
the world by, be rendered and ascribed, as is
most due, all praise, might, majesty, and do
minion, both now and for evermore. Amen.

A DISCOURSE

CONCERNING

OUR SAVIOUR'S RESURRECTION.

JOHN xx. 29.

Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me,
thou hast believed : blessed are they that have not seen,
and yet have believed.

, the great Sun of righteousness and Sa
viour of the world, having by a glorious rising, after
a red and a bloodj setting, proclaimed his deity to
men and angels, and by a complete triumph over
the two grand enemies of mankind, sin and death,
set up the everlasting gospel in the room of all false
religions, has now, as it were, changed the Persian
superstition into the Christian devotion ; and, with
out the least approach to the idolatry of the former,
made it henceforth the duty of all nations, Jews and
Gentiles, to worship the rising sun.

But as the sun does not display his rising to all
parts of the world together, nor to the same region
shews his whole light at the same instant ; but by
weaker glimmerings at the first, gradually ascends
to clearer and clearer discoveries, and at length
beams it forth with a full diffusion ; so Christ here
discovered himself after his rising, not to all his
apostles at once, nor to any of them with the same
evidence at first, but by several ascending instances

A SERMON ON JOHN XX. 29. 497

and arguments ; till in the end he shone out in his
full meridian, and made the proof of his resurrection
complete in his ascension.

Thomas we have one of the last in this chorus,
resolving to tie his understanding close to his senses ;
to believe no further than he could see, nor to ven
ture himself but where he could feel his way. He
would not, it seems, take a miracle upon hearsay,
nor resolve his creed into report, nor, in a word, see
with any eyes but his own. No ; he must trace the
print of the nails, follow the spear into our Saviour's
side, till he even touched the miracle, and felt the
article of the resurrection.

But as in the too inquisitive beholder, who is not
content to behold the sun by reflection, but by a di
rect intuition of his glorious body, there comes such
a light, as at the same time both informs and chas
tises the over-curious eye ; so Christ here, in his dis
covering himself to this doubting apostle, conde
scends indeed to convince him in his own way ; but
so, that while he complies with his infirmity, he also
upbraids his infidelity ; humouring his patient, but
not sparing his distemper : and yet all this with so
gentle an hand, and such an aUay of sweetness, that
the reproof is only collateral or consequential, not
directly reproaching him for his unbelief, but impli
citly reflecting upon it, by commending the belief of
others : nothing in the mean time sharp or corrosive
dropping from his healing lips, even in passing such
a reprehension upon his disciple. He only shews
him his blind side in an opposite instance, and so
leaves him to read his own case in an antithesis, and
to shame himself by a comparison.

Now, inasmuch as the distinguishing eminency of
VOL. in. K k

498 A SERMON

the blessing so emphatically here pronounced by our
Saviour upon a faith or assent springing not from
sight, but a much higher principle, must needs im
port a peculiar excellency of the said faith ; for its
surmounting all those high difficulties and impedi
ments attending it, though still with a sufficient rea
son to found it upon : (for that Christ never rewards
any thing with a blessing, but so far as it is a duty ;
nor makes any thing a duty, but what is highly ra
tional :) this, I say, is most certain. But then, as
for those various and different objects which a ge
nuine faith ought to come up to the belief of, we
must not think that the same strength, as to the
kind or degree of it, will be able to match them all ;
for even the particular resurrection of our Saviour,
and that general one of all men at the last day, will
be found to stand upon very different bottoms ; the
many difficulties, if not also paradoxes, allegeable
against the resurrection of a body, after a total dis
solution thereof, being infinitely greater and harder
to be accounted for, than any that can be brought
against the resurrection of a body never yet dis
solved, but only once again united to the soul, which
it had belonged to before.

Besides which, there have, as to this latter sort of
resurrection from the dead, been several instances of
persons so raised again, both before and in our Sa
viour's time. And in truth, as to the very notion of
the thing itself, there appears not the least contra
diction in it to any known principle of reason : no,
nor yet (which is more) does there seem any greater
difficulty to conceive how God should remand a de
parted soul into its former body, while remaining
entire and undissolved, than that after he had form-

ON JOHN XX. 29. 499

ed a body for Adam, he should presently breathe into
it (so formed) a living soul, as we read in the second
of Genesis.

So that St. Paul's question, in Acts xxvi. 8, pro
ceeded upon very obvious, as well as great reason.
Why, says he, should it be thought a thing incre
dible with you, that God should raise the dead?
pointing therein, no doubt, only to the latter sort of
resurrection, specified in the person of our Saviour,
and which alone he was at that time discoursing of.

But, on the contrary, if we consider that other
sort of resurrection of a body raised after an utter
dissolution of it into its first materials ; neither has
the world yet, as to matter of fact, ever seen any
example thereof; nor, as to the theory of the same,
does the reason of man well comprehend how it can
be done. So that the belief of this must needs have
been exceedingly more difficult than that of the
former.

Which observations having been thus premised, I
shall now proceed to close them ah1 with something
more direct to the main subject of the text, our bless
ed Saviour's resurrection : touching which, though
(as it has been already noted) his short continuance
under death fully rescued his sacred body from all
mtrefaction, and consequently rendered his resur-
>ction a thing of much easier speculation, and liable
to fewer objections, as well as attended with lesser
difficulties, than the resurrection of men's bodies,
after a total dissolution of them, can be imagined to
be: nevertheless, it being a thing so confessedly
above all the powers of nature, and so much an ex-
option from the common lot of mortality, it could
not but offer itself to the apprehensions of bare rea-

K k 2

500 A SERMON

son under great disadvantages of credibility ; espe
cially when the arguments brought from particular
attestations were to encounter the prejudice of a ge
neral experience ; nothing being more certain than
that men commonly do not so much believe or judge
of things as they really are, but as they use to be :
custom for the most part passing for the world's de
monstration, and men rarely extending their belief
beyond the compass of what they observe ; so that
bare authority urged against or beside the report of
sense, may sometimes and in some cases control, yet
it seldom convinces the judgment ; and though pos
sibly, meeting with a modest temper, it may in some
cases impose silence, yet it very rarely and hardly
procures assent.

And probably Thomas's reason, arguing from the
common topics of the world, might suggest to his
unbelief such kind of doubts and objections about
his master's resurrection as these. " Jesus of Naza-
" reth was put to death upon the cross, and being
" dead, was laid and sealed up in his sepulchre,
" strictly watched with a guard of soldiers. But I
" am told, and required to believe, that, notwith-
" standing all this, he is risen, and is indeed alive.
" Now surely things suitable to the stated course of
" nature should be believed before such as are quite
" beside it ; and for a dead man to return to life is
" preternatural ; but that those who report this may
" be mistaken, is very natural and usual. Dead I
" saw him ; but that he is risen, I only hear : in
" what I see with my eyes, I cannot easily be de-
" ceived ; but in what I only hear, I may, and often
" am.

" Neither can bare report of itself be a sufficient

ON JOHN XX. 29.

501

" reason of belief; because things confessedly false
" have been as confidently reported ; nor is any
thing, though never so strange and odd, ever al
most told of, but somebody or other is as positively
vouched to have seen it. Besides that the united
" testimony of all ages and places will not gain cre-
" dence against one particular experiment of sense ;
" and what then can the particular report of a few
" conclude against the general experience of so many
" people and nations, who had never seen any thing
" like it ?

" Moreover, as the reporters were but few, so they
" were generally looked upon as persons of little
66 depth and great simplicity, and such qualifications
" too frequently render men very credulous : they
" were also frighted and disturbed, and therefore
" the more likely to mistake ; and might likewise
" be very desirous, both for their master's honour
" and their own credit, that he should make good
" his word and promise of rising from the dead by
" an actual resurrection ; and upon that account (as
" great desire naturally disposes to a belief of the
" thing desired) they might be so much the proner
" to believe that he actually did so. But, above all,
<( why did he not, after he was risen, shew himself
" to the Sanhedrim, to the Scribes and Pharisees,
" and to the unbelieving Jews, openly in the temple
" or in the market-place ? For this doubtless would
" have been a much more effectual way of convinc-
" ing the Jews, than the bare testimony of his own
" disciples, which might be liable to many, and those
" very plausible exceptions, (with the Jews at least,)
" since nothing commonly more detracts from the

Kk 3

502 A SERMON

" credibility of a report, than the credulity of the re-
" porter.

" Besides all which, there appears also something
" of inconsistency in the main report ; for that some
" report him to have appeared in one shape, and
" some in another : whereas truth uses to be uni-
" form, and one man naturally should have but one
" shape ; all agreeing, that in the telling of any story,
" variety (especially as to the chief subject of it) is
" ever suspicious."

These and the like objections, I say, might be,
and no doubt actually were made, both by Thomas
himself, and several others, against the resurrection
of our blessed Saviour ; and how little weight soever
we may allow them in point of strict argument, they
have so much however of plausibility and verisimili
tude in them, as may well warrant that remark of
Calvin upon this subject. Namely,

" That Christ, in manifesting his resurrection to
" the world, proceeded after a very different way
" from what mere human sense or reason would pro-
" bably have suggested or looked for in such a casea."
Nevertheless, I do not much question but the fore
going objections may be fully answered and fairly
accounted for, by the respective solutions which shall
be here given of them and applied to them : and in
order to this, I shall lay down these preliminary con
siderations.

1. That the truth of a proposition being once suf-

a Quamquam aliterquam car- cult ratio, nobis quoque optima

nis nostrse sensus expeteret, re- videri debet. Calv. in Harm.

surrectionem suam Christus pa- Evangelistarum, p. 373.
tefecit ; heec tamen qute illi pla-

ON JOHN XX. 29.

ficiently and duly proved, no objections afterwards
brought against it can invalidate or disprove the
truth of the said proposition ; and consequently, that
a man is obliged to believe the same, though several
objections should be so produced against it, which
he is by no means able to answer.

2. That our Saviour, having done so many mira
culous works in the sight of his enemies, beyond all
possibility of doubt concerning them, as to matter of
fact, ought not, even by his enemies themselves, who
had been witnesses of the said works, (upon the
strictest terms of reason,) to be looked upon in this
dispute about his resurrection, as a person confined
to or acting by the bare measures of nature ; and
consequently, that all arguments against it, taken
from these measures, (they themselves being judges,)
are to be rejected, as inconclusive and impertinent.

3. That God intended not the gospel (of which
most things relating to the person and works of our
Saviour, no less than his doctrines, make an integral
part) should be received by mankind upon the evi
dence of demonstration, but by the rational assent
of faith.

4. That this faith ought to be so far under the
influence of the will, as thereby to render it an act
of choice, and consequently free; and on that ac
count fit for a reward.

5. That in order to its being so, not all possibi
lity, but only all just reason of doubting, ought to
be excluded by it, and reckoned inconsistent with it.
And,

6. And lastly, that such an irresistible, overpow
ering evidence of the object, as is conveyed to the

Kk4

504 A SERMON

mind by clear and immediate sight, is not well con
sistent with such a freedom of the act of faith as we
are now speaking of; forasmuch as it determines the
mind to an assent naturally beyond its power to
withhold or deny, let men object or pretend what
they will to the contrary.

These considerations, I say, or some of them, duly
applied, will account for every thing which is or
may be objected against the resurrection of our Sa
viour. And accordingly, in answer to the first of
the foregoing objections, to wit, that things, accord
ing to the common stated course of nature, ought to
be believed before such as are beside it ; and that it
is beside, as well as above the course of nature, for a
dead man to return to life : but that those, on the
contrary, who report such strange things, may be
deceived in what they report, is very natural and
usual.

To this I say, that although I readily grant this
latter proposition to be true ; yet the former, upon
which the objection chiefly bears, I cannot allow to be
universally so, but only cceteris paribus ; that is to
say, supposing the ground of the arguments on both
sides to be equal ; arid that for this reason, that it
is not always the bare difference of nature, in the
things or objects proposed to our belief, which is the
cause that one of them should be believed by us
rather than another ; but it is the disparity of the
grounds and motives, upon which the said things are
to be believed, which must determine our belief in
such a case. It must be confessed, that for a man
to be mistaken, or judge wrong of a thing, is but too
natural to mankind ; and that on the other side, for

ON JOHN XX. 29. 505

a man to rise from the dead, is both beside and above
nature. Nevertheless, in some cases and instances,
there may be greater reason to believe this latter, (as
strange and preternatural as it is,) than, in certain
cases, to believe some other events, though perfectly
natural. As, for instance, that Lazarus being dead,
and laid in the grave, should continue there till he
rotted to dust, was a thing in all respects according
to the course of nature ; and on the contrary, that
he should rise from thence, after he had lain there
four days, was a thing as much above and beside it :
and yet for all this, there was a great deal more rea
son for the belief of this, than of the other ; foras
much as this was undeniably attested by a multitude
of eyewitnesses, who beheld this great work, and
neither could be deceived themselves, nor have any
the least purpose of deceiving others, in what they
reported. Nor did the Jews at all except against
what was told them concerning Lazarus, upon
any of those two forementioned accounts, but fully
and firmly believed what they had heard, and that
with such an absolute assurance, that they took up
designs of killing Lazarus himself, to prevent peo
ple's flocking after him, and being converted by the
sight of him ; which, had they believed him still
dead, was surely such a method of dealing with
him, as common sense and reason would never have
thought of. But

2. Whereas the next objection represents Thomas
pleading, as a reason of his present unbelief, that he
saw our Saviour dead and buried, but only hears
that he is risen ; and that he can hardly be deceived
in what he sees, but in what he hears he easily may.

506 A SERMON

I answer, that as to the simple apprehensions of
these two senses, one takes in its respective object by
as sure a perception as the other, though perhaps
not so quick nor so refined. But the mistake in ei
ther of these is not from any failure in the bare sim
ple perception of its proper object, but from the judg
ment passed by the understanding faculty upon the
said perceptions, in wrongly affirming or denying
something concerning them. Thus in the present
case, Thomas, on the one side, had seen his Lord
dead, and buried, with his own eyes ; and on the
other, heard that he was risen from the dead, from
the mouth of several known witnesses unanimously
affirming it : in which argument the point turns not
upon this, that the sight represents and reports its
object more surely than the hearing, but upon the
qualifications of the witnesses attesting what had
passed concerning the objects of either. And this
being so much more advantageous, in point of credi
bility, on the disciples' side than on Thomas's, had
there really been an inconsistency between both
their testimonies, that of the disciples ought in
reason to have outweighed and took place of his.
But to render his unbelief so much the more inex
cusable, there was no inconsistency at all between
what had been affirmed by Thomas himself, and
what was afterwards testified by his fellow-dis
ciples. For as Thomas was an ocular witness of
Christ's death and burial, so were the other disciples
of his resurrection, having actually seen him after he
was risen. And as he had no cause to doubt of their
veracity in what they told him, so neither had he
any reason to doubt of the credibility of the thing

ON JOHN XX. 29. 507

told by them. Forasmuch as Thomas himself had
seen three instances of persons raised from the dead
by our Saviour, during the time of his converse with
him. All which must needs, upon the strictest terms
of reason, render his unbelief and doubting of our
Saviour's own resurrection (so unquestionably attest
ed) utterly indefensible. But to proceed.

3. It being above objected also, that several re
ports, found at last to be confessedly false, have yet
for some time been as confidently vouched for true,
as this now before us was or could be; and moreover,
that there is hardly any report so false, strange, and
unusual, but that some have been as positively af
firmed by others to have been eyewitnesses of the
same :

In answer to which, all this must be granted to be
extremely true, but withal nothing to the purpose,
since if it proves any thing, it must prove a great
deal too much, viz. That there is no credit to be ra
tionally given to any thing that we hear, how credi
ble soever in itself. For certain it is, that many,
even the grossest falsehoods, have been reported, re
ceived, and actually believed as true ; and many sto
ries certainly true have (for a considerable time at
least) been absolutely rejected as false : and if this
must pass for a sufficient reason to deny, or so much
as to suspect and question every thing else reported
to us to be so likewise, then farewell all rational
belief, credit, and certainty, as being hereby quite
sent packing out of the world. But

4. It is yet further argued, that as the united tes
timony and report of all places and ages will not gain
credence against so much as one particular experi
ment of sense ; so3 much less can the particular

508 A SERMON

report of a few persons conclude any thing against
the universal experience of all.

To this I answer, that the account given by those
few disciples, of our Saviour's resurrection, was so far
from being contrary to the universal experience and
sense of mankind, especially those of the Jewish
church and nation, that the Old Testament, as well
as the New, has several examples upon record, of per
sons who had been raised from the dead ; which
being so well known to the Jews, might justly pass
rather for so many proofs and confirmations of the
credibility of our Saviour's resurrection, than that our
Saviour's resurrection, after such preceding instances
of so like a nature, should be supposed to carry any
thing in it contradictory to the common sense and
opinion of the world. Besides all which, those words
of Herod, upon his hearing of the miracles of Christ,
seem here very observable. It is John, says he,
whom I beheaded ; he is risen from the dead, &c.

These words, I say, so readily uttered by him,
without any previous demur, or strain of thought,
could not but shew, that the resurrection from the
dead, of some particular persons, even as to this life,
was no such strange, unheard of notion with him
and the rest of the Jews, but that they were so far
at least acquainted with it, as to account it neither
impossible nor incredible. But

5. It is again alleged, for the invalidating of the
report made by the disciples concerning our Saviour,
that the fright and disturbance they were under,
upon our Saviour's crucifixion, and the rage ex
pressed by the Jews against his disciples, as well as
against himself, might naturally enough bring upon
them such a confusion of thought and aptness to

ON JOHN XX. 29. 509

mistake, as might very well lessen the certainty, and
consequently take off much of the credit of their
testimony.

To which I answer, that fears or frights do not
so operate upon the outward senses, as to supersede
or hinder them in their first and simple apprehen
sions of their respective objects, which are also na
turally the clearest and most impartial. I grant, in
deed, that fear, and some other passions, may so di
vert the steadiness and intention of the intellectual
judging faculty for some time, that it cannot pre
sently form so exact a judgment upon the objects
tendered to it by the senses, as otherwise it might
do. But still this is only an interruption of the
acts, rather than any disablement of the faculty;
which, as soon as the present passion is over, comes
to debate and judge of all objects presented to it, as
perfectly as it did before. It is disputed, I know,
in natural philosophy, whether the sense being duly
qualified, and the object as duly proposed, and the
medium fitted to both, the sense can be deceived in
the apprehension of its object ; and it is generally
held in the negative. But supposing that the sense
might be deceived, this would make nothing against
us in the present case ; forasmuch as natural falli
bility may very well consist with actual certainty ;
nothing being more true, than that as a man is ca
pable of being mistaken, so on the contrary he is
oftentimes actually not mistaken ; and whosoever is
not mistaken, is, as to that particular act, and with
reference to that particular object, truly and pro
perly certain. And this was the very case of the
disciples affirming Christ's resurrection, from a full
conviction of their sight and other senses ; a convic-

510 A SERMON

tion too strong and sure to admit of any reason suf
ficient to overbear it. For as to the foregoing ob
jection, from the greatness of the fear, then supposed
to have been upon them, we have shewn the weak
ness or rather nullity of that already ; and not only
so, but the very proceedings of the Jews themselves
give us an irrefragable confutation of the same.
For if a report, coming from persons under an ex
treme fear, ought upon that score to lose all credi
bility, surely this should, on a very eminent and pe
culiar occasion, have took place in the guards set by
Pilate to watch Christ's sepulchre ; who (as we read
in Matth. xxviii. 4) were seized with such an amaz
ing, dispiriting fear, that they shook, and became
as dead men. Nevertheless the priests (no fools,
though something else) looked upon them as very
credible witnesses of what they had seen, and after
wards related to them : and consequently judged
their testimony, if contrary, like to prove so disad
vantageous to their design, that they thought they
could not bribe them too high, nor buy their silence
at too dear a rate ; which, had they thought that
all that was told them was but idle tales, and
founded only in a panic, unaccountable consterna
tion, no doubt, they would never have done at such
a price. For Jews, of all men, are not wont to part
with their money for nothing, or an idle tale, which
was no more.

6. Some again argue, that since Christ had so
expressly and openly beforehand declared and fore
told his resurrection from the dead, that his adver
saries, as well as his followers, had took particular
notice thereof; no doubt his disciples thereupon
could not but be highly concerned, that their master

ON JOHN XX. 29. 511

should make good that his word and promise in the
face of the world : and accordingly (as great desire
naturally disposes to facility of belief) they might
be apt to persuade themselves, that the event had
indeed answered the prediction ; and that he was
now actually risen, as he had several times promised
them, while he livred and conversed with them.
Thus their zeal for their Lord's honour might cause
them strongly to desire, and that desire as strongly
incline them to believe, his resurrection. So, I say,
some argue.

To which I answer, that as the objection before
this represented the disciples in this whole business
as persons extremely weak, so this would represent
them as equally wicked ; the former, as men wretch
edly deceived, and this latter, as designing to deceive
others ; and that by a vile, fraudulent intrigue, con
trived and carried on by them, both for their mas
ter's and their own reputation ; an intrigue so very
fraudulent, that the known, unblemished simplicity,
integrity, and veracity of the persons concerned, and
so remarkable throughout the whole course of their
lives, makes it morally impossible, and consequently
incredible, that persons of such a character should
ever be guilty of so foul a practice and so base a
collusion. And no more needs be said for their vin
dication from so impudent a calumny. But

7. Whereas it is suggested, that nothing could
be so powerful and effectual a means to cause and
propagate a belief of Christ's resurrection, as to have
shewn himself, after he was risen, to the Scribes and
Pharisees, and the unbelieving Jews, openly in the
temple or the market-place, which yet he did not ;
I answer, that supposing that Christ, after he was

512 A SERMON

risen, had appeared so publicly amongst the Jews,
as the objection here requires, no doubt they would
have offered to lay violent hands upon him, as they
had before designed to kill Lazarus, and that for
the same reason. In which case, had our Saviour
vanished out of their sight and hands, (as question
less he would have done, and as he had once or
twice done from the eyes of his own disciples,) what
would the Jews have concluded from hence, but
that they had seen a ghost, a spectre, or apparition ?
And what conviction would that have wrought in
them ? Why, none at all, but that their senses had
been abused, and imposed upon by some magical
illusion. And what good effect could this have had
upon their minds, for the bringing them to a belief,
that Christ was truly risen ? and much less that hs
was the Messias ? which yet was the grand doctrine
to be proved by the resurrection, and of which he
had given them abundant proof before, by raising
Lazarus and others from the dead ; which yet we
find had no such effect upon the generality of them
at all. This to me seems as clear reason, and as
natural consequence, as the mind of man, in such a
case, can well be determined by. And no doubt,
Almighty God foresaw this, and many more such
consequences, which our short reason can neither
reach nor pierce into ; forasmuch as his ways and
counsels may, and ought in all reason to be allowed,
to proceed by measures quite different from ours ;
and accordingly, that he might not think fit to
vouchsafe the Jews the highest evidence of Christ's
resurrection, which it was capable of, who had re
jected such high evidence of the like nature before ;
but rather judged it enough for him to afford them

ON JOHN XX. 29. 513

such evidence of it, as was in itself sufficient to con
vince them, and consequently to render their disbe
lief thereof irrational and unexcusable ; besides that
the highest evidence of an object proposed to be be
lieved, may not consist with such a worth and merit
in the said belief, as may fit it for a reward ; as our
Saviour's words to Thomas in the text manifestly
import. From all which, I think we may, upon
solid grounds, conclude, that the foregoing objection
(how plausible soever it may seem at first) argues
nothing against the belief of our Saviour's resurrec
tion. But

8. It is moreover objected, that there is no small
disagreement found in the main report about our
Saviour's resurrection ; as, that some of his disciples
relate him to have appeared in one form, or shape,
and some in another, whereas one man naturally
can be allowed but one form and shape : and with
al, that he came in to his disciples while the doors
were shut; which seems wholly inconsistent with
the essential dimensions of an human body, which
cannot possibly pass through crevices or keyholes ;
the nature of quantity making such a penetration
confessedly impossible.

To which I answer, according to the second pre
liminary consideration above laid down by us, that
the bare measures of nature, after so many miracles
done by our Saviour on the one side, and attested
and owned by the Jews, as surpassing all power,
merely natural, on the other, ought by no means to
be a rule for us to proceed by in the present case.
And therefore, to give the objection its full force
and advantage, supposing it urged by some Jew
against the truth of Christ's resurrection, may we

VOL. III. L 1

514 A SERMON

not hereupon ask the said Jew this plain question ?
Were the Jews eyewitnesses of the miracles and su
pernatural works done by our Saviour, or were they
not ? The latter cannot possibly be said, there be
ing hardly a man in Jerusalem who had not per
sonally seen some of them done. And if the former
be granted, upon what ground of reason could those
Jews deny, but that he, who acted by such a super
natural power in some things, might as well do the
same in others ? Or pretend that he who had raised
Lazarus from the dead might not, if he pleased,
present himself in different shapes and forms ; whe
ther it were by differently qualifying his own body,
as the object then offered to be seen, or by differ
ently disposing the visive faculty and organs of sight,
in such as were to see it ? (as we read he actually
did to two of his disciples, whose eyes were so held,
that though they looked upon him, yet they could
not actually know him, Luke xxiv. 16.) And upon
the same ground likewise, might he not as well by
his supernatural power appear amongst his disciples,
while the doors were shut? John xx. 19. Though
these words, taken in sensu diviso, as the logicians
speak, and not in sensu composite, may be accounted
for upon very intelligible grounds ; that is to say,
that Christ came not through the doors continuing
shut, or through chinks, or keyholes, (as some pro
fanely word it,) while he passed into the room ; but
that, finding them shut, he, without any noise or dif
ficulty, caused them by his supernatural power to
fall open before him. And even this was enough to
surprise his disciples so far, as to fright, and make
them think that they saw a spirit. Which sense
of the words, as it is fair, and unforced, and agree-

ON JOHN XX. i><>. 515

able to the common way of speaking, so it infers not
in the least that great absurdity in philosophy, of a
penetration of bodies ; though still it must be con
fessed and owned, that, in all this dispute, our Sa
viour's body, after his resurrection, was not to be
looked upon as a natural, but supernatural body ;
that is to say, of quite different qualities from what
it had before, albeit we still grant it to have been
the same in substance. Upon which account, for
bare human reason to be able to assign what could
or could not be done by a body so supernaturally
qualified, (and as it were spiritualized,) I think it no
reproach to it at all, freely to confess itself wholly at
a loss ; and consequently, that to argue from the
state and natural properties of such bodies as we
carry about us, to those of our Saviour's body, after
he was risen from the dead, would be a manifest
transition a genere ad genus ; and so a notorious
fault, and fallacy in argumentation.

And thus, I hope, I have at length throughly ex
amined and gone over all or most of those plausible
arguments, which are or may be brought for the
justification of this doubting disciple's backwardness
in believing his master's resurrection ; and trust,
that I have given sufficient and satisfactory answers
to them all. But as for that objection, or rather
senseless lie, invented and made use of by the Jews,
(as the evangelists record,) of Christ's body being
stolen and conveyed away by his disciples in the
night, while the soldiers (set to guard it) slept;
it is attended with so many improbabilities and ab
surdities, and those not more directly contrary to
reason than to common sense and experience, that
it hardly deserves a serious confutation.

516 A SERMON

For can any man of sense imagine that the sol
diers, set to watch the sepulchre, and that with so
strict and severe an injunction of care and vigilance
from the priests and rulers of the Jews, should all of
them (and those no inconsiderable number doubtless)
fall asleep at one and the same time ? No ; it is wholly
improbable, and consequently upon no terms of rea
son supposable. Nevertheless, admitting on the other
side that so unlikely a thing had really happened,
and the soldiers had all fallen asleep, (as the story
pretends they did,) yet this could not have given the
least encouragement to the disciples (at that time
but a very few unarmed men) to venture upon such
an enterprise : forasmuch as they neither then did
nor could foresee this accident of the guards falling
asleep ; nor if, when they came upon this design,
they had found all of them actually asleep, could
they have imagined otherwise, but that the putting
of the said design in execution would have raised
such a noise, as must needs have awakened some of
the watch ; which if it had, the disciples assuredly
must and would have perished in their fool-hardy
undertaking ; though yet all this while we may very
well imagine, that even they, as well as other men,
put too great a value upon their lives, to throw them
away in so obstinate and senseless a manner. Be
sides, had the whole matter succeeded as was de
sired, can we think it morally possible, that the
Jewish priests, who had so set their hearts upon ex
posing Christ to the people for an arrant impostor,
and particularly with reference to what he had fore
told of his resurrection, would not have used their
utmost interest with Pilate, for the inflicting some
very extraordinary and exemplajy punishment upon

ON JOHN XX. 29. 517

those guards, for betraying so great a trust, as the
Jews accounted it ? But we hear of no such thing ;
but on the contrary, of a very different way of treat
ing these soldiers, from what the priests and rulers
would otherwise have certainly taken ; who, if the
said story had been true, would have been much
more liberal in scourging their backs, than they were
in oiling their hands. To all which may be added,
the utter un suitableness of the season (as a foreign
divine observes) for such a night-work ; it being then
at the time of the full moon, (when in those eastern
countries the night was almost as bright as the day,)
and withal at the time of the passover ; when Jeru
salem not able to accommodate so vast a multitude
from all parts resorting thither upon so solemn an
occasion, great companies of them (no doubt) were
walking all night about the fields and other adjacent
places ; which must needs have made it next to im
possible (if not absolutely so) for the disciples (had
they got the body of our Saviour into their hands)
to have carried it off without discovery. All which
considerations, together with many more incident to
this matter, render this Jewish story not more false
and foolish, than romantic and incredible. And ac
cordingly, as such I dismiss it.

Nevertheless, not to rest here, but having thus an
swered and removed whatsoever could with any
colour, or so much as shadow of reason, be brought
for an objection against this great article of our Sa
viour's resurrection, we shall now pass to such argu
ments as may positively prove the same ; and in order
to it, shall premise this observation ; namely, that to
constitute, or render an act of assent properly an act
of faith, this condition is absolutely necessary ; to

513 A SERMON

wit, that the ground, upon which the said assent
proceeds, be something not evident in itself. And
indeed so necessary a condition is this, that without
it faith would not be formally distinguished from
knowledge ; knowledge (properly speaking) being an
assent to a thing evidently and immediately appre
hended by us, either in itself, its causes, properties,
or effects. And upon this, and this account only,
assent is properly said to be evident. But now,
where such an evidence is not to be had, (as in
things not falling under our personal, immediate
cognizance, it is not,) then there can be no other way
of assenting to any such thing, or proposition, but
from the testimony of some one or more, who may
be rationally presumed to know it themselves ; but
then such an assent is (as we have shewn) by no
means evident, or scientifical, as not being founded
in our own, but in another's knowledge of the thing
assented to by us. Where, for our clearer under
standing of this whole matter, we ought carefully
to distinguish between these three terms, evidence.,
certainty, and firmness of assent. As to the first
of which, to wit, evidence : a thing is said to be evi
dent, when there is an immediate perception of the
object itself assented to, by an act of our sense or
reason apprehending it. And in the next place, as
for certainty of assent ; that is, when a thing is so
assented to, that although it be not in itself evident,
yet that there is a sufficient ground for such an assent,
and no rational or just ground to doubt of it; as
where a thing is affirmed or attested, either by God
himself, or by some person or persons whose credit
is unquestionable. And thirdly and lastly, firmness
of assent consists in an exclusion of all actual doubt-

ON JOHN XX. 29. 519

ing about the thing assented to ; I say actual doubt
ing, whether there be a sufficient reason against such
doubting, or no ; forasmuch as men may be every
whit as confident in a false, ungrounded belief, as in
a well-grounded and true. Now the difference be
tween these terms thus explained must, as I noted
before, be very carefully attended to, or it must
needs occasion great blunder and confusion in any
discourse of this nature. And accordingly, to apply
the forementioned terms to our present purpose, we
are to observe, that although our assent to matters
of faith be not upon grounds in themselves evident,
yet it may nevertheless be upon such as are certain ;
and not only so, but in all matters necessary to be
believed, (such as our Saviour's resurrection, and
other divine truths,) it must and ought to be suffi
cient. And the reason of this manifestly is, that if
we might be bound to assent to a thing neither
evident nor certain, we might, some time or other,
and in some cases, be bound to believe or assent
to falsehoods as well as truths; which God never
requires, as by no means obliging us to the belief
of any thing, but where there is much more reason
for our believing than our not believing it ; that
being, as I conceive, sufficient to warrant the ra
tionality of a man's proceeding in what he believes ;
especially if it be necessary, that either the affirma
tive or the negative be believed by him. And for
this cause the apostle commands us, 1 Pet. iii. 15, to
be always ready to give a reason of the hope that
is in us : and the same holds equally in faith too,
both of them resting upon the same bottom. For
neither St. Peter nor St. Paul ever enjoin belief
merely for believing's sake ; though still they are far

Ll4

520 A SERMON

enough from requiring us to give a reason of the
things we believe, (for that, I own, a Christian must
not always pretend to,) but to give a reason of his
belief of the said things. This every Christian may
and must ; for still his belief ought to be rational.

Thus far therefore have we gone, having proved,
that although the resurrection of our Saviour be a
thing in itself inevident to us now, and not shewing
itself at such a distance of time by any light either
inherent in it, or personally and immediately per
ceivable by our senses or understandings ; yet being
proposed to our belief upon certain and sufficient
grounds, it ought, according to the measure of the
said certainties, to be believed and assented to by us.
So that it remains now for us to demonstrate, that
the ground or reason, upon which we are to believe
our Saviour's resurrection, is certain, and by conse
quence sufficient. And accordingly I shall state the
belief of it upon these two arguments ; common I
confess, but never the less forcible for being so.

1. The constant, uniform affirmation and word
of those, who have transmitted the relation of it
down to posterity. For this being merely a matter
of fact, (the thing in dispute being, whether Christ
rose from the dead or no,) is by no means knowable
by us, who live at so great a distance from the time
when it came to pass, but by one of these two ways,
viz. either, 1. by immediate divine revelation ; or, 2.
by human testimony or tradition. As to the first of
which, it is not nowadays, by any of the sober pro
fessors of Christianity, so much as pretended to ; nor
if it were, ought such pretences to be allowed of.
And therefore we must fetch it from the other way,
to wit, tradition ; to the rendering of which certain,

ON JOHN XX. 29. 521

and beyond all just exception credible, these two
conditions are required.

1. That the persons, who made it, and from whom
it originally came, had sufficient means and opportu
nities to know, and to be informed of the truth of
what they reported to the world. And

2. That they were of that unquestionable sinceri
ty, as truly and impartially to report things as they
knew them, and no otherwise.

Now for the

First of these two conditions, viz. that the re
porters had sufficient opportunity to know the things
reported by them, this is undeniable ; forasmuch as
they personally conversed with Christ, and were eye
and ear-witnesses of all that was done by him, or
happened to him, as it is in the first epistle of St.
John, i. 1.3. That which we have heard, which we
have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon,
and our hands have handled, declare we unto you.
And surely, if knowledge might make a man a com
petent witness, there is none for evidence, as well as
certainty, superior to that of sense : and if the judg
ment of any one sense rightly disposed be hardly or
never deceived, surely the united judgment of them
all together must needs upon the same terms pass for
infallible, if any thing amongst us poor mortals may
or ought to be accounted so. But

2. As for the other foremen tioned condition of a
competent witness, viz. that he be a person of such
unquestionable sincerity, as to report the naked
truth of what he knows. This, with respect to the
apostles in the present case, appears in a great mea
sure from the meanness of their parts, abilities, and
education, naturally disposing men to plainness and

522 A SERMON

simplicity ; and simplicity has ever yet been ac
counted one good step to sincerity. They were
poor, mean fishermen, called in Acts iv. 13. fti&rau
Kai aypappaToi, in plain terms, persons wholly illi
terate, and unacquainted with the politic fetches of
the world, and utterly unfit to conceive, and more
unfit to manage any further design, than only to de
ceive and circumvent the contemptible inhabitants
of the watery region. And could such men, (think
we,) newly coming from their fishermen's cottages,
and from mending their nets, entertain so great a
thought, as to put an imposture upon the whole
world, and to overturn the Jewish laws, and the gen
tile philosophy, with a new religion of their own in
venting? It is not so much as credible, and much
less probable.

But besides, admitting these persons to have been
as subtle and deeply knowing, as they were in truth
shallow and ignorant, yet still they were men, and
consequently of the same passions and desires with
other men ; and being so, that they should relinquish
all the darling pleasures, profits, and accommoda
tions of life, and voluntarily expose themselves to
scorn, tortures, persecutions, and even death itself,
only to propagate a story, which they themselves
knew to be a lie, and that an absurd, insipid, incre
dible lie, (if a lie at all,) this certainly was a thing
unnatural, and morally impossible. For can any
man, not abandoned by the native sense of man,
bring himself to be in love with a gibbet, or ena
moured with a rack ? Can these tortures, which are
even able to make a man abjure the truth, allure
him to own and assert, and even die for a lie ?
Wherefore, there being no imaginable objection

ON JOHN XX. 29. 523

against the disciples' sincerity and veracity, (which
was the other qualification of a competent witness
mentioned by us,) it follows, that their testimony
concerning our Saviour's resurrection is to be ac
cepted and believed as true, certain, and unexcep
tionable. And so much for the first argument.
But

2. The other argument shall be taken from those
miraculous works, by which the apostles confirmed
the testimony of their words. He who affirms a
thing, and to prove the truth of it does a miracle,
brings God as a voucher of the truth of what he
says. And therefore he who shall affirm, that the
apostles proclaimed to the world things false, must
affirm also, that they did all those miracles by their
own or the Devil's power ; or if they did them by
God's, then that God lent the exercise of his power
to impostors, to confirm and ratify the publication of
a lie, for the beguiling and deceiving of mankind ;
and that in a matter of the highest and most im
portant concern to them that can possibly be.
Which is so blasphemous for any one to assert, and
so impossible for God to do, that the very thought
of it is intolerable.

So that now the only thing remaining for our full
conviction, is to shew that there is sufficient reason
to persuade men, that such miracles were really
done by the apostles, to confirm the doctrines de
livered by them. And for this we are to hear the
only proof which things of this nature are capable
of; to wit, the voice of general, long continued, and
uninterrupted antiquity; that is to say, the united
testimony of so many nations, for so many ages sue-

524 A SERMON

cessively, all jointly agreeing in one and the same
report about this matter ; which report, if it were
untrue, must needs have been framed by combina
tion and compact amongst themselves. But that so
many nations of such various tempers, such dif
ferent interests, and such distant situations from one
another, should be able all to meet and combine
together, to abuse and deceive the world with a
falsehood, is upon all the rules and principles of
human reasoning incredible. And yet, on the other
side, that this could be done without such a previous
combination is still more incredible ; and conse
quently, that neither the one nor the other ought
to be reckoned in the number of those things which
we account possibilities. And now all that has
been disputed by us hitherto, with reference to the
apostles and disciples, as to their believing and
preaching Christ's resurrection to the world, may
be naturally drawn from, and as naturally resolved
into these following conclusions.

1. That no man of common sense or reason un
dertakes any action considerable, but for the obtain
ing to himself some good, or the serving some inte
rest thereby, either in this world or in the next.

2. That our Saviour's disciples, though they bore
no character for political knowledge or depth of
learning, yet shewed themselves, in the whole course
of their behaviour, men of sense and reason, as well
as integrity.

3. That being such, and so to be considered, had
they known Christ's resurrection to have been a
falsehood, they would never have preached it to the
world, to the certain bringing upon themselves there-

ON JOHN XX. 29. 525

by the extremity of misery and persecution in this
life, and a just condemnation from Almighty God in
that to come.

4. That had the resurrection of our Saviour been
indeed false and fabulous, his disciples could not but
have known it to be so.

To which I shall add the

Fifth, that in things proposed to our belief, a man
safely may, and rationally ought to yield his assent
to that, which he finds supported with better and
stronger arguments (though short of a demonstra
tion) than any that he sees producible against it.

From all which it follows, that our Saviour's re
surrection having been attested by persons so un-
exceptionably qualified for that purpose, whether we
consider the opportunities they had of knowing
throughly the things testified by them, or their
known sincerity and veracity in reporting what
they knew, as likewise the miraculous works done
by them, in confirmation of what they delivered, and
all this brought down to us by unanimous, undis
puted tradition ; and moreover, since such tradition
has greater ground for its belief, than the discourse
of any man's particular reason can suggest for its
disbelief, (universal tradition being less subject to
error and fallacy than such discourses or argumenta
tions can pretend to be;) and lastly, since it is a
manifest absurdity in reasoning, to reject or dis
believe that, which a man has more ground and
reason to believe than to disbelieve ; I conclude
that the doctrine of the apostles concerning our
Saviour's resurrection ought, upon the strictest terms
of reasoning, to be believed and assented to, as a
most certain, irrefragable, and uncontestable truth ;

526 A SERMON

which I take to be the grand conclusion to be proved
by us.

In fine, if I have brought the point hitherto dis
puted of, so far as to make it appear that there are
greater and stronger arguments for the belief of our
Saviour's resurrection, than for the doubting of it,
(as I hope I have effectually done,) I conceive this to
be sufficient in reason to strip men of all justifica
tion of their unbelief of the same, and consequently
to answer all the great ends of practical religion, the
prime business and concern of mankind in this
world. Albeit it must be still confessed, (as we
have noted from Calvin before,) that there are seve
ral passages relating to this whole matter, neither so
demonstrative, nor yet so demonstrable, as might be
wished. Nevertheless, since it has pleased Almighty
God to take this and no other method in this great
transaction, I think it the greatest height of human
wisdom, and the highest commendation that can be
given of it, to acquiesce in what the divine wisdom
has actually thought the most fit in this affair to
make use of.

And now to close up the whole discourse; with
what can we conclude it better, than with a due en
comium of the superlative excellency of that mighty
grace, which could and did enable the disciples so
firmly to believe, and so undauntedly to own and
attest their belief of their blessed master's resurrec
tion ? and that in defiance of the utmost discourage
ments, which the power, malice, and barbarity of the
bitterest enemies could either threaten or encounter
human nature with.

And to advance the worth of this faith, if possible,
yet higher, we are to know, that it consists not (as

ON JOHN XX. 29. 527

has been hinted already) in a bare act of assent or
credence, founded in the determining evidence of
the object, but attended also with a full choice and
approbation of the will, for that otherwise it could
not be an act properly free ; nor consequently va
luable (and much less meritorious) in the esteem of
God or man. And therefore some of the ablest of
the schoolmen resolve faith, not into a bare credence,
or act of the understanding only, but also into a
pious disposition of the will, preventing, disposing,
and, as it were, bending the former, to close in with
such propositions, as bring with them a suitableness
as well as truth ; and it is not to be doubted, but in
clination gives a powerful stroke and turn towards
credence, or assent. So that while truth claims and
commands the same, and suitableness only draws
and allures it, yet in the issue this obtains it as ef
fectually as even truth itself. Not that I affirm, or
judge, that in strictness of reason this ought to be
so, but that through the infirmity of reason it is but
too manifest, that very often (if not generally) it
falls out to be so.

In the mean time we may here see and admire
the commanding, and (I had almost said) the meri
torious excellency of faith. That while carnal rea
son argues, sense is stubborn and resists, and many
seeming impossibilities occur, it can yet force its
way through all such obstacles, and like Lazarus,
(though bound hand and foot, as it were,) break even
through mortality and death itself.

But as for those whom nothing will satisfy but
such a faith as shall outvie omnipotence itself, by
believing more than even omnipotence can do, I
mean contradictions, and especially that grand as-

528 A SERMON

tonishing one to all human reason, called transub-
stantiation; we poor Christians, I say, of a much
lower form, presume not to aspire to such a pitch,
and sort of faith ; but think it sufficient humbly to
own and admire that faith, which the apostle tells
us can make its way, through the whole eleventh
chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews, and that by
subduing of kingdoms, putting to flight armies, and
not only believing, but also working miracles, and
that to such a degree, as even to become a miracle
itself. For (as we read there also) it was able to
stop the mouths of lions ; and, which was more, the
mouth of a disputing reason. And certainly that
faith, which our Saviour told us could remove moun
tains , might, (had our Saviour but given the word,)
without the interposal of an angel, have removed
also the stone from before the door of his sepulchre,
as great as it was.

He who would have a masculine, invincible faith
indeed, must in many cases balk his sight, and the
further he would leap, the shorter he must look.
Christ wrought many of his miraculous cures upon
such blind men as believed : and as their faith con
tributed not a little to the curing of their blindness,
so their blindness seemed a no improper emblem of
their faith.

For which reason, may not he who requires no
less than a sensible, irresistible evidence for all his
principles, and, not content with a sufficient cer
tainty for the same, will be satisfied with nothing
under strict syllogism and demonstration for every
article of his creed ; may not such an one, I say,
be very pertinently and justly replied to, in those
words of our Saviour to the Jews, What do you more

ON JOHN XX. 29. 529

than others 9 And yet further, would not even the
heathens and ancient philosophers have done as
much ? Would not they have believed whatsoever
you could have demonstrated to them? allowed
you so much persuasion for so much proof? and so
much assent for so much evidence ? And in a word,
would not Aristotle himself have been convinced
upon the same terms on which Thomas the dis
ciple was ?

But a Christian should go a large step higher and
further, read all his credenda in an avrog fyy, sa
crifice even his Isaac, the first-begotten of his reason,
and most beloved issue of his brain, whensoever
God shall think fit to be honoured with such a
victim. For such a belief, though it has not the
evidence of sight, yet it has all which sight and
evidence can be valued for ; that is to say, it has
something instead of it, and above it too ; so that
where sense and carnal reason oppose themselves,
fly back, and will by no means yield, faith comes in
with the demonstration of the Spirit and power,
scatters the dark cloud, and clears up all.

And in nothing certainly is the heroic excellency
of such an entire submission of our reason to divine
revelation so eminently shewn, as in this, that a man
hereby ventures himself and his eternal concerns
wholly upon God's bare word ; and questionless
nothing can so powerfully engage one of a generous
spirit, even amongst men, as an absolute confidence
in him, and an unreserved dependence upon him.
And if there be any way possible for a creature to
oblige his Creator, it must be this.

Wherefore let us, in this state of darkness and
mortality, rest content to see the great things of our

VOL. in. M m

530 A SERMON ON JOHN XX. 29.

religion, but in part, to understand the resurrection
but darkly, and to view the rising sun (as I may so
express it) but through a crevice, still remembering,
that God has in this world appointed faith for our
great duty, and in the next, vision for our reward.

To which may He, of his infinite mercy, vouchsafe,
in his good time, to bring us all ; to whom be
rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all
praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now
and for evermore. Amen.

A SERMON

PREACHED AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY,

NOVEMBERS, 1663.

ROMANS xiii. 5.

Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but
also for conscience sake.

JL HIS chapter is the great and noted repository of
the most absolute and binding precepts of allegiance,
and seems so fitted to this argument, that it ought
to be always preached upon, as long as there is
either such a thing as obedience to be enjoined, or
such a thing as rebellion to be condemned.

In the words that I have pitched upon, there are
these two parts.

1. A duty enjoined; ye must needs be subject.

2. The ground of motive of that duty ; for con
science sake.

For the first of these. Since men are apt to draw
arguments for or against obedience from the qualifi
cations of the persons concerned in it, we will consi
der here,

1. The persons who are commanded to be sub
ject.

2. The person to whom they are commanded this
subjection.

1. For the persons commanded to be subject,
they were believers, the faithful, those who were the

M m 2

532 A SERMON

church of God in Rome, as we see in chap. i. 7? Be
loved of God, called to be saints. Neither were
they saints only, but saints of the first rank and mag
nitude, heroes in the faith ; verse 8, Your faith is
spoken of throughout the whole world. Their faith
made Rome no less the metropolis of Christianity,
than of the world. The Roman faith and fortitude
equally spread their fame. And as the pagan Ro
mans overcame the world by their fortitude, so did
the Christians by their faith.

But for the modern Roman saints, it is their pow
der, not their faith, that has made such a report in
the world ; a race much different from their primi
tive ancestors, wrhose piety could not cancel their
loyalty. No religion could sanctify treason ; Chris
tian liberty was compatible with the strictest allegi
ance ; they knew no such way as to put the sceptre
into Christ's hand, by pulling it out from their
prince's.

2. In the next place ; the person to whom they
were commanded to be subject was Nero ; a person
so prodigiously brutish, that, whether we consider
him as a man or as a governor, we shall find him a
Nero, that is, a monster, in both respects.

And first, if we consider his person ; he was such
a mass of filth and impiety, such an oglio of all ill
qualities, that he stands the wonder and the disgrace
of mankind. For, to pass over his monstrous ob
scenity, he poisoned Britannicus for having a better
voice ; he murdered his tutor Seneca ; he kicked his
wife big with child to death ; he killed his mother,
and ript her up in sport, to see the place where he
lay : so impious, that he would adore the statues of
his gods one day, and piss upon them another. But

ON ROMANS XIII. 5. 533

then, take him as an emperor, and he was the ve
riest tyrant and bloodsucker, the most unjust gover
nor that ever the world saw : one, who had proceeded
to that enormity, that the very army, the only prop
of his tyranny, deserted him ; and the senate sen
tenced him to be ignominiously drawn upon a hur
dle, and whipt to death.

He was one, who had united in himself the most
different and unsociable qualities, namely, to be ridi
culous and to be terrible ; for what more ridiculous
than a fiddling emperor, and more terrible than a
bloody tyrant ? In short, he was the plague of the
world, the stain of majesty, and the very blush of
nature. One, who seemed to be sent and prepared
by Providence, to give the world an experiment,
quid summa mtla in summa for tuna possint ; and
by a new way of confirmation, to seal to the truth of
Christianity by his hatred of it.

And yet after all this, the believing Romans are
commanded subjection even to this Nero, the best of
saints to the worst of men : and indeed it was this
that gave a value to their obedience ; for to be loyal
to a just, gentle, and virtuous prince, is rather privi
lege than patience. But the reason of the whole
matter is stated in these words, verse 1, The powers
that are, are ordained of God. Obedience to
the magistrate is obedience to God at the second
hand ; and as a man cannot be so wicked, so dege
nerate, but that still he is a man by God's creation ;
so neither can the magistrate be so vile and unjust,
but that still he is an officer by God's institution.
And it is no small part of the divine prerogative, to
be able to command homage to the worst of kings,
as the majesty of a prince is never more apparent,
M m 3

534 A SERMON

than in his subjects' submission to an unworthy de
puty or lieutenant. The baseness of the metal is
warranted by the superscription, the office hallows the
person ; neither is there any reason, that the vileness
of one should disannul the dignity of the other ; for
asmuch as he is made wicked by himself or the De
vil, but he is stampt a magistrate by God. We are
therefore to overlook all impieties and defects, which
cannot invalidate the function. Though Nero de
serves worthily to be abhorred, yet still the emperor
is and ought to be sacred. And thus much for the
duty, and the persons to whom it relates. Ye must
needs be subject.

%. I come now to the second part, viz. the ground
or motive upon which this duty is enforced ; Ye must
needs be subject for conscience sake. A strange
argument, I must confess, if we were to transcribe
Christianity from the practice of modern Christians,
with whom it would proceed thus rather ; Ye must
needs shake off all government, and rebel for con
science sake. No such instrument to carry on a re
fined and well-woven rebellion, as a tender con
science and a sturdy heart. He who rebels con
scientiously, rebels heartily ; such an one carries his
god in his scabbard, and his religion upon the point
of his sword. He strikes every stroke for salvation,
and wades deep in blood for eternity. But what
now must be said of those impostors, who, in the
name of God, and with pretended commissions from
Heaven, have bewitched men into such a religious
rage ? Who have preached them out of the deadly
sin of allegiance into the angelical state of faction
and rebellion ? Whose saints were never listed but
in the muster-roll for the field; and whose rubric is

ON ROMANS XIII. 5. 535

writ only with letters of blood. I believe, upon a
due survey of history, it will be found, that the most
considerable villainies which were ever acted upon
the stage of Christendom, have been authorized with
the glistering pretences of conscience, and the intro
duction of a greater purity in religion. He who
would act the destroyer, if he would do it effectually,
should put on the reformer ; and he who would be
creditably and successfully a villain, let him go
whining, praying, and preaching to his work ; let
him knock his breast and his hollow heart, and pre
tend to lie in the dust before God, before he can be
able to lay others there.

But some may reply and argue, that conscience is
to be obeyed, though erroneous ; and therefore, if a
saint (for with some all rebels are such) stands fully
persuaded in his conscience, that his magistrate is an
enemy to the gospel and the kingdom of Jesus Christ,
and so ought to be resisted ; is not such an one en
gaged to act according to the dictates of his con
science ? And since God would punish him for going
against it, is it not high tyranny for the magistrate
to punish him for complying with it ?

To this I answer, that he who looks well into
this argument, looks into the great arcanum and
the sanctum sanctorum of Puritanism ; which in
deed is only reformed Jesuitism, as Jesuitism is no
thing else but popish Puritanism : and I could draw
out such an exact parallel between them, both as to
principles and practices, that it would quickly ap
pear, that they are as truly brothers, as ever were
Romulus and Remus ; and that they sucked their
principles from the same wolf.

But to encounter the main body of the argument,
M m 4

536 A SERMON

which, like the Trojan horse, carries both arms and
armed men in the belly of it, I answer, that to act
against conscience, erroneous or not erroneous, is
sinful ; but then the error adds nothing to the ex-
cusableness of the action, when the same charge of
sin lies upon the conscience for being erroneous.
No man can err in matters of constant duty, which
God has laid open to an easy and obvious discern
ment, but he errs with the highest malignity of wil-
fulness ; and if any plea to the contrary be admitted,
it will unhinge all society, and dissolve the bonds of
all the governments in the world.

The magistrate is to take no notice of any man's
erroneous conscience, but (if reason and religion will
not set it right) to rectify or convince it with an
axe or the gibbet. He who would without control
disturb a government, because his erroneous con
science tells him he must, does all one as if he should
say, that it is lawful for a man to commit murder,
provided that he who does it be first drunk. It
were a sad thing, if the laws should be at a stand,
and the weal public suffer, because such and such
persons are pleased to be in an error ; (though, by
the way, they are seldom or never seen to be so, but
very beneficially to themselves.) He who brings
down the law to the exceptions of any man's con
science, does really place the legislative power in
that man's conscience; and by so doing, may at
length bring down his own neck to the block. For
certainly that subject is advanced to a strange de
gree of power, whose conscience has a prerogative to
command the laws.

And I do not expect ever to speak a greater truth
than this, that the non-execution of the laws upon

ON ROMANS XIII. 5. 537

such hypocrites has been the fatal cause which drew
after it the execution of the supreme legislator a him
self; and believe it, if a governor ever falls into the
mercy of such persons, he will find that their hands
are by no means so tender as their consciences pre
tend to be. All indulgences animate such persons,
but mend them not; all reconcilements, and little
puny arts of accommodation, are but as spiders' webs,
which such hornets will quickly break through, and
as truces to an old enemy to rally up his forces, and
to fall on, when he sees his advantage : nothing will
hold a sanctified, tender-conscienced rebel, but a pri
son or a halter. And these are not angry words,
but the oracular responses and bitter truths of a long
and bleeding experience ; an experience which be
gan in a rebellion against an excellent prince, pro
ceeded to his imprisonment, and concluded in his
murder.

But because conscience is a relative term, and so
must refer to something which it is to be conversant
about, I shall shew, that men are commanded a sub
jection to, and dehorted from a resistance of the civil
magistrate, by two things.

1. The absolute unlawfulness ; and,

2. The scandal of such a resistance.

1 . For the first of these, its absolute unlawfulness.
Rebellion surely is a mortal sin ; mortal to the rebel,
and mortal to the prince rebelled against. It is the
violation of government, which is the very soul and
support of the universe, and the imitation of Provi
dence. Every lawful ruler holds the government by
a certain deputation from God ; and the commission
a King Charles the First.

538 A SERMON

by which he holds it is his word. This is the voice
of scripture, this is the voice of reason. But yet we
must not think to carry it so ; for although in the
apostles' time this was divinity and truth, yea, and
truth also stampt with necessity, yet we have been
since taught, that kings may be lawfully resisted,
cast off, and deposed ; and that by two sorts of men.

1. The sons of Rome : and,

£. Their true offspring, the sons of Geneva.

1. For the first of these. It would be like the
stirring of a great sink, which would be likelier to
annoy than to instruct the auditory, to draw out
from thence all the pestilential doctrines and prac
tices against the royalty and supremacy of princes.

Gratian, in the Decrees, expressly says, Imperator
potcst a papa deponi. And Boniface VIII. in lib.

1. Extrav. Com. titulo de Majoritate et Obedien-
tia, has declared the subjection, or rather the slavery
of princes to the pope fully enough. 1. For first he
tells us, that kings and secular powers have the tem
poral sword, but to be used ad nutum sacerdotis.

2. He adds, Porro subesse Romano pontifici omni
humance creatures, declaramus, dicimus, definimus,
et pronuntiamus omnmo esse de necessitate sa-
lutis.

And how far princes are to be under him, we have
a further account. 1. They ought to kiss his feet.
2. He may depose them. 3. No prince may repeal
his sentence, but he may repeal the sentences of all
others. 4. He may absolve subjects from their alle
giance. These, arid some such other impious posi
tions, they call diet at us papce ; and were published
and established by pope Gregory VII. in the Roman

ON ROMANS XIII. 5. 539

synod, in the year one thousand seventy-six, as Ba-
ronius tells us, ad annum Christi millesimum sep-
tuagesimum sextum. Numero trices. lmo et trices.
2do.

And that we may see that he was not wanting to
execute, as much as he had the face to assert, Pla-
tina tells us in his Life how he deposed Henry IV.
ernperor of Germany ; and some of the words of his
bull are these : Henricum imperatoria admmistra-
tione, regiaque dejicio. Et Christianas omnes im-
perio subjectosjuramento absolvo. The whole bull
is extant in the bullery of Laertius Cherubinus, torn,
i. p. 12, printed at Rome 1617. And then at last,
with an equal affront to the majesty of scripture, as
well as to that of princes, he put his foot upon the
emperor's neck, quoting that passage in the psalm,
Super aspidem et basiliseum; Thou shalt tread upon
the asp and the basilisk; a great encouragement
surely for princes to turn papists. But to contain
ourselves within our own country, where we are
most concerned. The pope, we know, deposed king
Henry VIII. and queen Elizabeth, as far as the words
and the bruta fulmina of his bulls could depose
them ; absolving their subjects from their allegiance,
and exposing their dominions to the invasion of any
who could invade them. The words of Pius V. in
his bull against queen Elizabeth, are remarkable;
which, translated into English, run thus : " Christ,
" who reigns on high, and to whom all power in
" heaven and earth is given, has committed the go-
" vernment of the one catholic and apostolic church
" only to Peter, and his successor the pope of Rome.
" And him has he placed prince over all nations and

540 A SERMON

" kingdoms, to pluck up, destroy, scatter, overturn,
" plant, and build up ; in order to the keeping of
" God's faithful people in the bond of charity and in
" the unity of the spirit."

And is not this a bold preface, able to blast the
prerogative of all kings at a breath ? But it is well
that cursed bulls have short horns. Yet all this is
but the voice of his thunder; the bolt is to come
afterwards. Let us see how he proceeds.

" Wherefore, (says he,) being upheld in the su-
" preme throne of justice by Christ himself, who has
" placed us in it, we declare the aforesaid Elizabeth
" an heretic, and all who adhere to her to have in-
" curred an anathema, and to be actually divided
" and cut off from the unity of Christ's body. More-
" over, we declare her to be deprived of all right to
" her kingdom, and of all dominion, dignity, and
" privilege belonging thereto. Withal, that the sub-
" jects of that kingdom, and all others, who have
" any ways swore obedience to her, are fully ab-
" solved from their oath, and from all debt of ho-
" mage and allegiance to her ; and accordingly by
" these presents we do absolve them. Furthermore,
" we charge and enjoin all her subjects to yield
" no obedience to her person, laws, or commands.
" Given at Rome, in the year 1575, in the fifth year
" of the pope's reign, and the thirteenth of queen
" Elizabeth's."

It is possible now that some English and French
papists may dislike this doctrine of deposing kings ;
but they owe this to their own good natures, or some
other principle ; or indeed chiefly to this, that they
live under such kings as will not be deposed. But

ON ROMANS XIII. 5. 541

that they owe it not to their religion, which (by little
less than a contradiction in the terms) they miscall
catholic, is clear from hence, that by the very essen
tial constitution of their faith, they are bound to be
lieve and to submit both their judgments and prac
tices to all that is determined by a general council
confirmed by the pope. This being premised, we
must know, that the fourth Lateran council, which
they acknowledge general, and to have had in it
above twelve hundred fathers, (as they call them,) in
the third chapter de Hcereticis, thus determines :
" That all secular powers shall be compelled to take
" an oath to banish heretics out of their territories.
" Moveantur, et, si necesse fuerit, compellantur
"potentates sceculares^ cujuscunque sint officii, ut
" pro defensione fidei publice juramentum prce-
" stent" &c. But what now, if persons will not do
this ? If they refuse to be thus commanded like sub
jects, and to place their royal diadems upon their
bald pates.

Why then the fathers, or rather the lords of the
council thus proceed : " If (say they) princes refuse
" to purge their dominions from heresy, let this be
" signified to the pope, that he may forthwith de-
" clare their subjects absolved from their allegiance,
" and expose their territories to be seized upon by
" catholics."

This is the canon of that concilium Lateranum
magnum, (for so they term it,) in which were above
twelve hundred fathers, (so they tell us,) a council
by them acknowledged to be general, and confirmed
by the pope. Now I demand, is this council infal
lible, or is it not ?

1. If not, then good night to their infallibility, if

542 A SERMON

the pope and twelve hundred fathers, met together
in a general council, be not infallible.

2. If it be infallible, (as they all do and must say,
unless they will deny a fundamental article of their
faith,) then they must all believe it, and by conse
quence acknowledge, that the pope has power to ex
communicate and depose kings, and to give away
their kingdoms, in case of heresy ; and what heresy
is, they themselves are to be judges : this we may be
sure of, that ah1 protestant kings are heretics with
them ; and so the pope may, when he will, and un
doubtedly will, when he can, give away their king
doms. I think it concerns kings to consider this,
and when they have a mind to submit to the pope's
tyranny, to subscribe to the pope's religion.

Thus much for the Lateran council ; and to place
the argument above all exception, this very coun
cil is expressly confirmed by that of Trent, in the
24th Session of Reformation, chap. 5, p. 412 ; also
in the 25th Session about Reformation, chap. 20,
p. 624.

Now shew me any thoroughpaced catholic, who
dares refuse to subscribe to the council of Trent ;
which being so, it is a matter of amazement to con
sider, that the men of this profession should be of
such prodigious impudence as to solicit any protest-
ant prince for protection, nay indulgences to their
persons and religion ; when, by virtue of this reli
gion, they hold themselves bound, under pain of dam
nation, to believe those principles as articles of their
faith, which naturally undermine, ruin, and eat out
the very heart of all monarchy. But if any one
should plead favour for them, it is pity but these
bulls and decrees, and the Scotch covenant, were all

ON ROMANS XIII. 5. 543

drawn into one system, that so they might be in
dulged all together ; and perhaps in time they may.
You have seen here their principles, i. e. you have
heard the text ; and you need go no further than
this fifth of November for a comment.

I could further add, that the popish religion, in
the nature of it, is inconsistent with the just rights
and supremacy of princes ; and that upon this invin
cible reason, that it exempts all the clergy from sub
jection to them, so far that (be their crimes what
they will) kings cannot punish them. For the proof
of which, I shall bring that which is instar omnium,
and which I am sure they must stand to, viz. the
decree of the council of Trent, which in the 24th
Session about Reformation, chap. 5, p. 412, deter
mines thus : Causes criminates may ores contra epi-
scopos ab ipso tantum summo pontifice Romano cog-
noscantur et terminentur; minor es vero in concilio
tantum provinciali cognoscantur et terminentur.
So that the king, for any thing that he has to do in
these matters, may sit and blow his nails ; for use
them otherwise he cannot. He may indeed be plot
ted against, have barrels of powder laid, and po
niards prepared for him : but to punish the sacred
actors of these villainies, that is reserved only to
him who gave the first command for the doing
them.

These things, I say, I could prosecute much fur
ther, but that I am equally engaged by the exigence
of my subject to speak something of their true seed,
the sons of Geneva ; who, though they seem to be
contrary to those of Rome, and, like Samson's foxes,
to look opposite ways, yet, when they are to play the

544 A SERMON

incendiaries, to fire kingdoms and governments, they
can turn tail to one and the same firebrand.

In our account of these, we will begin with the
father of the faithful ; faithful, I mean, to their old
antimonarchical doctrines and assertions ; and that
is, the great mufti of Geneva : who, in the fourth
book of his Institutions, chap. 20. $.31, has the face
to own such doctrine to the world as this. " That
" it is not only not unlawful for the three estates to
" oppose their king in the exorbitances of his go-
" vernment, (of which they still are to be judges,)
" but that they basely and perfidiously desert the
" trust committed to them by God, if they connive
" at him, and do not to their utmost oppose and re-
" strain him."

Let us see this wholesome doctrine and institution
further amplified in his Commentaries upon Daniel,
chap. 2, verse 39. He roundly tells us, " That those
" men are out of their wits, and quite void of sense
" and understanding, who desire to live under so-
" vereign monarchies ; for that it cannot be (says
" he) but order and policy must decay, where one
" man holds such an extent of government."

Upon this good foundation he proceeds further,
chap. 6. verse 22. " Princes, (says he,) when they
" oppose God, (and oppose God, according to him,
" they do, when they refuse his new discipline,)
" then, (says he,) abdicant se potestate, they deprive
" themselves of all power ; and it is better, in such
" cases, to spit in their faces, than to obey them."
Yet for all this, Daniel, who surely was as godly
a man as Mr. Calvin, did not spit in Nebuchadnez
zar's face.

ON ROMANS XIII. 5. 545

But that we may know when princes oppose
God, and so may bring his assertions together, he
tells us further, chap. 5, verse 25, "That kings forget
" that they are men, and of the same mould with
" others : they are (says he) styled Dei gratia ; but
" to what sense or purpose, save only to shew, that
" they acknowledge no superior upon earth ? Yet
" under colour of this, they will trample upon God
" with their feet ; so that it is but an abuse when
" they are so called." It seems then, we must lay
aside all appellations of honour, and hereafter say
only, Good man such an one, king of England, or
Laird such an one, king of Scotland. But let us fol
low him a little further ; where in the same chapter
we shall see him go on thus. " See (says he) what
" the rage and madness of all kings is, with whom
" it is a common thing to exclude God from the go-
" vernment of the world." Again, chap. 6, verse
25, " Darius (says he) will condemn by his example
" all those that profess themselves at this day ca-
" tholic kings, Christian kings, and defenders oft>lie
"faith, and yet do not only deface and bury all
" true piety and religion, but corrupt and deprave
" the whole worship of God."

Could any thing be with greater virulence thrown
at all the princes of Christendom than this ? And
yet I believe there is never a puritan or dissenter in
England, but would lick his spittle in every one of
these assertions.

But let us now rally them together into one argu
ment. When princes oppose God, we are not (in
Calvin's judgment) to obey them, but to spit in their
faces. But now, to exclude God from his govern
ment of the world, and to corrupt his whole worship,

VOL. in. N n

546 A SERMON

(which he affirms all princes do,) is surely to oppose
God: and therefore, according to his doctrine,
joined with his good manners, we are not to obey
them, but spit in their faces. A doctrine fit only to
come from him, who nested himself into the chief
power of Geneva after the expulsion of the lawful
prince.

In the last place, to speak one word of his epistles,
which were published by Beza ; one who had been
a long time licked by him into his own form, and
so was likely to do him what advantage he could in
their publication : he who shall diligently read
them will find, that there was scarce any traitorous
design on foot in Christendom, but there are some
traces of correspondence with it extant in those
epistles.

And so we dismiss him. Beza his disciple suc
ceeds him both in place and doctrine ; and to shew-
that he does so, he expressly owns and commends
the French rebellion, in his epistle before his Anno
tations. And in the forty Articles of Berne, pub
lished in the year 1574, and drawn up by Beza, in
the fortieth article he affirms, (S that they were
" bound not to disarm, so long as their religion was
" persecuted by the king."

If we would now see how this doctrine grew, be
ing transplanted into Scotland ; Knox, in his book
to the nobility and people of Scotland, in the point
of obedience to kings, instructs them thus : " Nei-
" ther promise (says he) nor oath can oblige any
" man to obey or give assistance unto tyrants
" against God." And what tyrants were in his
sense, his practices against the queen regent suf
ficiently shew.

ON ROMANS XIII. 5. 54?

In the next place, Buchanan, who was once pro
locutor of the Scotch assembly, that is to say, some
thing greater than their king, is copious upon this
subject, in his history of Scotland, and in his book
de jure regni, &c. In the former of which, at the
372d page, he wonders that there is not some pub
lic reward appointed for those private men that
should kill tyrants, as there is for those that kill
wolves. And in his book de jure regni, he main
tains an excellent dispute against such as defend
kings. The royal advocates, says he, hold, that
kings must be obeyed, good or bad. It is blasphemy
to affirm that, says Buchanan. But God placeth
oftentimes evil kings, say the royal advocates : so
doth he often private men to kill them, says Bucha
nan. But in 1 Timothy we are commanded to pray
for princes, say they : so are we commanded to pray
for thieves, says he; but yet may hang them up,
when we catch them. But, say the royal advocates,
St. Paul strictly commands obedience to all princes :
St. Paul wrote so, says Buchanan, in the infancy of
the church, when they were not able to resist them;
but if he had lived now, he would have wrote other
wise.

Now, if this be their prolocutor's doctrine, I leave
it to any one to judge, whether every king has not
cause to take up those words of Jacob to Simeon
and Levi, with a little change; O my soul, come
not thou into their secret, and unto their general
assembly, mine honour, be not thou united.

But that we may come home to the very place
of my text ; I shall produce one more of them, and
that is Pareus ; a German divine, but fully cast into
the Geneva mould. He in his comment upon Romans

N n 2

548 A SERMON

xiii. full fraught with a pestilent discourse against
the sovereignty of kings, assigns several cases in
which their subjects may lawfully take up arms
against them, page 1338. As 1. "If their prince
" blasphemes God, or causes others to do so. 2. If
" he does them some great injury : his words are, Si
"fiat ipsis atrox injuria. 3. If they cannot other-
" wise enjoy their lives, estates, and consciences."
Now with all these large conditions, still join this,
that themselves are to be judges in all these cases
against their prince ; and then, if they have but
a mind to rebel, they may blame themselves, if they
are to seek for a lawful cause. This made king
James award this worthy piece to the fire and the
hangman. A prince who, though bred up under
puritans, yet hated their opinions heartily, because
he understood them throughly.

And now last of all, as it is the nature of dregs,
and the worst part of things, to descend to the bot
tom, it were easy to bring up the rear with our
English Genevizers, and to shew how these doc
trines of disloyalty to princes have thriven amongst
them ; were it not impertinent to think, that you
could be further instructed by hearing that for an
hour, that you have felt for twenty years. And
here by the way, it is a glorious justification of the
church of England, still to have had the same ene
mies with the monarchy of England. For an ac
count of their tenets, I shall riot send you to their
papers, to their sermons, though some of the greatest
blots to Christianity, next to their authors; but I
shall send you rather to the field, to the high courts
of justice, where they stand writ to eternity in the
massacre of thousands, in the blood and banishment

ON ROMANS XIII. 5. 549

of princes ; actions that much outdo the business
of this present anniversary ; but to be buried in si
lence, because not to be reprehended with safety.

However, as for puritanism, since it had so long
deceived the world with a demure face, I have been
often prone to think, that it was in some respect a
favour of Providence, to let it have its late full scope
and range, to convince and undeceive Christendom,
and by an immortal experiment to demonstrate
whither those principles tend, and what a savage
monster puritanism, armed with power, would shew
itself to the world.

So that if any Christian prince should hereafter
forget the English rebellion, and himself, so far as to
be deceived with those stale, threadbare, baffled pre
tences of conscience and reformation, he would fall
in a great measure unpitied, as a martyr to his sense
less fondness, and a sacrifice to his own credulity.

And for those amongst us, they are of that incor
rigible, impregnable malice, that, forgetting all their
treasons, they have made the king's oblivion the
chief subject of their own ; and rewarding all his
unparalleled mercies with continual murmurs, libels,
plots, and conspiracies, seem only to be pardoned into
fresh treasons, and indemnified into new rebellions.

We have seen here the adversaries, which this
great duty of allegiance to kings has on both sides :
which that we may enforce against all arts of eva
sion, which the papist and puritan, the mortal, sworn,
covenanted enemies of all magistracy, but especially
of monarchy, can invent, it will be expedient briefly
to discuss this question ;

Whether, and how far, human laws bind the con
science ?

550 A SERMON

To the determination of which, if we would pro
ceed clearly and rationally, we must first state,
what it is to bind the conscience. To bind the con
science therefore, is so to oblige a man to the per
formance of a thing, that the nonperformance of it
brings him under the guilt of sin, and liableness to
punishment before God.

Now to proceed. Some are of opinion, that hu
man laws oblige only to the penalty annexed to the
violation of them ; and that the conscience contracts
the guilt of no sin before God ; a man's person being
only subject to the outward penalties, which the
civil magistrate shall inflict for the expiation of his
offence.

But the confutation of this opinion I need fetch
no further than from the text. For I demand of
the most subtle expositor and acute logician in the
world, what sense he will make here of the words,
for conscience sake ; if by conscience is not meant
conscience of sin, but only of liableness to punish
ment before the magistrate.

For then the sense of the words will be this. You
must needs be subject, not only for wrath, that is
for fear of punishment ; but also for conscience sake,
that is, for fear of punishment too ; since according
to them, the term, for conscience sake, referred to
the laws of the civil magistrate, can signify no more.
But this is so broad a depravation of the rules of
speaking, that it banishes all sense and reason
from the whole scheme and construction of the
words.

To the whole matter therefore I answer by a dis
tinction.

1. That a law may bind the conscience, either

ON ROMANS XIII. 5. 551

immediately, by virtue of its own power conveyed
to it by its immediate legislator. Or,

2. Mediately, in the strength of a superior law,
owning and enforcing the obligation of the inferior.

This distinction premised, I affirm, that the laws
of man neither do nor can thus immediately bind
the conscience; that is, by themselves, or by any
obliging power transfused into them from the human
legislator. That this is so, I demonstrate upon these
reasons.

1. No power can oblige any further than it can
take cognizance of the offence, and inflict penalties,
in case the person obliged does not answer the obli
gation, but offends against it. This proposition
stands firm upon this eternal truth; that nothing
can be an obligation that is absurd and irrational.
But it is absurd for any power to give laws and
obligations to that of which it can take no account,
nor possibly know, whether it keeps or transgresses
those laws, and which, upon its transgression of
them, it cannot punish.

But what man alive, what judge or justice, what
Minos or Rhadamanthus, can carry his inspection into
the conscience ? What evidence, what witness, or
rack, can extort a discovery of that, which the con
science is resolved to conceal, and keep within itself?
Nay, admit that it were possible to force it to such
confessions against itself; yet what penalty could
human force, and the short reach of the secular
arm, inflict upon a spiritual, immaterial substance ?
which defies all our engines of torment and arts of
cruelty; which laughs at the hostilities and weak
invasions of all the elements. Conscience is neither
scorched with the fire nor pricked with the sword ;

552 A SERMON

it feels nothing under a Deity, nothing but the stings
and insinuations of an angry, sin-revenging Omnipo
tence.

2. A second reason is this. That if human laws,
considered in themselves, immediately bind the con
science, then human laws, as such, carry in them as
great an obligation as the divine. The consequence
is most clear ; for the divine law can do no more
than bind the conscience ; the nature of man not
being capable of coming under greater obligation.
But now a law can have no more force or power in
it, than what it receives from the legislator; and
since the obliging force of it follows the proportion
of his power and prerogative ; to affirm that any
sanction of man has the same binding force and sa
cred validity that the laws of God have, amounts to
a blasphemous equalling of him who is a worm and
a pitiful nothing, to him who is God blessed for
ever.

Let these arguments suffice to demonstrate, that
human laws cannot of themselves, and by any power
naturally inherent in them, immediately bind the
conscience. But then, in the next place, I add, that
it is as certain, that every human law, enjoining no
thing sinful or wicked, really binds the conscience,
by virtue of a superior obligation superadded to it,
from the injunction and express mandate of the di
vine law, which commands subjection to the laws
and ordinances of the civil magistrate ; whether of
the king as supreme, or of such as be his vicegerents
and deputed officers.

And thus to assert, that human laws have the
same obligation with divine, is neither absurd nor
blasphemous ; forasmuch as this is not affirmed to

ON ROMANS XIII. 5. 553

be by any prerogative immanent in themselves, but
derivative, and borrowed from the divine. As it is
not either treason or impropriety to affirm, that the
word of the constable obliges as much as the word of
the king, when the king commands that his consta
ble's word, in such or such matters, should be as
much obeyed as his own.

Having thus therefore, by a due and impartial
distribution, assigned to God the prerogative of God,
and to Caesar the prerogative that is Caesar's, and
withal pitched the obligation of human laws upon
so firm and so unshakeable a basis; we shall pass
from the first ground, upon which obedience to the
civil magistrate is inforced, namely, conscience of
the unlawfulness of resisting it, and proceed to
the

Second ; with which I shall conclude. And that is,
conscience of the scandal of such a resistance ; which
surely is an argument to such whose principles are
not scandalous. How tender does St. Paul in all
his epistles shew himself of the repute of Christianity,
and what stress does he still lay upon this one con
sideration? 1 Thess. iv. 12, / beseech you that ye
walk honestly towards them that are without. And
in 2 Cor. vi. 3, Giving no offence in any thing, that
the ministry be not blamed. And surely, could we
strip rebellion of the sin, yet this would be argument
enough against it, that it gives the enemies of
Christianity cause to blaspheme, and with some
shew of reason decry and reject that excellent profes
sion.

How impossible had it been for the Christian reli
gion to have made such a spread in the world, at
least ever to have gained any countenance from the

VOL. III. O O

554 A SERMON

civil power, had it owned such anti-magistratical as
sertions, either by its own avowed principles, or by
the practices of its primitive professors.

And very probable it is, that at this very day the
most potent enemy it has in the world, which is the
Mahometan, takes up his detestation of it, in a great
measure, from his observance of those many rebel
lions, wars, tumults, and confusions, that have so
much and so particularly infested Christendom.

For may he not naturally argue, Can that reli
gion be true or divine, that does not enforce obedi
ence to the magistrate ? Or can that do so, whose
loudest professors are so rebellious ? Is it not rational
to imagine, that the religion men profess will have
a suitable influence upon their practice? Are not
actions the genuine offspring of principles? I wish
that answer would satisfy the world that must satisfy
us, because we have no better ; that Christians live
below Christianity, and by their lives contradict
their profession.

In the mean time let those incendiaries, those spi
ritual Abaddons, whose doctrine, like a scab or le
prosy, has overspread the face of Christianity, and
whose tenets are red with the blood of princes ; let
such, I say, consider what account they will give to
God for that scandal and prejudice, that they have
brought upon so pure and noble a religion, that can
have no other blemish upon it in the world, but that
such persons as they profess it.

If they had but any true ingenuity, (a principle
much lower than that of grace,) surely it would tie
up their consciences from those infamous exorbi
tances that have given such deep gashes, such in
curable wounds to their religion. For shall Christ

ON ROMANS XIII. 5. 555

have bled once for our sins, and shall Christian reli
gion bleed always by our practices ? I could now be
seech such by the mercies of God, and the bowels of
Christ, did I think this would move those who have
torn in pieces the body of Christ, that they would
bind up the broken reputation of Christianity, by
shewing henceforth, that subjection is part of their
religion. That they would reflect upon the desola
tions they have made, with one eye, and upon their
great exemplar with the other ; remembering him
who, while he conversed upon earth, was subject to
the civil power in his own person, and commanded
subjection to it by his precepts. So that what was
said of Christ in respect of the law of Moses, may be
equally said of him in reference to the laws of the
magistrate, that he came not to destroy, but to

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