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Spe 5199. Θ᾽ Θὰ 
Hammond, Henry, 1605-1660. 


Thirty-one sermons preached 
on several occasions 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2015 


https://archive.org/details/thirtyonesermonsO2hamm 


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THE 


MISCELLANEOUS THEOLOGICAL WORKS 


OF 


HENRY HAMMOND, D.D., 


ARCHDEACON OF CHICHESTER, AND CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH. 


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THE 


MISCELLANEOUS 


ERE OLOGICAL WORKS 


OF 


HENRY HAMMOND, D.D., 


ARCHDEACON OF CHICHESTER AND CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH. 


TO WHICH IS PREFIXED, 


THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR, 


BY JOHN FELL, D.D., 


_DEAN OF CH. CH., AND LORD BISHOP OF OXFORD. 


THIRD EDITION. 


VOLUME III. 


CONTAINING SERMONS. 


OXFORD: 
JOHN HENRY PARKER. 


MDCCCL, 


Ss ehibh "PS iY 


THIRTY-ONE SERMONS 


PREACHED 


ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS. 


BY 


ΠΝ Y HAMMOND, -D.D., 


ARCHDEACON OF CHICHESTER AND CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH. 


“ον shall they hear, without a preacher? And how shall they 
preach, except they be sent?” Rom. x. 14, 15. 


“Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every crea- 
ture.” St. Mark xvi. 15. 


A NEW EDITION. 


OXFORD : 
JOHN HENRY PARKER, 


MDCCCL. 


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ADVERTISEMENT. 


THe arrangement of the Sermons in the present volume 
follows the order observed in the folio edition of the author’s 
works, and is entirely independent of the time of their de- 
livery or publication. They belong to three different classes. 
The first ten, as the reader will perceive by the Dedication, 
were published towards the close of the year 1648. They 
came out in a small 4to. volume, under circumstances which 
are explained in the note at page 3, and a second edition 
was published in 1652, but they were never again reprinted 
apart from the other Sermons. With regard to the time at 
which they were written or preached, the present editor can 
give no further information than what the attentive reader 
will gather for himself. It may be sufficient to notice that 
the first and last were prepared for delivery in Advent, 1648, 
and that the author has himself specified the time at which 
the seventh, eighth, and ninth were preached, and from the 
latter being called an Haster Sermon, at St. Mary’s in Oxford, 
A.D. 1644, we may perhaps infer that the other two preached 
in Lent, 1643, and 1645 respectively, were preached at some 
other church in that city. But the style of the sermon and 
the frequent quotations of Greek and Latin phrases suffi- 
ciently indicate, that at whatever church they may have 


vill ADVERTISEMENT. 


been preached, the audience must have been members of the 
University. It will be observed that the first and the tenth 
sermons intended for the King, are more sparing in these 
quotations from ancient authors in the original languages. 

With regard to the remaining five, it can only be inferred 
from their learned character, that they were intended for a 
University audience, or at least for an educated congregation. 
It must not be forgotten that the court was held at Oxford 
during the year 1644. The royal proclamation convoking 
the parliament to meet at Oxford on the following 22nd of 
January, bears date, Dec. 22nd, 1643, and there were there 
assembled eighty-three members of the upper, and a hundred 
and sixty-five of the lower house, and they continued to sit 
till April 16th, when the King adjourned the parliament. 
A troop of horse had previously been sent under Sir John 
Byron to Oxford, for its defence. 

The next two Sermons are amongst the earliest, if they 
are not quite the earliest production of Hammond’s pen, 
but they did not appear in print till 1657, and then only as 
an after-thought, as it appears, and with the view of giving 
an interest to a volume of additional notes to his Para- 
phrase and Annotations. 

These two sermons are spoken of by his biographer? as a 
specimen of a corisiderable number which he was from time 
to time called upon to preach at the visitations of the clergy, 
and at St. Paul’s cross. The latter forms the subject of an 
interesting anecdote, in which Dr. Potter, the Dean of Wor- 
cester, is spoken of as ascribing his worldly prosperity to his 
having followed the advice there given. The story must 
be in some respects inaccurately told, as Dr. Potter died at 
the commencement of 1646, and it is not likely that the last 
five or six years of his life having been spent however well, 


* Life, p. xxvi. 


ADVERTISEMENT. ΙΧ 


would have entitled him to be spoken of as one ‘ whose 
memory, for his remarkable charity and all other excellencies 
befitting his profession and dignity in the Church, is precious.’ 
Besides, his preferments, such as they were, were all con- 
ferred upon him some years previously. Of this sermon it 
only remains to notice, that it was preached at St. Paul’s 
cross, and not as is stated in the title, which is reprinted 
exactly from the folio, in St. Paul’s church. 

The remaining nineteen Sermons were not published till 
after the author’s death, 1664, and as they appeared without 
any advertisement, it is not known who was the editor, or 
from what materials they were selected. The title-page in- 
dicates that they were preached on several occasions, but 
there is none but internal evidence to shew the period at 
which, or the audience before whom they were preached. 
They have all, with the exception of the fourth and the 
last five, the character of University sermons, and it will be 
observed that once in the fifth sermon (p. 363) his audience 
are addressed as ‘right honourable.’ The reader will find in 
many of them, expressions which lead to the supposition 
that they were preached at Oxford, whilst the King’s troops 
were there. With regard to the six which seem exceptions 
to this, there appears no sufficient ground on which to 
hazard a conjecture, as to whether they were preached in 
his parish of Penshurst, before the civil war broke out, or 
in Worcestershire after he had taken up his residence at 
Westwood Park. 

They were published in a small folio, which is divided into 
two parts; the first, which contains the twelve Sermons, was 
printed for Royston, the well-known publisher of the royalist 
and episcopalian divines. The other nineteen, which now 
came out for the first time, were printed for Garthwaite, 
whose publications were also for the most part of the same 
class. His name appearing in the title-page leads to the sup- 


x ADVERTISEMENT. 


position that Sheldon was the editor, for Garthwaite was 
Sheldon’s publisher. This part also bears the Jmprimatur 
of Geo. Stradling, domestic chaplain to Sheldon, then Bishop 
of London. They were reprinted in 1675, and also in the 
complete collection of the author’s works in 1684. 


Nov. 8, 1850. Ne 


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CONTENTS. 


SERMON I. 
(Page 5.) 
THE CHRISTIAN’S OBLIGATIONS TO PEACE AND CHARITY. 


Isaiah ii. 4. 


They shall beat their swords into plough shares, and their 
spears into pruning hooks. 


SERMON II. 
(Page 28.) 
CHRIST’S EASY YOKE. 
Matthew xi. 30. 
My yoke is easy, and My burden is light. 


SERMON III. 
(Page 48.) 
EPHRAIM’S COMPLAINT. 
Jeremiah xxxi. 18. 
1 have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus; Thou 


hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccus- 
tomed to the yoke : turn Thou me, and I shall be turned. 


xu CONTENTS. 


SERMON IV. 
(Page 69.) 
JOHN BAPTIST’S WARNING. 
Matthew iii. 2. 


Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. 


SERMON V. 


(Page 85.) 
GOD IS THE GOD OF BETHEL. 
Genesis xxx. 18. 


1 am the God of Bethel. 


SERMON VI. 
(Page 107.) 
THE NECESSITY OF THE CHRISTIAN’S CLEANSING. 
2 Corinthians vi. 1. 


Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse 
ourselves. 


SERMON VII. 


BEING A LENT SERMON AT OXFORD, A.D. 1643, 
(Page 128.) 
CHRIST AND BARABBAS. 
John xviii. 40. 
Not this Man, but Barabbas. 


SERMON VIII. 
BEING A LENT SERMON AT OXFORD, A.D. 1645. 
(Page 151.) 
ST. PAUL’S SERMON TO FELIX. 
Acts xxiv. 25. 


And as he reasoned of righteousness, and temperance, and 
judgment to come, Felix trembled. 


CONTENTS. xiii 


SERMON IX. 
BEING AN EASTER SERMON AT ST. MARY’S IN OXFORD, A.D. 1644. 
(Page 173.) 
THE BLESSING INFLUENCE OF CHRIST’S RESURRECTION. 
Acts iil. 26. 
God having raised up His Son Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in 
turning away every one of you from his iniquities. 


SERMON X. 


PREPARED AT CARISBROOK CASTLE, BUT NOT PREACHED, 
(Page 196.) 
GOD’S COMPLAINT AGAINST REVOLTERS. 
Isaiah 1. 5. 


Why should you be stricken any more? you will revolt more 
and more. 


SERMON XI. 


A SERMON PREACHED TO THE CLERGY OF THE DEANERY OF SHORHAM IN KENT, 
AT THE VISITATION BETWEEN EASTER AND WHITSUNTIDE, A.D. 1639, HELD 
AT ST. MARY-CRAY. 

(Page 217.) 


THE PASTOR’S MOTTO. 
2 Corinthians xii. 14. 


For I seek not yours, but you. 


SERMON XII. 


PREACHED IN ST. PAUL’S CHURCH BEFORE THE LORD MAYOR AND ALDERMEN 
OF THE CITY OF LONDON, ON APRIL 12, A.p. 1640, 


(Page 239.) 


THE POOR MAN’S TITHING. 


Deuteronomy xxvi. 12, 13. 
When thou hast made an end of tithing all the tithes of thine 
increase the third year. .. Then thou shalt say before the Lord 
thy God... 


XIV CONTENTS. 


SERMON XIII. 


(Page 273.) 
Ezekiel xvi. 30. 


The work of an imperious whorish woman. 


SERMON XIV. 


(Page 297.) 
Philippians iv. 13. 
1 can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me. 


SERMON XV. 


(Page 316.) 
Proverbs 1. 21. 
How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity ? 


SERMON XVI. 


(Page 336,) 
Matthew i. 238. 
Emmanuel, which is by interpretation, God with us. 


SERMON XVII. 


(Page 353.) 
Luke ix. 55. 
Vou know not what spirit you are of. 


SERMON XVIII. 


(Page 374.) 
Ezekiel xviii. 31. 
For why will ye die? 


SERMON XIX. 


(Page 393.) 
Jeremiah ν. 2. 
Though they say, The Lord liveth; surely they swear falsely. 


CONTENTS. XV 


SERMON XxX. 
(Page 411.) 
Luke xviii. 11. 


God, I thank Thee, that I am not as other men, extortioners, &c., 
or even as this publican. 


SERMON XXI. 


(Page 444.) 
Matthew iii. 3. 
Prepare ye the way of the Lord. 


SERMON XXII. 


(Page 466.) 
John vii. 48. 
Have any of the Pharisees believed on Him ? 


SERMON XXIII. 


(Page 489.) 
Matthew x. 15. 


It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah 
in the day of judgment, than for that city. 


SERMON XXIV. 
(Page 507.) 
Acts xvii. 30. 


And the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now 
commandeth all men every where to repent. 


SERMON XXV. 


(Page 528.) 
Acts xvii. 30. 


And the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now 
commandeth all men every where to repent. 


XV1 CONTENTS. 


SERMON XXVI. 


(Page 550.) 
Romans 1. 26. 


For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections. 


SERMON XXVIII. 
(Page 580.) 
Galatians vi. 15. 


But a new creature. 


SERMON XXVIII. 


(Page 598.) 
2 Peter ui. 3. 
Scoffers walking after their own lusts. 


SERMON XXIX. 


(Page 616.) 
2 Peter 111. ὃ, 
Scoffers walking after their own lusts. 


SERMON XXX. 


(Page 632.) 
1 Timothy i. 15. 
Of whom I am the chief. 


PARS SECUNDA. 


SERMON XXXI. 


(Page 648.) 
1 Timothy i. 15. 
Of whom I am the chief: 


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SERMON XVII. 


Luke ix. 55. 
You know not what spirit you are of. 


Or all errors or ignorances there are none so worthy our 
pains to cure, or caution to prevent, as those that have influ- 
ence on practice. The prime ingredient in the making up a 
wise man, saith Aristotle in his Metaphysics, is to be well- 
advised περὶ ὧν ἀπορῆσαι δεῖ πρῶτον, what doubts must 
first be made, what ignorances earliest provided for: and 
there is not a more remarkable spring and principle of all 
the Scripture folly (that is wickedness) among men, than the 
beginning our Christian course unluckily, with some one or 
more false infusions, which not only are very hardly ever cor- 
rected afterward—like the errors of the first concoction, that 
are never rectified in the second—but moreover have an in- 
auspicious poisonous propriety in them, turn all into nourish- 
ment of the prevailing humour: and then, as the injury of 
filching some of that corn that was delivered out for seed, 
hath a peculiar mark of aggravation upon it; is not to be 
measured in the garner but in the field; not by the quan- 
tity of what was stolen, but of what it would probably have 
proved in the harvest; so the damage that is consequent to 
this infelicity is never fully aggravated but by putting into 
the bill against it all the sins of the whole life; yea, and all 
the damnation that attends it. 

Of this kind I must profess to believe the ignorance of the 
gospel-spirit to be chief, an ignorance that cannot choose 
but have an influence on every public action of the life. So 
that as Padre Paolo was designed a handsome office in the 


5. [Aristot. Metaph. B. c. 1.] 
HAMMOND. Aa 


854 SERMON XVII. 


senate of Venice, to sit by and observe, and take care nequid 
contra pietatem ; so it were to be wished that every man on 
whom the name of Christ is called had some assistant angel, 
some ἐπίτροπος δαίμων, be it conscience, be it the remem- 
brance of what I now say unto him, to interpose in all, espe- 
cially the visible undertakings of the life, nequid contra spiri- 
tum Evangelii, that nothing be ventured on but what is agree- 
able to the spirit of the gospel. Even disciples themselves 
may, it seems, run into great inconveniences for want of it; 
James and John did so in the text ; ignem de celo, “ fire from 
heaven” on all that did not treat them so well as they ex- 
pected; but Christ turned and reproved them, saying, “ You 
know not what spirit,” οἵου πνεύματος, ‘ what kind of spirit 
you are οἵ; and that with an ἔμφασις on ὑμεῖς, not ὑμεῖς 
ἐστὲ, but ἔστε ὑμεῖς, you “disciples,” you “Christians,” “ You 
know not what spirit you are of.” 


In the words it will be very natural to observe these three 
particulars; 1. That there is a peculiar spirit that Christians 
are of, οἵου πνεύματος ὑμεῖς: 2. That some prime Christians 
do not know the kind of spirit, οὐκ οἴδατε: even so James 
and John, “ You know not,” &c.: 3. That this ignorance is 
apt to betray Christians to unsafe, unjustifiable designs and 
actions. You that would have fire from heaven, do it upon 
this one ignorance, “ You know not,” &e. 

I begin first with the first of these, that there is a peculiar 
spirit that Christians are of; a spirit of the gospel; and that 
must be considered here, not in an unlimited latitude, but 
only as it is opposite to the spirit of Elias, θέλεις ὡς καὶ 
Ἠλίας; wilt thou do as he did? It will then be necessary to 
shew you the peculiarity of the gospel spirit by its oppo- 
sition to that of Elias, which is manifold; for instance, first, 
Elias was the great assertor of law; upon which ground 
Moses and he appear with our Saviour at His transfigura- 
tion; so that two things will be observable which make a 
difference betwixt the legal and the gospel spirit: 1. That 
some precepts of Christ now clearly (and with weight 
upon them) delivered by Christ, were, if in substance de- 
livered at all, yet sure not so clearly, and at length, and 
intelligibly proposed under the law. You have examples in 


SERMON XVII. 855 


the fifth of Matthew, in the opposition betwixt the ἐρρήθη Matt. v. 
ἀρχαίοις, what was said by Moses to the ancients, and the 
ἐγὼ δὲ ὑμῖν, Christ’s sayings to His disciples; which if they 
be interpreted of Moses’ law,—as many of the particulars are 
evidently taken out of the decalogue, “Thou shalt not kill, 
commit adultery, perjury,”—Christ’s are then clearly super- 
additions unto Moses’; or if they refer to the Pharisees’ glosses, 
—as some others of them possibly may do,—then do those 
glosses of those Pharisees—who were none of the loosest nor 
ignorantest persons among them; but, ἀκριβεστάτη αἵρεσις, [ Acts xxvi. 
for their lives the strictest ; and, “ they sit in Moses’ chair, and a ἡ 
whateverthey teach, that do,” for their learning most consider- eae 2.] 
able—argue the Mosaic precepts not to be so clear and in- 
capable of being misinterpreted; and so still Christ’s were 
additions, if not of the substance, yet of light and lustre, and 
consequently improvements of the obligation to obedience in 
us Christians, who enjoy that light, and are precluded those 
excuses of ignorance that a Jew might be capable of. From 
whence I may sure conclude, that the ego autem, of not re- 
taliating, or revenging of injuries,—for that is sure the mean- 
ing of the μὴ ἀντιστῆναι, which we render “ resist not evil,” [ Matt. v. 
—the strict precept of loving, and blessing, and praying for 52] 
enemies, and the like, is more clearly preceptive, and so more 
indispensably obligatory to us Christians, than ever it was to 
the Jews before. And there you have one part of the spirit 
of the gospel, in opposition to a first notion of the legal spirit. 
And by it you may conclude, that what Christian soever can 
indulge himself the enjoyment of that hellish sensuality, that 
of revenge, or retributing of injuries; nay, that doth not prac- 
tise that high piece of (but necessary, be it never so rare) per- 
fection of “overcoming evil with good ;” and so heap those [Rom. xii. 
precious melting coals of love, of blessings, of prayers, those a 
three species of sacred vestal fire upon all enemies’ heads; 
nescit qualis spiritus, ‘‘he knows not what kind of spirit he 
is of.” 

But there is another thing observable of the law, and so of 
the Judaical legal spirit; to wit, as it concerned the planting 
the Israelites in Canaan, and that is the command of rooting 
out the nations; which was a particular case, upon God’s 
sight of the filling up of the measure of the Amorites’ sins, [πὰ XVe 

Aad 


{ Mark iii. 
17.] 
[2 Pet. i. 
20. ] 


[ Amos iii. 
8.] 


356 SERMON XVII. 


and a judicial sentence of His proceeding upon them; not 
only revealed to those Israelites, but that with a peremptory 
command annexed to it, to hate, and kill, and eradicate some 
of those nations. Which case, because it seldom or never 
falls out to agree in all circumstances with the case of any 
other sinful people, cannot lawfully prescribe to the eradi- 
cating of any other—though in our opinion never so great 
—enemies of God, until it appear as demonstrably to us, as 
it did to those Israelites, that it was the will of God they 
should be so dealt with; and he that thinks it necessary to 
shed the blood of every enemy of God, whom his censorious 
faculty hath found guilty of that charge, that is all for the 
fire from heaven, though it be upon the Samaritans, the not 
receivers of Christ, is but as the Rabbis call him sometimes 
one of the o97 93 and wx )5, “ sons of bloods,” in the plural 
number, and “sons of fire ;” yea, and like the disciples in my 
text, Boanerges, “sons of thunder,” far enough from the soft 
temper that Christ left them; “ Ye know not what kind of 
spirit ye are of.” 

In the next place, Elias’ spirit was a prophetic spirit, whose 
dictates were not the issue of discourse and reason, but im- 
pulsions from heaven. The prophetic writings were not, saith 
St. Peter, ἰδίας ἐπιλύσεως, (I conceive in an agonistic sense,) 
of “their own starting,” or incitation, as they were moved or 
prompted by themselves, but, as it follows, ὑπὸ πνεύματος 
ἁγίου φερόμενοι, “as they were carried by the Holy Ghost ;” 
not as they were led, but carried ;—“ when the Lord speaks, 
who can but prophesy?” And so likewise are the actions pro- 
phetic ; many things that are recorded to be done by prophets 
in Scripture, they proceed from some peculiar incitations of 
God; I mean not from the ordinary, or extraordinary, gene- 
ral, or special direction or influence of His grace, co-operat- 
ing with the Word, as in the breast of every regenerate man, 
—for the spirit of sanctification, and the spirit of prophecy, 
are very distant things,—but from the extraordinary revela- 
tion of God’s will, many times against the settled rule of 
duty—acted and animated not as a living creature, by a soul, 
but moved as an outward impellent, a sphere by an intelli- 
gence, and that frequently into eccentrical and planetary 
motions; so that they were no further justifiable than that 


SERMON XVII. 357 


prophetic calling to that particular enterprise will avow. 
Consequent to which is, that because the prophetic office 
was not beyond the Apostles’ time to continue constantly 
in the Church, any further than to interpret, and super- 
struct upon what the canon of the Scripture hath settled 
among Christians,—Christ and His word in the New Testa- 
ment being bath-col, which the Jews tell us was alone to 
survive all the other ways of prophecy,—he that shall now 
pretend to that prophetic spirit, to some vision, to teach what 
the word of God will not own; to some incitation to do what 
the New Testament law will not allow of; he that with the 
late friar in France”, pretends to ecstatical revelations, with 
the enthusiasts of the last age°, and fanatics now with us, to 
ecstatical motions; that with Mahomet pretends a dialogue 
with God, when he is in an epileptic fit, sets off the most 
ghastly diseases, I shall add, most horrid sins, by undertak- 
ing more particular acquaintance and commerce with the 
Spirit of God, a call from God’s providence and extraordi- 
nary commission from heaven, for those things, which if the 
New Testament be canonical, are evaporate from hell; and so 
first “leads captive silly women,’—as Mahomet did his wife, 
—and then a whole army of Janizaries into a war, to justify 
and propagate such delusions, and put all to death that will 
not be their proselytes, is far enough from the gospel spirit 
that lies visible in the New Testament (verbum vehiculum 
spiritus), and the preaching of the word (διακονία πνεύμα- 
tos), and is not infused by dream or whisper, nor autho- 
rized by a melancholy or fanatic fancy ; and so οὐκ οἶδεν οἵου, 
“knows not what kind,” &e. 

In the third place, Elias was the great precedent and ex- 
ample of sharp unjudiciary procedure with malefactors, which 
[differed] from the common ordinary awards on criminals, in 
that execution preceded trial, and the malefactor suflered ἐπ᾽ 
αὐτοφώρῳ, without attending the formalities of law. 


[2 Tim. iii. 
6.] 


[2 Cor. iii. 
8.] 


Of this kind two examples are by Mattathias cited, one of 1 Maccab. 


> Pere Barnard, 

¢ Copinger or Arthington. [ Fana- 
ties in the reign of Q. Elizabeth, the 
pretended prophets of Hacket who pre- 
tended to be our Saviour; see the book 
entitled ‘‘ Conspiracie for intended Re- 
formation, a treatise discovering the late 


designments and courses held for ad- 
vancement thereof by Edmund Cop- 
pinger, William Hacket, and Henry 
Arthington (out of others’ depositions, 
and th_ir own letters, writings and con- 
fessions.) 4to. Lond, 1592. (by Rich, 
Cosin, LL.D.)’’] 


ii, (54. ] 


[1 Mace. 
ii. 58.] 
[2 Kings 
i. 10 ] 


[ Acts vii. 
59; xiv. 5, 
19. | 


[John ii. 
15.] 


[ Ps. lxix. 
95] 


358 SERMON XVII. 


cv. Phinehas, ἐν τῷ ζηλῶσαι ζῆλον, that “ zealed a zeal,” and, in 


that, run through Zimri and Cozbi, and so—as the captain 
once answered for the killing the drowsy sentinel—reliquit 
quos invenit, found them in unclean embraces, and so left 
them. And the variety of our interpretations in rendering 
of that passage in the Psalm, “Then stood up Phinehas and 
prayed,” in the old, and “then stood up Phinehas and ex- 
ecuted judgment,” in the new translations, may perhaps give 
some account of that action of his, that upon Phinehas’ prayer 
for God’s direction what should be done in that matter, God 
raised up him in an extraordinary manner to execute judg- 
ment on those offenders. And the other of Elias in the text, 
and he with some addition, ἐν τῷ ζηλῶσαι ζῆλον νόμου, “ In 
zealing the zeal of the law, called fire from heaven upon those 
that were sent out from Ahaziah, to bring him to him.” And 
this fact of his, by God’s answering his call, and the coming 
down of the fire upon them, was demonstrated to come from 
God also, as much as the prediction of the king’s death, which 
was confirmed by this means. 

It may very probably be guessed by Mattathias’ words in 
that place, that there were no precedents of the zelotic spirit 
in the Old Testament but those two; for among all the cata- 
logue of examples mentioned to his sons to inflame their zeal 
to the law, he produceth no other; and it is observable, that 
though there be practices of this nature mentioned in the 
story of the New Testament, the stoning of St. Stephen, of St. 
Paul at Iconium, &c., yet all of them practised by the Jews, 
and not one that can seem to be blameless, but that of Christ 
(who sure had extraordinary power) upon the buyers and 
sellers in the temple; upon which the Apostles remembered 
the Psalmist’s prophecy, ζῆλος κατέφαγε, the “zeal of God’s 
house” carried him to that act of νέμεσις, of indignation and 
punishment upon the transgressors. And what mischief was 
done among the Jews by those of that sect in Josephus 4, that 
called themselves by the name of zealots, and withal took 
upon them to be the saviours and preservers of the city, but 
as it proved, the hasteners and precipitators of the destruc- 
tion of that kingdom, by casting out and killing the high- 
priests first, and then the nobles and chief men of the nation, 

4 [Josephus de Bell. Jud., lib, iv. 3. et passim. ] 


SERMON XVII. 359 


and so embasing and intimidating, and dejecting the hearts of 
all the people, that all was at length given up to their fury— 
Josephus, and any of the learned that have conversed with the 
Jewish writers, will instruct the enquirer. And ever since, no 
very honourable notion had of es in the New Testament ; 
one of the “ fruits of the flesh,” Gal. v., of the “ wisdom that Gal. v. 
comes not from heaven,” Jam. 11]., ‘aid in the same, πικρὸς ἐπ “ee 
ζῆλος, a “ bitter zeal,” a gall that will embitter all that come £14, 15.] 
near it. The short of it is, the putting any man to death, or 
inflicting other punishment upon any terms but that of legal, 
perfectly legal process, is the importance of a zelotic spirit, 
as 1 remember in Maimonides “, “ him that curses God in the 
name of an idol, the p'x3p that meet him, kill him,” 1.6. the zea- 
lots—permitted, it seems, if not authorized to doso. And this 
is the spirit of Elias, that is of all others most evidently repre- 
hended and renounced by Christ. The Samaritans, no very 
sacred persons, added to their habitual constant guilts at 
that time to deny common civility of entertainment to Christ 
Himself; and the disciples asked whether they might not do 
what Elias had done, “call for fire from heaven” upon them [Luke ix. 
in that case; and Christ tells them that the gospel spirit was ἢ 
of another complexion from that of Elias, καὶ στραφεὶς ἐπε- 
τίμησε, turned to them as He did to Peter, when He said, Piste XVi. 
“Get thee behind Me, Satan ;” as to so many fiery satanical- ~ ‘J 
spirited men, and checked them for that their furious zeal, 
with an οὐκ οἴδατε οἵου, x.T.r. The least I can conclude from 
hence is this, that they that put any to death by any but 
perfectly legal process, that draw the sword upon any but 
by the supreme magistrate’s command, are far enough from 
the gospel spirit, whatever precedent they can produce to 
countenance them. And so if they be really what they pre- 
tend, Christians, οὐκ οἴδασι, they are in a prodigious mistake 
or ignorance; “they know not what spirit they are of.” 

Yet further it is observable of Elias, that he did execrate 
and curse, call for judgments from heaven upon men’s per- 
sons ; and that temper of mind in the parallel, you may dis- 
tribute into two sorts: first,im passing judgments upon men’s 
future estates, the censorious reprobating spirit, which though 
we find it not in Elias at this time, yet is a consequent of 

© De Idol., ο. 2. [sect. xiii. p. 34. ed. Voss. 1641.] 


[Luke 
xviii. 11.] 
{John vii. 
49. 

[e. g. Ps. 
cix. | 

{ Rom. xii. 
20.] 


3860 SERMON XVII. 


the prophetic office, and part of the burden received from 
the Lord, and laid upon those guilty persons concerning 
whom it hath pleased Almighty God to reveal that secret of 
Tlis cabinet; but then this rigour cannot, without sin, be 
pretended to by any else; for im the blackest instances, 
“charity believes all things,’ and “hopes all things,’ and 
even in this sense, “‘covers the multitudes of sins.” Now 
this so culpable an insolent humour, rashly to pass a con- 
demning sentence, was discernible in the Pharisees,—“ this 
publican,” whose profession and trade is forbidden by that 
law, and this “ people that know not that law, is accursed,” 
—so likewise in the Montanists,—mnos spirituales, and all 
others animales and psychici —so in the Romanists (who 
condemn all but themselves) and in all those generally 
whose pride and malice conjoined—most directly contrary 
to the gospel spirit of humility and charity—doth prepare 
them one, and the other inflame them, to triumph and glut 
themselves in this spiritual assassinacy, this deepest dye of 
blood, the murdering of souls; which because they cannot 
do it really, they endeavour in effigy, anathematize and 
slaughter them here in this other Calvary, the place for 
the crucifying of reputations, turning them out of the com- 
munion of their charity, though not of bliss; and I am confi- 
dent reject many whom the angels entertain more hospitably. 
Another part of this cursing spirit there is, more peculiarly 
Elias’s, that of praying (and so calling) for curses on men’s 
persons; and that being upon the enemies of God, and those 
appearing to Elias a prophet to be such, might be then law- 
ful to him and others like him—David perhaps, &c., in the 
Old Testament—but is wholly disliked and renounced by 
Christ under this state of higher discipline to which Chris- 
tians are designed by Him in the New. I say, not only for 
that which concerns our own enemies, for that is clear, 
“When thine enemy hungereth, feed him ;” and somewhat 
like that in the Old Testament, “ When thine enemy’s‘ox,” 
&e.&: but I extend it even to the enemies of God Himself, 
and that I need not do upon other evidence than is afforded 

1 (Cf. Tertullian. de jejun. ad init.] 485 of him that hateth thee lying under 

® (‘‘Ifthou meet thine enemy’s ox his burden, and wouldest forbear to 


or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely help him, thou shalt surely help witi 
bring itto him again. If thou seethe him.” Exod. xxiii. 4, 5.] 


SERMON XVII. 361 


from the text; the Samaritans were enemies of Christ Him- 
self and were barbarous and inhuman to His person, and 
they must not be cursed by disciples. And he that can now 
curse even wicked men, who are more distantly the enemies 
of God, can call for—I say not discomfiture upon their de- 
vices, for that is charity to them, to keep them from being 
such unhappy creatures as they would be, contrivers of so 
much mischief to the world; but—plagues and ruin upon 
their persons,—which is absolutely the voice of revenge, that 
sulphur-vapour of hell ;—he that delighteth in the misery of 
any part of God’s image,—and so usurps upon that wretched 
quality of which we had thought the devil had gotten the 
monopoly—that of éxvyarpexaxia, joying in the brother’s 
misery,—but now see with horror is got loose out of that pit 
to rave among us ;—he that would mischief, if it were in his 
power, and, now it is not, by unprofitable wishes of execra- 
tion shews his good-will toward it, is quite contrary to the 
gospel spirit, and so οὐκ οἶδε οἵου, “he knows not,” ἕο. 
Lastly, Elias was not only rapt to heaven, but moved on 
earth in a fiery chariot, ζηλώσας ζῆλον, saith the author of [1 bree 
the book of Maccabees; his zeal had fire and fire again, = 
ζηλόω comes from ζέω, an excessive fervency,—and agreeable 
to his temper is his appetite ; he desires nothing but fire upon 
his adversaries, calls for fire, and fire, and fire, as you may see 
it in the story. And the gospel spirit is directly contrary to 
this, an allaying, quenching spirit, a gentle lambent flame, 
that sits on the Apostles’ heads to enlighten and adorn; by 
its vital warmth expelling partial hectic heats, and burning 
feverish distempers, that spiritual πύρωσις mentioned in the 
gospel; and putting in the place, a cool, sedate, and equable 
temper, “to have peace with all men,” and chiefly with our- 
selves, φιλοτιμεῖσθαι ἡσυχάζειν,---ὰ admirable phrase in [1 Thess. 
St. Paul,—to use as much diligence to restore the earth to '™ 1 } 
peace again as all the wind, or air, or perhaps fire in its 
bowels (I mean, ambitious, contentious men) do to set it 
a shaking; and he that will not contribute his utmost to 
quench those flames, that will not joyfully do any thing 
that may not directly or by consequence include sin, to- 
ward the extinguishing a fire thus miserably gotten into the 
veins and bowels of a calamitous kingdom, is far enough 


[2 Kings 


xviii. 33.] 


362 SERMON XVII. 


from the gospel spirit, and so οὐκ οἷδε οἵου, “he knows 
not,” &c. 

I shall not clearly give you the gospel spirit unless I 
proceed from its opposition to Elias’ act, to that other, the 
opposition to the motion of those disciples, considered in the 
particular circumstances. The case stood thus; Christ was 
going up to Jerusalem, thereupon the Samaritans receive 
Him not; the disciples will have fire from heaven upon those 
Samaritans. Jerusalem was at that time the only proper 
place of God’s worship, and may note to us as an emblem, 
the true established Protestant religion of this kingdom. 
The Samaritans were great enemies to this, enemies to 
Jerusalem ; being, first, heretics in religion, took in the 
Assyrian idols into the worship of the true God; ‘they 
feared the Lord, and served their own gods,” as it is in the 
story, and continued their wont when they turned Chris- 
tians, make up the first sort of heretics in Epiphanius’ 
catalogue". Secondly, they were schismatics in an eminent 
manner, set up a new separation by themselves on mount 
Gerizim. And further yet, in the third place, pretended to 
the only purity and antiquity; they lived where Jacob once 
lived; and therefore, though Assyrians by extraction, they 
boast they are Jacob’s seed, and pretend more antiquity for 
that schism of theirs, because Jacob once worshipped in that 
mountain, than they think can be shewed for the temple at 
Jerusalem, which was but in Solomon’s time of a later struc- 
ture. Just as they which pretended, though never so falsely, 
that they were of Christ, have still despised and separated 
from all others as novelists, which walked im the Apostles’ 
steps and practices; and so Samaritans under guilts enough ; 
first, haters of Jerusalem; secondly, heretics; thirdly, sepa- 
ratists; fourthly, pretenders—though without all reason 
—to the first antiquity, and so arrogant hypocrites too; 
and fifthly, beyond all, prodigious, but still confident, dis- 
puters; and yet, sixthly, one higher step than all these, con- 
temners and haters of all, even of Christ Himself, on this 
only quarrel, because He was a friend to Jerusalem, and 
looked as if He were a going thither, as if He had some 
favour to the established religion of the land. I wish this 

ΝΒ. Epiphanius cont. Hereses, lib. i. p. 24.] | 


= ee 


a συν 


SERMON XVII. 363 


passage did not hitherto parallel itself; but seeing it doth 
too illustriously to be denied or disguised, I shall imagine 
that that which follows may do so too. 

All this together was temptation to two honest disciples, 
to think fire from heaven a but reasonable reward for such 
Samaritans; and, having flesh and blood about them, com- 
pounded with piety, you will not much wonder at them that 
they were wrought on by the temptation; and yet this very 
thought of theirs, the Κύριε θέλεις, is presently checked by 
Christ, as being against the gospel spirit; ‘you know not 
what spirit you are of.’ Haters of the Church, heretics, 
schismatics, hypocrites, irrational pretenders, enemies, con- 
tumelious even to Christ Himself, must not presently be 
assigned the devil’s portion, the ἐσφράγισται ταμιεῖα, may 
be yet capable of some mercy, some humanity, not instantly 
devoted to be sacrifices to our fury. The gospel spirit will 
have thoughts of peace, of reconcileableness toward them. 
And let me beseech God first, and then you, right honour- 
able: God, that He endue and inspire your hearts with this 
piece of the gospel spirit, so seasonable to your present con- 
sultations; and you, that you would not reject my prayers to 
God, but open your hearts to receive the return of them, and 
not imitate even the disciples of Christ, in that they are Boa- 
nerges; but stay till the cool of the day, till you have them 
in a calmer temper, when Christ’s word and doctrine hath 
stilled those billows, as once He did the other tempestuous 
element. It was Antoninus’! way to be revenged on his 
enemies, μὴ ἐξομοιοῦσθαι, not to imitate them, whatever he 
did. And this was but an essay or obscure shadow of the 
Christian magnanimity, that goes for poverty of spirit in the 
world, but proceeding from the right principle of unshaken 
patience, of constant unmoveable meekness, of design to be 
hike our royal Master-sufferer. ‘Father, forgive them” that [Luke 
crucify Me; and “ Go and preach” the doctrine of the king- = 47) 
dom to them, after they have crucified Me. And you know . 
all we ministers ever since are but ambassadors of Christ, 


to ingrate crucifying enemies, “ praying them in Christ’s [2 Cor. v. 
name and stead that they would be reconciled,” that they 7%! 


1 ["Apioros τρόπος τοῦ ἀμύνεσθαι, Td μὴ ἐξομοιοῦσθαι .--- Antoninus ad Seipsum, 
lib. vi. § 6.] 


{John xiii. 


35.] 


[ohn xiv. 
Pf) 
{ Matt. xi. 
29. ] 


James iii. 


(17.] 


[ Gal. v. 
22.4 


ΠΕΡ τι: 
1.) 


ΓΙ τι. 1.2: 


9604. SERMON XVII. 


that have done the wrong will vouchsafe to be friends. 
What is it but that eminent piece of gospel spirit which they 
that can be persuaded to part with, for all the sweetness that 
thirst of revenge can promise or pretend to bring in unto 
them, are unhappily ignorant of the richest jewel that ever 
came within their reach. “They know not,” &c. 

I have as yet given you the gospel spirit in one colour or 
notion, that of its opposition to Elias first, and then to the 
Boanerges. It will be necessary to add somewhat of the 
positive consideration of it, though that must be fetched 
from other Scriptures. And this will be but necessary to 
this text, because that which is here mentioned is the πνεῦ- 
μα, spirit in the extent, not only that one part of it that re- 
spected the present action; where, though any one eminent 
defect—that particularly wherein those disciples offended— 
were destructive to the gospel spirit, malum ex quolibet defectu, 
yet all the several branches of it are required to integrate or 
make up the gospel spirit, bonwm ex essentia integra. And 
what these branches are I cannot better direct you, than by 
putting you in mind of these few severals. First, Christ’s badge 
or cognizance—“ By this shall all men know that ye are My 
disciples, if you love one another’’—not of one opinion, but 
of love. Add nunquam leti sitis), &c., as Jews rend garments 
at blasphemy, so we at uncharitableness. Secondly, Christ’s 
legacy, “ Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you.” 
Thirdly, Christ’s copy, “ Learn of Me;” what is beyond all 
His other perfections, “I am meek.” Fourthly, the nature 
of that ‘“ wisdom which cometh from above; first pure, then 
peaceable.” Fifthly, the quality of the fruits of the spirit in 
St. Paul; “ Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, good- 
ness, faith, meekness,” &c. Sixthly, the gallantry of meek- 
ness in St. Peter, “Ornament of a meek and quiet spirit.” 
Seventhly, Titus’ charge that all Christians are to be put in 
mind of, “To be subject to principalities, to obey magistrates, 
to be ready to every good work, to speak evil of no man, to be 
no brawlers (ἄμαχοι, no fighters), but gentle, shewing all 
meekness to all men”’—things that it seems nothing but 


j Nazar. Sosp. [So in printed edi- pel by St. Jerome, Comment. in Ephes. 
tions by mistake for Gosp. The pas- lib. iii. (in cap. v. 4.) Op., tom. vii. p. 
sage is quoted from the Nazarene Gos- 641. Β, See above, Serm. ii. p. 37.] 


SERMON XVII. 365 


Christianity could infuse—“For we ourselves were some- 
times fools, disobedient, &c. . . . but after the kindness 
and love of God our Saviour appeared,” then room for this 
spirit. : 

I cannot give you ἃ readier landscape to present them all 
to your view together than that excellent sermon of Christ 
upon the mount, that ἄκρον καὶ κορυφὴ φιλοσοφίας, as Chry- 
sostom calls it, ‘that top pitch of divine philosophy,” worthy 
to be imprinted in every man’s heart; and of which he that 
hath not been a pondering student, and resolved to regulate 
his practice by it, as much as his faith by the Apostles’ creed ; 
yea, and to lay down his life a martyr of that doctrine—though 
he hath all faith, I cannot promise myself much of his Chris- 
tianity. If you will have the brachygraphy of that, the ma- 
nual picture that may be sure, either in words or sense, never 
to depart from your bosom, but remain your constant phy- 
lactery or preservative from the danger of all ungodly spirits, 
then take the beatitudes in the front of it ; and among them— 
that I may, if it be possible, bring the whole [liads into a nut- 
shell—those that import immediately our duty towards men ; 
for in that the gospel spirit especially consists, increasing our 
love to brethren, whose flesh Christ now assumed, and in 
whose interests He hath a most immediate concern. And if 
you mark, in the chapter following, all the improvements 
mentioned, except only that of swearing, belong to the com- 
mands of the second table. And then the integral parts of 
this gospel spirit will be these four constantly, humility, 
meekness, mercifulness, peaceableness, and if need be, suffer- 
ing too. Every of these four brought in to us with a checker 
or lay of duty towards God, of mourning betwixt humility 
and meekness; hungering and thirsting after righteous- 
ness, betwixt meekness and mercifulness; purity of heart be- 
twixt mercifulness and peaceableness; and persecution and 
reproaches, and πᾶν πονηρὸν ῥῆμα, every Rabshakeh topic 
of railing rhetoric vomited out upon us,—blessed persecu- 
tion, blessed reproaches, when our holding to Christ is that 
which brings them all upon us,—the consummation and 
crown of all. 

. Having but named you these severals, humility, meekness, 
mercifulness, peaceableness, and, if need be, patience of all 


[ Tit. 11}. 3.] 


[See Matt. 
νυν. 8—12.] 


[John 
xviii. 10.] 


366 SERMON XVII. 


stripes, both of hand and tongue; the sparkling gems in this 
jewel, blessed ingredients in this gospel spirit, you will cer- 
tainly resolve it full time for me to descend to my second 
particular at first proposed, that some disciples there were, 
some prime professors do not know the kind of that spirit, 
οὐκ οἴδατε οἵου, “You know not what kind of spirit you 
are of.” 


James and John it appears were such disciples, and that 
after they had been for some competent time followers and 
auditors of His sermons; so far an ‘easier thing it is to leave 
their worldly condition and follow Christ, than to leave their 
carnal prejudices and ignorances and obey Him; especially 
those that had such hold in their passions,—as revenge, they 
say, 15 the pleasingest piece of carnality in the heap,—cheaper 
to hear His gospel sermons than to practise them. And you 
will less wonder at these two when you see that St. Peter him- 
self, after a longer space of proficiency in that school, even at 
the time of Christ’s attachment, had not yet put off that igno- 
rance, ὁ θερμὸς Πέτρος, say the fathers *, Peter was of an hot 
constitution, and Christ’s doctrine had not yet got down deep 
enough into his heart to allay or cool him. Nondum con- 
cipiens in se Evangelicam patientiam illam traditam sibi a 
Christo, &c., saith Origen'; that gospel patience and peace- 
ableness that Christ had commended to him, he had not, it 
seems, yet received into an honest heart, and so he makes no 
scruple to cut off Malchus’ ear when he was provoked to it. 
I have heard of a friar that could confess that Malchus sig- 
nified a king, and yet after made no scruple to acknowledge 
him in that notion to be the high-priest’s servant; and 
secondly, to justify St. Peter’s act and avoid Christ’s repre- 
hension, by saying that he was chid, not for doing so much, 
but for doing no more; not for cutting off his ear, but for 
not directing the blow better to the cutting off his head. 
And how far this friar’s barbarous divinity hath been justi- 
fied of late by the writings of some—who will yet persuade us 
that Christ did not reprehend St. Peter for that act—and by 


k fe. g. St. Chrysostom; τὶ οὖν 6 ' (Origen. Tractat. xxxv. in S. Matth. 
Πέτρος 6 πανταχοῦ θερμὸς καὶ ἀεὶ τῶν ὃ 101. Op., tom. iii. p. 907 E. Only 
ἄλλων mporndav.—Op., tom. vii. p.5259. extant in the Latin.] * 

D; cf. ibid., p. 524. D.] 


SERMON XVII. 367 


the actions of others, I have little joy to represent unto you; 
God knows I love not to widen breaches; only Iam sure the 
fathers are clear; that though formerly St. Peter were igno- 
rant, and from that ignorance and zeal together, ran into 
that fury, yet Christ μεταρρυθμίζων αὐτὸν εἰς εὐαγγελικὴν 
πολιτείαν τὰ, desirous to tune him to that sweet harmonical 
gospel temper, tells him he must not use the sword,—he 
having no commission, especially against those that have it, 
though they use it never so 1]],---κἂν τὸν θεὸν δοκεῖ τις ἐνδι- 
xeiv, “though it were to avenge even God Himself.” And 
having given you these proofs of this ignorance in three dis- 
ciples, I think it is possible I might extend it to the rest of 
them that they were in this particular ignorant too,—as it 
seems they were in many other things,—till the Holy Ghost 
came according to promise, “to teach them all things, and [John xiv. 
to bring to their remembrance,”—to thaw their memories, 2 
that the words of Christ, like the voice in Plutarch that 
had been frozen, might at length become audible; or as 
Plato’s precepts were learned by his scholars when they 
were young, but never understood till they were men of 
full age, and tamer passions",—I say, to bring to their re- 
membrance whatsoever Christ had in person said unto them. 
And 1 wish to God it were uncharitable to charge this igno- 
rance still upon disciples, after so many solemn embassies of 
the Holy Ghost unto us, to teach us and remember us of 
this duty. Nay, I wish, that now after He hath varied the 
way of appearing, after He hath sat upon us in somewhat a 
more direful shape, not of a dove, but vulture,—tearing even 
the flesh from us on purpose, that when we have less of that 
carnal principle left, there might be some heed taken to this 
gospel spirit,—there were yet some proficiency observable 
among us, some heavings of the εὐαγγελικὴ πολιτεία, that 
hath so long been a working in the world; I am confident 
there were no such way of designing a prosperous, flourish- 
ing, durable kingdom, as to found its policy upon gospel 
principles, and maintain it by the gospel spirit. I have au- 
thority to think that was the meaning of that prophecy of 


™ Theophyl. Comm. in Matth. xxvi.  suos in virtute sentiat profectus,” ὃ 7. 
[Op., tom. i. p. 151. B.] Op., tom. i, P. i, p. 802, Wyttenb. ] 
5 [See Plutarch; ‘“‘Quomodo quis 


[Isa. iii. 


4.) 


[ Gen. viii. 


[ Acts xxvi. 
28. ] 


Psalm cix. 


368 SERMON XVII. 


Christ’s “turning swords into plough-shares,” not that He 
should actually bring peace, He tells you that it would prove 
quite contrary, but because the fabric of the gospel is such 
that would all men live by it, all wars and disquiets would be 
banished out of the world. It was a madness in Machiavel 
to think otherwise, and yet the unhappiness of the world 
that Sir Thomas More’s book that designed it thus should 
be then called Utopia, and that title to this hour remain 
perfect prophecy, no place to be found where this dove may 
rest her foot, where this gospel spirit can find reception. 
No not among disciples themselves, those that profess to 
adventure their lives to set up Christ’s kingdom in its purity ; 
none so void of this knowledge as they. Whether we mean 
a speculative or practical knowledge of it, few arrived to that 
height or vacancy of considering whether there be such a 
spirit or no. Some so in love with nature, that old Pelagian 
idol, resolve that sufficient to bring them to heaven, if they 
but allow their brethren what they can claim by that grand 
character, love of friends, those of the same persuasion, 
those that have obliged them; they have nature’s leave, and 
so are resolved to have Christ’s, to hate, pursue to death 
whom they can fancy their enemies. And I wish some 
were but thus of Agrippa’s religion, ἐν ὀλίγῳ Χριστιανοὶ, 
so near being Christians as nature itself would advance 
them; that gratitude, honour to parents, natural affection, 
were not become malignant qualities, disclaimed as consci- 
entiously as obedience and justice, and honouring of bet- 
ters. Others again so devoted to Moses’ law, the Old Tes- 
tament spirit, that whatever they find practised there, they 
have sufficient authority to transcribe. And it is observ- 
able that they which think themselves little concerned in 
the Old Testament duties,—which have a long time passed 
for unregenerate morality, that faith hath perfectly out- 
dated,—are yet zealous assertors of the Old Testament 
spirit, all their pleas for the present resistance fetched 
from them, yea, and confessed by some that this liberty 
was hidden by God in the first ages of the Christian Church, 
but now revealed we cannot hear where, yet, but in the Old 
Testament, and from thence a whole Psalm, 109th, full of 
curses against God’s enemies and theirs,—and generally 


SERMON XVII. 369 


those pass for synonymous terms,—the special devotion 

they are exercised in; and if ever they come within their 

reach, no more mercy for them than for so many of the 

seven nations, in rooting out of which a great part of their 
religion consists. I wish there were not another prodigy 

also abroad under the name of the Old Testament spirit, 

the opinion of the necessity of sacrifice, real bloody sacri- 
fice,—even such as was but seldom heard of among Indians 

and Scythians themselves,—such sacrifices, of which the can- 

nibal Cyclops’ feasts may seem to have been but attendants, 
—furnished with the τομαὶ and μερίδες, that come from such 

savage altars,—sacrificing of men, of Christians, of protes- 

tants as good as any in the world, to expiate for the blood 

shed by papists in Queen Mary’s days; and some prophets 

ready to avow, that without such sacrifice there is no re- 
mission, no averting of judgments from the land. What is 

this but like the Pharisees, ‘to build and garnish the sepul- [Matt. 
chres of the prophets, and say, that if they had lived in their **"* 2%-J 
fathers’ days, they would never have partaken of the blood of 

the prophets,” and yet go on “to fill up the measure of their 
fathers?” The very men to whom Christ directs thee, ‘“ O [ver. 37.] 
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest,” in the present tense, 

a happy turn, if but the progeny of those murderers, and what 

can then remain, but the “ Behold, your house is left unto [ver. 38.] 
you desolate,”’—irreversible destruction upon the land. A 

third sort there is again, that have so confined the gospel 

to promises, and a fourth, so persuaded that the Unum neces- 
sariwm is to be of right persuasions in religion; 1. 6. of those 

that every such man is of,—for he that did not think his own 

the truest, would sure be of them no longer,—that betwixt 

those two popular deceits, that of the fiduciary, and this of 

the solifidian, the gospel spirit is not conceived to consist in 

doing any thing; and so still those practical graces, humi- 

lity, meekness, mercifulness, peaceableness, and Christian 
patience, are very handsomely superseded; that one Moses’ 

rod, called faith, is turned serpent, and hath devoured all [Ex. vii. 
these for rods of the magicians; and so still you see men | 
sufficiently armed and fortified against the gospel spirit. All 

that is now left us, is not to exhort, but weep in secret, not 

to dispute, but pray for it, that God will at last give us eyes 


HAMMOND. B b 


370 SERMON XVII. 


to discern this treasure put into our hands by Christ, which 
would yet, like a whole navy and fleet of plate, be able to 
recover the fortune and reputation of this bankrupt island, 
fix this floating Delos, to restore this broken shipwrecked ves- 
sel to harbour and safety, this whole kingdom to peace again. 
Peace! seasonable, instant peace, the only remedy on earth 
to keep this whole land from being perfect vastation, perfect 
Afric of nothing but wild and monster; and the gospel 
spirit that Christ came to preach and exemplify, and plant 
among men, the only way imaginable to restore that peace. 
Lord that it might at length break forth among us! the 
want of it is certainly the author of all the miseries we suffer 
under; and that brings me to the third and last particular, 
that this ignorance of the gospel spirit is apt to betray Chris- 
tians to unsafe, unjustifiable enterprises : you that would have 
fire from heaven, do it upon this one ignorance, “ You know 
not,” &c. 

It were too sad, and too long a task, to trace every of our 
evils home to the original; every of the fiends amongst us 
to the mansion in the place of darkness peculiar to it. If I 
should, it would be found too true, what Du Plesse is affirmed 
to have said to Languet, as the reason why he would not 
write the story of the civil wars of France, “that if he were 
careful to observe the causes, and honest to report them, he 
must hound the fox to a kennel which it was not willing to 
acknowledge ;” drive such an action to the brothel-house, 
that came speciously and pretendedly out of a church: find 
that to be in truth the animosity of a rival that took upon it 
to be the quarrel for religion ; or as in Polybius° oft, the πρό- 
facts to be a thing very distant from the air/a, the colour from 
the cause. 

In the mean, it will not be a peculiar mark of odium on the 
embroilers of this present State and Church, to lay it at their 
doors, which I am confident never failed to own the like 
effects in all other Christian states, the ignorance—i.e. in 
the Scripture phrase, not practising—of those Christian rules 
which the gospel spirit presents us with. 

I might tire you but with the names of those effects that 
flow constantly from this ignorance, such are, usurping the 

° [Polybius. Hist., lib. iii. 6. 6. § 6; and ibid., c. 7. § 3.] 


SERMON XVII. BYAll 


power that belongs not to us, which humility would cer- 
tainly disclaim; such, resisting the powers under which we 
are placed by God, to which meekness would never be pro- 
voked; such the judging and censuring men’s thoughts and 
intentions any further than their actions enforce, most un- 
reconcileable with the forgiving part of mercifulness; such 
the doing any kind of evil, that the greatest or publickest 
good may come, designing of rapine or blood to the sancti- 
fiedest end, which St. Paul and peaceableness would never 
endure; such impatience of the cross, shaking a kingdom to 
get it off from our own shoulders, and put it on other men, dia- 
metrally opposite to the suffering and patience of a Christian. 

To retire from this common to the enclosure, and to go no 


further than the text suggests to me, “To call fire from hea- 
- yen upon Samaritans,” is here acknowledged the effect of the 
οὐκ οἴδατε, the want of knowledge, or consideration of the 


quality of their spirit. 
And what may that signify to us? Why, fire, you know, is 


the emblem of a civil war, which is called a πύρωσις, a “ com- 


bustion,” or, being further broken out into flames, a ‘“ confla- 

gration ;” and I conceive should be so rendered in that place 

of St. Peter, where we read “ the fiery trial.” [1 Pet. iv. 
Now fire, you know, belongs most naturally to hell; and ch 

therefore when the fire and brimstone came down upon So- 


dom, mey of the fathers calls it gehennam de celo: 
and cally the civil fire, the combustion in a state, its 
oris m thence too; part of that ‘‘ wisdom that is not [Jar iii. 


fro _ above.” These tares so apt for burning, are sowed by ἐν 
Satan, the enemy-man. From whence come “ wars and striv- [Jam. iv. 
ings among γοι;,᾽--πόλεμοι καὶ μάχαι, wars of all sizes,— ot 
“are they not from your lusts, that war in your flesh?” saith 
St. James. The lusts from the flesh, but the war from hell, 
the devil, the spiritus sufflans that sets them a warring. 
Believe it, they would not be able to do it in this manner, 
prove such fiery boutefeus, if they were not inflamed from 
beneath, if they were not set on fire by hell. And therefore 
to call fire from heaven, to entitle God or heaven to that fire, 

is to do both of them great injury; nay, though it be on 
Samaritans, that are not so friendly to Christ as might be 
expected. And so to call fire from heaven upon Samaritans, 

Bb 2 


[ Luke iii. 
4.} 


[Heb. xii. 
14.] 


8173 SERMON XVII. 


is (by accommodation at least) to pretend God, or heaven, 
or religion, for the cause of war, which of all things hath least 
to do it, if the gospel spirit may have leave to be considered. 
Indeed, very few kinds of war there are that will be justified 
by gospel principles. It was truly said, (though by a rough 
soldier,) “that if the Lord of Hosts were permitted to sit in 
the council of war, there would soon be a cessation of arms, 
and disbanding of armies.” Though that all war is not un- 
lawful, will appear by John Baptist’s address to the soldiers, 
who gave rules to regulate their militia, but did not disband 
them ; and the example of the convert centurion, a centurion 
still after his conversion: where yet this still remains as an 
infallible resolution, that wars are to be used like the regia 
medicamenta, never but when the physician sees there is no 
other means available; never upon the wantonness of the 
patient, but command of the physician, and never but when 
peace appears to be impossible; for if it be possible, the pre- 
cept is of force, “ Follow peace with all men.” And then to 
shed the blood of Christians, when blood may be spared, what 
an hideous thing it is you may guess by that emperor, that 
having beheaded a Christian, was by the sight of a fish’s head 
that came to his table so astonished, fancying that it was 
the head of that slaughtered Christian gaping on him, that 
he scarce recovered to his wits; or of that poor penitent 


[Ps.li.14.] David in his pathetic expression, “Deliver me from blood- 


guiltiness, O Lord.” A wonderful deliverance, it seems, to 
get clear from that. And what an ocean of fishes’ heads may 
appear one day gaping on some men I have no joy to tell: 
“ Deliver us from blood-guiltiness, Ὁ God.” 

I have done with my third particular also, and have now 
no more to importune you with, but my requests to you, and 
to heaven for you, that the time past of all our lives be suffi- 
cient to have spent in the will of the Gentiles, after the dic- 
tates of that heathen spirit, the natural or Jewish principles. 
That you be content at length to go up to the mount with 
Christ, and be auditors of His sermon; to that other mount 
with the same Christ, and be transfigured after Him to that 
spirit of humility, spirit of meekness, spirit of all kind of 
mercifulness; that peaceable, patient spirit, which will give 
you a comfortable passage through this valley of Achor here; — 


SERMON XVII. 970 


yea, though it prove a Red sea of blood, and will fit you fora 

crown, that true Olympic olive crown; the “ peaceable fruits [Heb. xii. 
of righteousness,” an “eternal weight of glory hereafter.” " Pai 
Which God of His infinite mercy grant, through the merit 

and promise of His Son. 


To whom with the Father, &c. 


Luke viii. 
32. 


SERMON XVIII. 


Ezex. xvii. 31. 
For why will ye die? 


Since the devil was turned out of heaven, all his care and 
counsels have been employed to keep us from coming thither ; 
and finding God’s love very forward and increasing towards 
us, he hath set us upon all ways of enmity and opposition 
against Him. The first warlike exploit he put us upon, was 
the building of Babel, when man having fortified himself, and 
the arm of flesh grown stout, began to reproach and chal- 
lenge, and even assault the God of heaven. But the success 
of that boldness cost so dear, that we have ever since been 
discouraged from such open proud attempts. Our malice and 
despite hath kept in somewhat more close and secretly, hath 
retired and settled in the soul; the inward man hath ever 
since erected its Babel; proud and high imaginations out- 
bidding heaven and God. These were a long while forged 
in the brain, when instead of the acknowledgment of one 
true God, all monsters of atheism filled the understanding, 
sometimes with a multitude and shoal of gods; sometimes 
deprived it quite, and left it utterly void of any: but now at 
last, the devil and all the atheism in the world, being at last 
exorcised and banished out of the brain, by the evidence and 
power of truth, hath like the legion, which being cast out of the 
man, had leave to enter the swine, fixed violently, and taken 
possession, and intrenched itself in the brutish bestial part, 
the affections. All the swellings, and tumours, and ulcers, 
that ever shewed themselves in any portion of the circum- 
ference, are now retired into the centre. All the atheism or 


SERMON XVIII. 315 


heresy that ever soared or floated in the brain, or surface of 
the soul, is now sunk into the heart; and there the devil is 
seated at ease, there to set up and fortify and contemn God 
for ever. So that in brief, the issue of all this is, there is an 
infinite opposition and thwarting, a professed combat and 
bandying of forces betwixt the will of man and the will of 
God; God doing, in a kind, His best on one side, and man 
on the other. God wonderfully willing and desirous that we 
should live; man most perversely wilful to his own destruc- 
tion. 

This is a truth of a most dismal importance that con- 
cerns you to be instructed in, and will not be more power- 
fully enforced on you from any place of Scripture than the 
text which I have read to you, “ Why will ye die?” It is 
God speaks it, and with an infinite emphasis and πάθος, to 
note His passion and affectionateness in desiring our good, 
and willing that we should live. And then secondly, “ Why 
will you die?” Man’s resoluteness and stubborn wretchless- 
ness towards his own ruin, rushing or tumbling as in a 
precipice violently to hell, like the swine which formerly our 
wills were resembled to, running full speed down a steep Luke viii. 
place into the lake. And these are like to prove the parts δ. 
of my ensuing discourse; first, God’s willingness that we 
should be saved; secondly, man’s wilfulness toward his own 
damnation. And of these plainly to your hearts, not your 
ears; not so much to advance your knowledge, which 
though it could be raised to the tallest pitch, might yet 
possibly bear thee company to hell; but rather to increase 
your zeal, to work some one good inclination in you, to 
persuade you to be content to suffer yourselves to be saved; 
to be but so tame as to be taken by heaven that now even 
besieges you. And with my affectionate prayers for success 
to this design, I will presume of your ears and patience, and 
begin first with the first, God’s willingness that we should 
live. “ Why will ye die?” 

Amongst all other prejudices and misconceits that our 
fancy can entertain of God, I conceive not any so frequent 
or injurious to His attributes, as to imagine Him to deal 
double with mankind in His word; seriously to will one 
thing, and to make show of another; to deliver Himself in 


[Job xiii, 
8.] 


1 John iy. 
9. 


Ezek. xvi. 
[6.] 
ver, ὅ. 


Eccles. 
xiv. 12. 


376 SERMON XVIII. 


one phrase, and reserve Himself in another. It were an 
unnecessary, Officious undertaking to go about to be God’s 
advocate, to apologize for Him, to vindicate His actions, or 
in Job’s phrase, to “accept the person of God.” Our pro- 
ceedings will be more Christian, if we take for a ground or 
principle, that scorns to be beholding to an artist for a proof, 
that every word of God is an argument of His will, every 
action an interpreter of His word. So that howsoever he 
reveals Himself, either in His Scripture or His works, so 
certainly He wisheth and intends to us in His secret coun- 
sels. Every protestation of His love, every indignation at 
our stubbornness, every mercy conferred on us, and that not 
insidiously, but with an intent to do us good, are but ways 
and methods to express His will; are but rays, and emissions, 
and gleams of that eternal love which He exhibits to the 
world. Now there is no way to demonstrate this willingness 
of God that we should live, a priori, or by any thing either 
in God or us, pre-existent as the cause of it, unless it be His 
love, which yet is rather its genus than its cause, somewhat 
of larger extent, though otherwise coincident with it. The 
more vulgar powerful convincing way, is to enforce it to your 
hearts by its effects, and those divers and familiar: some few 
of which we will insist on. 

And first, and principally, the sending of His Son; “In 
this was manifest the love of God toward us, because that God 
sent His only-begotten Son into the world, that we might 
live through Him.” Mark God’s love to us in sending His 
Son that we might live through Him. His love the cause 
of this mission; this mission, the manifestation and argu- 
ment of that love; and that we live, the end of both. Had 
God been any way inclined to rigour or severity, there had 
needed no great skill, no artificial contrivance for a fair plau- 
sible execution of it; it had been but passing us by, the 
taking no notice of us, the “leaving of us in our blood,” and 
then hell had presently opened its mouth upon us. “ We 
were all cast out in the open field to the loathing of our per- 
sons, in the day that we were born,” ready for all the vul- 
tures infernal to fix on, that hideous Old Testament, διαθήκη 
ἅδου, “the testament of hell,” or in the mercifulest con- 
struction, the “covenant of grace” had passed on us, natu- 


SERMON XVIII. 377 


rally then—what infidelity now makes us—condemned ΔἸγοδαν; 
our damnation sealed to us with our life, born to no other 
inheritance but hell; as if the devil had out of policy fallen 


before Adam, or rather descended, and that in post, “ like Luke x. 18. 


lightning,” lest if his journey from heaven had been to have 
been performed after, some other creature should have inter- 
cepted him of his prey. But God’s bowels were enlarged 
above the size, wider than either the covetous gates of hell, 
or that horrid yawning head that is all mouth. It was not 
within the devil’s skill to fear or suspect what a way of mercy 
and deliverance God had found out for us. Somewhat he 
understood by the event, the decay of his prophetic arts be- 
coming now his oracle; and even his silence growing vocal 
to him. But all this could not declare the mystery at large ; 
when Christ was born, he would have been rid of Him be- 
times, musters all his forces, Pharisees and people, Herods 
and Pilates, Rome and Jerusalem, and all the friends he had 
in the world, to make away with Him; and yet when he was 
just come to the push, to the consummation of his plot, he 
was afraid to act it; as in the epistle ascribed to Ignatius the 
Martyr*, and directed to the Philippians, it is observed, that 
whilst he was at a pretty distance, ἔσπευσε γενέσθαι σταυρὸν, 
“the devil hastened the structure of Christ’s cross,” as much 
as he could; set Judas and all the artificers of hell about the 
work, μέλλοντος δὲ γίνεσθαι, but “ when all was even ready,” 
Christ for the cross, and the cross for Christ, then he began 
to put in demurs; shews Judas an halter, frights Pilate’s wife 
in a dream, she could not sleep in quiet for him; and in sum, 
uses all means possible to prevent Christ’s crucifixion. Yet 
this, saith Ignatius, not out of any repentance, or regret of 
conscience, but only being started with the foresight of his 
own ruin by this means. Christ’s suffering being in effect 
the destruction of his kingdom, His death our triumph over 
hell, and His cross our trophy. By this you may discern 
what a miracle of God’s love was this giving of His Son; the 
conceiving of which was above the devil’s reach, and wherein 
he was providentially engaged, and (if we may so speak) θεο- 
dopovpevos, carried blindfold by God, to be an instrument of 
his own ruin, and in a kind, be a co-worker of our salvation. 
4 {Pseudo-Ignatius, Epist. ad Philipp., c. iv. Patr. Apost., tom. 11, p. 119.] 


158. 1111. 


[1.] 


Wisd. xvi. 
20. 


[cf. Wisd. 
xi. 26.] 


378 SERMON XVIII. 


Not to enlarge or expatiate upon circumstances; man being 
thus involved in a necessity of damnation, and no remedy 
within the sphere, either of his power or conceit, left to res- 
cue him ;—nay, as some have been so bold to say, that God 
Himself had no other means besides this in His storehouse 
of miracles to save us, without intrenching on some one of His 
attributes ;—for God then to find out a course that we could 
never prompt Him to, being solicited to it by nothing in us 
but our sins and misery, and without any interposition, any 
further consultation or demur, to part with a piece of Him- 
self to redeem us; Brachiwm Domini, “the arm of the Lord,” 
as Isaiah calls our Saviour. Nay, to send down His very 
bowels amongst us to witness His compassion ; to satisfy for 
us by His own death, and attach Himself for our liberty; to 
undergo such hard conditions rather than be forced to a 
cheap severity ; and, that He might appear to love His ene- 
mies, to hate His Son. In brief, to fulfil the work without 
any aid required from us, and make salvation ready to our 
hands, as manna is called in the sixth of Wisdom, ἑτοῖμος ἄρ- 
τος ἀπ᾽ οὐρανοῦ, “bread baked, and sent down ready from 
heaven,” to drop it in our mouths, and exact nothing of us but 
to accept of it: this is an act of love and singleness, that all 
the malice we carry about us knows not how to suspect; so 
far from possibility of a treacherous intent, or double deal- 
ing, that if I were a heathen, nay a devil, I would bestow 
no other appellation on the Christians’ God, than what the 
author of the book of Wisdom doth so often,—@rovyos, the 
“friend,” or the lover of souls. But this is a vulgar, though 
precious subject, and therefore I shall no longer insist on it. 
Only before I leave it, would I could see the effect of it ex- 
pressed in our souls, as well as acknowledged in our looks; 
your hearts ravished as thoroughly as your brains convinced ; 
your breasts as open to value and receive this superlative 
mercy, as your tongues to confess it; then could I triumph 
over hell and death, and scoff them out of countenance; then 
should the devil be reduced to his old pittance, confined to 
an empty corner of the world; and suffer as much by the 
solitariness as darkness of his abode; all his engines and arts 
of torment should be busied upon himself, and his whole ex- 
ercise, to curse Christ for ever, that hath thus deprived him 


SERMON XVIII. 879 


of associates. But alas! we are too solicitous in the devil’s 
behalf, careful to furnish him with companions, to keep him 
warm in the midst of fire; it is to be feared we shall at last 
thrust him out of his inheritance. It is a probable argument 
that God desires our salvation, because that hell, wheresoever 
it is,—whether at the centre of the earth, or concave of the 
moon,—must needs be far less than heaven; and that makes 
us so besiege the gate as if we feared we should find no room 
there. We begin our journey betimes, lest if we should be 
forestalled, and had rather venture a throng or crowd in hell, 
than to expect that glorious liberty of the sons of God. It [Rom. viii. 
is to be feared that at the day of judgment, when each body Ἵ 
comes to accompany its soul in torment, hell must be let out, 
and enlarge its territories, to receive its guests. Beloved, 
there is not a creature here that hath reason to doubt but 
Christ was sent to die for him, and by that death hath pur- 
chased his right to life. Only do but come in, do but suffer 
yourselves to live, and Christ to have died; do not uncrucify 
Christ by crucifying Him again by your unbelief; do not 
disclaim the salvation that even claims right and title to 
you; and then the angels shall be as full of joy to see you in 
heaven, as God is willing, nay, desirous to bring you thither ; 
and Christ as ready to bestow that inheritance upon you at 
His second coming, as at His first to purchase it. Nothing 
but infidelity restrains Christ’s sufferings, and confines them 
to afew. Were but this one devil cast out of the world, I 
should be straight of Origen’s religion, and preach unto you 
universal catholic salvation. 

A second argument of God’s good meaning towards us, of 
His willingness that we should live, is the calling of the 
Gentiles, the dispatching of posts and heralds over the whole 
ignorant heathen world, and giving them notice of this trea- 
sure of Christ’s blood. Do but observe what a degree of pro- 
faneness and unnatural abominations the Gentile world was 
then arrived to, as you may read in all their stories; and in 
the first to the Romans, how well grown and ripe for the devil 
Christ found them ; all of them damnably superstitious and 
idolatrous in their worship ; damnably unclean in their lives ; 
nay, engaged for ever in this road of damnation by a law they 
had made, μὴ ἀλλοτριονομεῖν, “never to entertain any new 


Acts xvii. 
18. 


Acts x. 9, 
86. 


[ Acts x. 
14. ] 
Acts x. 45. 


Eph. iii. 
10. 


ver. 9. 


380 SERMON XVIII. 


laws,” or religion: not to innovate, though it were to get 
salvation, as besides their own histories, may be gathered out 
of Acts xvii. 18. And lastly, consider how they were hooked 
in by the devil, to join in crucifying of Christ, that they 
might be guilty of that blood which might otherwise have 
saved them, and then you will find no argument to persuade 
you it was possible that God should have any design of mercy 
on them. Peter was so resolved of the point that the whole 
succession of the Gentiles should be damned, that God could 
scarce persuade him to go and preach to one of them. He 
was fain to be cast into a trance, and see a vision about it; 
and for all that he is much troubled about the τὸ κοινὸν καὶ 
ἀκάθαρτον, “their profaneness and uncleanness,” that they 
were not fit for an Apostle to defile himself about their con- 
version. 

And this was the general opinion of all the Jews; they of 
the ‘circumcision were astonished at the news.” Nay, this 
is it that the angels wondered at so, when they saw it 
wrought at the Church by Paul’s ministry ; never dreaming 
it possible, till it was effected, as may appear, Eph. ii. 10. 
This was the “mystery, which from the beginning of the 
world had been hid in God,” ver. 9. One of God’s cabinet 
councils, a mercy decreed in secret, that no creature ever 
wist of till it was performed. 

And in this behalf are we all—being lineally descended 
from the Gentiles—bound over to an infinite measure both 
of humiliation and gratitude, for our deliverance from the 
guilt and reign of that second original sin, that heathenism 
of our ancestors, and catholic damnation, that sixteen hun- 
dred years ago we were all involved in. Beloved, we were 
long ago set right again, and the obligation hes heavy upon 
us, to shew this change to have been wrought in us to some 
purpose; to prove ourselves Christians in grain, so fixed and 
established, that all the devils in hell shall not be able to re- 
duce us again to that abhorred condition. If we that are thus 
called out, shall fall back, after so much gospel, to heathen 
practices, and set up shrines and altars in our hearts to every 
poor delight that our sottishness can call a God; if we are 
not called out of their sins, as well as out of their ignorance ; 

b [Cf Dio Cassius, Hist. Rom., lib. 111. cap. 36. p. 689, ed. Reimar.] 


SERMON XVIII. 881 


then have we advanced but the further toward hell; we are 
still but heathen gospellers ; our Christian infidelity and prac- 
tical atheism will but help to charge their guilt upon us, and 
damn us the deeper for being Christians. Do but examine 
yourselves on this one interrogatory, whether this calling the 
Gentiles hath found any effect in your hearts, any influence 
on your lives; whether your conversations are not still as 
heathenish as ever? If you have no other grounds or motives 
to embrace the Gospel, but only because you are born within 
the pale of the Church, no other evidences of your disciple- 
ship but your livery; then God is little beholding to you for 
your service. The same motives would have served to have 
made you Turks, if it had been your chance to have been 
born amongst them: and now all that fair Christian outside 
is not thankworthy. It is but your good fortune that you are 
not now at the same work with the old Gentiles, or present 
Indians, a worshipping either Jupiter or the sun! It was a 
shrewd speech of Clemens, that the life of every unregene- 
rate man is an heathen life; and the sins of unsanctified 
men are heathen sins; and the estate of a libertine Chris- 
tian an heathen estate: and unless our ‘resolutions and 
practices are consonant to our profession of Christ, we are 
all still heathens; the Lord make us sensible of this our 
condition. 

The third, and in sum, the powerfulest argument to prove 
God’s willingness that we should live, is, that “ He hath be- 
stowed His Spirit upon us ;” that as soon as He called up the 
Son, He sent the Comforter. This may seem to be the main 
business that Christ ascended to heaven about; so that a 


man would guess from the 16th chapter of St. John, verse John xvi.7. 


7, that if it had not been for that, Christ had tarried amongst 
us till this time; but that it was more expedient to send the 
Spirit to speak those things powerfully to our hearts, which 
often and in vain had been sounded in our ears. It is a fancy 
of the Paracelsians, that if we could suck out the lives and 
spirits of other creatures, as we feed on their flesh, we should 
never die: their lives would nourish and transubstantiate into 
our lives, their spirit increase our spirits, and so our lives 
grow with our years, and the older we were, by consequence, 
the fuller of life; and so no difficulty to become immortal. 


1 Cor. xv. 
31. 


382 SERMON XVIII. 


Thus hath God dealt with us; first sent His Son, His in- 
carnate Son, His own flesh to feed and nourish us; and for 
all this we “ die daily.” He hath now given us His own very 
life and incorporeous essence, a piece of pure God, His very 
Spirit to feed upon, and digest, that if it be possible we might 
live. There is not a vein in our souls, unless it be quite 
pinned and shrivelled up, but hath some blood produced 
in it by that holy nourishment; every breath that ever we 
have breathed toward heaven, hath been thus inspired; be- 
sides those louder voices of God, either sounding in His word, 
or thundering in His judgments, there is His calm, soft 
voice of inspiration, like the night vision of old, which stole 
in upon the mind, mingled with sleep, and gentle slumber. 
He draws not out into the field, or meets us as an enemy; but 
entraps us by surprise, and disarms us in our quarters, by a 
spiritual stratagem, conquers at unawares, and even betrays, 
and circumvents, and cheats us into heaven. That precept 
of Pythagoras*, πρὸς τὴν ἀνέμων πνεόντων ἠχὼ TposkuveiD, 
“ΤῸ worship at the noise and whistling of the wind,” had 
sense and divinity in it, that Jamblichus that cites it never 
dreamt of; that every sound and whispering of this Spirit, 
which rustles either about our ears, or in our hearts,—as the 
philosopher saith, Zecum est, intus est—when it breathes and 
blows within us, the stoutest faculty of our souls, the proud- 
est piece of flesh about us, should bow down and worship. 
Concerning the manner of the Spirit’s working, I am not, I 
need not to dispute. Thus far it will be seasonable and profit- 
able for you to know, that many other illuminations and holy 
graces are to be imputed to God’s Spirit, besides that by 
which we are effectually converted. God speaks to us many 
times when we answer Him not, and shines about our eyes, 
when we either wink or sleep. Our many sudden, short- 
winded ejaculations toward heaven, our frequent but weak 
inclinations to good, our ephemerous wishes, that no man 
can distinguish from true piety but by their sudden death; 
our every day resolutions of obedience, whilst we continue 
in sin, are arguments that God’s Spirit hath shined on us, 
though the warmth that it produced be soon chilled with the 
damp it meets within us. For example, there is no doubt, 
¢ fJamblichus Protrept. Explanation of Symbol. viii. } 


SERMON XVIIT. 383 


beloved, but the Spirit of God accompanies His word, as at 
this time, to your ears; if you will but open at its knock, and 
receive, and entertain it in your hearts, it shall prove unto 
you, according to its most glorious attribute, “the power [Rom. i. 
of God unto salvation :” but if you will refuse it, your stub- ε 
bornness may repel and frustrate God’s work, but not an- 
nihilate it; though you will not be saved by it, it is God’s 
still, and so shall continue to witness against you at the day 
of doom. Every word that was ever darted from that Spirit, 

as a beam or javelin of that piercing sun, every atom of that 
flaming sword, as the word is phrased, shall not, though it be 
rebated, vanish; the day of vengeance shall instruct your 
souls that it was sent from God, and since it was once re- 
fused, hath been kept in store, not to upbraid, but damn 
you. 

Many other petty occasions the Spirit ordinarily takes to 
put off the cloud, and open His face toward us: nay, it were 
not a groundless doubt whether He do not always shine, and 
the cloud be only in our hearts, which makes us think the 
sun is gone down, or quite extinct, if at any time we feel not 
his rays within us. Beloved, there be many things amongst 
us that single fire can do nothing upon; they are of such a 
stubborn, frozen nature, there must be some material thing 
for the fire to consist in, a sharp iron, red hot, that may bore 
as well as burn, or else there is small hopes of conquering 
them. Many men are so hardened and congealed in sin, that 
the ordinary beam of the Spirit cannot hope to melt them ; 
the fire must come consubstantiate with some solid instrument, 
some sound, corpulent, piercing judgment, or else it will be 
very unlikely to thrive. True it is, the Spirit is an omni- 
potent agent, which can so invisibly infuse and insinuate its 
virtue through the inward man, that the whole most enraged 
adversary shall presently fall to the earth, the whole carnal [Acts ix. 
man lie prostrate, and the sinner be without delay converted ; 11: 
and this is a miracle which I desire from my heart might be 
presently shewed upon every soul here present. 

But that which is to my present purpose is only this, that 
God hath also other manners and ways of working, which 
are truly to be said to have descended from heaven, though 
they are not so successful as to bring us thither; other more 


884 SERMON XVIII. 


calm, and less boisterous influences, which if they were re- 
ceived into an honest heart, might prove semen immortalita- 
tis, and in time increase, and grow up to immortality. 

There is no such incumbrance to trash us in our Christian 
progress as a fancy that some men get possessed with; that 
if they are elected they shall be called and saved in spite of 
their teeth; every man expecting an extraordinary call, be- 
cause Saul met with one; and perhaps running the more 
fiercely because Saul was then called, when he was most vio- 
lent in his full speed of malice against Christians. 

In this behalf, all that I desire of you is, first, to consider, 
that though our regeneration be a miracle, yet there are de- 
grees of miracles, and thou hast no reason to expect that 
the greatest and strongest miracle in the world, shall in the 
highest degree be shewed in thy salvation. Who art thou, 
that God should take such extraordinary pains with thee? 

Secondly, to resolve that many precious rays and beams 
of the Spirit, though when they enter they come with power, 
yet through our neglect may prove trausitory—pass by that 
heart which is not open for them. 

And then thirdly, you will easily be convinced, that no 
duty concerns us all so strictly, as to observe, as near as we 
can, when thus the Spirit appears to us; to collect and mus- 
ter up the most lively, quick-sighted, sprightfulest of our fa- 
culties: and with all the perspectives that spiritual optics can 
furnish us with, to lay wait for every glance and glimpse of 
its fire or light. We have ways in nature to apprehend the 
beams of the sun, be they never so weak and languishing, 
and by uniting them into a burning-glass, to turn them into 
a fire. Oh that we were as witty and sagacious in our spirl- 
tual estate! then it were easy for those sparks which we so 
often either contemn or stifle, to thrive within us, and at 
last break forth into a flame. 

In brief, incogitancy and inobservance of God’s seasons, 
supine numbness and negligence in spiritual affairs, may on 
good grounds be resolved on, as the main or sole cause of our 
final impenitence and condemnation ; it being just with God 
to take those away in a sleep who thus walked in a dream, 
and at last to refuse them whom He hath so long solicited. 
He that hath scorned and wasted his inheritance cannot com- 


SERMON XVIII. 385 


plain if he dies a bankrupt; nor he that hath spent his can- 
dle at play, count it hard usage that he is fain to go to bed 
darkling. It were easy to multiply arguments on this theme, 
and from every minute of our lives to discern some pawn and 
evidence of God’s fatherly will and desire that we should live. 
Let it suffice, that we have been large, if not abundant in 
these three chief ones: first, the giving of His Son to the 
world; secondly, dispatching the gospel to the Gentiles; 
and lastly, the sending of His Spirit. We come now to a 
view of the opposite trenches, which 116 pitched at the gates 
of hell, obstinate and peremptory to besiege and take it: 
man’s resolvedness and wilfulness to die, my second part, 
“Why will you die ?” 

There is no one conceit that engages us so deep to continue 
in sin, that keeps us from repentance, and hinders any sea- 
sonable reformation of our wicked lives, as a persuasion that 
God’s will is a cause of all events. Though we are not so 
blasphemous as to venture to define God the author of sin, 
yet we are generally inclined for a fancy, that because all 
things depend on God’s decree, whatsoever we have done 
could not be otherwise; all our care could not have cut off 
ne sin from the catalogue. And so being resolved, that when 
we thus sinned we could not choose, we can scarce tell how 
to repent for such necessary fatal misdemeanors; the same 
excuses which we have for having sinned formerly, we have 
for continuing still, and so are generally better prepared for 
apologies than reformation. Beloved, it will certainly much 
conduce to our edification, instead of this speculation—whose 
grounds or truth I will not now examine—to fix this prac- 
tical theorem in our hearts, that the will of man is the prin- 
cipal cause of all our evil, that death, either as it is the pun- 
ishment of sin, eternal death, or as it is the sin itself, a 
privation of the life of grace, spiritual death, is wholly to be 
imputed to our wilful will. It is a problem in Aristotle, why 
some creatures are longer in conceiving and bringing forth 
than others, and the sensiblest reason he gives for it, is σκλη- 
ρότης ὑστέρας “, “the hardness of the womb,” which is like 
dry earth, that will not presently give any nourishment to 
either seed or plant; and so is it in the spiritual conception 


4 [ Aristot. Problem., sect. 10. § 9.1 
HAMMOND. ce 


[ Matt. xiii. 


4, 5, 


1 John ii. 
15. 


Eph. iii.17. 


386 SERMON XVIII. 


and production of Christ, that is, of life in us. The hardness 
and toughness of the heart, the womb where He is to be 
born, that ξηρὰ γῆ °, that “ dry earth,” in the philosopher’s, or 
that “ way-side,” or at best ‘‘ stony ground” in Christ’s phrase, 
is the only stop and delay in begetting of life within us, the 
only cause of either barrenness or hard travail in the Spirit. 
Be the brain never so soft and pliable, never so waxy and capa- 
ble of impressions ; yet if the heart be but carnal, if it have 
any thing much of that “lust of the flesh” in its composi- 
tion, it will be hard for the spiritual life to be conceived in 
that man. For faith, the only means by which Christ lives 
and dwells in us, is to be seated in the heart, i. e. the will 
and affections, according to the express words, “ that Christ 
may dwell in your hearts by faith.” So that, be your brains 
never so swelled and puffed up with persuasions of Christ our 
Saviour, be they so big that they are ready to lie in, and tra- 
vail of Christ, as Jove’s did of Minerva in the poem'; yet if 
the heart have not joined in the conception, if the seed sown 
have not taken root and drawn nourishment from the will, 
it is but an aerial or fantastical birth, or indeed rather a 
disease or tympany; nay, though it come to some proof, and 
afterward extend and increase in limbs and proportions never 
so speciously, yet if it be only in the brain, neither is this to 
be accounted solid nourishment and augmentation, but such 
as a chameleon may be thought to have, that feeds on air, and 
itself is little better, and in sum, not growth but swellings. 
So then if the will, either by nature or custom of sinning, 
by familiarity and acquaintance, making them dote on sen- 
sual objects otherwise unamiable; by business and worldly 
ambitious thoughts, great enemies to faith; or by pride and 
contentment, both very incident to noble personages and 
great wits, to courtiers and scholars; in brief, if this will, 
the stronger and more active part of the soul, remain car- 
nal, either in indulgence to many, or, which is the snare of 
judicious men in chief, of some one prime sin, then cannot 
all the faith in the world bring that man to heaven; it may 
work so much miracle, as Simon Magus is said to have done, 
who undertook to raise the dead, give motion to the head, 
make the eyes look up or the tongue speak; but the lower 
part of the man, and that the heaviest, will by no charm or 
¢ [Aristot. ibid. ] f [Cf. the Homeric Hymn to Pallas. ] 


SERMON XVIII, 387 


spell be brought to stir, but weigh and sink even into hell, 
will still be carcass and corruption ; “ damnation is his birth- Ecclus. 
right.” And it is impossible, though not absolutely, yet ex ἢν “i 
hypothesi, the second covenant being now sealed, even for 
God Himself to save him or give him life. It is not David’s 
music that exorcised and quieted Saul’s evil spirit, nor Pytha- 
goras’s ® spondees that tamed a man, καὶ ἐπανώρθωσαν, “ set 
him right in his wits for ever, that can work any effect on a 
fleshy heart.” So that Chrysostom" would not wonder at the 
voice that cried, “O altar, altar, hear the voice of the Lord,” [1 Kings 
because Jeroboam’s heart was harder than that; nor will I ee) 
find fault with Bonaventure that made a solemn prayer for a 
stony heart, as if it were more likely to receive impression 
than that which he had already of flesh. 

It were long to insist on the wilfulness of our fleshy hearts, 
how they make a faction within themselves, and bandy facul- 
ties for the devil; how when grace and life appear, and make 
proffer of themselves, all the carnal affections, like them in 
the Gospel, “join all with one consent to make excuses ;” Luke xiv. 
nothing in our whole lives we are so solicitous for, as to get Το 
off fairly, to have made a cleanly apology to the invitations 
of God’s Spirit, and yet for a need rather than go, we will 
venture to be unmannerly. We have all married a wife, 
espoused ourselves to some amiable delight or other; we 
cannot, we will not come. The devil is wiser in his genera- 
tion than we; he knows the price and value of a soul, and will 
pay any rate for it rather than lose his market; he will give 
all the riches in the world rather than miss. And we, at how 
low a rate do we prize it? it is the cheapest commodity we 
carry about us. The beggarliest, content under heaven is 
fair, is rich enough to be given in exchange for the soul. 
Spiritus non ponderat, saith the philosopher; the soul being 
a spirit, when we put it into the balance, weighs nothing; 
nay, more than so, it is lighter than vanity, lighter than no- 
thing, i.e. it doth not only weigh nothing, but even lifts up 
the scale it is put into, when nothing is weighed against it. 
How many sins, how many vanities, how many idols, i.e. in 
the Scripture phrase, how many nothings be there in the [1Cor. viii. 

& (Cf. Jamblichus, de Vita Pythagore, cap. xxv. δὲ 112, 114. ] Ἵ 
h [S. Chrysostom, De Peenitentia, Homil, viii, Op., tom. ii. p. 345, E.] 
cc2 


Heb. x. 81. 


ver. 27. 


388 SERMON XVIII. 


world, each of which will outweigh and preponderate the 
soul ! 

It were tedious to observe and describe the several ways 
that our devilish sagacity hath found out to speed our- 
selves to damnation, to make quicker dispatch in that un- 
happy road than ever Elias’s fiery chariot could do toward 
heaven. Our daily practice is too full of arguments, almost 
every minute of our lives as it is an example, so is it a proof 
of it. Our pains will be employed to better purpose if we 
leave that as a worn, beaten, common-place, and betake our- 
selves to a more necessary theme, a close of exhortation. 


And that shall be by way of treaty, as an ambassador sent 
from God, that you will lay down your arms, that you will 
be content to be friends with God, and accept of fair terms 
of composition; which are, that as you have thus long been 
enemies to God, proclaiming hostility, and perpetually op- 
posing every merciful will of His by that wilfulness, so now 
being likely to fall into His hands, you will prevent that 
ruin, you will come in; and whilst it is not too late, submit 
yourselves, that you may not be forced as rebels and outlaws, 
but submit as servants. This perhaps may be your last par- 
ley for peace, and if you stand out the battery will begin 
suddenly, and with it the horrendum est, “It is a fearful, 
hideous thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” All 
that remains upon our wilful holding out may be (the doom 
of apostates from Christianity) a “certain fearful looking for 
of judgment and fiery indignation, that shall devour the ad- 
versaries.” And methinks the very emphasis in my text 
notes as much; ‘ Why will you die?” as if we were just 
now falling into the pit, and there were but one minute be- 
twixt this time of our jollity and our everlasting hell. Do 
but lay this one circumstance to your hearts, do but suppose 
yourselves on a bed of sickness, laid at with a violent burn- 
ing fever, such a one as shall finally consume the whole 
world; as it were battered with thundering and lghtning, 
and besieged with fire, where the next throw or plunge of 
thy disease may possibly separate thy soul from thy body, 
and the mouth of hell just then open and yawning at thee; 
and then suppose there were one only minute wherein a seri- 


SERMON XVIII. 389 


ous resigning up thyself to God might recover you to heaven ; 
O then what power and energy! what force and strong effi- 
cacy would there be in this voice from God, “ Why will you 
die?” I am resolved, that heart that were truly sensible of 
it, that were prepared seasonably by all these circumstances 
to receive it, would find such inward vigour and spirit from 
it, that it would strike death dead in that one minute; this 
ultimus conatus, this last spring and plunge, would do more 
than a thousand heartless heaves in a lingering sickness, and 
perhaps overcome and quit the danger. 

And therefore let me beseech you to represent this con- 
dition to yourselves, and not any longer be flattered or co- 
zened in a slow security: ‘To-day if you will hear His [Ps. xev. 
voice, harden not your hearts.” If you let it alone till this 8. 
day come in earnest, you may then perhaps heave in vain, 
labour and struggle, and not have breath enough to send up 
one sigh toward heaven. The hour of our death we are wont 
to call tempus improbabilitatis, a very improbable inch of time 
to build our heaven in; as after death is impossibilitatis, a 
time wherein it is impossible to recover us from hell. If 
nothing were required to make us saints but outward per- 
formances; if true repentance were but to groan, and faith 
but to cry, Lord, Lord; we could not promise ourselves that [Matt. vii. 
at our last hour we should be sufficient for that; perhaps a 
lethargy may be our fate, and then what life or spirits even 
for that? perhaps a fever may send us away raving, in no 
case to name God, but only in oaths and curses; and then 
it were hideous to tell you what a Bethlehem we should be 
carried to. But when that which must save us must be a 
work of the soul, and a gift of God, how can we promise 
ourselves that God will be so merciful, whom we have till 
then contemned, or our souls then capable of any holy im- 
pression, having been so long frozen in sin, and petrified 
even into adamant? Beloved, as a man may come to such 
an estate of grace here, that he may be most sure he shall 
not fall, as St. Paul in likelihood was, when he “resolved [Rom. viii. 
that nothing could separate him:” so may a man be en- ον 
gaged so far in sin that there is no rescuing from the devil. 
There is an irreversible estate in evil as well as good, and 
perhaps I may have arrived to that before my hour of death ; 


Exod. ix. 
34. 


Cant. iii. 1. 


Tit. ii, 14. 


Matt. iii. 8. 


390 SERMON XVIII. 


for I believe Pharaoh was come to it after the seventh plague 
hardening his heart; and then I say, it is possible, that thou 
that hitherto hast gone on in habituate, stupid, customary 
rebellions, mayest be now at this minute arrived to this 
pitch, that if thou run on one pace further thou art engaged 
for ever past recovery. And therefore at this minute, in the 
strength of your age and lusts, this speech may be as season- 
able as if death were seizing on you, “ Why will you die?” 
At what time soever thou repentest God will have mercy ; 
but this may be the last instant wherein thou canst repent, 
the next sin may benumb or sear thy heart, that even the 
pangs of death shall come on thee insensibly ; that the rest 
of thy life shall be a sleep, or lethargy, and thou lie stupid 
in it till thou findest thyself awake in flames. Oh, if thou 
shouldst pass away in such a sleep! Again, I cannot tell you 
whether a death-bed repentance shall save you or no. The 
spouse sought Christ on her bed, but found Him not. The 
last of Ecclesiastes would make a man suspect, that remem- 
bering God when our feeble impotent age comes on us, would 
stand us in little stead. Read it, for it is a most learned 
powerful chapter. This I am sure of, “God hath chosen to 
Himself a people zealous of good works.” And they that find 
not some of this holy fire alive within them, till their souls 
are going out, have little cause to think themselves of God’s 
election. So that perhaps there is something in it, that the 
exhortation, “ Bring forth fruits worthy of repentance,” is 
expressed by a tense that ordinarily signifies time past, ποιή- 
cate, “have brought forth fruits.” It will not be enough 
upon an exigence, when there is no way but one with me, to 
be inclinable to any good works, to resolve to live well when 
I expect to die. I must have done this, and more too in my 
life, if I expect any true comfort at my death. There is not 
any point we err more familiarly in and easily than our 
spiritual condition; what is likely to become of us after 
death? any slight fancy that Christ died for us in particu- 
lar, we take for a faith that will be sure to save us. 

Now there is no way to preserve ourselves from this error 
but to measure our faith and hopes by our obedience ; that if 
we sincerely obey God, then are we true believers. And this 
cannot well be done by any that begins not till he is on his 


SERMON XVIII. 391 


death-bed ; be his inclinations to good then never so strong, 
his faith in Christ never so lusty; yet how knows he whether 
it is only fear of death, and a conviction that in spite of his 
teeth he must now sin no longer, that hath wrought these 
inclinations, produced this faith in him ? 

Many a sick man resolves strongly to take the physician’s 
dose, in hope that it will cure him; yet when he comes to 
taste its bitterness will rather die than take it. If he that 
on his death-bed hath made his solemnest, severest vows, 
should but recover to a possibility of enjoying those delights 
which now have given him over, I much fear his fiercest re- 
solutions would be soon out-dated. Such inclinations that 
either hover in the brain only, or float on the surface of the 
heart, are but like those wavering, temporary thoughts, 
“Like a wave of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed ;” Jam. i. 6. 
they have no firmness or stable consistence in the soul; it 
will be hard to build heaven on so slight a foundation. 

All this I have said, not to discourage any tender, languish- 
ing soul, but by representing the horrors of death to you now 
in health, to instruct you in the doctrine of mortality betimes, 
so to speed and hasten your repentance; now, as if to-mor- 
row would be too late, as if there were but a small isthmus or 
inch of ground between your present mirth and jollity and 
your everlasting earnest. 

To gather up all on the clue. Christ is now offered to you 
as a Jesus: the times and sins of your heathenism and un- 
belief, “God winketh at.” The Spirit proclaims all this by Acts xvii. 
the Word to your hearts; and now—God knows if ever again ὅδ 
—commands all men “ every where to repent.” 

Oh that there were such a spirit in our hearts, such a zeal 
to our eternal bliss, and indignation at hell, that we would 
give one heave and spring before we die; that we would but 
answer those invitations of mercy, those desires of God, that 
we should live with an inclination, with a breath, with a sigh 
toward heaven. 

Briefly, if there be any strong, violent, boisterous devil 
within us, that keeps possession of our hearts against God; 
if the lower sensual part of our soul; if an habit of sin, 1. 6. 
a combination or legion of devils, will not be overtopped by 
reason or grace in our hearts; if a major part of our carnal 


{ Matt. 
xvii, 21.] 


392 SERMON XVIII. 


faculties be still canvassing for hell; if for all our endeavours 
and pains it may appear to us that this kind of evil spirit 
will not be cast out, save only by fasting and prayer; then 
have we yet that remedy left, first, to fast and pine, and keep 
him weak within, by denying him all foreign, fresh provision, 
all new occasions of sin, and the like, and so to block, and in 
time starve him up: and then secondly, to pray that God 
will second and fortify our endeavours; that He will force, 
and rend, and ravish this carnal devil out of us; that He will 
subdue our wills to His will; that He will prepare and make 
ready life for us, and us for life; that He will prevent us by 
His grace here, and accomplish us with His glory hereafter. 
Now to him, ἕο. 


SERMON XIX. 


JER. v. 2. 
Though they say, The Lord liveth; surely they swear falsely. 


Nor to waste any time or breath, or—which men in this 
delicate and effeminate age are wont to be most sparing and 
thrifty of—any part of your precious patience unprofitably, 
but briefly to give you a guess whither our discourse is like 
to lead you, we will severally lay down and sort to your 
view every word of the text single; and so we may gather 
them up again, and apply them to their natural proper pur- 
poses. 

First, then, the particle “ though”’ in the front, and “surely’ 
in the body of the text, are but bands and junctures to keep 
all together into one proposition. 

Secondly, the pronoun “they,” in each place, is in the let- 
ter the Jews, in application, present Christians; and being 
indefinite, might seem to be of the same extent in both places, 
did not the matter alter it, and make it universal in the for- 
mer, and particular in the latter. For artists say, that an in- 
definite sign, where the matter is necessary, is equivalent to 
an universal, where but contingent, to a particular. Now to 
say “the Lord liveth,” was and is necessary ; though not by 
any logical, yet by a political necessity ; the government and 
human laws, under which then the Jews and now we Chris- 
tians live, require this profession necessarily at our hands: 
but to “swear falsely,” not to perform what before they pro- 
fessed, is materia contingens, a matter of no necessity, but free- 
will and choice, that no human law can see into; and there- 
fore we must not interpret by the rules of art, or charity, 


> 


Jer, iv. 2. 


394 SERMON XIX. 


that all were perjured, but some only; though it is probable 
a major part; and as we may guess by the first verse of this 
chapter, well nigh all of them. 

Thirdly, to “say” is openly to make profession, and that 
very resolutely and boldly, that none may dare to distrust it ; 
nay, with an oath to confirm it to jealous opinions, as appears 
by the latter words, “ They swear falsely,” while they do but 
“say :” and, “Thou shalt swear, The Lord liveth,” &c. 

Fourthly, “the Lord,” i. e. both in Christianity and ortho- 
dox Judaism the whole Trinity. 

Fifthly, “liveth,” i.e. by way of excellency hath a life of 
His own, independent and eternal, and in respect of us is the 
fountain of all life and being that we have; and not only of 
life, but motion, and perfection, and happiness, and salvation, 
and all that belongs to it. In brief, to say, “The Lord liv- 
eth,” is to acknowledge Him in His essence, and all His attri- 
butes, contained together under that one principle; on that 
of life, to believe whatever Moses and the prophets then, or 
now our Christian faith, hath made known to us of Him, 

Sixthly, to falsify and swerve from truth becomes a further 
aggravation, especially in the present instance; though they 
make mention of that God, who is “ Yea,” and “ Amen,” and 
loves a plain veracious speech, yet they swear; though by 
loud and dreadful imprecations they bespeak Him a witness 
and a judge unto the criminal, pray as devoutly for destruc- 
tion for their sin as the most sober penitent can do for its 
pardon, yet are they perjured; “ they swear falsely.” 

More than all this, they openly renounce the Deity when 
they call upon Him; their hearts go not along with their 
words and professions; though it be the surest truth in the 
world that they swear when they assert that “the Lord liv- 
eth,” yet they are perjured in speaking of it; though they 
make a fair show of believing in the brain, and from the 
teeth outward, they never lay the truth that they are so vio- 
lent for at all to their hearts; or as the original hath it, raw, 
in vanum, to no purpose it is that they swear, no man that 
sees how they live will give any heed to their words, will ima- 
gine that they believe any such matter. 


So now having paced over, and as it were spelt every 


SERMON XIX. 395 


word single, there will be no difficulty for the rawest un- 
derstanding to put it together, and read it currently enough 
in this proposition; amongst the multitude of professors of 
Christianity there is very little real piety, very little true 
belief. 

In the verse next before my text there is an “O yes” made, 
a proclamation, nay, a hue and cry, and hurrying about the 
streets, if it were possible to find out but a man that were 
a sincere believer; and here in my text is brought in a Non 
est inventus, ‘Though they say, The Lord liveth,’—a multitude 
of professors indeed every where,—“‘yet surely they swear 
falsely ; there is no credit to be given to their words; infi- 
delity and hypocrisy is in their hearts; for all their fair be- 
lieving professions, they had an unfaithful rebellious heart, 
and the event manifested it, “they are departed and gone,” 
arrant apostates in their lives, by which they were to be 
tried ; “Neither say they in their hearts, Let us fear the 
Lord,” whatsoever they flourished with their tongues. 

Now for a more distinct survey of this horrible wretched 
truth, this heathenism of Christians, and infidelity of be- 
lievers,—the true ground of all false swearing, and indeed of 
every other sin,—we will first examine wherein it consists ; 
secondly, whence it springs; the first will give you a view of 
its nature, the second its root and growth, that you may 
prevent it. The first will serve for an ocular or mathema- 
tical demonstration, called by artists ὅτι, “that” itis so; the 
second a rational or physical διότι, “ how” it comes about. 
The first to convince of the truth of it, the second to instruct 
you in its causes. 

And first of the first, wherein this infidelity, and to speak 
more plainly, perjury of formal believers consists; “ Though 
they say,” &c. 

Since that rather fancy than divinity of the Romanists, 
schoolmen, and casuists, generally defining faith to be a bare 
assent to the truth of God’s word seated only in the under- 
standing, was by the protestant divines banished out of the 
schools, as a faith for a chameleon to be nourished with, 
which can feed on air; as a direct piece of sorcery and con- 
juring, which will help you to remove mountains only by 
thinking you are able; briefly, as a chimera or fantastical 


ver, 23. 


ver. 24. 


396 SERMON XIX. 


nothing, fit to be sent to limbo for a present; since, I say, 
this magical divinity which still possesses the Romanist, 
and also a sort of men who would be thought most distant 
from them, hath been exorcised, and silenced, and cast out of 
our schools—would I could say out of our hearts—by the 
Reformation, the nature of faith hath been most admirably 
explained; yet the seat or subject of it never clearly set down, 
—some confining it to the understanding, others to the will, 
—till at last it pitched upon the whole soul, the intellective 
nature. For the soul of man, should it be partitioned into 
faculties,—as the grounds of our ordinary philosophy would 
persuade us,—it would not be stately enough for so royal a 
guest: either room would be too pent and narrow to enter- 
tain at once so many graces as attend it. Faith therefore, 
that it may be received in state, that it may have more free- 
dom to exercise its sovereignty, hath required all partitions 
to be taken down; that sitting in the whole soul it may com- 
mand and order the whole man;; is not in the brain sometimes, 
as its gallery, to recreate and contemplate; at another in the 
heart, as its parlour to feed, or a closet to dispatch business ; 
but if it be truly that royal personage which we take it for, it 
is repletive in the whole house at once, as in one room, and 
that a stately palace, which would be much disgraced, and 
lose of its splendour, by being cut into offices: and accord- 
ingly this royal grace is an entire absolute prince of a whole 
nation,—not as a tetrarch of Galilee, a sharer of a Saxon hep- 
tarchy,—and described to us as one single act, though of 
great command; and defined to be an assent and adherence 
to the goodness of the object ;—which object is the whole 
word of God, and specially the promises of the gospel. So 
then, to believe, is not to acknowledge the truth of Serip- 
ture, and the articles of the Creed,—as vulgarly we use know- 
ledge,—but to be affected with the goodness and excellency of 
them, as the most precious objects which the whole world 
could present to our choice; to embrace them as the only 
desirable thing upon the earth; and to be resolutely and 
uniformly inclined to express this affection of ours, in our 
practice, whensoever there shall be any competition betwixt 
them and our dearest delights. For the object of our faith 
is not merely speculative, somewhat to be understood only, 


SERMON XIX. 397 


and assented to as true, but chiefly moral, a truth to be pro- 
secuted with my desires through my whole conversation, to 
be valued above my life, and set up in my heart as the only 
shrines I worship. 

So that he that is never so resolutely sworn to the Scrip- 
tures,—believes all the commands, prohibitions, and promises 
never so firmly, if he doth not adhere to them in his prac- 
tice, and by particular application of them as a rule to guide 
him in all his actions, express that he sets a true value on 
them ; if he do not this, he is yet an infidel; all his religion 
is but like the beads-man’s, who whines over his creed and 
commandments over a threshold so many times a week, only 
as his task to deserve his quarterage, or to keep correspond- 
ence with his patron. Unless I see his belief expressed by 
uniform obedience, I shall never imagine that he minded 
what he said. The sincerity of his faith is always proportion- 
able to the integrity of his life; and so far is he to be ac- 
counted a Christian as he performs the obligation of it, the 
promise of his baptism. Will any man say that Eve believed 
God’s inhibition, when she eat the forbidden fruit? If she 
did, she was of a strange intrepid resolution, to run into the 
jaws of hell and never boggle. It is plain by the story that 
she heard God, but believed the serpent; as may appear by 
her obedience, the only evidence and measure of her faith. 
Yet can it not be thought, that she that was so lately a work 
of God’s omnipotence, should now so soon distrust it, and 
believe that He could not make good His threatenings. The 
truth is this; she saw clearly enough in her brain, but had not 
sunk it down into her heart; or perhaps she assented to it in the 
general, but not as appliable to her present case. This assent 
was like a bird fluttering in the chamber, not yet confined to 
a cage, ready to escape at the first opening of the door or 
window ; as soon as she opens either ears or eyes to hearken 
to the serpent or behold the apple, her former assent to God 
is vanished, and all her faith bestowed upon the devil. It 
will not be Pelagianism to proceed and observe how the 
condition of every sin since this time hath been an imitation 
of that. The same method in sin hath ever since been taken, 
first to revolt from God, and then to disobey ; first to become 
infidels, and then sinners. Every murmuring of the Israel- 


Heb. iii. 
12. 


Heb. x. 38. 


398 SERMON XIx. 


ites was a defection from the faith of Israel, and turning back 
to Egypt in their hearts. 

Infidelity, as it is the fountain from whence all rebellion 
springs,—faith being an adherence, and “every departure 
from the living God, arising from an evil heart of unbelief,”— 
so it is also the channel where it runs; not any beginning or 
progress in sin, without a concomitant degree of either weak- 
ness or want of faith. So that heathens or heretics are not 
the main enemies of Christ,—as the question de oppositis fidei 
is stated by the Romanists,—but the hypocrite and libertine, 
he is the heathen in grain, an heretic of Lucifer’s own sect ; 
one that the devil is better pleased with than all the cata- 
logue in Epiphanius or the Romish calendar. For this is it 
that Satan drives at; an engine by which he hath framed us 
most like himself; not when we doubt of the doctrine of 
Christ,—for himself believes it fully, no man can be more 
firmly resolved of it,—but when we heed it not in our lives, 
when we cleave not to it in our hearts; when instead of 
living by faith, ὑποστέλλομεν, we draw back, and cowardly 
subduce ourselves and forsake our colours, refusing to be 
marshalled in His ranks, or fight under His banner. Arrian 
the Stoic philosopher hath an excellent discourse concerning 
the double infidelity, of the brain and heart, very appliable; 
Aitrat ἀπολιθώσεις, k.T-X., “ There are two sorts of this sense- 
lessness and stupidity, whereby men are hardened into stones ; 
the first of the understanding part, the second of the practi- 
cal.” He that will not assent to things manifest, his brain is 
frozen into a stone or mineral; there is no more reasoning 
with him than with a pillar. The academic’s ἀκαταληψρίαϑ, 
never to believe or comprehend any thing, was a stupid 
philosophy, like to have no disciples but posts or statues ; 
and therefore long ago laughed out of the schools, as an art 
of being brutes, or metamorphosis, not to instruct but trans- 
form them: he could not remain a man that was thus incre- 
dulous. But the second stupidity, that of the practical, not 
to abstain from things that are hurtful, to embrace that which 
would be their death,—the vice, though not doctrine of the 
epicures,—though this were an argument, both in his and 
Scripture phrase, of a “stony heart,’ yet was it such an 

* [Cf. e. g. Sextus Empericus, Pyrrhon. Hypotyp., p. 1. ed. Bekker. } 


SERMON XIX. 399 


one as the lustiest, sprightfulest men in the world carried 
about with them. Nay, “It was an evidence,” saith he, “ of 
their strength and valour, of a heart of metal and proof, to 
have all modesty and fear of ill cold as a stone, frozen and 
dead within it.” And thus holds it in Christianity, as it did 
then in reason: not to believe the truth of Scripture, to 
deny that the “ Lord liveth,” would argue a brain as impene- 
trable as marble, and eyes as crystal: we sooner suspect 
that he is not a man, that he is out of his senses, than such 
an infidel. Some affected atheists I have heard of, that hope 
to be admired for eminent wits by it: but I doubt whe- 
ther any ever thought of it in earnest, and (if I may so 
say) conscientiously denied a Deity. But to deny Him in our 
lives, to have a heart of marble or adamant, ψυχὴν ἀπονε- 
κρουμένην, saith Arrian ¢, “a dead stupified soul,” οὐδὲν μέλει, 
it is so frequent amongst us, that it is not worth observing. 
He is but a puny in the devil’s camp that hath not a privy 
coat within him to secure his heart from any stroke that 
God or Scripture can threaten him with. 

Thus you see wherein this Christian infidelity consists, in 
the not rooting faith in the heart; in indulgence to those 
practices which directly contradict his doctrine. So that 
though every commission of sin be not incompatible with 
the habit of faith, so far as to denominate him an infidel ; 
yet is it from the not exercising of faith actually that I ever 
sin; and every man in the same degree that he is a sinner, 
so far is he an unbeliever. So that this conversible retro- 
gradous Sorites may shut up all. He that truly believes, 
assents in his heart to the goodness as well as the truth of 
Scripture: he that assents so in his heart, approves it ac- 
cording to its real excellency above all rivals in the world: 
he that thus approves, when occasion comes, makes an actual 
choice of God’s Word before all other most precious delights : 
he that actually makes the choice, performs uniform obedi- 
ence, without any respect of sins or persons: he that per- 
forms this obedience, never indulges himself in sin. And 
then e converso, backward, thus: he that indulges himself in 


> “Ay δὲ τίνος τὸ ἐντρεπτικὸν καὶ ai-  sertat., lib. 1, ο. 5. § 8, ad init.] 
δῆμον ἀπονεκρωθῇ, τοῦτο ἔτι καὶ δύνα- ὁ [Arrian, ibid., § 4. ] 
μιν καλοῦμεν .---ἰ Arrian, Epicteti Dis- 


1 Johniii.6. 


4.00 SERMON XIX. 


sin, doth not uniformly obey the Word: he that doth not so 
obey, doth not actually make choice of it before all com- 
petitors: he that makes not this choice, approves it not ac- 
cording to its real excellency above all things in the world: 
he that doth not so approve, assents not to the absolute 
goodness of it in his heart: he that so assents not, doth not 
truly believe; therefore every indulgent sinner is an infidel. 
And then look about you and within you: whosoever say, 
“The Lord liveth,” and yet remain in your ways of sin, be 
you never so stout or proud-hearted, my prophet gives you 
the lie: if you are incensed, and swear that you are in the 
truth, and stand upon your reputation, his answer is man- 
nerly, but tart, “Surely you swear falsely ;” every indulgent 
sinner is an infidel.“ Whosoever sins, hath not seen Christ, 
neither known Him.” But amongst professors of the gospel 
there be a multitude of habitual sinners, ergo of infidels ; ὅπερ 
ἔδει πρῶτον δεῖξαι, the thing which in the first place we un- 
dertook to demonstrate. 

We now come to the next thing proposed, the root or foun- 
tain of this hypocritical faith; where we are to enquire how 
it comes about, that they which are so forward to profess, are 
so far from true belief. And higher in our search we cannot 
go than Adam’s fall; for the spring-head of all this infidelity— 
as for God’s absolute decree, in rejecting men’s persons, and 
then suffering and leading them to an acknowledgment of the 
truth of the gospel, only that they may be unexcusable, I will 
not be so vain or unseasonable to examine. Adam had once 
the tree of life to have eaten, and have been immortal; to 
have confirmed him and his posterity into an irreversible 
estate of happiness: but since his disobedient heart preferred 
the tree of knowledge before that of life, the tree of life hath 
never thrived currently with his progeny. All our care, and 
traffic, and merchandise, hath been for knowledge, never 
prizing or cheapening so poor a commodity as life. Ξύλον 
γνώσεως ἐστὶν ἐὰν παρανομῶμεν", x.T.r., “ All sin is from the 
tree of knowledge;” and that hath rooted it so deep, and 
given it so fair a growth within us. 

As for the tree of life, seeing then we would not feed on 
it, we were never since suffered to come within reach: the 

4 [Clemens Alexandr. Strom., lib. iii. c. 17. § 104. p. 559. ed. Potter.] 


SERMON XIX. 4.01 


cherubins and a flaming sword have fenced it round about ; Gen. iii. 
and that makes men grow so unproportionably into such °* 
monstrous shapes, vast, strong, swollen heads; and weak, 
thin, crazy bodies, like Pharaoh’s lean kine, lank, and very 
ill-favoured : men for the most part having brains to under- 
stand, and eyes to see, and tongues to profess; but neither 
hearts to apply, nor hands to practise, nor feet to walk the 
ways of God’s commandments: as one far spent in a con- 
sumption, who hath his senses perfectly enough, when he is 
not able to go. It is only the effectual grace of God—of 
which that other tree was but an emblem—which must give 
us life and strength to practise what we know. And this 
amongst us is so little cared for, finds such disesteem and 
slight observance when it appears, meets with such resolute, 
hardened, stubborn hearts, that it is a miracle if it ever be 
brought to submit itself to such coarse entertainment. 

And this is the first and main ground of this hypocritical 
faith, our corrupt, immoderate desires of knowledge, and 
neglect of grace. The second ground more evidently dis- 
cernible in us, is, the secret consent and agreement betwixt 
our carnal desires and divine knowledge; and the antipathy 
and incompatibleness of the same with true faith. 

The first pair dwell many times very friendly and peace- 
ably together, do not quarrel in an age, or pass an affront or 
cross word. Knowledge doth seldom justle or offer violences 
to the desires of the flesh; a man may be very knowing and 
very lewd; of a towering brain and a grovelling soul; rich 
in speculation, and poor in practice. 

But for the other pair, they are like opposite signs in the 
heaven, have but a vicissitude of presence or light in our 
hemisphere, never appear or shine together. Faith lusteth 
and struggleth against the flesh, and the flesh against faith. 
The carnal part is as afraid of faith, as the devil was of 
Christ: for faith being seated in the concurrence of the 
dictate of judgment, and—on the other side—the sway of 
the affections, the one must either couch or be banished at 
the other’s entrance ; and then it cries out in the voice of the 
devil, “ What have I to do with Thee?” or, as the words Mark i. 24. 
will bear, τί ἐμοὶ καὶ col; ‘“ What communion can there be 


betwixt me and Thee?” Thou precious grace of God, “ Art 
HAMMOND. dd 


Matt. ii. 3. 


4.02 SERMON XTX. 


Thou come to torment and dispossess me before my time ?” 
O what a stir there is in the flesh, when faith comes to take 
its throne in the heart; as at the news of Christ’s incar- 
nation corporal, so at His spiritual, “ Herod the king is 
troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.” All the reigning 
Herod sins, and all the Jerusalem of habitual ruling lusts 
and affections, are in great disorder, as knowing that this 
new King abodes their instant destruction. 

It was Aristotle’s* observation, that the mathematics being 
an abstract knowledge, had nothing in them contrary to 
passions ; and therefore young men and dissolute might 
study and prove great proficients in them, if they had but a 
good apprehension; there was no more required: and that 
perhaps is the reason that such studies as these, history and 
geometry, and the like, go down pleasantliest with those which 
have no design upon books, but only to rid them of some 
hours, which would otherwise lie on their hands. The most 
studious of our gentry ordinarily deal in them, as imoffen- 
sive, tame, peaceable studies, which will never check them 
for any the most inordinate affections. But of morality, 
saith he, and practical knowledge, a young man or intem- 
perate is uncapable: you may make him con the precepts 
without book, or say them by rote, ἀλλ᾽ ov πιστεύει“, “ He 
cannot be said to believe a word of them;” his heart is so 
possessed with green, fresh, boisterous lusts, that he cannot 
admit any sober precepts any further than his memory. If 
you are in earnest with him to apply and practise what he 
reads, you exact of him beyond his years; he is not solemn 
enough for so sad severe employment; and therefore it is 
concluded that he is fit for any intellectual virtue, rather 
than prudence. This consists in a peaceable temper of the 
mind; an artist he may prove and never live the better ; 
suppose him one of youthful luxuriant desires, and never 
think he will be taught to live by rule, all the learning and 
study in books will never give him Aristotle’s moral pru- 
dence, much less our spiritual, which is by interpretation, 
faith. , 

And this is the second ground of infidelity amongst 
Christians, the competibility of knowledge, and incompeti- 

* Eth. vi. 9. f [Aristot., ibid. ] 


SERMON XIX. 4.03 


bility of true faith, with carnal desires. The third is, the 
easiness of giving assent to generalities, and difficulty of par- 
ticular application. 

A common truth delivered in general terms is received 
without any opposition: should it be proposed, whether no- 
thing be to be done but that which is just? whether drunk- 
enness were not a vice? whether only an outside of religion 
would ever save a man? no man would ever quarrel about 
it. When thus Nathan and David discoursed, they were [2 Sam. 
both of one mind; the one could talk no more against un- aoe 
conscionable dealing than the other would assent to. If 
you propose no other problems than these, the debauchedest 
man under heaven would not dispute against you. But all 
quarrelling, saith the Stoic’, is περὶ τὴν ἐφαρμογὴν τῶν 
προλήψεων ταῖς ἐπὶ μέρους οὐσίαις, “about the application 
of general granted rules, to personal, private cases. ” 

The Jews, and Assyrians, and Egyptians, and Romans, are 
all agreed, that holiness is to be preferred above all things; 
but whether it be not impious to eat swine’s flesh and the 
like, which of them observes the rules of holiness most ex- 
actly, there the strife begins. 

Common general declamations against sin are seldom ever 
offensive ; and therefore the master of rhetorics® finds fault 
with them as dull, liveless, unprofitable eloquence, that no 
man is affected with. The cowardliest bird in the air is not 
afraid of the falcon, as long as she sees him soaring and 
never stoop: but when the axe that was carried about the 
wood, threatening all indifferently, shall be laid to the root 
of the tree, when Nathan shall rejoinder with a “thou art [2 Sam. 
the man,” and St. Paul come home to his Corinthians after et) 
his declamation against fornicators and idolaters with ‘ and 1 Cor. vi. 
such were some of you,” then their hearts come to the touch- 
stone; this is a trial of their belief: if they will forsake 
their sins, which before their judgment condemned at a dis- 
tance ; if they will practise the holiness and integrity which 
they were content to hear commended. 

That famous war of the Trojans and Iliads of misery, 
following it in Homer, were all from this ground. The two 


—_ 
_ 


8 Πρόληψις προλήψει ov μόάχεται.--- » [Perhaps refers to Aristot. Rhet., 
Arr. Epict. Dissertat., lib. i. c. 22. ὃ 1. lib. ii. ς. 22.] 


pd2 


Acts xxiv. 
25. 


Jam. ii. 29, 


Acts xxvi. 
28. 


4.04 SWRMON X1X. 


great captains at the treaty agree very friendly that just 
dealing was very strictly to be observed by all men; and yet 
neither would one of them restore the pawn committed to 
his trust, nor the other divide the spoils: each as resolute 
not to practise, as both before unanimous to approve. 

There is not a thing more difficult in the world, than to per- 
suade a carnal man that that which concerns all men should 
have any thing to do with him ; that those promises of Christ 
which are confessed to be the most precious under heaven, 
should be fitter for his turn than this amiable, lovely sin, 
that now solicits him. That Scripture is inspired by God; 
and therefore in all its dictates to be believed and obeyed, is 
a thing fully consented on amongst Christians. We are so 
resolved on it, that it is counted but a dull barren question 
in the schools, a mam can invent nothing to say against by 
way of argument ; andif a preacher in a sermon should make 
it his business to prove it to you, you would think he either 
suspected you for Turks, or had little else to say. But when 
a particular truth of Scripture comes in balance with a pleas- 
ing sin, when the general prohibition strikes at my private 
lust, all my former assent to Scripture is vanished, I am hur- 
ried into the embraces of my beloved delight. Thus when 
Paul “ reasoned of temperance, righteousness, and judgment 
to come, Felix trembled.” His trembling shews that he 
assented to Paul’s discourse ; and as in the devils, it was an 
effect of a general belief; but this subject of temperance and 
judgment to come agreed not with Felix’s course of life. 
His wife Drusilla was held by usurpation; he had tolled her 
away from her husband, the king of the Emiseni, saith 
Josephus*, and therefore he could hear no more of it: he 
shifts and compliments it off till another time, and never 
means to come in such danger again to be converted, for fear 
of a divorce from his two treasures, his heathenism and his 
whore. 

Thus was Agrippa converted from the shoulders upward, 
which he calls “almost a Christian;” or as the phrase may be 
rendered, ἐν ὀλέγῳ, “a little way,” convinced as to the general 
truths in his brain; but the lower half, his heart and affec- 
tions, remained as heathenish as ever. 

k Antig. Jud., lib. xx. ο. 7. 


SERMON XIX. 4.05 


And this is the third ground of practical unbelief, that 
generalities can be cheaply believed without parting from any 
thing we prize; the doctrine of the Trinity can be received, 
and thwart never a carnal affection as being an inoffen- 
sive truth. Christ’s sufferings and satisfaction for sin by the 
natural man may be heard with joy; but particular applica- 
tion is very difficult: that our obedience to every command 
of that Trinity must be sincere: that we must forego all, and 
hate our own flesh to adhere to so merciful a Saviour, and 
express our love to the most contemptible soul under heaven, 
as He hath loved us; that we must at last expect Him in 
majesty as a judge, whom we are content to hug and embrace 
in His humility as a Saviour: this is a bloody word, as Moses’ 


wife counted the circumcision too harsh and rough to be re- 3 


ceived into such pampered, tender, fleshy hearts. 

The fourth ground is a general humour that is gotten in 
the world, to take care of nothing but our reputations: nor 
God, nor life, nor soul, nor any thing can weigh with it in 
the balance. Now it is a scandalous thing, a foul blot to 
one’s name, to be counted an atheist, an arrant infidel, where 
all are Christians; and therefore for fashion’s sake we will 
believe ; and yet sometime the devil hath turned this humour 
quite the contrary way, and made some men as ambitious of 
being counted atheists, as others of being Christians. It 
will shortly grow into a gentile garb, and part of courtship, 
to disclaim all religion in shew, as well as deeds. Thus are a 
world of men in the world, either professed atheists, or atheisti- 
cal professors, upon the same grounds of vainglory ; the one 
to get, the other to save their reputation in the world. Thus 
do many men stand up at the Creed, upon the same terms as 
gallants go into the field; that have but small maw to be 
killed, only to keep their honour, that they might not be 
branded and mocked for cowards. And yet certainly in the 
truth, these are the veriest dastards under heaven ; no worldly 
man so fearful of death, or pious man of hell, as these are of 
disgrace. 

The last ground I shall mention, and indeed the main of 
all, is, the subtlety and wiliness of the devil. He hath tried 
all his stratagems in the world, and hath found none like 
this for the undermining and ruining of souls, to suffer them 


[ Exod. iv. 
6. ] 


Matt. xix. 
2}, 


406 SERMON XIX. 


to advance a pretty way in religion, to get their heads full of 
knowledge, that so they may think they have faith enough, 
and walk to hell securely. The devil’s first policies were by 
heresies to corrupt the brain, to invade and surprise Chris- 
tianity by force: but he soon saw this would not hold out 
long ; he was fain to come from batteries to mines, and sup- 
plant those forts that he could not vanquish. The fathers— 
and amongst them chiefly Leo!, in all his writing—within 
the first five hundred years after Christ, observe him at this 
ward, ut guos vincere ferro flammisque non poterat, cupiditati- 
bus irretiret, et sub falsa Christiani nominis professione cor- 
rumperet. We hoped to get more by lusts than heresies, and 
to plunge men deepest in a high conceit of their holy faith. 
He had learned by experience from himself, that all the bare 
knowledge in the world would never sanctify; it would per- 
haps give men content, and make them confident and bold 
of their estate ; and by presuming on such grounds, and pre- 
scribing merit to heaven by their “ Lord, Lord,” even “seal 
them up to the day of damnation ;” and therefore it is ordi- 
nary with Satan to give men the tether a great way, lest they 
should grumble at his tyranny, and prove apostates from 
him upon hard usage. Knowledge is pleasant, and books 
are very good company; and therefore if the devil should 
bind men to ignorance, our speculators and brain epicures 
would never be his disciples; they would go away sadly, as 
the young man from Christ, who was well affected with His 
service, but could not part with his riches. So then you shall 
have his leave to know and believe in God, as much as you 
please, so you will not obey Him; and be as great scholars as 
Satan himself, so you will be as profane. The heart of man 
is the devil’s palace, where he keeps his state; and as long 
as he can strengthen himself there by a guard and band of 
lusts, he can be content to afford the outworks to God, 
divine speculation, and never be disturbed or affrighted by 
any enemy at such a distance. 

Thus have you the grounds also whereupon true faith— 
which is best defined a spiritual prudence, an application of 
spiritual knowledge to holy practice—should be so often 


''S. Leo. Mag. [cf. e.g. tom. 1, pp. 94, 1383, 134, 179. The express passage 
has net been found. } 


SERMON XIX. 407 


wanting in men which are very knowing, and the fairest 
professors of Christianity. 

Now lest this discourse also should reach no further than 
your ears, lest that which hath been said should be only as- 
sented to in the general as true, not applied home to your 
particular practices, and so do you no more good than these 
general professions did here to the Jews, only to prove you 
perjured hypocrites, “swearing falsely, whilst you say the 
Lord liveth,” we will endeavour to leave some impression 
upon your hearts by closing all with application. 

And that shall be in brief meekly to desire you; and if 
that will not serve the turn, by all the mercies of heaven, and 
horrors of hell, to adjure you to examine yourselves on these 
two interrogatories, which my text will suggest to you, first, 
whether you are as good as the Jews here? secondly, whether 
you are not, the best of you, altogether as bad? 

For the first, the Jews here said the ‘“ Lord liveth,” were 
very forward to profess; and it were some, though but a low 
measure of commendation, for us to be no worse than Jews. 
Let there go a severe inquisition out from the royal majesty 
over the whole court, or at least from every particular man 
upon himself; and bring in an impartial verdict, whether 
there be not some amongst you, that are not come thus far 
as to say, “the Lord liveth.” Some are so engaged in a 
trade of misshapen, horrid, monstrous vices, have so framed 
and fashioned the whole fabric of their lives, without any 
blush or lineament of God in them, that they are afraid ever 
to mention Him in earnest, for fear of putting them out of 
their course ; they dare not believe too much of God, lest it 
should be their undoing; a little sense of Him would take off 
many of their tricks of sinning, and consequently spoil their 
thriving in the world; like Diana’s silversmith, “for by this Acts xix. 
craft they have their wealth.” The least glimpse of God in ** 
these men’s hearts, nay, one solemn mention of Him in 
their mouths, were enough to bring them into some com- 
pass, to upbraid their ways, and reprove their thoughts. 
Were these men taken to task according to the canon laws 
of our kingdom, and not suffered to live any longer amongst 
Christians, till they understood clearly the promise of their 
baptism, till they durst come and make the same vow in 


[ Ps. xix. 


5.] 


Eph. ii, 
ΠΤ: 


408 SERMON XIX. 


their own persons, before all the congregation, which in their 
infancy their sureties made for them; were our canon of 
confirmation duly put in execution, and every one, as soon 
as he were capable, either persuaded or forced to fit himself 
for the receiving of it,—as it is severely required by our ru- 
bric, though much neglected in the practice ;—I doubt not but 
there would be fewer sins amongst us, much more knowledge 
of God, and mentioning of His name, without the help of 
oaths and blasphemies, to which God now is in a kind be- 
holding that ever He comes into our mouths. But now men 
having a great way to go in sin, and nothing in the world to 
stop them, begin their journey as soon as they are able to 
go, and make such haste—hke the sun, or giant in the 
Psalmist—to run their course, are so intent upon the task 
the devil hath set them, that they can never stay to see or 
hear of God in their lives, which yet is legible and palpable 
in every syllable of the world. If they are so well brought 
up as to have learned their Creed and Catechism, they have 
no other use for it but to break jests, and swear by; and 
would soon forget God’s very name or attributes, did they 
not daily repeat them over—as schoolboys their parts,—and 
often comment on them by oaths and profanations; and 
these are ἄθεοι in the Apostle’s phrase, “ without God in the 
world.” 

Others there are of a prouder, loftier strain, ἀντίθεοι, 
and θεομάχοι, that pitch camp, and arm and fortify them- 
selves against God, that would fain be a forging some 
other religion, they are so weary and cloyed with this. 
Thus have I heard of some that have sought earnestly for 
an Alcoran, and profess an opinion that all true divinity lies 
there, and expect to be esteemed great wits, of a deep reach, 
for this supposal. Others that have not skill enough to un- 
derstand Turkism, yet have lusts enough to admire it, and 
the brave carnal paradise it promises; and if they cannot 
persuade themselves to believe in it, yet they fancy it nota- 
bly; and because they cannot expect to have it in another 
life, they will be sure of it in this. 

Hence do they advance to such a pitch of sensuality, as 
heathenism was never guilty of; their whole life is a per- 
petual study of the arts of death, and their whole souls an 


SERMON XIX. 409 


holocaust or burnt sacrifice to their fleshly lusts. It were 
an horrid representation but to give you in a diagram the 
several arts that the god of this world hath now taught men 
to vilify and reproach the God of heaven. Professed athe- 
ism begins to set up; it comes in fashion, and then some 
courtiers must needs be in it. Profaning of Scripture, and 
making too cheap of it, was never so ordinary; that holy 
volume was never so violently and coarsely handled, even 
ravished and deflowered by unhallowed lips. It is grown 
the only stuff in request, and ordinariest garment to clothe 
a piece of scurrilous wit in, and the best of us can scarce 
choose but give it some applause. Beloved, there is not a 
sin in the world that sticks closer to him that once enter- 
tained it; the least indulgence in it is a desperate sign. It 
is called the “chair of scorners,” a sin of ease and pleasure: [Ps.i.1.] 
a man that uses it, that is once a merry atheist, seldom, if 
ever, proves a sad sober Christian. Julian, and many others, 
have gone scoffing to hell,—hke men whom custom of mock- 
ing hath made wry-mouthed,—scarcely composing themselves 
to a solemn countenance, till horror either of hell or con- 
science hath put smiling out of date. And if any of these 
sins are but crept in amongst you, it will be worthy our en- 
quiry and examination ;—and God grant your own impartial 
consciences may return you not guilty :—however this will 
but prove you no worse than Jews, for they here acknow- 
ledge God in their brain and tongues; they said, “The Lord 
liveth.” 

Your second interrogatory must be, whether whilst you 
thus profess, you do not also swear falsely? And then it is 
to be feared that every action of your lives will bring in an 
evidence against you. It were an accusation perhaps that 
you seldom hear of, to be challenged for hypocrites, to be 
turned puritans and pretenders to holiness: yet this is it 
my text must charge you with; professing of religion, and 
never practising it; assenting to the truth of Scripture in 
your brain, but not adhering to it in your hearts; believing 
in Christ, and yet valuing Him beneath the meanest sin you 
meet with. Look over your Creed, and observe whether 
your lives do not contradict every word in it; and is it not 
hypocrisy and perjury, or, if you will have it, high compli- 


41.0 SERMON XIX. 


menting with God, to be thus profuse and prodigal in our 
professions, which we never mean to perform? Then is it to 
be called belief, when it is sunk down into our hearts, when 
it hath taken root in a well-tempered soil, and begins to 
spring above ground, and hasten into an ear. That which 
grows like moss on the tiles of an house, which is set no 
deeper than the fancy, will never prove either permanent or 
solid nourishment to the soul. It were a new hour’s work 
to shew every defect in our faith by our defections and deser- 
tions of God in our manners; yet if you will be in earnest 
with yourselves, and apply the grounds premised to your seri- 
ous examination, your meditations may throughly make up 
what here is likely to be omitted. 

One thing take home with you for a rule to eternity, that 
every indulgence in any sin is a sure argument of an infidel: be 
you never so proud and confident of your faith, and justifica- 
tion by it; be you never so resolute that the “ Lord liveth ;” 
yet if your obedience be not uniform, if you embrace not 
what you assent to, “surely you swear falsely.”? Your par- 
ticular failings I am not knowing enough to represent to you; 
your own consciences, if they be but called to, cannot choose 
but reflect them to your sight. Your outward profession and 
frequency in it, for the general is acknowledged; your cus- 
tom of the place requires it of you; and the example of piety 
that rules in your eyes cannot but extort it. Only let your 
lives witness the sincerity of your professions; let not a dead 
carcass walk under a living head, and a nimble active Chris- 
tian brain be supported with bed-rid, motionless heathen 
limbs. Let me see you move and walk, as well as breathe, 
that I may hope to see you saints as well as Christians. 

And this shall be the sum, not only of my advice to you, 
but for you, of my prayers: that the Spirit would sanctify 
all our hearts as well as brains; that He will subdue, not 
only the pride and natural atheism of our understandings, 
but the rebellions, and infidelity, and heathenism of our 
lusts; that being purged from any relics, or tincture, or 
suspicion of irreligion in either power of our souls, we may 
live by faith, and move by love, and die in hope; and both 
in life and death glorify God here, and be glorified with 
Him hereafter. 


SERMON XX. 


Luke xvii. 11. 


God, I thank Thee, that I am not as other men, extortioners, §c., 
or even as this publican. 


THAT we may set out at our best advantage, and yet not go 
too far back to take our rise, it is but retiring to the end of the 
eighth verse of this chapter, and there we shall meet with 
an abrupt speech, hanging like one of Solomon’s proverbs, 
without any seeming dependence on any thing before or 
after it: which yet upon enquiry will appear διοπετὴς, fallen 
down from heaven, in the posture it stands in. In the be- 
ginning of the eighth verse he concludes the former parable, 
“1 tell you that He will avenge them speedily ;” and then [Acts xix. 
abruptly, ‘‘ Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, shall 38] 
He find faith upon the earth?” And then immediately, verse 
9, “ He spake another parable to certain that trusted in them- 
selves,” where this speech in the midst, “when the Son of 
Man comes,” &c., stands there by itself, like the Pharisee in 
my text, seorsim, apart, as an ἐμβόλιμον or intercalary day 
between two months, which neither of them will own, or 
more, truly like one of Democritus’ atoms, the casual concur- 
rence of which he accounted the principle and cause of all 
things. 

That we may not think so vulgarly of Scripture as to 
dream that any tittle of it came by resultance or casually 
into the world, that any speech dropped from His mouth 
unobserved, “that spake as man never spake,” both in 
respect of the matter of His speeches, and the weight and 
secret energy of all accidents attending them, it will appear 
on consideration, that this speech of His, which seems an 


ver. 9. 


ver. 10. 


412 SERMON XX. 


ὑπερβάλλον or ὑπερβαῖνον, asupernumerary superfluous one, 
is indeed the head of the corner, and ground of the whole 
parable, or at least a fair hint or occasion of delivering it at 
that time. Not to trouble you with its influence on the 
parable going before concerning perseverance in prayer,— 
to which it is as an isthmus or fibula, to join it to what 
follows,—but to bring our eyes home to my present subject ; 
after the consideration of the prodigious defect of faith in 
this decrepit last age of the world, in persons who made the 
ereatest pretences to it, and had arrived unto assurance and 
security in themselves ; He presently arraigns the Pharisee, 
the highest instance of this confidence, and brings his righte- 
ousness to the bar, sub hac forma. 

There is like to be toward the second coming of Christ, 
His particular visitation of the Jews, and (then its parallel) 
Tis final coming to judgment, such a specious pompous show, 
and yet such a small pittance of true faith i the world, that 
as it is grown much less than a grain of mustard-seed, it shall 
not be found when it is sought; there will be such giantly 
shadows and pigmy substances, so much and yet so little 
faith, that no hieroglyphic can sufficiently express it, but 
an Egyptian temple gorgeously overlaid, inhabited within by 
crocodiles, and cats, and carcasses, instead of gods; or an 
apple of Sodom, that shews well till it be handled; a 
painted sepulchre, or a specious nothing; or which is the 
contraction and tachygraphy of all these, a Pharisee at his 
prayers. And thereupon Christ spake the parable, “There 
were two men went up into the temple to pray, the one a 
Pharisee,” &c. 

Concerning the true nature of faith, mistaken extremely 
now-a-days by those which pretend most to it, expulsed 
almost out of men’s brains as well as hearts, so that now it 
is scarce to be found upon earth, either in our lives or almost 
in our books, there might be framed a seasonable complaint 
in this place, were I not already otherwise embarked. By 
some prepossessions and prejudices infused into us as soon as 
we can con a catechism of that making, it comes to pass that 
many men live and die resolved that faith is nothing but the 
assurance of the merits of Christ applied to every man parti- 
cularly; and consequently of his salvation: that I must first 


SERMON XX. 413 


be sure of heaven, or else I am not capable of it; confident 
of my salvation, or else necessarily damned. Cornelius Agrippa 
being initiated in natural magic, Paracelsus in mineral ex- 
tractions, Plato full of his ideas, will let nothing be done 
without the Pythagoreans, brought up with numbers per- 
petually in their ears, and the physicians poring daily upon 
the temperaments of the body; the one will define the soul 
an harmony, the other a xpdovs, saith Philoponus. And so 
are many amongst us, that take up fancies upon trust for 
truths, never laying any contrary proposals to heart, come at 
last to account this assurance as a principle without which 
they can do nothing; the very soul that must animate all 
their obedience, which is otherwise but a carcass or heathen 
virtue; in a word, the only thing by which we are justified 
or saved. The confutation of this popular error I leave to 
some grave learned tongue, that may enforce it on you with 
some authority; for I conceive not any greater hindrance of 
Christian obedience and godly practice among us, than this: 
for as long as we are content with this assurance as sufficient 
stock to set up for heaven, there is like to be but little faith 
upon the earth. Faith, if it be truly so, is hke Christ Him- 
self, when He was Emmanuel, God upon the earth, ἐνσαρκω- 
θεῖσα, an incarnate faith, cut out and squared into limbs and 
lineaments ; not only a spiritual invisible faith, but even flesh 
and blood, to be seen and felt, organized for action; it is to 
speak, and breathe, and walk, and run the ways of God’s 
commandments: an assent not only to the promises of the 
gospel, but uniformly to the whole word of God, commands 
and threats as well as promises. And this, not in the brain 
or surface of the soul, as the Romanist seats it, but in the 
heart, as regent of the hand and tongue in the concurrence 
of all the affections. Where it is not only a working faith, 
an obeying faith, but even a work, even obedience itself; not 
only a victorious faith, but even victory itself; “This is our Rom. i. 5; 
victory, even our faith :” to part with this as a πάρεργον, which 1 798}. + 
is our only business, is sure an unreasonable thesis. Any 
faith but this is a faith in the clouds, or in the air, the upper 
region of the soul, the brain; or at most but a piece of the 
heart ; a magical faith, a piece of sorcery and conjuring ; that 
will teach men to remove mountains, only by thinking they 


ver. 12. 


4.14. SERMON XX. 


are able; but will never be taken by Christ for this faith 
upon the earth: if it do walk here, it is but as a ghost, it is 
even pity but it were laid. Let me beseech you meekly, but 
if this would not prevail, I would conjure you all in this 
behalf; the silly weak Christian to fly from this μορμολύ- 
κειον, and call for some light of their lawful pastors, to find 
out the deceit; and the more knowing illuminate Christian 
to examine sincerely and impartially by feeling and handling 
it throughly, whether there be any true substance in it or no. 
The Pharisee, looking upon himself superficially, thought he 
had gone on, on very good grounds, very unquestionable 
terms, that he was possessed of a very fair estate ; he brought 
in an inventory of a many precious works; “I fast, I tithe,” 
&e.; hath no other liturgies but thanksgivings, no other 
sacrifice to bring into the temple, but eucharistical; and yet 
how foully the man was mistaken! 

“God, I thank,” &c. 

The first thing I shall observe in the words is the τὸ Noy- 
κὸν, the rational importance of them, as they are part of a 
rhetorical syllogism, an example or parallel to shew that in 
the last days, though men think that there is a great deal, 
yet there is indeed like to be but little faith upon the earth. 
And the issue from thence is the Pharisee’s flattering favour- 
able misconceit of his own estate, and the parallel line to that, 
our premature deceivable persuasions of ourselves, that is 
ordinary among Christians. 

The second thing is the τὸ ῥητὸν, the natural literal im- 
portance of the words, and therein the concomitants or effects 
of those his misconceits. 

1. Pride, 2. Censoriousness. Pride noted by his speech, 
“1 thank Thee that I am not;” then his posture, pluming up 
himself, “standing by himself he prayed ;” as the Syriac set 
the words, and many Greek copies, some by making a comma 
after πρὸς ἑαυτὸν, others by reading σταθεὶς καθ᾽ ἑαντὸν, 
“standing by himself ;” as Beza renders it, seorsim, “ apart ;” 
not as our English, he “stood and prayed thus with himself,” 
but as the words will likewise bear it, “he stood by himself” 
thus; this posture signifying a proud contemptuous beha- 
viour, whilst the publican stood crouching humbly and 
tremblingly behind. 


SERMON XX. 47 


2. Censoriousness and insinuating accusations of other 
men’s persons, “even as this publican.” ΤῸ which we may 
add the occasion of all this, seeing the publican behind him, 
i. e. comparing himself with notorious sinners, he was thus 
proud and censorious. 

And of these in their order, as powerfully and effectually 
to your hearts, as God shall enable me. And first of the 
first, the Pharisee’s favourable misconceits of himself, and 
parallel to these, our deceivable persuasions of ourselves, 
<“God,.1 thank,’ .&c. 

The black sin that hath dyed the Pharisee’s soul so deep, 
as to become his characteristic inseparable property, a kind 
of agnomen, a perpetual accession to his name, is hypocrisy. 
The proper natural importance of which word signifies the 
personating or acting of a part, putting on another habit 
than doth properly belong to him. But by the liberty we 
ordinarily allow to words, to enlarge themselves sometimes 
beyond their own territories, to thrive and gain somewhat 
from their neighbours, it is come vulgarly to signify all that 
ambitious outside, or formality, the colour and varnish of 
religion, by which any man deceives either others or him- 
self; and accordingly there is a twofold hypocrisy, the first, 
deceiving others; the second, himself. That by which he im- 
poseth upon others is the sin we commonly declaim against, 
under that name, most fiercely, sometime by just reason, as 
having been circumvented by such glozes, sometime in a 
natural zeal to truth, preferring plain downright impiety, 
before the same transfigured by a varnish. Reatus impii 
pium nomen, his being counted innocent is an accession to 
his guilt. But then sometimes too, under this odious name 
we may wound sincere and pure devotion; as the primitive 
Christians were by the tyrants put in wild beasts’ skins that 
they may be torn in pieces; men may be deterred from all 
the least appearance of purity, for fear they should be counted 
hypocrites. However this first sort of hypocrisy may deserve 
its seasonable reprehension, this parable in my text doth not 
take it in; but insists mainly upon the other, that colour of 
piety by which a man deceives himself, and cheats and glozes 
with hisown soul. That first sort, were it not for some hurtful 
consequences, might for aught I can gainsay pass for an in- 


416 SERMON XX. 


nocent quality ina sinner. For what great injury doth that 
man do to any other, or himself? what grand sin against God 
or the world, by desiring to seem better than he is; by labour- 
ing to conceal those sins in himself, which could not be known 
without dishonour to God, and scandal to his neighbour? It 
was a lawyer’s answer, being questioned whether it were law- 
ful for a woman to take money for prostituting herself, that 
indeed it was a sin to prostitute herself; but that being sup- 
posed, as in some kingdoms it 15 permitted, he thought it was 
no great fault to get her living by it. 

Not to justify his opinion, but apply it by accommodation : 
in like manner arraign an hypocrite, and muster up all the 
sins he hath committed in secret, and all these I will acknow- 
ledge worthy of condemnation, because sins: nay, if his end 
of concealing them be tocircumvent a well-believing neighbour, 
that shall be set upon his score also; but for the desire itself 
of keeping his sin from the eyes of men, so that he do not 
from the eyes of God, and His ministers upon occasion, for a 
cautiousness in any one not to sin scandalously, or on the 
house-top, take this by itself, abstracted from the sin it 
belongs to, and I cannot see why that should be either a 
part or aggravation of asin. There is nothing that deserves 
the tears, yea and holy indignation of a godly soul, more than 
the sight of an immodest boasting sinner, that makes his 
crimes his reputation, and his abominations his pride and 
glory. It is that which we lay to the devil’s charge in the 
times of heathenism ; that he strove to bring sin in credit by 
building temples, and requiring sacrifices to lust, under the 
name of Venus, Priapus, and the like; that incontinence 
might seem an act of religion, and all the profaneness in the 
world a piece of adoration. And it begins now to be revived 
in the world again, when bashfulness is the quality of all 
others most creditably parted with; and the only motive to 
the commission of some sins is, to be in the fashion, to be seen 
of men; when men put on affected errors, affected vanities, 
affected oaths, just as they do gay clothes, that they may be the 
better counted of: this indeed is a damnable hypocrisy, when 
men are fain to act parts in sin, that they are not naturally 
inclined to; and to force their constitutions, and even to offer 
violence to their own tender dispositions, that so they may 


SERMON XX. 417 


not be scoffed at for punies, or precise persons, as Augustus’s 
daughter, which being admonished of a sin that beasts would 
never have committed, answered that that was the reason they 
omitted the enjoyment of so precious a delight, because they 
were beasts; as if innocence were more bestial than lust, and 
ignorance of some sins the only guilt. The horror and detes- 
tation that this sin strikes into me, makes me, I confess, will- 
ing almost to become an advocate of the first kind of hypo- 
crisy, whereby men retain so much modesty in their sins (I 
hope of weakness) as to be willing to enjoy the charitable 
men’s good opinion though undeserved. 

But for the second kind of hypocrisy, this cozening of a 
man’s own soul, this tiring and personating in the closet, 
this inventing of arts and stratagems to send himself com- 
fortably and believingly to the devil, this civil intestine 
treachery within, and against one’s-self; this is the grand 
imposture that here the Pharisee is noted for. An easiness 
and cheatableness that costs the bankrupting of many a jolly 
Christian soul. He, saith Plutarch”, that wants health, let 
him go to the physicians, but he that wants εὐεξία, a good 
durable habit of body, let him go to the γυμναστὰς, “the 
masters of exercise,” otherwise he shall never be able to con- 
firm himself into a solid firm constant health, called there- 
upon by Hippocrates® ἕξις ἀθλητικὴ, “the constitution of 
wrestlers ;” without which health itself is but a degree of 
sickness, nourishment proves but swellings, and not growth, 
but a tympany. Both these, saith he, philosophy will pro- 
duce in the soul, not only teaching men θεοὺς σέβεσθαι, --- 
where by the way he repeats almost the whole Decalogue of 
Moses, though in an heathen dialect,—to “ worship the gods,” 
&e., which is ὑγίεια ψυχῆς, “ the health of the soul,” but τόδε 
μέγιστον, that “which is above all,” μὴ περιχαρεῖς ὑπάρχειν 
μήτε ἐκλύτους, “not to be overjoyed or immoderately affected 
in all this.” This which he attributes to philosophy in gene- 
ral, is, saith Aristotle‘, an act of intellectual prudence, or 
sobriety, μειζόνων ἢ ἄξιος ἑαυτὸν μὴ ἀξιοῦν, “not to vouch- 
safe higher titles to himself than he is worthy of;” not to 


® [De Liberis Educ., $10. tom. i. pt. xxiii. Med. Graci. ed. Kuhn. ] 
1, p, 24. ed. Wyttenb. } a (Nic. Eth. iv. 7.] 

© { Aphorismi, tom. iii. p. 706; tom. 

HAMMOND. ge 


Rom. xii. 


[ Dan. iii. 
25. ] 


Song of 
Three 
Children, 
ver. 10. 


418 SERMON XX. 


think himself in better health than he is, which is not the 
dialect of a mere heathen, but the very language of Canaan, 
φρονεῖν εἰς TO σωφρονεῖν, the very word in Aristotle, which 
cannot be better expressed than by that περίφρασις, to have 
a moderate, sober, equal opinion of one’s own gifts; not to 
overprize God’s graces in ourselves, not to accept one’s own 
person or give flattering titles to one’s-self, in Job’s phrase. 
This Chrysostom ® calls ταπεινοφροσύνη, a word near kin unto 
the former, the meekness or lowliness of heart, ὅτων τις, K.T.X., 
‘‘when a man having attained to a great measure of grace, 
and done great matters by it, and knoweth it too,” yet μηδὲν 
μεγὰ, “fancies no great matter of himself for all this.” As 
the Three Children in Daniel having received a miracle of 
graces, which affected even the enemies of God, yet were 
not affected with it themselves; enabled to be martyrs, and 
yet live. Or as the poet of Callimachus‘ that stood after he 
was dead; τί μ᾽ ἔπεμπες ἐς ἀθανάτους πολεμιστὰς; BadXo- 
μεν, οὐ πίπτουσι, τιτρώσκομεν, οὐ φοβέουσι: which is Nebu- 
chadnezzar’s phrase, walking “in the midst of the fire and yet 
they have no hurt.” Yet in their εὐχαριστικὸν, “ their song 
of praise,” all that they say of themselves is this, “and now we 
cannot open our mouths ;” for this, saith Chrysostom, “ we 
open our mouths that we may say this only, that it is not for 
us to open our mouths.” By this low modest interpreta- 
tion every Christian is to make of his own actions and gifts, 
you may guess somewhat of the Pharisee’s misconceits. 

For first, were he never so holy and pure, of never so spiri- 
tual angelical composition, yet the very reflecting on these 
excellencies were enough to make a devil of him. The 
angels, saith Gerson®, as the philosopher’s intelligences, 
have a double habitude, two sorts of employments natural 
to them; one upwards, in an admiration of God’s great- 
ness, love of His beauty, obedience to His will, moving as 
it were a circular daily motion about God, their centre,— 
as Boethius" of them, mentemque profundam circumeunt ;— 
another downward, of regiment and power in respect of all 


© Tom. v. p. 261. [This reference is f [Pantelius, ap. S. Maximum. Op., 
to Saville’s edition; to a homily on the tom. ii. p. 543, Anthol. Palat., tom. iii. 
Pharisee and Publican, which is taken Append. Epigr. 58. ed. Jacobs. | 
out of the fifth homily de Incomprehen- & Cf. Gerson. Tr. i. in Magnif. 
sibili Dei Natura, tom. i. p. 489, C. ed. h [See Consol. Philosophie, lib. iii. 
Ben. where the passage will be found.] Metrum ix. v. 16. p. 223, ed. Delphin.} 


SERMON XX. 419 


belov, which they govern and move and manage. Now if it 

be questioned, saith he, which of these two be more honour- 
able,—-for the credit of the angelical nature I determine con- 
fidently, that of subjection pulchriorem et perfectiorem esse, 
quam secunda regitive dominationis, “it is more renown to be 
under God than over all the world besides;”’ as the service to 

a king is the greatest preferment that even a peer of the 
realm is capable of. And then if an angel should make a 
song of exultance to set himself out in the greatest pomp, he 
would begin it as Mary doth her Magnificat, “ For He hath [Luke i. 
regarded the low estate of His servant :” so that the blessed ell 
Virgin’s mention of her own lowliness, was not a piece only 

of modest devotion, but an ὕψος of expression, and high 
metaphysical insinuation of the greatest dignity in the world. 

And then let the Pharisee be as righteous as himself can 
fancy, come to that pitch indeed which the contemptuous 
Opinionative philosophers feigned to themselves, λέγοντες 

μὲν δεῖσθαι μηδενὸς, in Tatianus', which is in the Church of 
Laodicea’s phrase, “1 am rich, and am increased in spiritual Rev. iii. 17. 
wealth, and have need of nothing ;” or the fools in the Gos- 

pel, “I have store laid up for many years ;” nay, to St. Paul’s [Luke 
pitch, rapt so high, that the schools do question whether he τ !* 
were viator or comprehensor, a traveller, or at his journey’s 
end; yet the very opinion of God’s graces would argue him a 
Pharisee ; this conceiving well of his estate is the foulest mis- 
conceit. For if he be such a complete righteous person, so 
accomplished in all holy graces, why should he thus betray 

his soul, by depriving it of this ταπεινοφροσύνη, which the 

very heathens could observe so absolutely necessary; this 
humility and lowliness of mind, this useful and most inge- 
 nuous virtue always to think vilely of himself; not to ac- 
knowledge any excellence in himself, though he were even 

put upon the rack. The philosophers that wrote against 
pride, are censured to have spoiled all by putting their names 

to their books. Modesty, like Dinah*, desiring never so little 

to be seen, is ravished. The sanctifying spirit that beautifies 

the soul, is an humbling spirit also, to make it unbeauteous 


i Contra Grecos, ὃ 25. [p. 265, A. k Gerson. Tr. 10. in Magnif. [Op., 
al calcem, Op., 5. Justini. Paris. tom. iv. p. 468, B.] 
1742. ] 


Ee2 


420 SERMON XX. 


inits own eyes. And this is the first misconceit, the first step 
in Pharisaical hypocrisy, thinking well of one’s-self on what 
ground soever ; contrary to that virgin grace, humility, which 
is a virtue required not only of notorious infamous sinners— 
for what thanks or commendation is it for him to be on the 
ground that hath fallen and bruised himself in his race? for 
him that is ready to starve, to go a begging ?—but chiefly and 
mainly of him that is most righteous; when he that knows a 
great deal of good by himself, μεγάλα κατορθώματα", a great 
deal of good success in the spirit, yet μηδὲν μέγα φαντάζεται, 
is not advanced a whit at the fancy of all this. 

The Pharisee’s second misconceit is a favourable overpriz- 
ing of his own worth, expecting a higher reward than it in 
proportion deserves. When looking in the glass he sees all 
far more glorious in that reflect beam than it is in the direct, 
all the deformities left in the glass, and nothing but fair re- 
turned to him, a rough harsh unpleasing voice smoothed, and 
softened, and grown harmonious in the echo: there is no 
such cheating in the world as by reflections. A looking-glass 
by shewing some handsome persons their good faces, and 
that truly, hath often ruined them by that truth, and be- 
trayed that beauty to all the ugliness and rottenness in the 
world; which had it not been known by them, had been en- 
joyed. But then your false glasses, what mischief and ruin 
have they been authors of! how have they given authority 
to the deformedest creatures to come confidently on the 
stage, and befooled them to that shame which a knowledge 
of their own wants had certainly prevented! What difference 
there may be betwixt the direct species of a thing, and the 
same reflected, the original and the transcript, the artificial 
famous picture of Henry the Fourth of France will teach 
you; where in a multitude of feigned devices, a heap of 
painted, fantastical chimeras, which being looked on right 
resembled nothing, being ordered to cast their species upon 
a pillar of polished metal reflected to the spectator’s eye the 
most lively visage of that famous king. He that hath not 
seen this piece of art, or hath not skill in catoptricks enough 
to understand the demonstrable grounds and reasons of it, 
may yet discern as much in nature, by the appearance of a 


1S, Chrysost. [Hom. v. de Incompreh. Dei natura, tom. i. p. 489, C.] 


SERMON XX. 421 


rainbow, where you may sce those colours reflected by the 
cloud, which no philosopher will assert to be existent there. 
And all this brings more evidence to the Pharisee’s indict- 
ment, and demonstrates his opinion of his own actions or 
merits to be commonly deceivable and false. 

He sees another man’s actions radio recto, by a direct 
beam, and if there be no humour in his eye, if it be not 
glazed with contempt or envy, or prejudice, he may perhaps 
see them aright. But his own he cannot see but by re- 
flection, as a man comes not to see his own eyes, but in the 
shadow, and at the rebound; whereupon Alcinous the Pla- 
tonic, calls this act of the soul, τῆς ψυχῆς πρὸς ἑαυτὴν διά- 
λογον, a dialogue of the soul with itself, and the knowledge 
that comes from thence, ἀναζωγράφησιν, a resemblance by 
shadowing. The soul understands, and wills its object ; this 
act of it by its species is cast upon the fancy, and from thence, 
as even now from the column of brass, or bell-metal, it is 
reflected to the understanding: and then you may guess 
what a fair report he is likely to receive, when a Pharisee’s 
fancy hath the returning of it. He that with his own 
clearest eyes could take a gnat for a taller unwieldier crea- 
ture than a camel, and thereupon strains at it, what would he 
do if he should come to his multiplying glass! He that when 
he sees a mote, and that radio recto, in other’s eyes, can mis- 
take it for a beam, how can he, think you, improve the least 
atom of good, when he is to look on it in himself! How will 
his fancy and he, the one a cheat from the beginning, the 
other full greedy of the bait, fatten and puff up a sacrifice 
that he himself hath offered! O how fair shall it appear, and 
ready to devour all the seven fat ones, though it be the 
thinnest of Pharaoh’s lean kine, lank and very ill favoured ! 
How shall the reflection of his beggarliest rags return to his 
eye the picture of a king! and the ordinariest vapour, or 
cloud of his exhaling, be decked over with all the beauty and 
variety of the rainbow! What Aristotle™ said of the Sophists, 
that they did φυλετικῶς ἐμφυσᾶν ἑαυτοὺς, though it be a 
puzzling place for the critics, this censor or Aristarchus in 
my text, will interpret by his practice; he blows up him- 


m [See Arist. Sophist. Elench. i. J. ] 


Matt. 
Xxili. 24, 


Wisd. xiii. 


ver. 12. 


4.22 SERMON XX. 


self, as they were used to do their meat against a φυλετικὸν 
δεῖπνον", a tribune’s or a sheriff’s feast, that it may look the 
fairer, and not deceive others only, but himself; forgets what 
he has done, and now thinks it is his natural complexion: 
as the carpenter in the thirteenth of Wisdom; that piece of 
wood which himself had just now carved into an idol, he 
presently prays to and worships as a god: or as hars, that 
by telling a tale often at last begin to believe themselves; so 
hath he befooled himself into a credulity: the farthing alms 
he hath given shall by a strange kind of usury (yet not 
stranger perhaps than what he deals in daily) be fancied 
into a mountain of gold, and the bare calves of their lips 
become hecatombs. If he have abstained from flesh when 
the market would yield none, or forborne to eat a supper 
after a notorious feast, he will call this “ fasting twice in the 
week,” and avouch himself an obedient abstemious subject and 
Christian, though Good Friday be witness of his unchristian 
epicurism. If he afford the minister the tenth of his house- 
rent, an annual benevolence far below that that his dues 
would come to, which by taking of a jolly fine at first, is for 
ever after pared into but a larger sort of quit-rents,—though 
his extortion bring in no revenue to any but the devil and 
himself,—he will yet be confident with the Pharisee, “I 
pay tithes of all that I possess.” 

A pittance of virtue in a Pharisee is like the polypod’s 
head, to which Plutarch? compares poetry, hath some good, 
but as much or more ill in it also; sweet indeed and nutritive, 
saith he; and so is all virtue though simply moral, good 
wholesome diet for the soul, but withal ταρακτικὴ, it sends 
up vapours into the brain, and ends in whimseys and strange 
and troublesome dreams: the man fancies, I know not what, 
presently of himself; like learning in an ill-natured man, all 
about him are the worse for it; one moral virtue tires some- 
times the whole vicinity of natural good-disposed gifts: it 
were well perhaps for his ingenuity and modesty that he 
were not so virtuous, that one drop of water being attenuated 
into air hath taken up all the room in the bladder: it were 


© [Cf. Alexand. Aphrod. ad loc. in ire debeat, ὃ 1. p. 56. tom, i. pt. 1. ed. 
Schol. ed. Berl. } Wyttenb. | 
P [Quomodo Adolescens Poetas aud- 


SERMON XX. 423 


as good for the heart to be shrivelled up, as thus distended, 
it must be squeezed again to make place for some more sub- 
stantial guest, and be emptied quite, that it may be filled. 
In brief, it is the small measure, and this only of airy, empty 
piety, that hath puffed up the man. As they saya little cri- 
tical learning makes one proud ; if there were more it would 
condensate and compact itself into less room. 

And generally the more there is within, the less report 
they give of themselves; as St. Matthew mentioning himself 
before his conversion, doth it distinctly, by the name of Mat- Matt. ix. 9. 
thew, and his trade sitting at the receipt of custom, “ Matthew 
the publican,” by that odious re-naming of sin,—whereas all 
the other Evangelists call him Levi, or the son of Alpheus,— [Mark ii. 
but leaves out the story of his own feasting of Christ,—only eee 
‘©as Christ sat at meat in the house,’—which St. Luke sets Matt. ix. 
down exactly, “and Levi made hima great feast,” or as in the !°- 
history of St. Peter’s fall and repentance in the Gospel accord- ae ae 
ing to St. Mark ;—which the primitive Church agree that St. 
Peter had a hand in it ;—his denial is set down with all the 
aggravating circumstances, more than in all the rest put 
together, “he began to curse and swear, I know not this Mark xiv. 
man of whom you speak:” two Evangelists say only, he ΤΩΣ 
denied him the third time; to this St. Matthew adds, “ he xxii. 61; 
cursed and sware, saying, I know not the man.” But he in 4) a. 
his own witness, most exactly in aggravating the sin, “I 
know not this,’ &c. But when he comes to the mention 
of his repentance, when the two other say, ἔκλαυσε πικρῶς, 
he himself, or St. Mark from him, only ἔκλαιε, he wept; 
always speaking as much bad and as little good of them- 
selves as can be. 

A little windy opinionative goodness distempers the empty 
brain, it is charity must ballast the heart; and that is the 
grace, according to holy Maximius’ opinion 4, that all this 
while we have required, but not found in the Pharisee, and 
that is the reason that the brass sounds so shrill, and the 
cymbal tinkles so merrily. And this is the Pharisee’s second 
misconceit, his overprizing his own good deeds and graces. 
The third is, 

His opinion of the consistence and immutability of his 

4 [Cf. Centena Capita de Caritate, i. § 47, &c. Op., tom. i. p. 400.] 


Ezek. xvi. 


(3, sq-] 


424 SERMON XX. 


present estate, without any, either consideration of what he 
hath been, or fear what he may be again ; he hath learnt or 
rather abused so much Scripture, as that the yesterday and 
the morrow must care for themselves; Prometheus or Epi- 
metheus are profane heathen names to him; he is all in 
contemplation of present greatness; like the heathen gods, 
which are represented to have nothing to do but admire 
their own excellencies. “ I thank God that I am not,” &e. 
The Pharisee having a first-born’s portion from the hand of 
God, will not be rude or importunate with Him for new and 
fresh supplies; nor will he disparage himself so much as to 
suspect the perpetuity of his enjoyment. Καλὸς παρρησίας 
θησαυρὸς εὐγένεια. saith Plutarch’, “a man that is honour- 
ably and freely born hath a fair treasure of confidence,” and 
so a natural advantage of other men; but bastards and men 
of a cracked race, ὑπόχαλκον καὶ κίβδηλον ἔχοντες γένος, 
that have a “ great deal of copper or dross mixed” with their 
or and argent, ταπεινοῦσθαι πέφυκε, “ these men are born to 
be humble” and shamefaced. But amongst these con- 
templations he may do well to consider the Amorite his 
father, and his mother the Hittite, the pollutions and blood 
he was clothed with in the day that he was born, the accursed 
inheritance as well of shame as sin derived unto him. For 
then certainly he would never so plume himself in his pre- 
sent sunshine. If he have not gotten in the ὑπόκαυστον, 
among the Adamites in Epiphanius‘, and there set up for one 
of Adam’s sect before his fall, or the Valentinianst which 
called themselves the spirituals, and the seed of Abel, who 
indeed never had any natural seed we hear of. If he will 
but grant himself of the ordinary composition and race of 
men, come down from Adam either by Cain or Seth, I am 
sure he shall find sins past enough either in his person or 
nature to humble him, be he never so spiritual. And then 
for the time to come, Christ certainly was never so espoused 
to any soul, as to be bound to hold it for better for worse. 
That if he find aught in that spouse contrary to the vow of 
wedlock, he can azoréwrewv",—the word used in divorces 


τ [De Liberis Educandis, ὃ 2. ] t Td., lib. i. Her. 31. § 23. Op., tom. 
s [Epiphan., lib.ii. Heresis 32. Op., 1. p. 192, B, C, sq.] 
tom. i. p. 438. ] " (Cf. e.g. Demosth., p. 1562. 25.] 


SERMON XX. 425 


amongst the Athenians on the husband’s part,—send the soul 

out of his house or temple; especially if she do ἀπολείπειν,--- 

the phrase used on the woman’s part,—if she leave or forsake 

the husband, if she draw back or subduce herself out of his Heb. x. 8. 

house, “by an evil heart of unbelief, openly depart from the Heb. iii. 

living God.” It is observed by the critics as an absurd Se 

ridiculous phrase in some authors, to call the emperors divi 

in their life-time, which, saith Rittershusius, when the pro- 

priety of the Roman tongue was observed, capitale fuisset, 

had been a grand capital crime. And as absurd no doubt is 

many men’s ἀποθέωσις and ἀπαθανατισμὸς, their canoniz- 

ing, securing and besainting themselves in this life, upon 

every slight premature persuasion that they are in Christ. 

That which Aphrodisius” on the Topics observes of the leaves 

of trees, may perhaps be too true of the spiritual estate and 

condition of men, that the vine, ard fig, and plane tree, which 

have thin broad leaves, and make the fairest show, φυλλο- 

ροοῦσι, do thereupon shed them presently : some few indeed, 

the olive, bay, and myrtle, which have narrow solid leaves, 

are able to keep them all the year long, ἀείφυλλα and 

ἀειθαλῆ, always green and flourishing. And God grant such 

laurels may for ever abound in this paradise, this garden of 

the land; that the children of this mother may environ her 

like olive plants round about her table; this perhaps you 

will count an high thing, to shed the leaf, but what think you 

of extirpation and rooting up? even this you shall hear de- 

nounced, and executed on those that cast a fair shadow, 

either as on degenerous or unprofitable trees; either for bad 

fruit, or none at all, “Cut it down, why cumbereth it the [Luke xiii. 

ground ?” el 
But to our purpose ; when St. Paul therefore resolves that Rom. viii. 

nothing should “ever separate him from the love of God,” [59 

sin is there left out of the catalogue; be he never so pos- 

sessed of that inheritance, for aught he knows this very con- 

fidence may root him out again. His brethren the Jews 

thought their estate as irreversible as the Pharisee’s here; 

and upon as good grounds as he can pretend; the very pro- 

mise of God to Abraham’s seed indefinitely ; and yet by that 

time this parable was spoken, they can bring him word of 


Y Alex. Aphrod. in Top. Arist. [f. 63, Aldus. ] 


t(Corsx: 
12; 


[ Matt. iv. 
6.] 


426 SERMON XX. 


the repeal of that promise, within a while sealed and con- 
firmed by their πανωλεθρία, their instant utter destruction ; 
a forerunner of which, if not the cause, was this confidence 
of their immutable estate. 

It was a fancy of the Stoics mentioned by Plutarch *, περὶ 
πάντα κατορθοῦν τὸν ἀστεῖον, that a “wise man could do no- 
thing amiss,” that all that he did was wise and virtuous. And 
they that will have men saved and damned by a stoical neces- 
sity, now-a-days, may borrow this fancy of the Stoics also; 
but Homer, saith he, and Euripides long since exploded it. 
T am sure St. Paul will fairly give any man leave that takes 
himself to be in a good estate now, to fear a bad before he 
die; to expect a tempest in a calm; or else he would not 
have been so earnest with him that “ thinks he stands, to take 
heed lest he fall.’ It was the confidence of a Turk, 1. 6. 
a Stoic revived, in Nicetas Chon., that said he knew they 
must overcome, on now for ever, as having got ἕξιν tod νικᾶν, 
an “habit of conquering :” and it was well if this assurance 
did not take the pains to lose it him again. It is the rheto- 
ric of discreet captains to their soldiers in Thucydides ¥, and 
other historians, to exhort them to fight on comfortably and 
courageously, as having overcome, in remembrance of their 
past victories as pawns and pledges of the future: but it is 
always on condition and presumptions of the same diligence 
and valour which formerly they shewed. And the same mili- 
tary encouragements and munition the fathers frequently 
furnish us with against our spiritual warfare, but all rather 
to increase our diligence than security, to set us to work on 
hope of success, not to nourish us in idleness in hope of a vic- 
tory. If we should suffer the devil from this proposition, “he 
will give His angels charge” that a child “of His shall not 
dash his foot against a stone,” and then that assumption, 
thou art the child of God, to conclude that thou canst not 
hurt thyself with a fall, he would straight back that with a 
mitte te deorsum, “ Cast thyself down,” to shew what thou 
canst do; and then if thou hast not another scriptum est to 
rejoinder, thou “shalt not tempt,”’—then this confidence is 
tempting of God,—I know not how thou wilt be able to 


* [De Audiend. Poetis, tom. vi. p. 89, Reiske.] 
ἡ [Cf e.g. Thucyd. ii, 89; vii. 66.] 


> ak ah 


SERMON XX. 4.27 


escape a precipice, a bruise if not a breaking. The Valen- 
tinian having resolved himself to be πνευματικὸς 5, “ spiri- 
tual,” confessed indeed that other men must get some store 
of faith and works to help them to heaven, ἑαυτὸν δὲ μὴ 
δεῖσθαι Sia τὸ φύσει πνευματικὸν εἶναι. “But they had 
no need of either, because of their natural spiritualness ;” 
that which is spiritual cannot part with its spiritual hyposta- 
sis whatever it do or suffer; no more than gold by a sink 
can lose its lustre; or the sunbeams be defamed by the dung- 
hill they shine on. They commit all manner of impurity, saith 
he, and yet they are σπέρματα ἐκλογῆς, “seeds of the elec- 
tion ;” the seeds indeed, deep set in the earth, that take root 
downward, but never bear fruit upward ; they never spring at 
all except it be towards hell; nor sprout out any branch or 
stalk of works, unless it be of darkness. These forsooth have 
grace ἰδιόκτητον, as their “proper possessions,” all others 
but to use, and so it seemed, for they of all others made no 
use of it. There was another like fancy in the same Irenzus?, 
of Marcus and his followers, that by the ἀπολύτρωσις, a form 
of baptizing that they had, that they were become dépata τῷ 
κριτῇ, “invisible to the judge,” then if ever they were appre- 
hended it were but calling to the Mother of Heaven, and she 
would send the helmet in Homer, that they should presently 
vanish out of their hands. Thus have men been befooled by 
the devil to believe that their sacred persons could excuse 
the foulest acts, and as it was said of Cato, even “make 
crimes innocent ;” thus have some gotten the art of sinning 
securely, nay, religiously, as he that in our English history 
would put his neighbours in a course to rebel legally. But 
I hope all these fancies have nothing to do but fill up the 
catalogues in Ireneus and Epiphanius; I trust they shall 
never be able to transplant themselves into our brains 
or hearts. But pray God there be no credence of them 
scattered here and there among hasty, ignorant, over- 
weening Christians. A man shall sometimes meet abroad 
some reason to suspect it, yet it were pity to fear so far as 
to set to confute them. There may be indeed a state and 
condition of Christians, so well settled and rivetted by Christ 


2 (S. Ireneus adv. Her., lib. i. 6. 6. ἀλλὰ διὰ τὸ φύσει πνευματικοὺς εἶναι. 
Op. tom.i,p.29, αὐτοὺς δὲ μὴ διὰ πράξεως, a (Id., lib. i. ¢. xiii, ibid. p. 64.] 


[ Psalm 
Ixxxix.34, ] 


Exod. xvii. 


[17.] 


ver. 16. 


[Luke xxii. 
52] 


428 SERMON XX. 


in grace, that their estate may be comfortably believed im- 
mutable, an election under oath, perhaps that mentioned by 
the Psalmist, “I have sworn by My holiness, I will not fail 
David ;” for spiritual blessings are frequently in Scripture 
conveyed along with temporal. But it is much to be doubted, 
that those men that have boldness to believe this of them- 
selves, have not ballast enough of humility and fear to make 
it good. Porphyry had so much divinity in him as to observe 
that καθάρσια were the only ἀποτρόπαια ἃ, that perpetual 
washings, and purgings and lustrations, were the only means 
to defend or deliver from evil, either to come or present; the 
only amulets and ἀλεξίκακα in the world; it is the rainbow 
in the heaven reflected thither from a cloud of tears below, 
that is, God’s engagement never again to drown the earth. 
But then there must be also another bow in the heart, that 
must promise for that, that it shall not be like a deceitful 
bow, go back again to folly, never again be drowned with 
swinish, bestial, filthy lusts. In the 17th of Exodus the 
Israelites prevailed against Amalek, and that miraculously 
without any sensible means; and verse 16 the promise is 
made for the future, that the “ Lord will fight with Amalek 
for ever ;” where by the way the LXX. put in ἐν κρυφαίᾳ 
χειρὶ, “God will fight against Amalek as it were under- 
hand,” by secret hidden strength; which addition of theirs 
—if it were inspired into the translators, as St. Augustin? is 
of opinion, all their variations from the Hebrew are θεόπνευ- 
στα, and so Canon—then happily that κρυφαία yelp may sig- 
nify some secret infusion of supernatural power into Moses’ 
hands; that there is promised, answerable to that same effu- 
sion of grace, to enable all the people of God in our fight 
with sin, the spiritual Amalek, by which grace Moses and 
the Christians have assurance to prevail. And this may be 
ground enough for a Christian; Christ hath prayed, and God 
promised that “your faith shall not fail.” But then all this 
while the story of the day will tell us on what terms this 
security of victory stood, if so be Moses continue to hold up 
his hands; noting 1. the power of prayer; 2. of obedience ; 
3. of perseverance; and upon these terms even a Pharisee 


@ [De Abstin., lib. ii. § 44.] 
> [De Ciyit. Dei, xviii. ο. 43. Op., tom, vii. p. 525. ] 


SERMON XX. 429 


may be confident without presumption; but if his hands be 
once let down; if he remit of his Christian valour—for so 
manus demittere signifies in agonistics—“ Amalek prevails.” 
Just as it fared with Samson, he had an inconceivable por- 
tion of strength, even a ray of God’s omnipotence bestowed 
on him, but this not upon term of life, but of his Nazarite’s 
vow, i. e. asthe LX XII. render it, εὐχὴ ἀφαγνίσασθαι ἁγνείαν 
Κυρίῳ, “a prayer as well as ἃ vow;” and that of separating 
or “hallowing purity and sanctity to the Lord ;” and his vow 
being broken, not only that of his hair, but with it that of his 
holy obedience, that piece of divinity presently vanished, and 
the Philistines deprived him of his eyes and life. And there- 
upon it is observable that which is in the Hebrew in perform- 
ing a vow, is rendered by the LXXII. μεγαλῦναι τὴν εὐχὴν, 
“to magnify a vow,” then is the vow or resolution truly great 
that will stand us in stead when it is performed. As for all 
others they remain as brands and monuments of reproach to 
us; upbraiding us of our inconstancy first, then of disobedi- 
ence; and withal as signs to warn that God’s strength is 
departed from us. I doubt not but this strength being thus 
lost, may return again before our death, giving a plunge, as 
it did in Samson when he plucked the house about their ears 
at last. But this must be by the growing out of the hair again, 
the renewing of his repentance and sanctity with his vow, 
and by prayer unto God, “ Lord God,” or as the LXXIL., 
Κύριε, Κύριε δυνάμεων, “ Remember me, I pray Thee, and 
strengthen me,” but for all this, it was said before in the 
19th verse, his ‘‘ strength,” and in the 20th verse, the ‘ Lord 
was departed from him.” And so no doubt it may from 
us, if we have no better security for ourselves than the pre- 
sent possession, and a dream of perpetuity. For though no 
man can excommunicate himself by one rule, yet he may by 
another, in the canon law; that there be some faults excom- 
municate a man ipso facto; one who hath committed them, 
the law excommunicates, though the judge do not; you need 
not the application ; there be perhaps some sins and devils like 
the Carian scorpions which Apollonius and Antigonus* men- 
tion out of Aristotle’, which when they strike strangers, do 


¢ [Antigonus, Hist. Mirab. c. 18. Apollonius, Hist. Comment., ο, xi. 
ap: Meursium, Op., tom. vii. p. 13.  ibid., p. 157.] 


Exod. xvii. 
De 


Numb. vi. 
9 


a 


Numb. xv. 


Judg. xvi. 


ver. 22. 


ver. 21. 


ver. 19. 
ver. 20. 


[2 Cor. xii. 
2] 


[1 Pet. ii, 
2.) 


430 SERMON XxX. 


them no great hurt, ἐπεχωρίους δὲ αὐτίκα ἀποκτείνουσι, “pre- 
sently kill their own countrymen ;” some devils perhaps that 
have power to hurt only their own subjects; as sins of weak- 
ness and ignorance, though they are enough to condemn 
an unregenerate man, yet we hope, through the merits of 
Christ into whom he is ingrafted, οὐ λίαν ἀδικοῦσι πατά- 
Eaves, ‘shall do httle hurt to the regenerate,” unless it be 
only to keep him humble, to cost him more sighs and pray- 
ers. But then, saith the same Apollonius‘ there, your Baby- 
lonian snakes that are quite contrary, do no great hurt to 
their own countrymen, but are present death to strangers ; 
and of this number it is to be feared may presumption prove, 
and spiritual pride; sins that the ἐπιχώριοι, the deyil’s 
natives, ordinary habitual sinners need not much to fear; 
but to the stranger, and him that is come from afar, think- 
ing himself, as St. Paul was, dropped out of the third heaven, 
and therefore far enough from the infernal country, it is to 
be feared I say, they may do much mischief to them. And 
therefore as Porphyry®* says of Plotinus in his life, and that 
for his commendation, that he was not ashamed to suck 
when he was eight years old, but as he went to the schools 
frequently diverted to his nurse; so will it concern us for the 
getting of a consistent firm habit of soul, not to give over the 
nurse when we are come to age and years in the spirit, to 
account ourselves babes in our virility, and be perpetually a 
calling for the dug, the “sincere milk of the word,” of the 
sacraments, of the Spirit, and that without any coyness or 
shame, be we in our own conceits, nay, in the truth, never 
so perfect, full-grown men in Christ Jesus. 

And so much be spoken of the first point proposed, the 
Pharisee’s flattering misconceit of his own estate; and therein 
implicitly of the Christian’s premature deceivable persuasions 
of himself; 1. thinking well of one’s-self on what grounds so- 
ever; 2. overprizing of his own worth and graces; 3. his 
opinion of the consistency and immutability of his condition, 
without either thought of what is past, or fear of what is to 
come. Many other misconceits may be observed, if not in 
the Pharisee, yet in his parallel the ordinary confident Chris- 
tian ; as 1. that God’s decree of election is terminated in their 

4 Cap. 12. [ibid. ] 7 © [In vita Plotini, ὃ 3.] 


SERMON XX. 43] 


particular and individual entities, without any respect to their 
qualifications and demeanours: 2. that all Christian faith is 
nothing but assurance, a thing which I touched ἐν παρέργῳ, 
in the preface, and can scarce forbear now I meet with it 
again: 38. that the gospel consists all of promises of what 
Christ will work in us, no whit of precepts or prohibitions: 
4. that it is a state of ease altogether and liberty, no whit of 
labour and subjection; but the Pharisee would take it ill if 
we should digress thus far, and make him wait for us again 
at our return. We hasten therefore to the second part, the 
TO ῥητὸν, or natural importance of the words, and there we 
shall find him standing apart, and thanking God only per- 
haps in compliment; his posture and language give notice of 
his pride, the next thing to be touched upon. 

Pride is a vice either 1. in our natures, 2. in our educa- 
tions, or 3. taken upon us for some ends: the first is a dis- 
ease of the soul, which we are inclined to by nature; but 
actuated by a full diet, and inflation of the soul, through 
taking in of knowledge, virtue, or the like ; which is intended 
indeed for nourishment for the soul, but through some vice 
in the digestive faculty, turns all into air and vapours, and 
windiness, whereby the soul is not fed but distended, and not 
filled but troubled, and even tortured out of itself. To this 
first kind of pride may be accommodate many of the old 
fancies of the poets and philosophers, the giants fighting 
with God, i.e. the ambitious daring approaches of the soul 
toward the unapproachable light, which cost the angels so 
dear, and all mankind in Eve, when she ventured to taste of 
the tree of knowledge. Then the fancy of the heathens 
mentioned by Athenagoras‘, that the souls of those giants 
were devils; that it is the devil indeed, that old serpent, that 
did in Adam’s time, and doth since animate and actuate this 
proud soul, and set it a moving. And Philoponus® saith that 
winds and tumours, i.e. lusts and passions, those trouble- 
some impressions in the soul of man, are the acceptablest 
sacrifices, the highest feeding to the devils; nay, to the very 
damned in hell, who rejoice as heartily to hear of the con- 


f [Legat. pro Christianis, p. 303.C. Comment. in Aristot. de Anima pref. 
(ad calcem op. S. Justini.) } prope fin. 
8 [Refers probably to Philoponus, 


[ Ps. xlix. 
14. ] 


4.32 SERMON XX. 


version of one virtuous, or learned man to the devil, of such 
a brave proselyte, I had almost said, as the angels in heaven 
at the repentance and conversion of a sinner. This is enough 
I hope to make you keep down this boiling and tumultuous- 
ness of the soul, lest it make you either a prey, or else com- 
panions for devils ; and that is but a hard choice, nay, a man 
had far better be their food than their associates, for then 
there might be some end hoped for by being devoured ; but 
that they have a villainous quality im their feeding, they 
bite perpetually but never swallow, all jaws and teeth, but 
neither throats nor stomachs; which is noted perhaps by that 
phrase in the Psalmist, “ Death gnaweth upon the wicked ;” 
is perpetually a gnawing, but never devours or puts over. 

Pride in our education is a kind of tenderness and chill- 
ness in the soul, that some people by perpetual softness are 
brought up to, that makes them uncapable and impatient of 
any corporal or spiritual hardness; a squeasiness and rising 
up of the heart against any mean, vulgar or mechanical con- 
dition of men; abhorring the foul clothes and rags of a 
beggar, as of some venomous beast: and consequently as 
supercilious and contemptuous of any piece of God’s service, 
which may not stand with their ease and state, as a starched 
gallant is of any thing that may disorder his dress. Thus 
are many brought up in this city to a loathing and detesta- 
tion of many Christian duties, of alms-deeds, and instructing 
their families in points of religion ; of visiting and comfort- 
ing the sick, nay, even of the service of God, if they may not 
keep their state there; but specially of the public prayers 
of the Church, nothing so vulgar and contemptible in their 
eyes as that. But I spare you, and the Lord in mercy do 
so also. 

The third kind of pride is a supercilious affected haughti- 
ness, that men perhaps meekly enough disposed by nature, 
are fain to take upon them for some ends, a solemn censorious 
majestic garb, that may entitle them to be patriots of such 
or such a faction ; to gain a good opinion with some, whose 
good opinion may be their gain. Thus was Mahomet fain to 
take upon him to bea prophet, and pretend that it was dis- 
coursing with the angel Gabriel made him in that case, that 
his new wife might not know that he was epileptical, and so 


SERMON XX. 433 


repent of her match with a beggar, and a diseased person. 
And upon these terms Turkism first came into the world, 
and Mahomet was cried up μέγιστος προφήτης, the greatest 
prophet, (to omit other witness,) as the Saracen fragments 
tell us, that we have out of Euthymius. Thus are imper- 
fections and wants, sometimes even diseases, both of body 
and mind, assumed and affected by some men to get autho- 
rity to their persons, and an opinion of extraordinary reli- 
gion; but rather perhaps more oil to their cruse, or custom 
to their trading. But not to flutter thus at large any longer, 
or pursue the commonplace in its latitude, the Pharisee’s 
pride here expresseth itself m three things; 1. his posture, 
standing apart ; 2. his manner of praying altogether by way 
of thanksgiving; 3. his malicious contemptuous eye upon the 
publican. The first of these may be aggravated against the 
schismatic that separates from the Church, or customs, but 
especially service and prayers of the Church. It is pride 
certainly that makes this man set himself thus apart, whereas 
the very first sight of that holy place strikes the humble 
publican upon the knees of his heart afar off; as soon as he 
was crept within the gates of the temple, he is more devout 
in the porch than the Pharisee before the altar. The second, 
against those that come to God in the pomp of their souls, 
commending themselves to God, as we ordinarily use the 
phrase, commending indeed not to His mercy, but accept- 
ance; not as objects of His pity, but as rich spiritual pre- 
sents ; not tears to be received into His bottle, but jewels 
for His treasure. Always upon terms of spiritual exultancy, 
what great things God hath done for their souls; how He 
hath fitted them for Himself; never with humble bended 
knees in acknowledgment of unworthiness with St. Paul, 
who cannot name that word, sinners, but most straight sub- 
sume in a parenthesis, of “ whom I am the chief.” And for 
the expression of the opinion he had of his own sanctity, is 
fain to coin a word for the purpose, ἐλαχιστότερος, a word 
not to be met with in all Greek authors again before he used 
it, “less than the least of the saints.” And Jacob in a like 
phrase, “I am less than all Thy mercies.” The Litany that 
begins and ends with so many repetitions importuning for 


mercy, even conjuring God by all powerful names of rich 
HAMMOND, Ff 


1 Tim. i. 


15. 


Eph. iii. 8. 
Gen. xxxii. 
10. 


434 SERMON XX. 


mercy that can be taken out of His exchequer, to “ have 
mercy upon us miserable sinners,” this is set aside for the pub- 
hiean,—the sinner’s liturgy,—nay as some say, for the profane 
people only, not to pray but to swear by. But this only as im 
transitu, not to insist on. The third expression of his pride is 
his malicious sullen eye upon the publican, and that brings 
me to the next thing proposed at first, the Pharisee’s cen- 
soriousness and insinuated accusations of all others. “1 am 
not as other men, extortioners, &..... or even as this 
publican.” 

It were an ingenious speculation, and that which would 
stand us in some stead in our spiritual warfare, to observe 
what hints and opportunities the devil takes from men’s 
natural inclinations to insinuate and ingratiate his tempta- 
tions to them ; how he applies still the fuel to the fire, the 
nourishment to the craving stomach ; and accommodates all 
his proposals most seasonably and suitably to our affections ; 
not to enlarge this καθόλου, in the gross, nor yet καθέκαστον, 
to each particular, you may have a δεῖξις or taste of it in 
the Pharisee. 

To an easy-natured man whose soul is relaxed, and has its 
pores open to receive any infection or taint, the devil presents 
a multitude of adulterers, drunkards, &c., thereby to distil 
the poison softly into him; to sweeten the sin and secure 
him in the commission of it, by store of companions: but to 
a Pharisee,—rugged, singular, supercilious person,—he pro- 
poseth the same object under another colour. The many 
adulterers, &c., that are in the world, not to entice, but to 
incense him the more against the sin; not to his imitation, 
but to his spleen and hatred: that seeing he can hope to gain 
nothing upon him by bringing him in love with their sin, he 
may yet inveigle him by bringing him in hatred with their 
persons; and plunge him deeper through uncharitableness, 
than he could hope to do by lust. He knows well the Phari- 
see’s constitution is too austere to be caught with an ordinary 
bait, and therefore puts off his title of Beelzebub, prince of 
flies, as seeing that they are not now for his game; but trolls 
and baits him with a nobler prey, and comes in the person of 
a Cato or Aristarchus, a severe disciplinarian, a grave censor, 
or, as his most satanical name imports, διάβολος, an accuser, 


SERMON XX. 4.35 


and then the Pharisee bites presently. He could not expect 
to allure him forward, and therefore drives him as far back 
as he can; that so he may be the more sure of him at the 
rebound; as a skilful woodsman, that by windlassing pre- 
sently gets a shoot, which, without taking a compass and 
thereby a commodious stand, he could never have obtained. 
The bare open visage of sin is not lovely enough to catch the 
Pharisee, it must be varnished over with a show of piety; 
with a colour of zeal and tenderness in God’s cause, and 
then, the very devilishest part of the devil, his malice and 
uncharitableness, shall go down smoothly with him. And 
that this stratagem may not be thought proper to the meri- 
dian only where the Pharisee lived, Leo‘ within five hundred 
years after Christ, and other of the fathers, have observed 
the same frequently practised by the devil among the primi- 
tive Christians; ut quos vincere flamma ferroque non poterat, 
ambitione inflaret, virus invidie infunderet, et sub falsa Chris- 
tiani nominis professione corrumperet: that they whom per- 
secution could not affright, ambition may puff up, envy 
poison, and a false opinion of their own Christian purity 
betray to all the malice in the world. Thus have heretics 
and sectaries, in all ages, by appropriating to themselves those 
titles that are common to all the children of God, left none 
for any other, but of contumely and contempt: as soon as 
they fancy to themselves a part of the spirit of God, taken 
upon them the monopoly of it also. Thus could not the 
Valentinians* be content to be πνευματικοὶ themselves ; but 
all the world beside must be ψυχικὸς and ywixos, animal 
and earthly. It were long to reckon up to you the idioms 
and characters that heretics have usurped to themselves in 
opposition and reproach, and even defiance of all others; 
the Pharisee’s separati, Sadducee’s justi, Novatian’s καθαροὶ, 
puri, Messalian’s precantes. As if these several virtues, 
separation from the world, love of justice, purity, daily exer- 
cise of prayer, were nowhere to be found but amongst them. 
Even that judicious, learned, eloquent, yea and godly father 
Tertullian’, is caught in this pitfall; as soon as he began to 
relish Montanus’s heresy, he straight changeth his style, 


1S. Leo Magn. [cf. supr. p. 406. ] ch. vi. ] 
k (S. Irenzeus cont. Heres., lib. i. ' (Tertull. De Jejun, ad init. ] 


Ff2 


436 SERMON XX. 


nos spirituales, and all other orthodox Christians psychici, 
animal, carnal men. The devil could not be content that he 
had gained him to Montanism,—an heresy which it is con- 
fessed only a superlative care of chastity, abstinence, and 
martyrdom, brought him to,—but he must rob him of his 
charity too, as well as his religion. Not to keep any longer 
on the wing in pursuit of this censorious humour in the 
Pharisee and primitive heretics, the present temper and 
constitution of the Church of God will afford us plenty of 
observation to this purpose. Amongst other crimes with which 
the Reformation charge the Romanists, what is there that we 
so importunately require of them as their charity! that see- 
ing with the apostolical seat they have seized upon the keys 
of heaven also, they would not use this power of theirs so 
intemperately, as to admit none but their own proselytes 
into those gates, which Christ hath opened to all believers. 
For this cause, saith Eulogius™ in Photius, were the keys 
given to Peter, not to John or any other, because Christ 
foresaw Peter would deny Him, that so by the memory of 
his own failings, he might learn humanity to sinners, and be 
more free of opening the gates of heaven, because he him- 
self,—had it not been for special mercy,—had been excluded ; 
other Apostles, saith he, having never fallen so foully, τάχα 
ἂν ἀποτομώτερον αὐτοῖς διεκέχρηντο, “ might like enough 
have used sinners more sharply:” but it was not probable 
that Peter would be such a severe Cato; and yet there is not 
a more unmerciful man under heaven than he that now 
tyrannizeth in his chair. Spalatensis indeed, after his revolt 
from us, could ingeniously confess, that he could have ex-~ 
pected comfortably, and perhaps have been better pleased, 
to have been saved in the Church of England, with a thousand 
pound a year, as in the Roman with five hundred pound. But 
do not all others of them count this no less than heresy in 
him thus to hope? Cudsemius" the Jesuit denies the English 


m [ὅτι διὰ τοῦτο, φησὶν, οὔτε πρὸς 
Ἰωάννην, οὔτε πρὸς ἕτερόν τινα τῶν μα- 
θητῶν ἔφη ὁ σωτὴρ τό" καὶ δώσω σοι τὰς 
κλεῖς τῆς βασιλείας τῶν οὐρανῶν, καὶ τὰ 
ἑξῆς᾽ ἀλλ᾽ ἤ πρὸς Πέτρον, bs ἔμελλε τῷ 
τῆς ἀρνήσεως περιπίπτειν ὀλισθήματι, 
καὶ διὰ δακρύων καὶ μετανοίας ἀπονίπ- 
τειν τὸ ἁμάρτημα, ἵνα τῷ καθ᾽ ἑαυτὸν ὗπο- 


δείγματι πρὸς τοὺς ἐξαμαρτάνοντας φι- 
λανθρωπότερον διατίθοιτο" οἱ γὰρ ἄλλοι 
ἀπείραστοι γεγενηκότες, τάχα ἂν ἀπο- 
τομώτερον αὐτοῖς diexexpnvTo.—Hulo- 
gius ap. Photium, Biblioth., p. 1600. ed. 
Hoeschel. ] 

n [De desperata Calvini Causa, lib, 
ies Md 


SERMON XX. ᾿ 437 


nation to be heretics, because they remain under a con- 
tinual succession of bishops. But alas! how few be there of 
them, which have so much charity to afford us! What fulmi- 
nations and clattering of clouds is there to be heard in that 
horizon! What anathematizing of heretics, i. 6. Protes- 
tants! what excommunicating them without any mercy, 
first out of the Church, then out of the book of life; and 
lastly, where they have power, out of the land of the living! 
And yet, would they be as liberal to us poor Protestants, as 
they are to their own stews and seminaries of all unclean- 
ness, then should we be stored with indulgences. But it 
was Tertullian’s® of old, that there is no mercy from them to 
be expected, who have no crime to lay against us but that we 
are true Christians. If they would but allow one corner of 
heaven to receive penitent humble Protestants, labouring for 
good works, but depending on Christ’s merit ; if they would 
not think us past hopes, or prayers, there might be possibly 
hoped some means of uniting us all in one fold. But this pre- 
cious Christian grace of charity being now so quite perished 
from off the earth, what means have we left us, but our 
prayers, to prepare or mature this reconciliation? Shall we 
then take heart also, and bring in our action of trespass? 
Shall we sit and pen our railing accusation in the form that 
Christ uses against the Pharisees, ‘‘ Woe unto you Scribes 
and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you shut up the kingdom 
of heaven against men, for you neither go in yourselves, 
neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in?” This 
we might do upon better grounds, were we so revengefully 
disposed ; but we fear to incur our Saviour’s censure, “ And 
He turned and rebuked them, saying, Ye know not what 
manner of spirits ye are οἵ." We should much mistake our 
Christian spirit, if we should not in return to their curses, 
intercede with God in prayer for them; first, that He will 
bestow on them the grace of meekness or charity; then, 
sincerity and uprightness, without wilful blindness and par- 
tiality ; and lastly, to intercede for the salvation of all our 
souls together. And this is the only way St. Paul hath left 
us, “ by returning them good to melt them,” hoping and pray- 


° [Cf. Tertull. Apoll., ο. 2.] 


Matt, xxiii. 
18. 


Luke ix. 


55. 


Rom. xii. 
20. 


[ Prov. xxv. 
16.} 


458 SERMON XX. 


ing in the words of Solomon, that by long forbearing this 
great Prince of the West will be persuaded; and that our 
soft tongues may in time break the bone. But whilst we 
preach charity to them, shall we not betray partiality in our- 
selves, by passing over that uncharitable fire that is breaking 
out in our own chimneys? It were to be wished that this 
Christian grace, which is liberal enough of itself, would be 
entertained as gratefully as it is preached; we should not 
then have so many wx ‘22, “sons of fire” amongst us as we 
have; who being inflamed, some with faction, others with 
ignorant prejudice, others with doting on their own abilities, 
fall out into all manner of intemperate censures, 39m "27, 
‘words of the sword,” all sharp contumelious invectives against 
all persons, or doctrines, or lives that are not ordered or re- 
vised by them. For what Photius? out of Josephus observes 
among others to have been one main cause or prognostic of 
the destruction of Jerusalem, the civil wars betwixt the &- 
λωταὶ and the σικάριοι, the zealots and the cut-throats, pray 
God we find not the same success amongst us. Whilst the 
zealots, saith he, fell on the sicarii, the whole body of the 
city, πικρῶς καὶ ἀνηλεῶς ἐσπαράττετο, “ was bitterly and 
unmercifully butchered betwixt them;” and under one of 
those two names all the people were brought to suffer their 
part in the massacre. I desire not to chill or damp you 
with unnecessary fears, or to suspect that our sims shall be 
so unlimited as utterly to outvie and overreach God’s mer- 
cies. But, beloved, this ill blood that is generally nourished 
amongst us, if it be not a prognostic of our fate, is yet an ill 
symptom of our disease. These convulsions and distortions 
of one member of the body from another as far as it can pos- 
sibly be distended, this burning heat, and from thence raving 
and disquietness of the soul, are certainly no very comfortable 
symptoms. When the Church and kingdom must be dicho- 
tomized, precisely divided into two extreme parts, and all 
moderate persons by each extreme tossed to the other with 
furious prejudice; must brand all for heretics or carnal per- 
sons that will not undergo their razor; and then, the con- 
trary extreme, censure and scoff at their preciseness that will 
not bear them company to every kind of riot ; these, beloved, 


P [Biblioth., p. 36. ed. Hoeschel. } 


SERMON XX. 439 


are shrewd feverish distempers, pray God they break not 
forth into a flame. When the boat that goes calmly with 
the stream, in the midst of two impetuous rowers, shall be 
assaulted by each of them, for opposing or affronting each ; 
when the moderate Christian shall be branded on the one 
hand for preciseness, on the other for intemperance, on the 
one side for a puritan, on the other for a papist, or a re- 
monstrant ; when he that keeps himself from either extreme, 
shall yet be entitled to both; what shall we say is become of 
that ancient primitive charity and moderation? The use, 
beloved, that I desire to make of all this, shall not be to 
declaim at either ; but only by this compass to find out the 
true point that we must fail by. By this, saith Aristotle4, 
you shall know the golden mediocrity, that it is complained 
on both sides, as if it were both extremes; that may you 
define to be exact liberality, which the covetous man censures 
for prodigality, and the prodigal for covetousness. And this 
shall be the sum not only of my advice to you, but prayers 
for you; that in the Apostle’s phrase, “your moderation may 
be known unto all men,” by this livery and cognizance, that 
you are indited by both extremes. And if there be any such 
Satanical art crept in amongst us, of authorizing errors or 
sins on one side, by pretending zeal and earnestness against 
their contraries; as Photius’ observes that it was a trick of 
propagating heresies, by writing books entitled to the confu- 
tation of some other heresy; the Lord grant that this evil 
spirit may be either laid or cast out; either fairly led, or vio- 
lently hurried out of our coasts. 

I have done with the Pharisee’s censoriousness; I come 
now in the last place to the ground, or rather occasion of it ; 
his seeing the publican,—comparing himself with notorious 
sinners ; “ I thank Thee that,” &c. 

That verse which St. Paul cites out of Menander’s Thais, 
that “wicked communication corrupts good manners,” is 
grounded on this moral essay, that nothing raiseth up so 
much to good and great designs as emulation; that he that 
casts himself upon such low company, that he hath nothing 
to imitate or aspire to in them, is easily persuaded to give 


4 Eth, ii, 7. τ [Biblioth., p. 399. ad med.; and p. 259. ad fin. } 


Phil. iv. 5. 


1 Cor. xv. 


33. 


440 SERMON XX. 


over any further pursuit of virtue, as believing that he hath 
enough already, because none of his acquaintance hath any 
more: thus have many good wits been cast away, by falling 
unluckily into bad times, which could yield them no hints 
for invention, no examples of poetry, nor encouragement for 
any thing that was extraordinary. And this is the Phari- 
see’s fate in my text, that looking upon himself, either in the 
deceivable glass of the sinful world, or in comparison with 
notorious sinners, extortioners, adulterers, publicans, sets 
himself off by these foils, finds nothing wanting in himself, 
so is solaced with a good comfortable opinion of his present 
estate, and a slothful negligence of improving it. And this, 
beloved, is the ordinary lenitive which the devil administers 
tothe sharp unguiet diseases of the conscience, if at any time 
they begin to rage,—the only conserve that he folds his bit- 
terest receipts in, that they may go down undiscerned,—that 
we are not worse than other men; that we shall be sure to 
have companions to hell; nay, that we need not neither at 
all fear that danger; for if heaven gates be so strait as not 
to receive such sinners as we, the rooms within are like to be 
but poorly furnished with guests; the marriage feast will 
never be eaten, unless the lame and cripples in the street or 
hospital be fetched in to fill the table. But, beloved, the com- 
forts with which the devil furnisheth these men are,—if they 
were not merely feigned and fantastical,—yet very beggarly 
and lamentable, such as Achilles in Homer’ would have 
scorned, only to be chief among the dead, or princes and 
eminent persons in hell. We must set our emulation higher 
than so, somewhat above the ordinary pitch or mark. Let 
our designs fly at the same white that the skilfullest marks- 
men in the army of saints and martyrs have aimed at before 
us; that the ἀσκηταὶ, and ἀθληταὶ, and τροπαιοφόροι of the 
Church, the religious exercisers and champions and trophy- 
bearers of this holy martial field have dealt in. It is a poor 
boast to have outgone heathens and Turks in virtue and good 
works ; to be taller than the dwarfs, as it were, and pigmies 
of the world; we must not be thus content, but outvie even 
the sons of Anak, those tall, giantly, supererogatory under- 


5 [Cf. Hom. Odyssey, xi. 491.] 


Le aee..eeerCr 


—— 


SERMON XX. 44] 


takings of the proudest, nay, humblest Romanists. O what a 
disgrace will it be for us Protestants at the dreadful day of 
doom! O what an accession not only to our torments, but 
our shame, and indignation at ourselves, to see the expecta- 
tion of meriting in a papist, nay, the desire of being counted 
virtuous in a heathen, attended with a more pompous train 
of charitable magnificent deeds, of constant magnanimous 
sayings, than all our faith can shew, or vouch for us! Shall 
not the Romanist triumph and upbraid us in St. James’s 


language, “Thou hast faith and I have works,” and all that Jam. ii. 18. 


we can fetch out of St. Paul not able to stop his mouth from 
going on, “shew me thy faith without thy works,” as our 
English reads it out of the Syriac and vulgar Latin, “ and I 
will shew thee my faith by my works?” It will be but a 
nice distinction for thee then to say, that works are to be 
separated from the act of justification, when they are found 
separated a supposito, from the person also. But not to 
digress ; the Pharisee seems here pretty well provided,—no 
extortioner, no adulterer, guilty of no injustice. And how 
many be there among you that cannot go thus far with the 
Pharisee! Some vice or other perhaps there is, that agrees 
not with your constitution or education ; drunkenness is not 
for one man’s turn, prodigality for another’s, and I doubt 
not but that many of you are as forward as the Pharisee to 
thank God, or rather require God to thank them, that they 
are not given to such or such a vice. But if you were to be 
required here to what the Pharisee undertakes, if you were 
to be arraigned at that severe tribunal, I say not concerning 
your thoughts and evil communications, but even the gross 
actual, nay, habitual sins; if a jury or a rack were set to 
enquire into you throughly, how many of you durst pretend 
to the Pharisee’s innocence and confidence, that you are 
not extortioners, unjust, adulterers! Nay, how many be 
there that have all the Pharisee’s pride and censoriousness, 
and all these other sins too into the vantage! Certainly 
there is not one place in the Christian world that hath more 
reason to humble itself for two or all three of these vices, 
than this city wherein you live. I am sorry I have said this, 
and I wish it were uncharitably spoken of me; but though 
it will not become me to have thought it of you, yet it will 


442 SERMON XX. 


concern you to suspect it of yourselves, that by acknowledg- 
ing your guilts you may have them cancelled, and by judging 


i. yourselves, prevent being judged of the Lord. And here 


St. Chrysostom’s* caution will come in very seasonably toward 
a conclusion of all, that the publican’s sins be not preferred 
before the Pharisee’s works, but only before his pride. It 
is not his store of moral virtues that was like to prove the 
Pharisee’s undoing, but his overvaluing them; ταράττει οὐ 
Ta πράγματα, ἀλλὰ δόγματα, saith the Stoic", appliable to 
this also. It is not his imnocence that hath so encumbered 
him all this while, but his opinion of it. The fasting and 
the tithing must not be cast away, because the Pharisee was 
proud of them; this were a furious discipline which would 
down with all violently, that had ever been abused to idola- 
try or sin; or with him in Plutarch*, that because poetry 
had some ill consequences sometimes, would have the muses 
and their favourites dispatched into Epicurus’s boat. His 
counsel was more seasonable, that, to prevent drunkenness, 
appointed them to mix water with their wine, that the mad 
god might be allayed with a tame sober one; and that is the 
caution that I told you of, that you abstract the Pharisee’s 
works from his pride, and then borrow the publican’s humi- 
lity from his works; that you come to the temple of God 
with all the provision a Pharisee can boast of, and then lay 
it down all at the publican’s feet, and take up his miserere, 
his sighs, his dejection, his indignation at himself instead of 
it, then shall you be fit to approach to that templum miseri- 
cordie which Gerson speaks of, sine simulachro, &¢c., that had 
not a picture or image of a saint in it, no manner of ostenta- 
tion or show of works, non sacrificiis sed gemitibus, &c., not 
to be visited with sacrifices but sighs, not to be filled with 
triumphant ἐπινίκια, songs of rejoicing and victories, but 
with the calm and yet ravishing rhetoric of the publican, 
θεὸς ἱλάσθητί μοι [τῷ] ἁμαρτωλῷ, “Lord be merciful to me 
a sinner.” Even so, O Lord, deal Thou with us, according 
to Thy mercies; visit us with Thy salvation, draw us with 
Thy mercies, and enlighten us with Thy Spirit, Thy hum- 
bling Spirit to season us with a sense of our sins and un- 


t [De Incomprehens. Dei Natura, * [Quom. Adolesc. Poet. aud. de- 
Hom. v. Op., toin. i. p. 490, C.] beat., § 1. tom. vi. p. 53. ed. Reisk. ] 
u Arrian Epict. Dissert. [i. 19. 7.] 


SERMON XX. 44.3 


worthiness ; Thy sanctifying Spirit to fill us here with all 
holy sincere requisite graces ; and in the Spirit of Thy power 
to accomplish us hereafter with that immarcessible crown of 


glory. 
Now to Hin, ἕο. 


SERMON XXI. 


Mart. ui. ὃ. 
Prepare ye the way of the Lord. 


Tart our preface may afford some light to our proceeding, 
that it may prepare the way and stand us in stead hereafter 
in our discourse of preparation, we will employ it to observe 
that natural progress and method of all things, which con- 
sists in steps and degrees: travelling on by those gists which 
nature hath set them from one stage to another, from a lower 
degree of perfection to an higher, built upon this ground of 
nature, that the first things are always least perfect, yet abso- 
lutely necessary to the perfection of the last: and in sum, so 
much the more necessary, by how much less perfect. Thus 
is the foundation more necessary to an house than the walls, 
and the first stone than the whole foundation, because the 
walls are necessary only to the setting on of the roof, not to 
the laying of the foundation; the foundation necessary both 
to the walls and roof, but not to the first stone; because that 
may be laid without the whole foundation: but the first 
stone necessary to all the rest, and therefore of greatest and 
most absolute necessity. The course of nature is delineated 
and expressed to us by the like proceedings and method of 
arts and sciences. So those general principles that are most 
familiar to us, are the poorest and yet most necessary rudi- 
ments required to any deeper speculation: the first stage of 
the understanding in its peregrination or travel into those 
foreign parts of more hidden knowledge is usually very 
short; and it is most requisite it should be so; for beginning 
at home with some κοιναὶ ἔννοιαι, and taking its rise at its 
own threshold, thereby it advances the length, and secures 
the success of the future voyage. Thus in politics hath the 


SERMON XXI. 4.4.5 


body of laws from some thin beginnings under Lycurgus, 
Solon, Phaleas, and the like, by daily accessions and further 
growth at last increased into a fair bulk; every age perfect- 
ing somewhat, and by that degree of perfection making the 
matter capable of a further; so that the very politics them- 
selves, as well as each commonwealth, have been observed to 
have their infancy, youth, and manhood, the last of which is 
the only perfect state ; which yet this body had never attained 
to, had it not been content to submit itself to the imperfec- 
tion of the former. Thus also in practical philosophy there 
be some preambula operationis, some common precepts which 
must be instilled into us, to work a consistency in our tempers 
firm enough for the undertaking and performing all moral 
tasks. One excellent one Aristotle? learnt from Plato, in the 
second of the Ethics, χαίρειν τε καὶ λυπεῖσθαν ois δεῖ, a skill 
of ordering those two passions aright, joy and sorrow, an 
habit never to rejoice or grieve but on just occasion: which 
lesson we must con perfectly when we are young, and then 
with years an easy discipline will bring on virtue of its own 
accord. Lastly, in the transcendent knowledge of metaphysics, 
which Aristotle would fain call wisdom, it is the philosophers’ 
labour, which they were very sedulous in, to invent and set 
down rules to prepare us for that study: the best that 
Aristotle hath is in the third of Metaph., to examine and 
inform ourselves, περὶ ὧν ἀπορῆσαι Set πρῶτον, “which 
things are chiefly worth doubting of,’ and searching after: 
in which one thing if we would observe his counsel, if we 
would learn to doubt only of those things which are worth 
our knowledge, we should soon prove better scholars than 
we are. Jamblichus’, beyond all the rest, most to the purpose 
prescribes retiredness and contempt of the world, that so we 
might ταῖς διεξόδοις τοῦ νοῦ ζῆν, ever “live and be nourished 
by the excursions of the mind towards God;” where indeed 
he speaks more like a Christian than a Pythagorean, as if he 
had learnt Christ, to deny himself and the world, and follow 
Him, and intended to come to that pitch and ἀκμὴ which 
St. Paul speaks of, “The life which I now live in the flesh I Gal. ii. 20 
live by faith,” &c. But to conclude this precognoscendum, 


4 (Cf. Arist. Nic. Eth., lib. 11. 6, 2.] » (Arist. Metaph. B. ς. 1.1 
¢ Jambl. Protrept., pp. 36, 37. 


{1 Cor. xv. 
46. | 


440 SERMON XXI. 


there be throughout all works of nature and imitations of art 
some imperfect grounds on which all perfection is built ; some 
common expressions with which the understanding is first 
signed ; some ground-colours without the laying on of which 
no perfect effigies or portraiture can be drawn. Nay thus it 
is in some measure in spiritual matters also; we are men 
before we are Christians: there is a natural life and there is 
a spiritual life. And as in the resurrection, so also in the spi- 
ritual παλυγγενεσία of the soul, “ first that which is natural, 
and after that which is spiritual: and in the spiritual life 
there be also its periods, the infancy, the youth and virility 
of the spirit ; the first being most imperfect yet most neces- 
sary, and preparing the way to the last perfection. To bring 
all home to the business in hand; thus did it not befit the 
Saviour of the world to come abruptly into it; to put on flesh 
as soon as flesh had put on sin; the business was to be done 
by degrees, and after it had been a long time in working, for 
the final production of it, the fulness of time was to be ex- 
pected. The law had its time of pedagogy to declare itself, 
and to be obeyed as His usher for many years; and after all 
this, He appears not in the world till His Baptist hath pro- 
claimed Him; He makes not toward His court till His 
harbinger hath taken up the rooms. He comes not to in- 
habit either in the greater or lesser Jewry, the world or 
man’s heart, till the precursor hath warned all to make 
ready for Him; and this is the voice of the precursor’s 
sermon and the words of my text, “ Prepare ye the way of 
the Lord.” 

Instead of dividing the words 1 shall unite them, and after 
I have construed them to you, contrive that into one body 
which would not conveniently be dismembered. ‘Erowafew 
signifies to fit, to prepare, to make ready. “ Ye” are all those 
to whom Christ should ever come. “The ways of the Lord” 
are whatsoever is capable of receiving of Christ or His gospel, 
peculiarly the hearts of the elect. The form of speech, im- 
perative, notes the whole complexum to be one single duty 
required of all the Baptist’s and my auditors, sub hac forma, 
that every man’s heart must be prepared for the receiving 
of Christ, or, punctually to imitate the order of the words in 
my text, the preparation of the soul is required for Christ’s 


SERMON XXI. 4.4.7 


birth in us. For there is in every elect vessel a spiritual ἐν- 
σάρκωσι», or “ mystical incarnation” of Christ, where the soul, 
like Mary, is first overshadowed by the Holy Ghost, then con- 
ceives, then carries in the womb, grows big, and at last falls 
into travail and brings forth Christ. My text goes not thus 
far to bring to the birth, neither will I. My discourse shall 
be happy if it may be His Baptist, His πρόδρομος in your 
hearts, to prepare them for His birth, which I shall endeavour 
to do, first, by handling preparation in general; 2. the prepa- 
ration here specified, of the soul; 3. in order to Christ’s-birth 
in us. 

And first of preparation in general; éro:ua€ere, “prepare ye,” 
or make ready. The necessity of this performance to any un- 
dertaking may appear by those several precedaneous methods 
in common life, which have nothing in themselves to ingra- 

 tiate them unto us, but cost much toil and trouble, yet not- 
| withstanding are submitted to. If the earth would answer 
the farmer’s expectation without any culture or husbandry, 
he would never be so prodigal towards it. But seeing it hath 
proposed its fruitfulness under condition of our drudgery, we 
plough, and harrow, and manure, and drain, and weed it, or else 
we are sure to fare the worse at harvest. The variety of pre- 
parations in these low affairs was by Cato and Varro and Co- 
Jumella accounted a pretty piece of polite necessary learning. 
And a Christian, if he will apply their rules to his spiritual 
Georgics, the culture of his soul, shall be able to husband it 
the better; and by their directions have a further insight 
into those fallow grounds of his own heart, which the prophet [Hos. x. 
speaks of. It were a great, and perhaps unnecessary journey, 12 1 
to trace over the whole world of creatures to perfect this ob- 
servation: almost every passage of nature will furnish you 
with an example. Hence is it that they that had nothing but 
natural reason to instruct them, were assiduous in this prac- 
tice, and never ventured on any solemn business without as 
solemn endeavours to fit themselves for the work they took 
in hand; those series of preparations before the ancient athle- 
tica, as anointing, and bathing, and rubbing, and dust, it 
were fit enough for a sermon to insist on the exercise which 
they prepared, for being reputed sacred and parts of their 
solemnest worship; and the moral of them would prove of 


Eph. vi. 
12; 1 Cor. 
ix. 26. 


[ Acts xvii. 
22.) 


448 SERMON XXI. 


good use to discipline, and to bring us up to those spiritual 
agones mentioned in Scripture, as πάλη, Eph. vi. 12, πυγμὴ, 
1 Cor. ix. 26, and in the same place δρόμος ἐν σταδίῳ, and 
its preparative ὑπωπιασμὸς, wrestling, cuffing, and run- 
ning, three of the five Olympian games adopted as it were 
into the Church, and spiritualized by the Apostle for our 
imitation. But to pass by these and the like as less apposite 
for our discourse, what shall we think? Was it superstition, 
or rather mannerliness, that made the Grecian priests so rub 
and wash and scour themselves before they would meddle 
with a sacrifice? δεισιδαιμονία it was, and that we construe 
superstition ; but indeed it signifies an awe and reverence to 
the deity they worship, and a fear and a care lest the unpre- 
paredness of the priest should pollute their sacrifice; as it is 
much to be feared that our holiest duties, for want of this 
care, are turned into sin; the vanities and faults of our very 
prayers adding to the number of those guilts we pray against, 
and every sacrifice, even of atonement itself, needing some ex- 
pation. To look awhile on the highest part, and as it were 
the sacraments of their religion, their Eleusinia sacra, resemb- 
ling in one respect Christian baptism, in another holy orders ; 
what a multitude of rites and performances were required of 
every one before his admission to them! For their μυστήρια 
being divided into two classes, the lesser or lower sort were 
preludia to the greater, or as the scholiast on Aristophanes 4 
hath it more clearly to our purpose, προκάθαρσις καὶ Tpoay- 
νευσι5 TOV μεγάλων, “a premundation or presanctification” 
of them that sued to be admitted higher: as baptism, confir- 
mation, and a Christian education in the Church, fits us for 
the participations of those mysteries which the other sacra- 
ments present to us, so that it punctually notes that prepa- 
ration we here talk of: for before they were admitted to those 
grand τελεταὶ and ἐποπτεία, they were, saith Suidas, to spend 
a year or two in a lower form, undergo a shop of purga- 
tions, λοῦτρα, καθάρσεις, and many more; so that Tertullian ® 
could not without wonder and praise of their solemnities ob- 
serve tot suspiria epoptarum, et mulitam in adytis divinitatem. 
It was no mean toil nor ordinary merit that was required to 


4 [ Plutarch. De Anditione. Op.,tom. Plut. v. 846.] 
vi. p. 170. Reiske. Schol. on Aristoph. e Tertull., lib. i. in. Valent. ad init. 


SERMON XXI. 449 


make them capable‘ of these dyias τελεταὶ, as Aristophanes * 
calls them. The ground of all the ceremony we may observe 
to be the natural impurity which the heathens themselves 
acknowledge to be in every man, as may appear most dis- 
tinctly by Jamblichus ἢ, though they knew not clearly at what 
door it came in at; sure they were they found it there, and 
therefore their own reason suggested them that things of an 
excellent purity, of an inherent or at least an adherent sanc- 
tity, were not to be adventured on by an impure nature, 
ἀλλὰ μετὰ τινῶν καθαρμῶν, saith Clementi, till it had by 
some laborious prescribed means somewhat rid itself of its 
_ pollutions ; and this the barbarian did μόνῳ λούτρῳ, saith he, 
thinking the bare washing of the outward parts sufficient : 
but the Grecians, whom learning had made more substantial 
in their worship, required moreover an habituate temper of 
passions, longam castimoniam et sedatam mentem, that the in- 
ward calmness and serenity of the affections might perform 
the promises of the outward purity. In sum, when they were 
thus qualified and had fulfilled the period, or circle of their 
purgation required to their μύησις, they were at length ad- 
mitted intra adyta ad epoptica sacra, where all the mysteries 
of their theology were revealed to them. All which seems to 
me—as much as can be expected from their dim imperfect 
knowledge—to express the state of grace and saving know- 
ledge in the world; and also the office of ministering in sacred 
things, into which no man was thought fit to be received or 
initiated but he which had undergone a prenticeship of pur- 
gations: for although those Eleusinia of theirs, at a Chris- 
tian’s examination, would prove nothing but religious delu- 
sions, containing some prodigies of their mythical divinity; in 
sum, but grave specious puppets and solemn serious nothing ; 
yet hence it may appear that the eye of nature, though cheated 
in the main, taking that for a sacred mystery which was but 
a prodigious vanity, yet kept itself constant in its ceremonies ; 
would not dare or hope to approach abruptly to any thing 
which it could believe to be holy. Now shall we be more 
saucy in our devotions, and insolent in our approaches to 


f { Plutarch. ibid. bol. iv. J 

8 [ Aristoph. Nub. 304. ] i [Clemens Alexandr. Strom., lib. v. 
» Protrept., [explanation of Sym- cap. 11. ὃ 71. p. 689.} 

HAMMOND, ag 


450 SERMON XXI. 


either the throne of majesty or grace of our true God, than 
they were to the unprofitable empty τελεταὶ of their false? 
Shall we call the mannerliness of the heathen up in judg- 
ment against the Christian rudeness? It will be an horrid 
exprobration at the day of doom, when a neat, washed, re- 
spectful Gentile shall put a swinish, miry, negligent Christian 
to shame; such a one who never took so much care to trim 
himself to entertain the Bridegroom, as the heathen did to 
adore an empty gaud, a vain ridiculous bauble. Yet is not 
their example prescribed you as an accomplished pattern, as 
the pitch to aim at and drive no higher: but rather as a o77- 
λιτευτικὸν, a sarcasm or contumely engraved in marble to 
upbraid you mightily if you have not gone so far. All that 
they practised was but superficial and referring to the body, 
and therein the washing of the outsides; yours must be in- 
ward, and of the soul; which is the next word in the doc- 
trine, the specification of it by the subject noted im the text 
by τὴν ὁδὸν, “the way,” and expressed in the latter part of 
the subject of my proposition, the preparation of the soul. 
This preparation consists in removing those burdens, and 
wiping off those blots of the soul, which any way deface or 
oppress it; in scouring off that rust and filth which it con- 
tracted in the womb, and driving it back again as near in- 
tegrity as may be. And this was the aim and business of 
the wisest among the ancients, who conceived it possible 
fully to repair what was lost, because the privation was not 
total; and findig some sparks of the primitive flame still 
warm within them, endeavoured and hoped hard to enliven 
them. To this purpose a great company of them, saith St. 
Austin), puzzled themselves in a design of purging the soul 
per θεουργίαν, et consecrationes theurgicas, but all im vain, as 
Porphyry himself confesses ; ‘‘ No man,’’saith he, “ by this the- 
urgic magic could ever purge himself the nearer to God, or 
wipe his eyes clear enough for such a vision.” They indeed 
went more probably to work, which used no other magic or 
exorcism to cast out these devils, to clear and purge the soul, 
but only their reason, which the moralist set up and main- 
tained against θυμὸς and ἐπιθυμία, the two ringleaders of ἡ 
sensuality. To this purpose did Socrates, the first and wisest 


j [Cf 8. August. De Civit. Dei, lib. x. ¢. 9. Op., tom. vii. p. 245.] 


SERMON XXI. 451 


moralist, furnish and arm the reasonable faculty with all helps 
and defensations that philosophy could afford it, that it might 
be able to shake off and disburden itself of those encum- 
brances which naturally weighed and pressed it downward, 
ut exoneratus animus naturali vigore in eterna se attolleret*: 
where if that be true which some observe of Socrates, that 
his professing to know nothing was because all was taught 
him by his δαιμόνιον, I wonder not that by others his daz- 
μόνιον is called θεὸς, and consecrated into a deity: for cer- 
tainly never devil bore so much charity to mankind, and 
treachery to his own kingdom, as to instruct him in the 
cleansing of his soul: whereby those strongholds of Satan are 
undermined, which cannot subsist but on a stiff and deep clay 
foundation. From these beginnings of Socrates, the moral- 
ists ever since have toiled hard at this task, to get the soul 
ἐκ γενέσεως, as Jamblichus! phrases it, out of that corruption 
of its birth, that impurity born with it, which the soul con- 
tracts by its conversation with the body, and from which, they 
say, only philosophy can purge it. For it is Philoponus’s™ 
observation, that that canon of the physicians, “ that the incli- 
nations of the soul necessarily follow the temper of the body,” 
is by all men set down with that exception implied, “ unless 
the man have studied philosophy,” for that study can reform 
the other, καὶ μὴ ἕπεσθαι ποιεῖν, “make the soul contemn 
the commands,” and arm it against the influences and poisons 
and infections of the body. In sum, the main of philosophy 
was to this purpose, to take off the soul from those corporeal 
dependencies, and so in a manner restore it to its primitive 
self; that is, to some of that divine perfection with which it 
was infused, for then is the soul to be beheld in its native 
shape, when it is stripped of all its passions. At other times 
you do not see the soul, but some froth and weeds of it; as 
the gray part of the sea is not to be called sea, ἀλλὰ τὰ 
φυκία ἃ περιβέβληται, “some scurf and foam and weeds 
that lie on the top of it.” So then to this spiritualizing of 
the soul, and recovering it to the simplicity of its essence, 
their main precepts were to quell and suppress τὸν ἐν ψυχῆ 


k [S. Augustin., De Civit. Dei, lib. m [ Philoponus, Comment. in Aristot. 
Viii. c. 3.] De Anima, on the words, ἔοικε δὲ τὰ τῆς 
1 [Jambl. Protrept., c. iii. ] ψυχῆς πάθη.---1)6 A., lib. i. c. 1.) 


Gg2 


4.52 SERMON XXI. 


δῆμον, as Maximus Tyrius" speaks, that turbulent, prachant, 
“common people of the soul,” all the irrational affections, and 
reduce it εἰς πολιτείαν, “into a monarchy or regal govern- 
ment,” where reason might rule lord and king. For when- 
soever any lower affection is suffered to do any thing there, 
saith Philoponus®, “we do not work like men but some other 
creatures.” Whosoever suffers their lower nutritive faculties 
to act freely, οὗτοι κινδυνεύουσιν ἀποδενδρωθῆναι, “these 
men are in danger to become trees :” that is, by these opera- 
tions they differ nothing from mere plants. So those that 
suffer their sensitive appetites, lust and rage, to exercise at 
freedom, are not to be reckoned men, but beasts; τότε μόνον 
ὡς ἄνθρωποι, x.T.X., “then only will our actions argue us men, 
when our reason is at the forge.” ‘This was the aim and busi- 
ness of philosophy, to keep us from unmanning ourselves, to 
restore reason to its sceptre, to rescue it from the tyranny of 
that most atheistical usurper, as Jamblichus calls the affec- 
tions; and from hence he which lived according to those pre- 
cepts of philesophy was said both by them and Clement, and 
the fathers, κατὰ νοῦν ζῆν, and in Austin, secundum intellectum 
vivere, to live according to the guidance of the reasonable 
soul. Which whosoever did, saith Plotinus, though by it in 
respect of divinity he was not perfect, yet at last should be 
sure to find a gracious providence, first to perfect, then to 
crown his natural moderate well-tempered endeavour, as 
Austin cites it out of him?. This whole course and pro- 
ceedings and assent of the soul, through these philosophical 
preparations to spiritual perfection, is summarily and clearly 
set down for us in Photius out of Isidorus’, philosophi- 
cally observed to consist in three steps, τὰ μὲν πρῶτα, 
«.7T.r. The first business of the soul is to call in those parts 
of it which were engaged in any foreign fieshly employ- 


® Maximus Tyr. supr. p. 278. 

o [Plotinus, quoted by Philoponus, 
Comment. in Aristot. de Anima, f. 4. 
ed. Aldus. ] 

p [S. August. De Civit. Dei, lib. x. 
c. 29, addressing Porphyry: Uteris 
etiam hoc verbo apertius, ubi Platonis 
sententiam sequens, nec ipse dubitas, 
in hae vita hominem nullo modo ad 
perfectionem sapientiz pervenire, se- 
cundum intellectum tamen viventibus 
omne quod deest, providentia Dei et gra- 


tid, post hane vitam posse compleri. ] 

4 [αὐτὴν δὲ τὴν ψυχὴν ἐν ταῖς ἱεραῖς 
εὐχαῖς πρὸς ὅλον τὸ θεῖον πέλαγος εἶναι, 
τὰ μὲν πρῶτα συναγειρομένην ἀπὸ τοῦ 
σώματος εἰς ἑαυτὴν, αὖθις δὲ ἐξισταμένην 
τῶν ἰδίων ἠθῶν, καὶ ἀναχωροῦσαν ἀπὸ 
τῶν λογικῶν ἐννοιῶν ἐπὶ τὰς τῷ νῷ συγ- 
γενεῖς, ἐκ δ᾽ αὖ τρίτων ἐνθουσιῶσαν καὶ 
παραλλάττουσαν εἰς ἀήθη τινὰ γαλήνην 
θεοπρεπῆ καὶ οὐκ avOpwriyny.—s. Isi- 
dorus Pel. ap. Phot. Biblioth., p. 350. 
Bekker. | 


SERMON XXI. 453 


ment, and retire and collect itself unto itself: and then 
secondly, it learns to quit itself, to put off the whole natural 
man, ἴδια ἤθη, “its own fashions” and conceits: all the 
notions, all the pride of human reason, and set itself on those 
things which are nearest kin to the soul, that is, spiritual 
affairs; and then thirdly, ἐνθουσιᾷ καὶ παραλλάττει, it falls 
“into holy enthusiasms and spiritual elevations,” which it 
continues, till it be changed and led into the calm and 
serenity above the state of man, agreeable to the tranquillity 
and peace which the gods enjoy. And could the philosophers 
be their own scholars, could they exhibit that felicity which 
they describe and fancy, they might glory in their morality, 
and indeed be said to have prepared and purged the soul for 
the receipt of the most pure and spiritual guest. But cer- 
tainly their speculation outran their practice; and their 
very morality was but theorical, to be read in their books 
and wishes far more legible than in their lives and their 
enjoyments. Yet some degrees also of purity, or at least a 
less measure of impurity they attained to, only upon the 
expectation and desire of happiness proposed to them upon 
condition of performance of moral precepts; for all things 
being indifferently moved to the obtaining of their swmmum 
bonum ; all, I say, not only rational agents, ἀλλὰ καὶ φύσει 
κινούμενα ἀλόγως, as Andronicus saith on the Ethics’, “ which 
have nothing but nature to incite them to it;” the natural 
man may, upon a sight and liking of an happiness proposed 
on severe conditions, call himself into some degrees of moral 
temper, as best suiting to the performance of the means 
and obtaining of the end he looks for; and by this temper 
be said to be morally better than another, who hath not 
taken this course to subdue his passions. And this was 
evident enough among the philosophers, who were as far 
beyond the ordinary sort in severity of conversation, as depth 
of learning: and read them as profitable precepts in the 
example of their lives, as ever the schools breathed forth in 
their lectures. Their profession was incompatible with many 
vices, and would not suffer them to be so rich in variety of 
sins as the vulgar; and then whatsoever they thus did, an 
unregenerate Christian may surely perform in a far higher 


τ [Andronicus in his Paraphrase of the Nic. Ethies ad init. } 


454 SERMON XXI. 


measure, as having more choice of ordinary restrainment 
from sin than ever had any heathen: for it will be much to 
our purpose to take notice of those ordinary restraints by 
which unregenerate men may be, and are curbed, and kept 
back from sinning; and these, saith Austin, God affords to 
the very reprobates, non continens in ira suas misericordias. 
Much to this same purpose hath holy Maximus® in those 
admirable sections, epi ayamns, where most of the restraints 
he speaks of are competible to the unregenerate, φόβος av- 
θρώπων, κιτιλ. 1. Fear of men. 2. Denunciation of judg- 
ments from heaven. 3. Temperance and moral virtues: nay, 
sometimes other moral vices, as κενοδοξία, “ vain-glory” or 
ostentation of integrity. 4. Natural impressions to do to 
others as we would be done to. 5. Clearness of judgment 
in discerning good from evil. 6. An expectation of a reward 
for any thing well done; lastly, some gripes and twinges 
of the conscience: to all add a tender disposition; a good 
Christian education; common custom of the country where 
one lives, where some vices are out of fashion; nay at last the 
word of God daily preached; not a love, but servile fear of 
it. These, I say, and the like may outwardly restrain un- 
regenerate men from riots; may curb and keep them in, and 
consequently preserve the soul from that weight of the mul- 
titude of sins which press down other men to a desperation 
of mercy. Thus is one unregenerate man less engaged in sin 
than another, and consequently his soul less polluted; and 
so in all likelihood more capable of the ordinary means of 
salvation, than the more stubborn habituate sinner; when 
every aversion, every commission of every sin doth more 
harden against grace, more alien and set at a greater distance 
from heaven: and this briefly we call a moral preparation of 
the soul; and a purging of it, though not absolutely from 
sin, yet from some measure of reigning sin, and disposing of 
it to a spiritual estate: and this is no more than I learn from 
Bradwardine in his lib. i. de causa Dei, ch. 37*. A servile fear, 
a sight of some inconvenience, and moral habit of virtue, and 
the like, multum retrahunt a peccato, inclinant ad opera bona, 
et sic ad charitatem, et gratiam, et opera vere grata preparant 


s [S. Maximus, Centena Capita de τ [Bradwardine, De Causa Dei, lib. 
Caritate, 11 §§ 23, 32.] i. δ. 37. ad fin. ] 


SERMON XXI. 4:55 


et disponunt. And so I come to my last part, to shew of 
what use this preparation of the soul is, in order to Christ’s 
birth in us, “ The ways of the Lord.” 

I take no great joy in presenting controversies to your ears 
out of this place ; yet seeing I am already fallen upon a piece 
of one, I must now go through it; and to quit it as soon as 
I can, present the whole business unto you in some few pro- 
positions, of which some I shall only recite as conceiving 
them evident enough by their own light: the rest I shall a 
little insist on, and then apply and drive home the profit of 
all to your affections. And in this pardon me, for certainly 
I should never have meddled with it, had not I resolved it 
a theory that most nearly concerned your practice, and a 
speculation that would instruct your wills as well as your 
understandings. The propositions which contain the sum of 
the business are these. 

1. No preparation in the world can deserve or challenge 
God’s sanctifying grace: “the Spirit bloweth where it list- 
eth,” and cannot by any thing in us be predetermined to its 
object or its work. 

2. The Spirit is of power to work the conversion of any, 
the greatest, sinner; at one minute to strike the most obdu- 
rate heart and soften it, and out of the unnatural womb of 
stones, infinitely more unfruitful than barrenness and age 
had made the womb of Sarah, “to raise up children unto 
Abraham.” According to the ὑπόθεσις of Aristotle, νόσους 
ὑγιάζουσι πολλάκις ὅταν πολὺ ExoTH TLS", “ diseases are some- 
times cured when the patient is at the extremity or height of 
danger,” in an ecstasy and almost quite gone. 

3. It is an ill consequence, that because God can and some- 
times doth call unprepared sinners, therefore it is probable 
He will deal so with thee in particular, or with unprepared 
men in general. God doth not work in conversion as a 
physical agent, to the extent of His power, but according to 
the sweet disposition and counsel of His will. 

4. In unprepared hearts there be many professed enemies to 
grace, ill dispositions, ambition, atheism, pride of spirit, and, 
in chief, an habit in a voluptuous settled course of sinning, 
an indefatigable resolute walking after their own lusts. And 


“ Problem. 1. ὃ 2. 


Mat. xv. 
26. 


Mat. xiii. 


qe 
John iii. 
20. 


Mat. xiii. 


58. 


1 Cor. 
xiv. 22. 


456 SERMON XXI. 


therefore there is very little hope that Christ will ever vouch- 
safe to be born in such polluted hardened souls. For it is 
Basil’s’ observation that that speech of the fool’s heart, “ There 
is no God,” was the cause that the Gentiles were given over 
to a reprobate sense, and fell headlong εἰς πάντα βδελύγματα, 
“into all manner of abominations.” Hence it is that Jobius 
in Photius* observes that in Scripture some are called “ dogs,” 
some “unworthy to receive the mysteries of the kingdom of 
heaven,” that some “hated the light” and came not to it, as 
if all those had taken a course to make themselves uncapable 
of mercy, and by a perfect hostility frighted Christ out of 
their coasts. In the liberal dispensation of miracles in the 
Gospel you would wonder to see Christ a niggard in His own 
country, yet so, in respect of other places, He was, and “ did 
not many miracles there, because of their unbelief,” not that 
their incredulity had manacled Him, had shortened His hand, 
or straitened His power, but that miracles, which when they 
met with a passive willingness, a contentedness in the patient 
to receive and believe them, were then the ordinary instru- 
ments of faith and conversion, would have been but cast away 
upon obdurate hearts; so that for Christ to have numbered 
miracles among His unbelieving countrymen no way prepared 
to receive them, had been an injurious liberality, and added 
only to their unexcusableness; which contradicts not the 
axiom of St. Paul, “ that some signs are only for unbelievers :” 
for even those unbelievers must have within them τὸ ἐπιτή- 
deLov τῆς ὑπακοῆς, “a proneness or readiness to receive them 
with belief,” καὶ εἰφοικίζεσθαι, x.7.rX. in Jobius’, to “ open to 
the spirit knocking” by those miracles, and improve them to 
their best profit. 

5. Though God needs not, yet He requires moral prepara- 
tion of us, as an ordinary means to make us more capable of 
grace: for although according to St. Austin, Ne ipsa quidem 
justitia nostra indiget Deus: yet according to Salvian’s” limi- 


v [S. Basil. Proceem. de Judicio Dei. 
Op., tom. ii. p. 215, A, B.] 

x [Jobius ap. Photium in Biblioth., 
p- 627. ed. Hoeschel. | 

y [ἐκείνοις μέντοι ταῦτα προβάλ- 
λεσθαι, οἵ τὸ ἐπιτήδειον τῆς ὑπακοῆς 
ἀντιπαρέχονται καὶ τὴν ἀπ᾿ αὐτῶν ὠφέ- 
λειαν eisoixifovrat’ ὅσους δὲ τῶν ἀπί- 


στων ἑκουσίως πρὸς τὰ τῶν ἔργων ὕπερ- 
φυῆ τυφλώττοντας ἐπιστάμεθα, τούτοις 
ἡἣ τῶν σημείων προβολὴ ἀπρονόητόν τε 
καὶ μάταιον. ---ΦοὈϊιι5 ap. Phot. Biblioth., 
p- 202. Bekker. ] 

z [Sed Deus, inquis, non eget retribu- 
tione? Nihil minus quam ut non egeat. 
Non eget enim juxta potentiam suam, 


SERMON XXI. 457 


tation, Hyget juxta preceptionem suam, licet non juxta poten- 
tiam: eget secundum legem suam, non eget secundum majes- 
tatem. We are to think that God hath use of any thing 
which He commands, and therefore must perform whatever 
He requires, and not dare to be confident of the end, without 
the observation of the means prescribed. It is too much bold- 
ness, if not presumption, to leave all to His omnipotent work- 
ing, when He hath prescribed us means to do somewhat our- 
selves. 

6. Integrity and honesty of heart, a sober moral life, and Vid. Wisd. 
chiefly humility and tenderness of spirit; in sum, whatever ae 
degree of innocence, either study, or fear, or love, or natural 
disposition can work in us, some or all of which may in some 
measure be found in some men not yet regenerate, are good 
preparations for Christ’s birth in us ; so saith Clement? of phi- 
losophy, that it doth προπαρασκευάζειν, x.7.r., “make ready 
and prepare the way against Christ’s coming,” co- 
operate” with other helps that God hath given us; all with 
this caution, that it doth only prepare, not perfect ; facilitate 
the pursuit of wisdom to us, ov μέντοι ἀθηράτου οὔσης δίχα 
αὐτῆς, “which God may bestow on us without this means.” 
To this purpose hath Basil® a notable homily to exhort scholars 
to the study of foreign, human, especially Grecian learning, 
and to this end saith he, “that we prepare ourselves, εἰς τὰ 
ἄνω, to the heavenly spiritual philosophy.” In the like kind 
the fathers prescribe good works of charity, observing out of 
the nineteenth of St. Matthew, that the distribution of all " ἐν xix. 
their substance to the poor was a pre/udium in the primitive ae 
believers to the following of Christ, Prius vendant omnia quam 
sequantur : from whence he calls alms-deeds, exordia quasi et 
incunabula conversionis nostre. The like may be said, though 
not in the same degree, of all other courses, quibus carnalium 
sarcinarum impedimenta projicimus: for if these foremen- 
tioned preparations be mere works of nature in us, as some 


συνεργεῖν, “ 


sed eget juxta preceptionem suam, 
non eget secundum majestatem suam, 
sed eget secundum legem suam; et in 
se ipso quidem non eget, sed in multis 
eget: non guerit in se munificen- 
tiam, sed in suis querit; et ideo non 
eget quidem juxta omnipotentiam, sed 
eget juxta misericordiam; non eget 


Deitate pro semetipso, sed eget pietate 
pro nobis.—Salvian. ady. Avaritiam, 
lib. iv. § 140.] 
4 Clement. Alex. Strom., lib. i. ¢. 5; 
and ο. vi. § 365. PP 331. ad fin.—337. 
» [S. Basil. Serm. de legend. libris 
Gentilium. on , tom. ii. Ὁ. 173.] 


Acts x. 2. 


Mat. i. 19. 


458 SERMON XXI. 


would have them, then do they naturally incline the subject 
for the receiving of grace when it comes, and by fitting, as 
it were, and organizing the subject, facilitate its entrance ; or 
if they be works of God’s restraining preventing grace, as it is - 
most orthodoxly agreed on, then are they good harbingers for 
the sanctifying Spirit ; good comfortable symptoms that God 
will perfect and crown the work which He hath begun in us. 
7. God’s ordinary course, as far as by events we can judge 
of it, is to call and save such as are thus prepared. Thus to 
instance in a few of the first and chiefest. It was appointed 
by God that she only should be vouchsafed the blessed office 
of dignity of being the θεοτόκος, “Christ’s Mother,’ who was 
πασῶν πάσαις ἀρεταῖς ὑπερανελθοῦσα, saith he in Photius®, 
“fuller of virtues than any else of her sex could brag of.” In 
hike manner, that the rest of the family, Christ’s father and 
brethren, in account, on earth, should be such whose virtues 
had bestowed a more eminent opinion, though not place upon 
them amongst men; so was Joseph and his sons δικαιοσύνῃ 
διαλάμποντες, “ famous for very just men,” James the brother 
of the Lord ἐκ κοιλίας ἅγιος, “holy from the womb,” (as 
Eusebius cites it*,) called by the Jews ὀβλίας, saith he out of 
Hegesippus, which he interprets περιοχὴ τοῦ λαοῦ; καὶ δικαιο- 
σύνη", “the stay of the people and justice itself.” In brief; 
if a Cornelius be to be called from Gentilism to Christianity, 
ye shall find him in the beginning of his character, “to be a 
devout man and one that feared God with all his house, gave 
much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway : one 
cut out as it were εἰς ἀπαρχὴν ἔθνων, “to be the first-fruit 
of the Gentiles.” Now though none of these virtues can be 
imputed to nature in the substance of them, but acknowledge 
a more supernatural spiritual agent in them, yet are they to 
be reckoned as preparations to Christ’s birth in them, because 
they did precede it: for so in respect of His real incarnation 
in the world, the type of His spiritual in the soul, Mary was 
a virtuous pure virgin before the Holy Ghost overshadowed 
her, Joseph a just man before the Holy Ghost appeared to 
him, James holy from the womb, and Cornelius capable of all 


« [ἔδει μητέρα Θεοῦ ἐπὶ γῆς γένεσθαι': Biblioth., p. 641. (ed. Hoeschel.) ] 
τῆν πασῶν πάσαις ἀρεταῖς ὑπερανελθοῦ- 4 [Euseb. Eccles. Hist. ii. 23. | 
σαν exadecev.i—Jobius ap. Photium * Photius, ibid. 


SERMON XXI. 459 


that commendation for devotion and alms-deeds, Acts x. 2, Acts x. 2. 

before either Christ was preached to him in the thirty-seventh ver. 37. 

or the Holy Ghost fell on him in the forty-fourth verse. ver. 44, 
8. The conversion of unprepared, hardened, blasphemous 

sinners, is to be accounted as a most rare and extraordinary 

work of God’s power and mercy, not an every day’s work, 

like to be bestowed on every habituate sinner; and there- 

fore it is commonly accompanied with some evident note 

of difference to point it out for a miracle. Thus was Paul 

called from “the chief of sinners” to the chief of saints, but 1 Tim. i. 

with this mark, that “Christ Jesus might shew forth all long- !® {10:1 

suffering,” &c., which was “in him first,” and perhaps last, 

in that degree ; that others in his pitch of blasphemies might 

not presume of the like miracle of mercy. And, indeed, he 

that is thus called must expect what Paul found, a mighty 

tempest throughout him, three days at least without sight or 

nourishment, if not a παράλυσις or λυιποψυχία, “a swoon, 

a kind of ecstasy” of the whole man, at this tumultuary 

driving out of this high, rank, insolent, habituate body of 

sin. It is observed, that when the news of Christ’s birth 

was brought by the “wise men,” the city was straight in an 

uproar; “ Herod was much troubled, and all Jerusalem with Mat. ii. 3. 

him,” for it seems they expected no such matter, and therefore 

so strange and sudden news produced nothing but astonish- 

ment and tumult ; whilst Simeon, “ who waited for the con- rLuke ii. 

solation of Israel,” makes no such strange business of it ; 2%] 

takes Him presently into his embraces, and familiarly hugs 

Him in his arms, having been before acquainted with Him 

by his faith. Thus will it, at Christ’s spiritual ἐνσάρκωσι; 

be in an unprepared heart, His reigning Herod sins, and all 

the Jerusalem and democracy of affections, a strang> tumult 

of repining, old habituate passions will struggle fiercely, and 

shake the whole house before they leave it. If a strong man 

be to be dispossessed of house or abode, without warning, a 

hundred to one he will do some mischief at his departure, 

and draw at least some pillar after him: when as a prepared 

Simeon’s soul lays hold as soon as he hears of Him, is already 

organized, as it were, for the purpose, holds out the arms and 

bosom of faith, and at the first minute of His appearance 

takes Him into his spiritual embraces. This very prepara- 


4.60 SERMON XXI. 


tion either had denied the strong man entrance, or else binds 
his hands, manacles that blind Samson, and turns him out 
in peace, and then the Spirit enters into that soul—which 
itself or its harbingers have prepared—in a soft still wind, in 
a still voice, and the soul shall feel its gale, shall hear its 
whispering, and shall scarce discern, perhaps not at all ob- 
serve, the moment of its entrance. 

Lastly, by way of corollary to all that hath been said, 
though God can, and sometimes doth, call blasphemous sin- 
ners ; though nothing in us can facilitate God’s action to Him; 
though none of our performances or His lower works in us, 
can merit or challenge His sanctifying grace; though, in 
brief, all that we can do is in some respect enmity to grace ; 
yet certainly there is far more hope of the just, careful, 
moral man, which hath used all those restraints which are 
given him, that he shall be called and saved ; of such a one 
we are to judge far more comfortably, and expect more con- 
fidently, than of another more habituate sinner, negligent 
of the commands of either God or nature. And this I con- 
ceive I have in some measure proved through each part of 
the former discourse, and so I should dismiss it and come 
to application, but that I am stayed and thwarted by a 
contrary proposition maintained by a sort of our popular 
preachers, with more violence than discretion, which I con- 
ceive to be of dangerous consequence, and therefore worth 
opening to you. In setting down the pitch that an unre- 
generate man may attain to, and yet be damned, some of 
our preaching writers are wont duly to conclude with this 
peremptory doctrine, that of a mere moral man, though never 
so severe a censor of his own ways, never so rigid an exactor 
of all the precepts of nature and morality in himself; yet of 
this man there is less hope, either that he shall be converted 
or saved, than the most debauched ruffian under heaven. 
The charity and purity of this doctrine you shall judge of, if 
you will accompany me awhile, and first observe that they 
go so far with the mere moral man, and drive him so high, 
that at his depression again, many a regenerate man falls 
with him under that title; and in issue, I fear, all will prove 
mere moralists in their doom, which do fall short of that de- 
gree of zeal, which their either faction or violent heats pre- 


SERMON XXI. 461 


tend to; and so as Tertullian‘ objects to the heathen, ex- 
postulating with them why they did not deify Themistocles 
and Cato as well as Jove and Hereules, Quot potiores viros 
apud inferos reliquistis ὃ They leave many an honester man 
in hell, than some of those whom their favour or faction hath 
besainted. 

Secondly, observe to what end or use this doctrine may 
serve, but as an allay to civil honesty in a commonwealth, 
and fair, just dealing, which, forsooth, of late is grown so 
luxuriant, the world is like to languish and sink, it is so 
overburdened with it: and on the other side an encourage- 
ment to the sinner in his course, an engagement in the pur- 
suit of vice to the height and ἀκμὴ, as the pitch and cue 
which God expects and waits for; as they conclude on these 
grounds, because He looked upon Peter not till the third 
denial, and then called Paul when he was most mad against 
the Christians : as if the-nearest way to heaven were by hell- 
gates, and devils most likely to become saints; as if there 
were merit in abominations, and none in the right way to 
Christianity, but whom atheism would be ashamed of ; as if, 
because “the natural man understands not,” &c., all relics [1 Cor. ii. 
of natural purity were solemnly and pro forma to be aban- !*] 
doned to make us capable of spiritual. It is confessed that 
some have been and are thus converted, and by an ecstasy of 
the spirit snatched and caught lke firebrands out of the 
fire; and though some must needs find their spiritual joys 
_ infinitely increased, ἐκ παραλλήλου, by that gall of bitter- 
ness, from which they were delivered, and are therefore more 
abundantly engaged to God, as being not the objects only, 

_ but the miracle of His mercy: but yet for all this shall one 

or two variations from the ordinary course, from the ὡς ἐπὶ 

τὸ πολὺ, be turned into a ruled case? Shall the rarer ex- 
amples of Mary Magdalen or a Saul prescribe and set up? 

Shall we sin to the purpose, as if we meant to threaten God 

that it were His best and safest course to call us? Shall we 
abound in rebellions, that grace may superabound? God [Rom. νι. 
pardon and forbid. 1: 

Thirdly, consider the reason of their proposition, and you 
shall judge of the truth of it, and besides their own fancies 

f [Tertull. Apol. § 11.] 


Rom. xii. 
3. 


462 SERMON XXI. 


and resolution to maintain them, they have none but this, 
“the mere moral man trusts in his own righteousness, and 
this confidence in the arm of flesh is the greatest enemy to 
sanctifying grace, which works by spiritual humihty.” To 
which we answer distinctly, that the foresaid pride, trust or 
confidence, is neither effect nor necessary adjunct of moral- 
ity, but an absolute defection from the rules thereof; and 
therefore whatsoever proceeds either as an effect, or conse- 
quent from pride or confidence, cannot yet be imputed to 
morality at all, or to the moral men per se, no more than the 
thundering or lightning is to be imputed to my walking, 
because it thunders whilst I walk ; or preaching to my stand- 
ing still, because whilst I stand still I preach; οὐ yap διὰ τὸ 
βαδίζειν ἤστραψεν, ἀλλὰ συνέβη τοῦτο; saith Aristotle in the 
first Post. c. 48, “It doth not lighten because I walk, but 
that is an accident proceeding from some other cause.” ΤῸ 
strive against the motions of the Spirit, and so to render 
conversion more difficult, is an effect perhaps of pride or 
trust, but yet is not to be imputed to morality, though the 
moral man be proud or self-trusting, because this pride or 
self-trusting is not an effect, but an accident of morality ; 
and therefore their judgment should be able to distinguish 
and direct their zeal against the accidental vice, not the 
essential innocent virtue, against pride, not morality. Be- 
sides, this pride is also as incident to him who is morally evil; 
nay, either supposes or makes its subject so, being formally 
a breach of morality. For that σωφροσύνη belonging to the 
understanding, which is, “not to think more highly” on 
one’s own worth than he ought, ἀλλὰ φρονεῖν εἰς τὸ σω- 
φρονεῖν, do we not find it commended and dilated on by 
Aristotle", μειζόνων ἢ ἄξιος, x. τ. λ., “ not to overprize his 
own worth,” or to expect an higher reward than it in pro- 
portion deserves? So that he that trusts in his morality for 
heaven, doth eo nomine offend against morality, according to 
that of Salvian, hoc ipsum genus maxime injustitie est, si quis’ 
se justum presumat ; and indeed Aristotle and Seneca could 
say as much: and so then the accusation is unjust and con- 
tumelious ; for to a moral man if he be truly so, this pride 
or confidence is incompatible: for do we not find that 
ὁ [Aristot. Post. Anal., lib. i. c. 4.] h (Arist. Nic. Eth., lib. iv. e. 7.] 


SERMON XXI. 4.63 


treble humility, ταπεινοφροσύνη, of the heart, πραότης, of 
the tongue, μακροθυμία, of the actions, handled also and Eph. iv. 2. 
prescribed by the philosophers? In sum, that which in all 
moral precepts comes nearest pride or highmindedness, is 
that μεγαλοψυχία, part of which is “setting value on one’s- 
self.” But if you observe, this goes no further than τὰ ἔξω 
ἀγαθὰ, “honour or worldly pomp:” as for the immortal 
blessedness of the soul, it was a thing infinitely above the 
pitch of their hope or confidence: the most perfect among 
them never pretended any jus meriti to it, and if they did, 
they had by so much the less hopes to attain to it. Now if 
it be supposed, as I fear is too true, that our moral men fall 
far short of the ancient philosophers, if they be now-a-days 
confident and trust in their works for salvation, then they do 
not make good their name; they are only so ὁμονύμως and 
καταχρηστικῶς, “ abusively and notionally.” And yet even 
these equivocal moral men seem to me in as good, if not better 
case, than the other term of comparison, the careless negli- 
gent debauched men. For upon their grounds is it not as 
easy for the converting spirit to enter and subdue one Luci- 
fer, one proud devil in the heart, otherwise pretty well quali- 
fied, as to deal with a whole legion of blasphemous, violent, 
riotous, railing, ignorant devils? I-have done all with the 
confutation of this loose groundless opinion, which if it were 
true, would yet prove of dangerous consequence to be 
preached, in abating and turning our edge, which is of 
itself blunt and dull enough toward goodness : nay, certainly 
it hath proved scandalous to those without ; as may appear 
by that boast and exultancy of Campian' in his eighth rea- 
son, where he upbraids us Englishmen of our abominable 
Lutheran, licentious doctrine,—as he calls it,—quanto scele- 
ratior es, tanto vicinior gratie: and therefore I do not repent 
that I have been somewhat large in the refuting of it; as 
also because it doth much import to the clearing of my dis- 
course ; for if the mere moral men be furthest from heaven, 
then have I all this while busied myself, and tormented you 
with an unprofitable, nay, injurious preparation, whereas I 
should have prescribed you a shorter easier call, by being ex- 


i Campian. [Rationes decem ob- Academicis Anglis.:—Rat. viii. ad fin. 
lati certaminis in causa fidei reddite apud Whitakeri Responsionem. | 


464 SERMON XXI. 


tremely sinful, according to these two aphorisms of Hippo- 
crates*, ai ἐπ᾽ ἄκρον, x.T.r., “The strongest bodies are in 
greatest danger,” and εἰς τὰ ἔσχατα, the ἀκμὴ and “ height 
of a disease is the fittest opportunity for a miraculous cure.” 

But beloved, let us more considerately bethink ourselves, 
let us study and learn and walk a more secure probable way 
to heaven; and for those of us which are yet unregenerate, 
though we obtained no grace of God but that of nature and 
reason, and our Christianity to govern us, yet let us not con- 
temn those ordinary restraints which these will afford us: let 
us attend in patience, sobriety, and humility and prayers, 
the good time and leisures of the spirit; let us not make 
our reasonable soul, our profession of men, of Christians, 
ashamed of us; let not the heathen and beasts have cause 
to blush at us; let us remain men till it may please Him to 
call us into saints, lest being plunged in habitual confident 
sinning, that hell and Tophet on earth, the very omnipotent 
mercy of God be in a manner foiled to hale us out again; 
let us improve, rack, and stretch our natural abilities to the 
highest ; that although, according to our thirteenth article, “we 
cannot please God,” yet we may not mightily provoke Him. 
Let every man be in some proportion to his gifts, Christ’s 
Baptist and forerunner and harbinger in himself, that when- 
soever He shall appear or knock, He may enter, lodge, and 
dwell without resistance. Lastly, after all thy preparations, 
be not secure; if the Bridegroom will not vouchsafe to rest 
with you, all your provision is in vain; all the morality, and 
learning, and gifts, and common graces, unless Christ at last 
be born in us, are but embryos, nay abortives, rude, imper- 
fect, horrid, νήπιοι καί εἰσιν οἱ φιλόσοφοι, “ that philosopher 
dies in his nonage in whom Christ was never born.” The 
highest reach of years and learning is but mfancy with- 
out the virility and manhood of the spirit, by which we are 
made perfect men in Christ Jesus. Wherefore above all 
things in the world let us labour for this perfection; let us 
melt and dissolve every faculty and spirit about us in pur- 
suit of it, and at last seal, and bless, and crown our endea- 
vours with our prayers; and with all the rhetoric, and means, 


k [ Aphorismi, tom. iii. pp. 706, 708. Medici Greci, tom. xxiii. ed. Kiihn.] 


SERMON XXI. 465 


and humility, and violence of our souls, importune and lay 
hold on the sanctifying Spirit, and never leave till He hath 
blessed and breathed on us. O Thou mighty, controlling, 
holy, hallowing Ghost, be pleased with Thine effectual work- 
ing to suppress in us all resistance of the pride of nature, 
and prepare us for Thy kingdom of grace here, and glory 
hereafter. 

Now to Him which hath elected us, hath created and re- 
deemed us, &c. 


HAMMOND, Hh 


SERMON XXII. 


JOHN vil. 48. 


Have any of the Pharisees believed on Him ? 


Ir is observable from history with what difficulty religion 
attempts to propagate and establish itself with the many ; 
what countenance and encouragement it hath required from 
those things which are most specious and pompous in the 
world; how it hath been fain to keep its dependencies and 
correspondencies, and submit to the poor condition of sus- 
taining itself by those beggarly helps which the world and 
the flesh will afford it. Two main pillars which it relies on 
are power and learning, the camp and the schools, or in a 
word, authority of great ones and countenance of scholars; 
the one to force and extort obedience, the other to msinuate 
belief and assent; the first to ravish, the second to persuade. 
One instance for all: if we would plant Christianity in 
Turkey, we must first invade and conquer them, and then 
convince them of their follies; which about an hundred 
years ago Cleonard proposed to most courts of Christendom, 
(and to that end himself studied Arabic,) that princes would 
join their strength, and scholars their brains, and all surprise 
them in their own land and language, at once besiege the 
Turk and his Alcoran, put him to the sword, and his religion 
to the touchstone; command him to Christianity with an 
high hand, and then to shew him the reasonableness of our 
commands. Thus also may we complain, but not wonder 
that the Reformation gets ground so slow in Christendom, 
because the forces and potent abettors of the papacy secure 


SERMON XXII. 407 


them from being led captive to Christ; as long as the pope 
is riveted so fast in his chair, and as long as the rulers take 
part with him, there shall be no doubt of the truth of their 
religion; unless it please God to back our arguments with 
steel, and to raise up kings and emperors to be our cham- 
pions, we may question, but never confute his supremacy. 
Let us come with all the power and rhetoric of Paul and 
Barnabas, all the demonstrations of reason and Spirit, yet as 
long as they have such topics against us, as the authority of 
the rulers and Pharisees, we may dispute out our hearts, and 
preach out our lungs, and gain no proselytes; all that we 
shall get is but a scoff and a curse, a sarcasm and an ana- 
thema, in the words next after my text, ‘This people which 
know not the law are cursed,” there is no heed to be taken 
to such poor contemptible fellows. To bring all home to the 
business of the text, let Christ come with all the enforce- 
ment and violence and conviction of His Spirit, sublimity of 
His speech and miracles, all the power of rhetoric and rheto- 
ric of His power, so that all that see or hear, bear witness 
that never man spake as this Man, yet all this shall be 
accounted but a delusion, but an enchantment of some 
seduced wretches, unless the great men or deep scholars will 
be pleased to countenance them. And it is much to be 
feared they are otherwise possessed, and rather than this 
shall not be followed, Christ shall be left alone; rather than 
they shall speak in vain, the Word itself shall be put to 
silence: and if they which were appointed to take and bring 
Him to judgment shall be caught by Him they came to 
apprehend, and turn their accusations into reverence, the 
Pharisees will not be without their reply, they are doctors in 
the law, and therefore for a need can be their own advo- 
cates: then answered the Pharisees, “ Are ye also deceived, 
have any of the rulers and Pharisees believed on Him?” 

Concerning the infidelity of the rulers in my text, as being 
not so directly appliable to my audience, I shall forbear to 
speak. My discourse shall retire itself to the Pharisee, as 
being a professor of learning, brought up at the university in 
Jerusalem, and God grant his vices and infidelity be not 
also academical. 

The words we shall divide not into several parts, but con- 

Hh 2 


ver, 49. 


468 SERMON XXII. 


siderations, and read them either as spoken by the Pharisee, 
or recorded by the Evangelist. In the first we have the τὸ 
λογικὸν, the rational force of them, as they are part of an 
argument, that they which believed in Christ were deceived, 
sub hac forma ;—he that would judge of the truth of his life, 
is to look which way the greatest scholars are affected, and 
then, though in that case it concluded fallaciously, yet the 
argument was probable, and the point worth our discussion ; 
that the judgment of learning and learned men is much to 
be heeded in matters of religion. 

In the second we have the τὸ φυσικὸν and τὸ ῥῆμα, the 
rational sense of the words being resolved, as affirmative in- 
terrogations are wont, into a negative proposition, “ Have 
any,” &c. The Pharisees did not believe on Him; 1. 6. the 
greatest scholars are not always the best Christians. And 
first of the first, the authority of learning and learned men 
in matters of religion, noted from the logical force of the 
words, “ Have any,” &c. 

Amongst other acts of God’s providence and wise economy 
of all things, there is not one more observable than the suc- 
cession of His Church, and dispensation of His most precious 
gifts attending it; you shall not in any age find the flourish- 
ing of learning severed from the profession of religion; and 
the proposition shall be granted without exception: God’s 
people were always the learnedest part of the world. Before 
the flood we are not so confident as to define and set down 
the studies and proficiency in all kinds of knowledge amongst 
those long-lived ancients; how far soever they went, belongs 
little to us. The deluge made a great chasm betwixt us, 
and it would be hard for the liveliest eyes to pierce at such 
distance through so much water; let those who fancy the 
two pillars?, in which all learning was engraven, the one of 
brick, the other of marble, to prevent the malice either of 
fire or water, please themselves with the fable, and seem to 
have deduced all arts from Adam. Thus far it is agreed on, 
that in those times every father bemg both a priest and a 
king in his own family, bestowed on his son all knowledge both 
secular and sacred, which himself had attained to: Adam by 
tradition instructing Seth, and Seth Enoch, in all knowledge 

4 [Josephus Antiq. Jud., lib, i, ο. 2, ὃ 3.] 


SERMON XXII. 4.69 


as well as righteousness. For it is Josephus’s® observation, 
that whilst Cain and his progeny employed themselves about 
wicked and illiberal inventions, grovelling upon the earth, 
Seth and his bore up their thoughts as well as eyes towards 
heaven, and observed the course and discipline of the 
stars; wherein it was easy to be exquisite, every man’s age 
shewing him the several conjunctions and oppositions and 
other appearances of the luminaries, and so needing no 
successors to perfect his observations. Hence Philo® calls 
Abraham ἄνδρα μετεωρολογικὸν, and says his knowledge in 
astronomy led him to the notice of a Deity, and that his 
sublime speculation gave him the name of Abram, a high 
exalted father, before his faith had given the better com- 
pellation of Abraham, father of many nations: hence from 
him, 1. Chaldea, 2. Egypt, 3. Greece, came all to the skill 
they brag of; so that Proclus made a good conjecture, that 
the wisdom of the Chaldeans was Θεόδοτος καὶ θεοπαράδο- 
τος, “a gift of some of the gods,” it coming from Abraham, 
| who was both a friend and in a manner an acquaintance of 
| the true God, and far ancienter and wiser than any of their 
false. In sum, all learning as well as religion was pure and 
classical only among the Hebrews, as may appear by Moses 
in his ἑξάμερον, the only true natural philosophy that ever 
| came into the world; so that even Longinus‘, which took the 
story of the creation to be a fable, yet commends Moses’ 
| expression of it, “ Let there be light, and there was light,” [Gen.i. 3.] 
for a speech admirably suited to a god, for the greatest 
ὕψος or sublimity that any rhetorician could strain for. 
And Demetrius Phalereus* commends the Pentateuch to 
Ptolemy, ws φιλοσοφωτέραν καὶ ἀκέραιον, K.7.r., “as the 
most philosophical, accurate discourse he had ever heard of.” 
And if by chance any scraps or shreds of knowledge were 
ever scattered among the Gentiles, they certainly fell from 
the Chaldeans’ table: from whence in time the poor beg- 
garly world gathered such basketsful, that they began to 
feed full, and be in good liking, and take upon them to be 
richer than their benefactors, and Athens at last begins 


b [Ibid., §§ 2, 3.] above, p. 300. ] 

¢ [Philo Jud., De Abrahamo, p. 361, ὁ [Demetr. Phal. ap. Enseb. Pre- 
"ἢ par. Evang., lib. viii. 3. p. 351, b.] 
4 [Longinus, De Sublim., quoted 


470 SERMON XXII. 


to set up as the only university in the world. But it is 
Austin’s observation‘, that it was in respect of Christ, and for 
the propagation of the Church, that learning was ever suf- 
fered to travel out of Jewry. Christ was to be preached 
and received among the Gentiles, and therefore they must 
be civilized beforehand, lest such holy things being cast 
abruptly before swine, should only have been trampled on: 
or as Moses’ books falling among the poets, have been only 
distorted into fables, turned also into prodigies, metamor- 
phoses, and mythical divinity. Cum enim prophete, &c., 
“under Abraham and Moses, whilst the learning and the 
sermons of the prophets were for Israel’s use, the heathen 
world was as ignorant as irreligious ;” but about Romulus’ 
time, when the prophecies of Christ, which belonged also to 
the Gentiles, were no longer whispered, but proclaimed by 
the mouth of Hosea, Amos, Isaiah, Micah, and Jonas from 
the reign of Uzziah to Hezekiah, kings of Judah, then also 
began learning to flourish abroad among the nations, to 
dilate itself over the world: Greece began to hearken after 
wisdom, and brag of its σοφοὶ, Thales and the like, wt fontes 
divine et humane sapientie pariter erupisse videantur, that 
then secular knowledge might dare to shed itself among the 
nations, when Christ began to be revealed, the expectation 
of the Geutiles. It were an infinite discourse to present 
unto you the like proceedings through all ages, the continual 
marriages, the combinations, and never any divorce betwixt 
learning and religion. The fathers before mentioned are 
large in drawing it down to our hands in tables of collateral 
descent throughout all generations ; and I hope the present 
state of the world will sufficiently avouch it. For what is all 
the beggarly skill of the Arabians in physics and the mathe- 
matics, all the cabalisms of the Jews; in sum, all the rather 
folly than wisdom, that either Asia or Africa pretend to? 
what hath all the world beside that dare look a Christian in 
the face? I doubt not but this corner of Europe where we 
live, may challenge and put to shame, nay upbraid the igno- 
rance of the learnedest Mahometan, and be able to afford 
some champions which shall grapple with the tallest giant, 
with the proudest son of Anak that Italy can boast of. I will 
‘ [S. Augustin. De Civit. Dei, lib, xviii. c, 27.] 


SERMON XXII. 471 


hope and pray, and again dare to hope, that as all Europe 
hath not more moderation and purity of religion than this 
kingdom, so it never had a more learned clergy; never more 
encouragement for learning from religion; never more ad- 
vantages to religion from learning. But all this while we 
hover in the air, we keep upon the wing, and talk only, καθ- 
ὄλου, at large and in thesi: we must descend lower to the 
καθέκαστον and hypothesis here; where heed is to be taken 
to the Pharisee, to the doctor, in my text. The disciples were 
but fishermen and mechanics, illiterate enough, and yet a 
word of theirs shall more sway mine assent, and rule my 
faith, than the proudest dictates out of Moses’ chair. And 
thus indeed are we now-a-days ready to repose as much trust 
in the shop as in the schools, and rely more on the authority 
of one lay-professor, than the sagest elders in theirs or our 
Israel. Learning is accounted but an ostentatious comple- 
ment of young scholars, that will never bring the pastor 
or his flock the nearer to the way toward heaven. But to 
recal our judgments to a milder temper, we are to learn from 
Clemens®, that although the wisdom of God, and doctrine of 
the gospel, be αὐτοτελὴς καὶ ἀπροσδεὴς, able to maintain, 
and fence, and authorize itself, yet even philosophy and 
secular learning is of use, nay necessity, to defeat the 
treacheries, and sophisms, and stratagems of the adversary : 
and although the truth of Scripture be the bread we live on, 
the main staff and stay of our subsistence ; yet this exoterical 
learning, τὰ θύραθεν μαθήματα, as Sophronius calls them, 
this προπαίδεια of the schools, must be served in ὡς mapowy- 
ματα Kal τραγήματα, as cates and dainties to make up the 
banquet; nay they are not only for superfluity, but solid and 
material uses. It was a custom of old, saith Dionysius Hali- 
carnensis", to build cities, συνεχεῖς ἐπὶ τοῖς ὄρεσι, never 
far from some hill, or mountain, that beside the natural 
strength, the hold from the foundation, they may receive 
some security and safeguard from so stout and tall a neigh- 
bour: thus will it stand us upon, so to build our faith upon 
a rock, that we may also have some shelter near us to fence 
and fortify our fabric, when the wind or tempest shall arise. 


® [Clemens Alexand. Strom., lib. i. cap. 20. § 100. p. 377.] 
h [Dionys. Halicarn, Hist., lib. i. c. 9. } 


4.72 SERMON XXII. 


Had not Peter, indeed, and the rest at Christ’s call left their 
ignorance with their nets and trades, had they not been 
made scholars as well as disciples, all trades promiscuously 
might justly have challenged and invaded the pulpit, and 
no man denied to preach that was able to believe. But you 
are to know that their calling was an inspiration, they were 
furnished with gifts as well as graces; and whatever other 
learning they wanted, sure I am they were the greatest lin- 
guists in the world. Yea, the power and convincing force of 
argument, which the heathen observed in Peter‘, made them 
get the oracles to proclaim that he had learnt magic from his 
Master. ΤῸ drive the whole business to an issue, in brief, 
take it in some few propositions. 

1. There is not so great a dependence betwixt learning 
and religion in particular persons, as we have observed to 
be in ages and countries: so that though plenty of knowledge 
be a symptom or judiciary sign, that that Church where it 
flourishes is the true Church of God, yet it is no necessary 
argument, that that man where it in special resides, is the 
sincerest Christian ; for upon these terms is the wisest man, 
the scribe, the disputer of the world, the loudest braggers of 
Jews or Grecians are found guilty of spiritual ignorance, as 
the last part of our discourse shall make evident. 

2. Matters of faith are not ultimo resolubilia in principia 
rationis, therefore not to be resolved any further than the 
Scriptures; they are not to beg authority from any other 
science; for this is the true metaphysics, ἀρχικωτάτη Kat 
ἡγεμονικωτάτη, the mistress and commandress of all other 
knowledges, which must perpetually do their homage to it, 
as servants always to attend and confirm its proposals, never 
to contradict it, as Aristotle hath it/, 

3. Though faith depend not upon reason, though it subsist 
entirely upon its own bottom, and is then most purely faith 
when it relies not on reason, and adheres wholly to the αὐτο- 
πιστία of God’s word, yet doth the concurrence, and agree- 
ment, and evidence of reason add much to the clearness, and 
beauty, and splendour of it: takes away all fears and jealou- 
5108, and suspicious surmisings out of the understanding, and 


i [S. August. De Civit. Dei, lib. xviii. c. 53. ] 
[ Aristot. Metaph. B. ¢. ii.] 


SERMON XXII. 473 


bestows a resolution and constancy on it. For faith, though 
in respect of its ground, God’s word, it be most infallible, yet 
in its own nature is, as the philosopher defines it, a kind of 
opinion, and in our human frailty subject to demurs, and 
doubts, and panic terrors, for fear it be false grounded, and 
therefore Aristotle saith of it, that it differs from knowledge 
ὡς νοσώδης ὑγιεινοῦ, “as a sickly man from a strong,” it is 
very weak and aguish, subject to sweats and colds, and hourly 
distempers: whereas the evidence and assurance of sense 
and reason added to it, bestows a full health and strength 
upon it, an ἀθλητικὴ ἕξις, a perfect state that it shall never 
be forced or frighted out of. In brief, where reason gives 
its suffrage, it unveils faith, and to adherence superadds 
evidence, and teaches us to feel, and touch, and handle what 
before we did believe; to gripe, and hold, and even possess 
what before we apprehended: and these are believers in a 
manner elevated above an earthly condition, initiated to the 
state which is all vision, where every thing is beheld γυμνὸν (Heb. iv. 
καὶ τετραχηλισμένον, “naked and displayed,” as the entrails 15] 
of a creature cut down the back; or with “ open face, behold- 2 Cor. iii. 
ing as in a glass.” 25: 
4. There be some difficulties in religion at which an illite- 
rate understanding will be struck in a maze; some depths of 
mystery where an elephant can scarce tread water, a lamb 
must not hope to wade; many above the apprehensions of 
the most capacious brain, where reason being not able to ex- 
press, must be content to shadow and describe in some rude 
lines what it cannot perform in portraiture: and here, I say, 
learning, though it cannot reach, yet can heave up and point 
at; profit, though not perfect us; help us to some images and 
resemblances, to conceive that which we cannot fully com- 
prehend: so saith Philoponus*, will mathematical abstractions 
facilitate the simplicity of God’s essence to our understand- 
ings, the lucid nature of the sun express the brightness of his 
glory, and the mysterious numbers of the Pythagoreans re- 
present the Trinity to our fancies. And thus doth Zoroaster 
in Patricius', philosophari de Deo, subdue, as it were, divinity 


* [Philoponusin Aristot. De Anima, 1593. from Psellus’ Expositio Dogma- 
f. 2. (Aldus.) ] tum que sunt apud Assyrios. 
’ Patricius, [ Zoroaster, p. 6. Venice. 


474 SERMON XXII. 


to reason, and raise up reason to join issue with divinity, and 
by his πατρικὸς βύθος ἐκ τρίων συγκείμενος τριάδων, “ that 
paternal depth made of three threes,” comprise all the secrets 
of the Godhead. But besides these secrets of the upper 
cabinet, these supernatural depths, there are others secunde 
altitudinis, and as Halicarnensis™ calls those which are above 
the reach of all but philosophers, φυσικὰ θαύματα, and Aristo- 
tle® θαυμαζόμενα κατὰ φύσιν, “ natural miracles,” which none 
but scholars can attain to. And these I hope shall never be 
discussed upon a shopboard, or enter into any brain that is 
not before well ballast with weight and substance at the 
bottom: I need not name them to you, you may know them 
by this, that when they come into an empty brain, they 
breed winds, and turn all into vertigoes and dizziness. There 
be yet further lights of a third magnitude, which yet every 
one hath not eyes to gaze on, and of this condition are almost 
all the speculations in divinity; nay, the ordinariest truth in 
a catechism can scarce be forced into a vulgar understand- 
ing; his brain is not set that way, and many of our subtlest 
worldlings have mistaken the Virgin Mary for an angel, and 
the Apostles’ Creed, where only they find mention of her, for 
a prayer: and then you cannot imagine what stead a little 
learning would stand these men in, what even miracles it 
would work upon them. 

5. It is but necessity and exigence of nature that those 
which are the weak should apply themselves for help and 
directions to those that are stronger; the child in a cradle 
must be put to a nurse, which may give it suck till it be 
able to eat, and for a while bear it in her arms, that it may 
be taught to go. There be in nature, saith Aristotle® in his 
Mechanics, many wants; she performs not all our needs, and 
therefore engines were invented to supply defects. Thus is 
art a machina or invention, πρὸς τὰς τοιαύτας ἀπορίας βοη- 
θοῦν μέρος, to furnish us with those abilities which nature 
was a niggard in: and therefore to deprive ourselves of this 
guidance when it is offered, is μονόφθαλμον τυφλοῦν», to put 
out an eye of his that hath but one in all, which was of old 


m [πρᾶγμα κρεῖττον λόγον Tots ἀθεά- » [Aristot. Mechanica. ad init. ] 
τοις ὧν 7 φύσις δρᾷ, καὶ θαυμάτων ovde- ° [Id., ibid. } 
vos devTepoy.—Dionys. Halicar., lib. i. P (Id. Rhet. i. cap. 7. ad fin.] 
cap. lod. ad fin. ] 


SERMON XXIL. 475 


a great aggravation to the injury in the Rhetoric, indeed to 
leave ourselves desperately blind. Περὶ πυθαγορείων aved φω- 
τὸς μὴ λάλει, in Jamblichus4, in matters of religion we must 
not so much as speak, nay, not think without a candle; we 
shall want the guidance of some teacher to direct every such 
word out of our mouths, or thought into our hearts. An 
ignorant man must not have leave so much as to meditate 
on God without a guide; for he is mad, say the philosophers’, 
and then every thought of his will be a kind of delirium or 
frenzy. “It is the law of nature,” saith the historian’, ἄρχειν 
ἡττόνων τοὺς κρείττονας, “that superiors should have a kind 
of sovereignty over all that are inferior to them,” a magiste- 
rium and command over them, to rule and order them; and 
this superiority and sovereignty hath the learned pastor, or 
generally the scholar, over all ignorant men, be they never so 
rich or potent ; and whosoever denies or scorns thus to obey, 
I say not, is to be slain—as the law was in the ancient wars 
—axpitws, without an assizes, but to be condemned of much 
peevishness and more stupidity, and his punishment is, let 
him fall into his own hands, i.e. be ruled by a fool or mad- 
mau. 

6. Much of the speculative part of religion may be had 
from a Pharisee as well as a disciple. Christ Himself bears 
witness of him, that he was orthodox in matters concerning 
the law: ‘They sit in Moses’ chair, and therefore whatsoever 
they bid you, that observe and do.” They err indeed in pre- 
scribing their additions to duty, as divine command, but the 
chief obliquity was in their lives: they were heretics, nay 
apostates from their doctrine, and therefore “do not after 
their works, for they say and do not.” If I am resolved of 
such a man’s abilities in learning, but see him a scandalous 
liver, I will borrow of his gifts, and pray God to increase his 
graces. In matters of spiritual joy and sorrow, I will, if I 
can, be counselled by an heart which once was broken, that 
I may see how he recovered, and repair my breaches by a 
pattern; and yet even these things may be learnt from him 
which never had them but in his speculation; as the phy- 
siclan may cure a disease, though himself was never sick of it. 

4 Jamblichus, [De Vita Pythagore, 122. p. 94. ed. Potter. ] 


cap. xxiii. § 105. ] " [Dionys. Haliear., lib. i. c. 5. ] 
"(Clemens Alexand. Protrept. ὃ 


Mat. xxiii. 
3. 


ver. 4. 


[Job ix. 
28. ] 


2 Pet. iii. 
3. 


476 SERMON XXII. 


But for the ordinary theories of religion, I will have patience 
to receive instructions from any one, and not examine his 
practices, but in modesty, and in submission, and humility 
receive the law at his mouth. But all this with caution, ὡς 
ἡγεμόνι, ov δεσπότῃ, “as to a guide, not a monarch” of my 
faith ; rule he shall my belief, but not tyrannize over it. I 
will assent to my teacher till I can disprove him, but adhere, 
and anchor, and fix myself on the Scripture. 

7. In matters of superstruction, where Scripture lays the 
foundation, but interpreters, i.e. private spirits, build upon 
it, some gold, some stubble, &c., and I cannot judge or discern 
which is firmliest rooted on the foundation; I will take the 
philosopher’s counsel in the first of his Rhetoric ἡ, and observe 
either ti παλαιοὶ or πρόσφατοι, be guided either by the 
ancientest, if they have shewed themselves in the cause, or 
else men alive, which be best reputed of for integrity and 
judgment: I shall scarce trust the honestest man you can 
commend to me, unless I have some knowledge of his parts; 
nor the learnedest you can cry up, unless I can believe some- 
what in his sincerity. 

8. All the contradictions and new ways of my own brain 
opposite or wide from the current of the learned, I must 
suspect for a work of my own fancy, not entitle them to 
God’s Spirit in me. Verebar omnia opera mea, saith Job, 
whatever a man can call his own, he must be very cautious 
and jealous over it. For it is no less than atheism which the 
scorners of the last age are to fall upon by “walking after 
their own lusts.” And thus was the Pharisee’s practice here, 
who makes use of his own authority to deny Christ; it was 
the Pharisees that said, “ Have any of the Pharisees believed 
on Him?” There is not a more dangerous mother of here- 
sies in the midst of piety than this one, that our fancy first 
assures us that we have the Spirit, and then that every fancy 
of ours is theopneust, the work of the Spirit. There are a 
multitude of deceits got altogether here; 1. We make every 
idle persuasion of our own the evidence of God’s Spirit, then 
we join infallibility to the person, being confident of the 
gift; then we make every breath of our nostrils, and flame 
that can break out of our hearts, an immediate effect of the 


τ (Arist. Rhet., lib. 1. ο. 15. § 13.] 


mae i Til Ὁ 


SERMON XXII. 477 


Spirit, and fire which hath spiritually enlivened us, and then 
we are sure it is authentical; and all this while we never 
examine either the ground or deductions from it, but take 
all upon trust from that everlasting deceiver, our own heart, 
which we ought to sit upon, and judge of by proofs and wit- 
nesses, by comparing it with other men’s dictates, probably 
as godly, perhaps more learned, but certainly more impartial 
judges of thee, than thou canst be of thyself. 
| Lastly, if the word of God speak distinctly and clearly ; 
enforce, as here by miracles done before all men to their 
astonishment and redargution, then will I not stay my belief 
to wait on or follow the learnedest man in the world: when 
Christ Himself speaks to my eyes, the proudest, eminentest 
Pharisee in earth or hell, nay if any of their sect have 
crowded into heaven, shall not be able to charm my ear or 
lay any clog upon my understanding. So that you see the 
Pharisee’s argument in that case was sophistical,—the matter 
being so plain to them that they needed no advice, ‘“ His Jonn ν. 36. 
works bore witness of Him,”—yet in the general it holds pro- 
bable, and learning remains a goed guide. still, though an ill 
master in matters of religion; ὅπερ ἔδει δεῖξαι, the first 
thing we undertook to demonstrate. 
And this we should draw down yet lower to our practice, 
_ and that variously, but that almost every proposition insisted 
on hath in part spoken to your affections, and so prevented 
store of uses. This only must not be omitted ; for scholars to 
learn to set a value on their precious blessing which God hath 
vouchsafed them above all the world beside, to bless God in- 
finitely that they understand and conceive what they are com- 
manded to believe; this I am sure of, there is not a greater 
or more blessed privilege, besides God’s Spirit, which our hu- 
man condition is capable of, than this of learning, and spe- 
cially divine knowledge, of which Aristotle" himself witness- 
eth, ἀμείνων δὲ οὐδεμία, “none is better than it.’ As long 
as we have no evidence or demonstration from that which 
yet it most nearly concerns us to rely upon, we cannot enjoy, 
without an immediate supernatural irradiation, a tranquillity 
and consistency of spirit; we cannot peremptorily have re- 
solved ourselves that we have built upon the rock; every 
u [Aristot. Metaph, A, ¢. 2, prope finem. ] 


Luke xxiv. 
22. 


478 SERMON XXII. 


temptation proves a discouragement to us, many horrors 
take hold of us, and sometimes we must needs fall to that 
low ebb, not far from despair, which the Apostles were in, 
“ We had trusted,” but now we know not what to think of it, 
“that this was He that should have redeemed Israel.” But to 
see all the articles of my faith ratified and confirmed to my 
understanding, to see the greatest treasure and inheritance in 
the world sealed and delivered to me in my hand, written in 
a character and language that I am perfectly skilled in; O 
what a comfort is this to a Christian soul! O what a fulness 
of joy to have all the mysteries of my salvation transcribed 
out of the book of the Lord, and written in my heart, where 
Τ can turn and survey, and make use of them, as much and 
as often as I will! nay, where I have them without book, 
though there were neither father nor Bible in the world, 
able out of my own stock to give an account, nay, a reason 
of my faith, before the perversest papist, heathen, or devil. 
This serves me instead of having lived, and conversed, and 
been acquainted with Christ. By this I have my fingers put 
into the print of the nails, and my hands thrust into His 
side, and am as sure as ever Thomas was; I see Him as pal- 
pably as he that handled Him, that He is my “ Lord and my 
God.” 

It was observed by the philosopher* as an act generally prac- 
tised among tyrants to prohibit all schools and means of learn- 
ing and education in the commonwealth, μήτε παιδείαν, μήτε 
σχολὰς, μήτε συλλόγους σχολαστικοὺς, “to suffer neither 
learning, nor schools, nor common meetings,” that men being 
kept blind might be sure to obey, and tyrannical commands 
through ignorance be mistaken for fair government. And thus 
did Julian interdict the Christians all manner of literature, and 
chiefly philosophy, “ for fear,” saith Nazianzen’, “they should 
be able to grapple with the heathen,” and cut off Goliah’s head 
with his own weapon. The continuance of these arts of 
spiritual tyranny you may observe, in the prescribed stupi- 
dity and commanded ignorance of the laity through all Italy. 
All which must call for a superlative measure of thanks to 
be expressed, not in our tongues and hearts only, but in our 


x [ Aristot. Polit., lib. v. ο. 11.] 
y §. Gregor. Nazianz. [Oratio iv. §§ 4, 5. Op., tom. i. pp. 79, Ὁ. 80, A.] 


SERMON XXIT. 479 


lives and actions; from us I say, who have obtained not only 
a knowledge of His laws, but almost a vision of His secrets, 
and forasmuch as concerns our eternal bliss, do even see 
things as they were acted, have already comprehended in our 
reason—not only in our faith—the most impossible things in 
nature; the breadth and length and depth and height of the 
conceived, incarnate, and crucified God; and if all that will 
not serve our turn, but we must press into His cabinet 
secrets, invade the Book of Life, and oversee and divulge to 
all men abscondita Domini Dei nostri,—then are God’s mercies 
unworthily repaid by us, and those indulgences which were 
to bestow civility upon the world, have only taught us to be 
more rude. In sum, the realest thanks we can perform to 
God for this inestimable prize, is modestly and softly to 
make use of it; 1. To the confirming of others’ faith, and 2. to 
the expressing of our own. For, 1, he is the deepest scholar, 
saith the philosopher, who is διδασκαλικώτερος, “best able 
to teach” other men what himself conceives’: and then, 2, he 
hath the habit most radicated who hath pressed it down into 
his heart, and there sowed a seed which shall increase and 
fructify, and spread, and flourish, laden with the fruits of a 
lively faith. He is the truest scholar that hath fed upon 
learning, that hath nourished, and grown, and walked, and 
lived in the strength of it. And till I see you thrive and 
bestir yourselves like Christians, I shall never envy your 
learning: the Pharisees were great scholars, well seen in the 
prophets, and it is much to be suspected could not choose 
but find Christ there, and acknowledge Him by His miracles ; 
they saw Him plain enough, and yet not a man would be- 
lieve on Him:—my second part—the greatest scholars are 
not always the best Christians. 

It is observable in the temper of men, that the cowardly 
are most inquisitive; their fears and jealousies make them 
very careful to foresee any danger, and yet for the most part 
they have not spirit enough to encounter, and they are so 
stupid and sluggish that they will not get out of its way 
when they have foreseen it: the same baseness and timor- 
ousness makes them asort of men most diligent at a distance 
to avoid, and near hand most negligent to prevent. Thus 

2 σημεῖυν εἰδότος δύνασθαι biddoKew.—[ Arist. Metaph. A. c. 1.7 


{ Deut. 
xxix. 29. ] 


Dan. iii. 5. 


ver. 25. 


480 SERMON XXII. 


in Dan. iii. 5, Nebuchadnezzar dreams and is affrighted, and 
a proclamation is made for all the wisdom of the world to 
come in and consult and sit upon it, and give their verdict 
for the interpretation of the dream, and when he had at last 
got the knowledge of it by Daniel, that his fears were not in 
vain, that the greatest judgment that ever was heard of was 
within a twelvemonth to fall on him, then, as though he had 
been a beast before his time, without all understanding, he 
goes and crowns himself for his slaughter. Just when, 
according to the prophecy, he was to suffer, then was he 
walking in his pride; whilst he was ignorant, he was sensible 
of his danger, and now he sees it before his eyes, he is most 
prodigiously blind. “ At the end of twelve months, when his 
ruin was at hand, he walked in the palace of the kingdom 
of Babylon, and the king spake and said, Is not this great 
Babylon that I have built,” &c. In brief, he that was most 
earnest to understand the dream, is most negligent of the 
event of it, and makes no other use of his knowledge of God’s 
will, but only more knowingly and wilfully to contemn it. 
And this generally is the state of corrupt nature, to keep a 
distance and a bay betwixt our knowledge and our wills, and 
when a truth hath fully conquered and got possession of our 
understanding, then to begin to fortify most strongly, that 
the other castle of the soul, the affections, may yet remain 
impregnable. Thus will the devil be content to have the 
outworks and the watch-tower taken, so he may be sure to 
keep his treasure within from danger: and will give us leave 
to be as great scholars as himself, so we will continue as pro- 
fane. And so we are like enough to do for all our know- 
ledge; for wisdom, saith Aristotle*, is terminated in itself, 
οὐδεμιᾶς yap ἐστι γενέσεως, “it neither looks after, nor pro- 
duces any practical good,” saith Andronicus”, οὐ yap τέλος 
ἔχει πρακτὸν ἀγαθὸν, nay, there is no dependence betwixt 
knowing and doing; as he that hath read and studied the 
ἀθλητικὰ may perhaps be never the better wrestler, nor the 
skilfullest physician the more healthy ; experience and trial 
must perfect the one, and a good temperature constitute the 
other. A young man may be a good naturalist, a good 
geometer, nay a wise man, because he may understand @av- 
a {Aristot. Nic, Ethic., lib. vi. c. 13.] " [ Andronicus, Paraphr. in loc. ] 


SERMON XXII. 48] 


μαστὰ, χαλεπὰ, δαιμόνια “, “ wonders, depths,” nay, ‘“ divine 
matters,” but he will never be φρόνιμος, “prudent” or 
actually virtuous, i.e. a good moralist: τὰ μὲν οὐ πιστεύου- 
σιν οἱ veol, ἀλλὰ λέγουσιν“, moral precepts they cannot be 
said to believe, they have not entered so far, they float only 
in their memories, they have them by heart, they say them 
over by rote, as children do their catechism, or Plato’s 
scholars (saith Plutarch) his depths of philosophy; they now 
recite them only, and shall then understand them, when they 
come of age, when they are staid enough to look into the 
meaning of them, and make use of them in their practice. 
The mathematics, saith Aristotle’, having nothing to do 
with the end or chief good that men look after, never any 
man brought good or bad, better or worse into a demonstra- 
tion; there is no consultation or election there, only plain 
downright diagrams, necessary convictions of the under- 
standing. And therefore for these mere speculations, which 
hover only in the brain, the youngest wit is nimblest ; for 
δεινότης", “ sharpness of apprehension” is a sprightfulness of 
the mind, and is there liveliest where there be most spirits: 
but prudence and active virtue requires an habituate tem- 
per of passions, a staidness of the mind, and long trial and 
experience of its own strength, a constancy to continue in 
virtue in spite of all foreign allurements or inward dis- 
tempers. And the ground of all this is, that those things 
that most encumber the will and keep us from practice, do 
nothing clog or stop the understanding; sensuality or pleasure 
hinders us not from knowing ὅτι τὸ τρίγωνονϑ, «.T.X., that a 
“‘triangle hath three angles equal to two right ones,” and 
the like. Nay the most insolent tyrannizing passions which 
domineer over us, which keep us in awe, and never suffer us 
to stir, or move, or walk, or do any thing that is good, will 
yet give us leave to understand as much as we would wish; 
they have only fettered our hands and feet, have not blinded 
our eyes ; as one shut up in the tower from the conversation 
of men, may be yet the greatest proficient in speculation ; 


¢ [Aristot. Nic. Eth., lib. vi. c. 7. ] his paraphrase on the words σκεπτέον 
4 [Ibid., c. 9.1 δὲ πάλιν καὶ περὶ τῆς apeTijs.—Ethic. 
ΕἸ ΕΝ ΓΘ. B. ὁ...2.} Nic. vi. 13. ] 

Γ [φυσικὴ ἐπιτηδείοτης τῆς ψυχῆς. So 6. (Arist. Eth. Nic., lib. vi. ς. ὅ.] 


δεινότης is defined by Andronicus in 
HAMMOND. 11 


1 Cor. i. 
21. 


489 SERMON XXII. 


the affections being more gross and corporeous,—from thence 
called the heels of the soul,—and so easily chained and fet- 
tered ; but the understanding most pure and spiritual, and 
therefore uncapable of shackles, nay, is many times most 
free and active, when the will is most dead and sluggish. 
And this may be the natural reason that even Aristotle! may 
teach us why the greatest scholars are not always the best 
Christians,—the Pharisees well read in the prophets, yet 
backwardest to believe,—because faith which constitutes a 
Christian is a spiritual prudence, as it is best defined, and 
therefore is not appropriate to the understanding; but, if 
they be several faculties, is rather seated in the will; the 
objects of faith being not merely speculative, but always 
apprehended and assented to sub ratione boni, as being the 
most unvaluable blessings which ever we desired of the Lord, 
or can require. The speculative part of divine wisdom may 
make us δαίμονας, “ intelligent spirits,” nay, possibly do it 
in the worst notion, render us “ devils.” Real practical know- 
ledge only,—prudence,—will make angels, ministering spirits 
unto God, teach us to live and be better than we did. So 
then, in the first place, learning doth neither make nor sup- 
pose men Christians: nay, secondly, it doth per accidens 
many times hinder, put a rub in our way, and keep us from 
being Christians. Philoponus and Synesius—miracles of 
learning—were therefore hardest to be converted, they were 
so possessed and engaged in peripatetical philosophy, that 
however they might be persuaded to the Trinity, they will 
not believe the resurrection. It was too plain a contradic- 
tion to philosophical reason ever to enter theirs. Thus in 
the 1 Cor. i. 21, “the world by wisdom knew not God :” 
they so relied on their reason, and trusted in it for all truths, 
that they concluded every thing impossible that would not 
concur with their old principles. But this resistance which 
reason makes is not so strong but that it may easily be sup- 
pressed, and therefore Synesius was made a bishop before he 
explicitly believed the resurrection, because they were con- 
fident that he which had forsaken all other errors, would 
not long continue perverse in this, and so good a Christian 
in other things, οὐκ ἄν οὐκ ἐλλαμφθείη, could not choose 


[περιττὰ μὲν καὶ θαυμαστὰ, K.7.A.—Arist. Eth. Nic,, lib. vi. c. 7. ] 


SERMON XXII. 483 


but be illuminated in time, in so necessary a point of faith : 
and indeed so it happened in them both. 

But there are other more dangerous engines, more insidious 
courses which learning uses to supplant or undermine belief ; 
other stratagems to keep us out of the way, to anticipate all our 
desires or inclinations or thoughts that way-ward; and these 
are spiritual pride and self-content. Men are so elevated in 
height of contemplation, so well pleased, so fully satisfied in 
the pleasures and delights of it, that the first sort scorn to 
submit or humble themselves to the poverty and disparage- 
ment of believing in Christ; the second are never at leisure 
to think of it. For the first, spiritual pride, it is set down 
as a reason that “the natural man receives not the things of 1 Cor. ii. 
the spirit,” receives them not, i.e. will not take them, will oe 
not accept of them, though they are freely given him; “for 
they are foolishness unto him,” i. e. so his proud brain reputes 
them. The pride of worldly wisdom extremely scorns the 
foolishness of Christ, and consequently is infinitely opposite 
to faith, which is wrought by special humility. 

Secondly, for self-content: σοφοὶ μὴ δεόνται φίλων, saith 
Heraclitus in Hesychius*, “ Wise men need no friends,” they 
are able to subsist by themselves without any help ; they will 
have an happiness of their own making, and scorn to be 
beholding to Christ for a new inheritance, they are already 
so fully possessed of all manner of contents. Let any man 
whisper them of the joys of the new Jerusalem, of the Inter- 
cessor that hath saved, of the way thither and made it pass- 
able, of all the privileges and promises of our adoption, they 
will hear them ὡσεὶ λῆρα, “as old wives’ fables;” they have 
the fortunate islands too, their exactest tranquillity and 
serenity of mind in a perpetual contemplation, and all the 
golden apples in paradise shall not tempt or alarm them out 
of it. It is strange to see when such a man is called, what 
ado there is to get him out of his dream, to hale him out of 
his study to the church, how sleepy, and drowsy, and lethar- 
gical he is in matters of religion; how soon a little devotion hath 
tired him out, that could have pored over a book incessantly 
all his life long, and never thought thus to have been inter- 


* [This is a dictum of Theodorus, Hesychius, De Claris Viris, s. y. Theo- 
surnamed “A@eos. τοὺς δὲ σοφοὺς αὐτάρ. dorus; ap. Meursium, Op., tom. vii. 
kes ὑπάρχοντας, μὴ δεῖσθαι piAwy.—  p. 253. | 


E12 


Rom. vii. 
18. 


484 SERMON XXII. 


dicted the delights of human learning, thus to have been 
plucked and torn from the embraces of his Athenian idol. 
His conversion is much unlike another man’s; that which 
calls others into compass seems to let him loose, thrusts him 
abroad into the world, teaches him to look more like a man 
than ever he meant, makes him a member of the common- 
wealth that was formerly but an anchorite, and forces him to 
walk and run the way of God’s commandments, that had 
once decreed himself to a chair for ever. In brief, there is 
as little hopes of one that indulges himself, and gives him- 
self up to the pride and contents of any kind of learning, of 
him that terminates knowledge either in itself or else in the 
ostentation of it, as of any other that is captived to any one 
single worldly or fleshly kind of voluptuousness. This of the 
brain, in spite of the philosopher, is an intemperance, as well 
as that of the throat and palate, and more dangerous, be- 
cause less suspected, and seldomer declaimed against; and 
from this epicurism, especially of the soul, good Lord de- 
liver us. 

Not to heap up reasons of this too manifest a truth,— 
would God it were not so undeniable,—take but this one 
more, of the unsufficiency of learning never so well used to 
make a man a Christian. Let all the knowledge in the 
world, profane and sacred, all the force and reason that all 
ages ever bragged of, let it concur in one brain, and swell 
the head as big as his was in the poem, that travailed of 
Minerva: let all Scriptures and fathers join their power and 
efficacy, and they shall never by their simple activity pro- 
duce a saving faith in any one; all the miracles they can work 
are only on the understanding; the will, distinctly taken, 
is above their sphere or compass; or if their faculties are not 
distinguished, “and to will is present with me,” as well as to 
understand, yet they can produce only an absolute simple 
general will, that is, an assent and approbation of the abso- 
lute goodness of the thing proposed, not a resolute will to 
abandon all other worldly purposes to perform that which I 
will. Knowledge and right apprehension of things may con- 
vince me first of the history, that all that is spoken of or by 
Christ, is true, and then of the expedience to apply all His 
merits to my soul, but when 1 see all this cannot be done 


SERMON XXII. 485 


without paying a price, without undoing myself, without 
pawning all that I have, my learning, my wealth, my de- 
lights, my whole worldly being, without self-denial, then the 
general assent, that absolute will, is grown chill and dead; 
we are still—whatever we believe—but infidels; all the arti- 
cles of the Creed thus assented to are not enough to make 
us Christians. So that the issue of all is,—all knowledge 
in the world cannot make us deny ourselves, and therefore 
all knowledge in the world is not able to produce belief ; 
only the Spirit must breathe this power into us of breathing 
out ourselves, He must press our breasts, and stifle, and 
strangle us; we must give up the natural ghost, He must 
force out our earthly breath out of our earthly bodies, or 
else we shall not be enlivened by His spiritual. Thus have 
you reasons of the common divorce betwixt knowledge and 
faith, i. 6. the no manner of dependence betwixt them in 
nature. Secondly, the open resistance in some points be- 
twixt reason and Scripture. Thirdly, the more secret reluc- 
tancies betwixt the pride and contents of learning and the 
Spirit. And lastly, the insufficiency of all natural know- 
ledge, and transcendency of spiritual, so that he “ cannot know 
them, because they are spiritually discerned.” I should now 
in very charity release you, but that there is one word behind 
of most important necessity to a sermon, and that is of ap- 
plication ; 

That laying to our hearts the important documents of the 
text, our righteousness and faith may exceed that of the 
Pharisees’, our preaching and walking may be like that of 
Christ’s, “in power and as having authority, and not as the 
scribes,” and we not content with a floating knowledge in the 
brain, do press and sink it down into our inferior facul- 
ties, our senses and affections, till it arise in a full harvest 
of fruitful, diligently working faith. It was Zenophanes’! 
fancy, ὅλον ὁρᾶν Θεὸν, and that God was all eyes and all 
ears, but breathed not, there was no use of that in Him; 
and so is it with us, who are always exercising our know- 
ledge, powers to see and hear whatever is possible; but for 
any breath of life in us, any motion of the Spirit, we have 
no use of it: it is not worth valuing or taking notice of, 


! [ Xenophanes apud Diogen. Laert. ix. ὃ 19.] 


{1 Cor. 11. 
14.] 


Mat. v. 20. 


Mat. vii. 
29. 


Numb. 
xi. 5. 


450 SERMON XXII. 


nothing so vulgar and contemptible in them that have it, 
nothing of which we examine ourselves so slightly, of which 
we are so easily mistaken, so willingly deceived, and nothing 
that we will be content to have so small a measure of. A 
little of it soon tires us out, it is too thin, airy, diet for us to 
live upon, we cannot hold. out long on it; like the Israel- 
ites, soon satiated with their bread from heaven, nothing 
comparable to their old food that Nilus yielded them. “We 
remember the fish that we did eat in Egypt, but now our 
soul is dried away, there is nothing but this manna before 
our eyes ;” as if that were not worth the gathering. 

Pythagoras could say, that if any one were to be chosen to 
pray for the people, to be made a priest, he must be a virtuous 
man, ὡς θεῶν τούτοις TposexovTwy, in Jamblichus, “ because 
the gods would take more heed to his word™:” and again, 
that “many things might be permitted the people, which 
should be interdicted preachers".” It was the confirmation 
of his precepts by his life and practice, σύμφωνος βίος", that 
made Italy, μέγας EdXas, all the country, his school?, and all 
that ever heard him his disciples. Nothing will give such au- 
thority to our doctrine, or set such a value on our calling, asa 
religious conversation. He that takes such a journey, as that 
into holy orders, must go on, ἀμεταστρεπτὶ, according to his 
fifteenth Symbolum, must not return to his former sins as well 
as trade, saith Jamblichus1: the falling into one of our youthful 
vices, is truly a disordering of ourselves, and a kind of plucking 
our hands from the plough. A physician, saith Hippocrates’, 
must have colour and be in flesh, εὔχροός τε καὶ εὔσαρκος, of 
a good promising healthy complexion, and then men will 
guess him a man of skill, otherwise the patient will bid the 
physician heal himself, and having by his ill look a prejudice 
against his physic, his fancy will much hinder its working. 
You need no application; he again will tell you, that the 
profession suffers not so much by any thing as by rash cen- 
sures, and unworthy professors. In brief, our very know- 
ledge will be set at nought, and our gifts scoffed at, if our 
lives do not demonstrate that we are Christians as well as 

m De Vita Pyth., c. xi. 4 [Protrept. Symbol. xv.] 

» Tbid., c. xxiv. τ [De Medico; ad init., tom. i. p. 56. 


9 Τυϊα., ¢) xxx Kihn. | 
P Tbid., c. vi. 


SERMON XXII. 487 


scholars. No man will be much more godly for hearing 
Seneca talk of providence, nor be affected with bare words, 
unless he see them armed and backed with power of him 
that utters them. Consider but this one thing, and withal, 
that my doctrine is become a proverb, and he is a proud 
man that can first draw it upon a scholar, his learning and 
his clergy make him never the more religious. O let our 
whole care and carriage, and the dearest of our endeavours, 
strive and prevail to cross the proverb, and stop the mouth 
of the rashest declaimer. That comedy of Aristophanes took 
best, which was all spent in laughing at Socrates, and in him 
involved and abused the whole condition of learning ; though 
’ through Alcibiades’ faction it miscarried and missed its ap- 
plause once or twice, yet when men were left to their humour, 
it was admired and cried up extremely. Learning hath still 
some honourable favourers which keep others in awe with 
their countenance; but otherwise nothing more agreeable to 
the people than comedies or satires, or sarcasms dealt out 
against the universities: let us be sure that we act no parts 
in them ourselves, nor perform them before they are acted. 
Let us endeavour that theirs may be only pronunciations, a 
story of our faults as presented in a scene, but never truly 
grounded in any of our actions. One woe we are secure 
and safe from, “ Woe be to you when all men shall speak Luke vi. 
well of you;” we have many good friends that will not let 7° 
this curse light on us. O let us deliver ourselves from that 
catalogue of woes which were all denounced against the 
Pharisees for many vices, all contained in this accomplished 
piece, “ Ye say but do not.” And seeing all our intellectual iat xxiii. 
excellencies cannot allure, or bribe, or woo God’s Spirit to 
overshadow us, and conceive Christ, and bring forth true 
and saving faith in us; let all the rest of our studies be 
ordered in a new course; let us change both our method 
and our tutor, and having hitherto learnt God from our- 
selves, let us be better advised, and learn ourselves from 
God. Let us all study all learning from the spring or 
fountain, and make Him our instructor, who is the only 
author worth our understanding, and admit of no inter- 
preter on Him but Himself. The knowledge of God shall 
be our vision in heaven, O let it be our speculation on 


488 SERMON XXII. 


earth. Let it fill every conceit or fancy that we at any 
time adventure on. It is πάσης πραγματείας τελεσιούρ- 
γημα, the last work in which all the promises, all our pos- 
sible designs are accomplished: O let us in part anticipate 
that final revelation of Him, lest so sudden and so full a 
brightness of glory be too excellent for the eyes of a saint: 
and labour to comprehend here, where the whole comfort 
of our life is, what we shall then possess. And if all the 
stretches, and cracking, and torturing of our souls will prevail, 
the dissolving of all our spirits, nay, the sighing out of our 
last breath will do any thing, let us join all this even that 
God hath given us, in this last real service to ourselves, and 
expire whilst we are about it, in praying, and beseeching, and 
importuning, and offering violence to that blessed Spirit, that 
He will fully enlighten and inflame us here with zeal as well 
as knowledge; that He will fill us with His grace here, and 
accomplish us with His glory hereafter. 

Now to Him that hath elected us, hath created us, and 
redeemed us, &c. 


SERMON XXIII. 


Marr. x. 15. 


It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah 
in the day of judgment, than for that city. 


Tue whole new covenant consists of these two words, 
Christ and faith; Christ bestowed on God’s part, faith 
required on ours; Christ the matter, faith the condition 
of the covenant. Now to bring or present this faith before 
you, as an object for your understandings to gaze at, or 
to go further, to dissect—and with the diligence of anatomy 
instruct—in every limb, or joint, or excellency of it, were 
but to recall you to your catechism, and to take pains to 
inform you in that which you are presumed to know. The 
greater danger of us is, that we are behind in our prac- 
tice; that we know what faith is, but do not labour for it ; 
and therefore the seasonablest work will be on our affec- 
tions, to produce, if it were possible, this precious virtue in 
our souls, and to sink and press down that floating know- 
ledge which is in most of our brains, into a solid weighty effec- 
tual faith, that it may begin to be ἔργον πίστεως, “a work of [1 Thess. 
faith,” which was formerly but a fancy, dream, and apparition. * 5:1 
To this purpose to work on your wills, no rhetoric so likely 
as that which is most sharp and terrible, no such physic for 
dead affections as corrosives, the consideration of the dismal, 
hideous, desperate estate of infidels here in my text; and 
that both in respect of the guilt of the sin, and degree of 
the punishment proportioned to it, and that above all other 
sinners in the world, “It shall be more,” &c. Where you ver. 4. 
may briefly observe, 1. the sin of infidelity, set down by its 


ver. 14, 


Mat. xi. 
14. 


John i, 12. 


John i. 22. 


4.90 SERMON XXIII. 


subject, that city which would not receive Christ being 
preached unto it ; 2. the greatness of this sin, expressed by the 
punishment attending it; and that either positively, it shall 
go very sore with it, and therefore it is to be esteemed a very 
great sin, implied in the whole text; or else comparatively, 
being weighed with Sodom and Gomorrah in judgment, it 
shall be more tolerable for them than it: and therefore it is 
not only a great sin, but the greatest, the most damning sin 
in the world. And of these in order plainly, and to your hearts 
rather than your brains, presuming that you are now come 
with solemn serious thoughts to be edified, not instructed, 
much less pleased or humoured. And first of the first: the 
sin of infidelity, noted in the last words, “ that city.” 

To pass by those which we cannot choose but meet with, 
1. a multitude of ignorant infidels, pagans and heathens ; 
2. of knowing but not acknowledging infidels, as Turks and 
Jews; we shall meet with another order of as great a latitude, 
which will more nearly concern us; a world of believing in- 
fidels, which know and acknowledge Christ, the gospel and 
the promises, are as fairly mounted in the understanding 
part as you would wish, but yet refuse and deny Him in their 
hearts, apply not a command to themselves, submit not to 
Him, nor desire to make themselves capable of those mercies 
which they see offered by Christ in the world; and these are 
distinctly set down in the verse next before my text, “ Who- 
soever shall not receive you,” i.e. entertain the acceptable 
truth of Christ and the gospel preached by you, as it is inter- 
preted by the fortieth verse, “ He that receiveth you, receiveth 
Me,” i.e. believes on Me, as the word is most plainly used, 
Matt. xi. 14; “If you will receive it,” i. 6. if you will believe it, 
“ this is Elias which was for to come.” And Johni.12; “To 
as many as received Him,—even to them that believe in His 
name.” For you are to know that faith truly justifying is 
nothing in the world but the receiving of Christ. Christ 
and His sufferings and full satisfaction was once on the cross 
tendered, and is ever since by the gospel and its ministers 
offered to the world: and nothing required of us but a 
hand and a heart to apprehend and receive: and to “as 
many as received Him, He gives power to become the sons of 
God.” So that faith and infidelity are not acts properly de- 


SERMON XXIII. 491 


termined to the understanding, but indeed to the whole soul, 

and most distinctly to the will, whose part it is to receive or 

repel, to entertain or resist Christ and His promises, “ the [Heb. xii. 
Author and Finisher of our salvation.” Now this receiving Ae 

of Christ is the taking or accepting of the righteousness of 

Christ, and so making it our own, as Rom. i. 17, being rightly Rom. i. 17, 
weighed, will enforce. Read and mark, δικαιοσύνη yap Θεοῦ 

ἐν αὐτῷ ἀποκαλύπτεται ἐκ πίστεως εἰς πίστιν, thus ἐν ἀυτῳ 
“init,” or by it, the gospel, mentioned in the former verse ; d:- 
καιοσύνη Θεοῦ ἐκ πίστεως, “the righteousness of God by faith,” 

as Rom. 111. 22, 1. e. the not legal but evangelical righteousness, Rom. iii, 
which only God accepts, directly set down, Phil. iii. 9, “that en wh 
righteousness which is through faith of Christ, the righte- 
ousness which is of God by faith ;” ἀποκαλύπτεται εἰς πίστιν 

“is revealed to faith,” is declared that we might believe; that 

finding no life or righteousness in ourselves, we may go out 

of ourselves, and lay hold on that which is offered us by 
Christ; and this you will find to be the clearest meaning 

of these words, though somewhat obscured in our English 
reading of them. Now the accepting of this righteousness 

is an act of ours following a proposal or offer of Christ’s, and 
consummating the match or bargain between Christ and us. 

Christ is offered to us as an husband in the gospel; we enquire 

of Him, observe our own needs, and His excellencies and riches 

to supply them, our sins and His righteousness; and if upon 

advice we will take Him, the match is struck, we are our be- 
loved’s, and our beloved is ours; we are man and wife, we have 

taken Him for our husband, and with Him are entitled to all 

His riches: we have right to all His righteousness, and enjoy 

by His patent all the privileges, all the promises, all the mer- 

cies of the gospel. But if, the offer being thus made by God 

to give us His Son freely, we stand upon terms,—we are too 

rich, too learned, too worldly-minded, too much in love with 

the praise of men, i. e. fixed upon any worldly vanity, and re- John xii. 
solve never to forego all these, to disclaim our worldly liberty, ing 

our own righteousness, and to accept of so poor an offer as 

a Christ; then are we the infidels here spoken of, “ we will John v. 40. 
not come to Him that we might have life.’ When He is 

held out to us, we will not lay hold on Him, we have some 
conceit of ourselves, and therefore will not step a foot abroad 


John v. 44. 


[ Acts v. 2.] 


Rom. i. 28. 


4.92 SERMON XXIII. 


to fetch His righteousness home to us. And indeed if any 
worldly thing please you; if you can set a value upon any 
thing else, if you can entertain a paramour, a rival, a compe- 
titor in your hearts, if you can “receive the praise of men, 
how can you believe?” So that, in brief, infidelity consists in 
the not receiving of Christ with a reciprocal giving up of our- 
selves to Him, in the not answering affirmatively to Christ’s 
offer of Himself, in the not taking home and applying Christ 
to our souls. And this is done, either by denying to take 
Him at all, or by taking Him under a false person, or by not 
performing the conditions required or presumed in the making 
of the match. They that deny to take Him at all, are the pro- 
fane, negligent, presumptuous Christians, who either never 
hearken after Him, or else are so familiar with the news as to 
underprize Him: have either never cheapened heaven, or else 
will not come to God’s price; like Ananias and Sapphira, per- 
haps offer pretty fair, bring two parts of their estate and lay 
them at the Apostles’ feet, but will give no more; fall off at 
last for a trifle, and peremptorily deny Christ if they may 
not have Him on their own conditions. Some superfluities, 
some vanities, some chargeable or troublesome sins, perhaps, 
they can spare, and those they will be inclinable to part 
withal; but if this will not serve, Christ must seek for a 
better chapman, they stand not much upon it, they can 
return as contentedly without it as they came. And this 
arises from a neglect and security, a not heeding or weigh- 
ing of God’s justice, and consequently undervaluing of His 
mercies. They have never felt God as an angry Judge, and 
therefore they now scorn Him as a Saviour: they have lived 
at such ease of heart, that no legal terror, no affrightments, 
or ghastly representations of sin can work upon them: and 
if the reading of the law, that killing letter, have been sent 
by God to instruct them in the desperateness of their estate, 
to humble these libertine souls to the spirit of bondage, and 
so school them to Christ, they have eyes, but see not, ears, 
but hear it not, they are come to this νοῦς ἀδόκιμος, “a repro- 
bate sense,” or as it may berendered, “ an undiscerning mind,” 
not able to judge of that which is thus read and proposed to 
it; or again a sense without sense, not apprehensive of that 
which no man that hath eyes can be ignorant of; nay, in 


SERMON XXIIt. 493 


Theodoret’s phrase, νοῦς ἀντίτυπος, an heart that will rever- 
berate any judgment or terror, receiving no more impression 
from it than the anvil from the hammer, violently return it 
again, smoothed somewhat over perhaps by often-beating, 
but nothing softened. Nay if the law ery too loud, and by 
an inward voice preach damnation in their bowels, and re- 
solve to be heard before it cease; then do they seek out 
some worldly employment to busy themselves withal, that 
they may not be at home at so much unquietness: they 
will charm it with pleasures, or overwhelm it with business, 
as Cain, when his conscience was too rough and rigid for. 
him, went out from the presence of the Lord, and as it is Gen.iv. 16. 
observed, “built cities,’ got some of his progeny to invent ver. 17. 
music, perhaps to still his tumultuous raving conscience, ver. 21. 
that the noise of the hammers and melody of the instru- 
ments might outsound the din within him, as in the sacri- 
fices of Moloch, where their children, which they offered in 
an hollow brazen vessel, could not choose but howl hideously, 
they, had timbrels and tabrets perpetually beating,—where- 
upon Tophet, where these sacrifices were kept, is by gram- 
marians deduced from »)n tympanum*,—to drown the noise 2 Kings 
of the children’s cry ; these, I say, which will not be instructed **#- 10. 
in their misery, or bettered by the preaching of the law, 
which labour only to make their inward terrors insensible, 
to skin, not cure, the wound, are infidels in the first or 
highest rank, which deny to take Him at all, will not suffer 
themselves to be persuaded that they have any need of Him; 
and therefore let Him be offered for ever, let Him be pro- 
claimed in their ears every minute of their lives, they see 
nothing in Him worth hearkening after; and the reason is, 
they are still at home, they have not gone a foot abroad out 
of themselves, and therefore cannot lay hold on Christ. He 
that never went to school to the law, he that was never sen- 
sible of his own damned estate, he that never hated himself, 
ov μὴ δέξεται, ‘ will never receive,’ never accept of Christ. 

Secondly, some are come thus far to a sense of their estate, 
and are twinged extremely, and therefore fly presently to the 
gospel; hearing of Christ, they fasten, are not patient of so 
much deliberation as to observe whether their hands be empty ; 

4 Selden, De Diis Syriis. Syntagma i. cap. 6. [Op.; tom. ii, p. 314. ] 


4.94: SHRMON XXIII. 


they are in distress, and Christ must needs save them sud- 
denly ; they lay hold as soon as ever they hear a promise, and 
are resolved to be saved by Christ, because they see otherwise 
they are damned. And these take Christ indeed, but under 
a false person; either they take the promises only, and let 
Christ alone, or take Christ the Saviour, but not Christ the 
Lord ; are willing to be saved by Him, but never think of 
serving Him; are praying for ever for heaven and glory, but 
never care how little they hear of grace; the end they fasten 
on, the covenant they hug and gripe with their embraces, 
but never take the condition of repentance and obedience ; 
this is not for their turn; they abstract the cheap and pro- 
fitable attributes of Christ, His priestly office of satisfaction 
and propitiation, but never consider Him as a King; and 
so, in a word, lay hold of the estate before they have married 
the husband, which they have yet no more right to than a 
mere stranger; for the communicating the riches of a hus- 
band being but a consequence of marriage, is therefore not 
yet made over till the marriage—which is the taking of the 
husband’s person—be consummate. And this, I say, is a 
second degree of infidelity, somewhat more secret and less 
discernible, when by an error of the person, by taking Christ 
the Saviour for Christ the Lord, or His promises abstracted 
from His person, we believe we shall be saved by Him, but 
deny to be ruled; desire to enjoy all the privileges, but sub- 
tract all the obedience of a subject. 

In the third place, they which have accepted and received 
the true person of Christ as a Master, as well as a Jesus, 
they which have taken Him on a resolved vow of performing 
this condition of homage and obedience, are not im event as 
good as their engagements; when they think the match is 
fast, and past danger of recalling, when they seem to have 
gotten a firm title to the promises, and are in a manner en- 
tered upon the goods and estate of their husband, they do 
begin to break covenant, and either wholly subtract, or else 
divide their love ; they married Him for His wealth, and now 
they have that, they are soon weary of His person; they came 
with the soul of an harlot, looking only what they should 
get by Him, and now they have many other old acquaintances 
they must needs keep league with; their self-denial, their 


SERMON XXIII. 495 


humility, their vows of obedience were but arts and strata- 

gems that want and necessity put them upon, and now they 

have got their ends, all those are soon out-dated; they have 

faith and so are justified, and sure of their estate, and so now 

they may sin securely, “there is no condemnation to them, | Rom. viii. 
they are in Christ,” and all the sins, nay, all the devils in al 

the world shall never separate them. And this is a sanctified 
religious piece of infidelity in men, which think they have 

made sure of the main, and so never think of the consec- 

taries ; they have faith, and so it is no matter for good works ; 

the lease is sealed, the wedding solemnized, and then never 

dream or care for covenants. And these men’s fate is like 

to be the same spiritually, which we read of Samson’s bodily 
strength; he vowed the vow of a Nazarite, and as long as he 

kept unshaven no opposition could prevail against him ; but 

as soon as he broke his vow, when he had let his mistress [Judg. xvi. 
cut his locks, his strength departed from him. All the pro- ὍΝ 
mises and privileges of our being in Christ are upon con- 

dition of our obedience, and our vow being broken, the devil 

and the Philistines within us will soon deprive us of our 

eyes and life. Whatsoever livelihood we presume we have 

in Christ, we are deceived, we are still “dead in trespasses [Eph. ii. 
and sins.” Thus do you see the three degrees of infidelity ~ 
frequent amongst Christians, 1. a not taking Him at all, 2. a 
mistaking of His person; 3. a breaking of the covenants : 
now that you may abhor and fly from, and get out of each 
of them by a lively faith, my next particular shall warn you, 
‘the greatness of this sin, and that first positively in itself, “it 
shall be very intolerable for that city.” 

Faith may be conceived in a threefold relation, either to 
men, the subjects of it, and those sinners ; or 2. to Christ, and 
His sufferings, the objects of it, with all the effects, remission 
of sins, and salvation attending it; or 3. to God the Father, 
the author and commander of it, as the only condition an- 
nexed to all His promises. And consequently infidelity, ἐκ 
παραλλήλου, shall be aggravated by these three depths or 
degrees, each adding to its exceeding sinfulness. 

As faith respects its subject, and that a sinful, miserable 
one, engaged and fixed in an unremediable necessity of sin- 
ning and suffering for ever; so is it the only means upon 


-- 
15} 


4.96 SERMON XXIII, 


earth, nay in the very counsel of God, able to do us any 
help; all the arts and spiritual engines even in heaven be- 
sides this are unprofitable. Nay, the second covenant now 
being sealed, and God for ever having established the rule 
and method of it; I say, things thus standing, God Himself 
cannot be presumed to have mercy upon any one but who is 
thus qualified; it being the only foundation on which our 
heaven is built, the only ground we have to hope for any 
thing, as is manifest by that place, being rightly weighed, 
Heb. xi. l. ‘* Now faith is the substance of things hoped for,” where the 
Greek phrase, ὑπόστασις ἐλπιζομένων, signifies the ground 
or foundation of every of those things which can be the ob- 
ject of a Christian’s hope. So that where no ground-work, 
no building; if no faith, no hope, no possibility of heaven. 
If the devil could have but stolen this jewel out of the world, 
he had shut up heaven gates eternally, and had left it as 
empty of saints as it is full of glory, not capable of any flesh 
but what Christ’s hypostatical union brought thither. And 
this is no more than I conceive the learned mean by neces- 
sitas medii, that faith is necessary as a means, i. e. there is 
no means besides of power, either absolutely or ex hypothesi, 
of itself or on supposition of God’s covenant, to bring us to 
heaven. Nothing is of force besides in reason to prepare, or 
morally accommodate; and God hath not promised to accept 
in mercy of any thing else. For whereas the promises are 
sometimes made to repentance, sometimes to obedience, as, 
whosoever repenteth shall be saved, and the like; you are to 
know, that it is on this ground of the necessary union of 
these graces, that where one of them is truly and sincerely, 
there the rest are always in some degree, there being no 
example of penitence or obedience in any subject which had 
Heb. xi. 6. not faith also. ‘“ For he that comes to God must believe that 
He is,” &c. And he that heartily believes He is, and is “a 
rewarder of them that seek Him,” will not fail to search, 
pursue, and follow after Him. So that, though the promises 
are made promiscuously to any one which hath either of 
these graces, yet it is upon supposal of the rest; if it be 
Gal, v. 6, made of faith, it is in confidence that “faith works by love,” 
Jam. ii, 22, and as St. James enforces it, “is made perfect by works.” 
So that, in the first place, infidelity is sufficiently aggravated 


SERMON XXIII. 497 


in respect of the subject; it being a catholic destroyer, an 
intervenient that despoils him of all means, all hope, all pos- 
sibility of salvation: finding him in the state of damnation, 
it sets him going, suffers him not to lay hold on any thing 
that may stay him in his precipice; and in the midst of his 
shipwreck, when there be planks and refuges enough about 
him, hath numbed his hands, deprived him of any power of 
taking hold of them. 

In the second place, in respect of Christ and His suffer- 
ings, the objects of our faith, so faith is in a manner the soul 
of them, giving them life and efficacy, making things which 
are excellent in themselves prove so in effect to others. Thus 
the whole splendour and beauty of the world, the most accu- 
rate proportions and images of nature are beholding to the 
eye, though not for their absolute excellency, yet for both the 
account and use that is made of them; for if all men were 
blind, the proudest workmanship of nature would not be 
worth the valuing. Thus is a learned piece cast away upon 
the ignorant, and the understanding of the auditor is the 
best commendation of a speech or sermon. In like manner, 
those infinite unvaluable sufferings of Christ, if they be not 
believed in, are but, as Aristotle” saith of divine knowledge, 
“a most honourable thing, but of no manner of use ;” if they 
be not apprehended, they are lost. Christ’s blood if not 
caught up in our hearts by faith, but suffered to be poured 
out upon the earth, will prove no better than that of Abel, 
“crying for judgment from the ground ;” that which is spilt Gen. iv. 10, 
is clamorous, and its voice is toward heaven for vengeance ; 
only that which is gathered up, as it falls from His side, by 
faith will prove a medicine to heal the nations. So that in- 
fidelity makes the death of Christ no more than the death of 
an ordinary man, “in which there is no remedy,” οὐκ ἔστιν Wisd. ii. 1. 
ἴασις, “there is no cure,” no physic in it ; or as the same word 
is rendered, “no pardon,” no remission wrought by it, a bare Eccles, 
going down into the grave, that no man is better for. It **¥4) ὅ. 
doth even frustrate the sufferings of Christ, and make Him 
have paid a ransom to no purpose, and purchased an inherit- 
ance at an infinite rate, and no man the better for it. Again, 
Christ is not only contemned, but injured, not only slighted, 


> [Metaph., A. c. 2.] 
HAMMOND. Kk 


Luke i. 74. 


Luke i. 74. 


1 Cor. y. 
20. 


498 SERMON XXIII. 


but robbed, He loses not only His price and His thanks, but 
His servant, which He hath bought and purchased with His 
blood. For redemption is not an absolute setting free, but 
the buying out of an usurper’s hands, that he may return 
to his proper lord; changing him from the condition of a 
captive to a subject. He which is ransomed from the galleys 
is not presently a king, but only recovered to a free and 
tolerable service: nay generally, if he be redeemed, he is 60 
nomine a servant, by right and equity his creature that 
redeemed him, according to the express words, “that we 
being delivered might serve Him.” Now a servant is a 
possession, part of one’s estate, as truly to be reckoned his as 
any part of his inheritance. So that every unbeliever is a 
thief, robs Christ not only of the honour of saving him, but 
of one of the members of His family, of part of His goods, 
His servant; nay, it is not a bare theft, but of the highest 
size, a sacrilege, stealing an holy instrument, a vessel out of 
God’s temple, which He bought and delivered out of the 
common calamity to “serve Him in holiness,” to be put to 
holy, special services. 

In the third place, faith may be considered in reference to 
God the Father, and that 1. as the author or fountain of this 
theological grace ; 2. as the commander of this duty of believ- 
ing; and either of these will aggravate the unbeliever’s guilt, 
and add more articles to his indictment. As God is the 
author of faith, so the infidel resists, and abandons, and flies 
from all those methods, all those means, by which God ordi- 
narily produces faith; all the power of His Scriptures, all 
the blessings of a Christian education, all the benefits of 
sacred knowledge; in sum, the prayers, the sweat, the lungs, 
the bowels of His ministers, in Christ’s stead “ beseeching 
you to be reconciled,” spending their dearest spirits, and 
even praying and preaching out their souls for you, that 
you would be friends with God through Christ. All these, 
I say, the infidel takes no notice of, and by his contempt of 
these inferior graces, shews how he would carry himself even 
towards God’s very Spirit, if it should come in power to con- 
vert him, he would hold out and bid defiance, and repel the 
omnipotent God with His omnipotent charms of mercy: he 
that contemns God’s ordinary means, would be likely to re- 


SERMON XXIII. 4.99 


sist His extraordinary, were there not more force in the means 
than forwardness in the man: and thanks be to that con- 
trolling, convincing, constraining Spirit, if ever he be brought 
to be content to be saved. He that will not now believe in 
Christ when He is preached, would have gone very near, if 
he had lived then, to have given his consent, and joined his 
suffrage in crucifying Him. A man may guess of his incli- 
nation by his present practices, and if he will not now be His 
disciple, it was not his innocence, but his good fortune, that 
he did not then betray Him. It was well he was born amongst 
Christians, or else he might have been as sour a professed 
enemy of Christ as Pilate, or the Pharisees: an unbelieving 
Christian is, for all his livery and profession, but a Jew or 
heathen, and the Lord make him sensible of his condition. 
Lastly, consider this duty of faith im respect of God the 
Father commanding it, and then you shall find it the main 
precept of the Bible. It were long to shew you the ground 
of it in the law of nature, the obscure, yet discernible men- 
tion of it in the moral law, both transcendently, in the main 
end of all, and distinctly, though not clearly, in the first 
commandment; he that hath a mind to see may find it in 
Pet. Baronius, de prestantia et dignitate divine legis. It were 
as toilsome to muster up all the commands of the Old Tes- 
tament, which exactly and determinately drive at belief in 
Christ; as generally, in those places, where the Chaldee 
Paraphrase reads instead of God, God’s Word, as, “ fear not, 
Abraham, for I am thy shield,” say they, ‘‘ My Word is thy 
shield,” which speaks a plain command of faith; for not to 
fear is to trust; not to fear on that ground, because God’s 
word, ὁ Adyos, “the Word,” Christ, is one’s shield, is nothing John i, 1. 
in the world but to believe, and rely, and fasten, and depend 
on Christ. Many the like commands of faith in Christ will 
the Old Testament afford, and the New is nothing else but a 
perpetual inculcating of it upon us, a driving and calling, en- 
treating and enforcing, wooing and hastening us to believe. 
In which respect the schools call it also necessary neces- 
sitate precepti, a thing which though we should be never the 
better for, we are bound to perform. So that though faith 
were not able to save us, yet infidelity would damn us, it 
being amongst others a direct breach of a natural, a moral, 
Kk2 


500 SERMON XXIII. 


nay, an evangelical commandment. And so much for the 
danger of infidelity considered positively in relation to the 
subject whom it deprives of heaven; the object, Christ and 
His offers in the Gospel, which it frustrates; and lastly the 
author and commander of it, God the Father, whom it resists, 
disobeys, and scorns. You will perhaps more feelingly be 
affected to the loathing of it, if we proceed to the odious and 
dangerous condition of it, above all other sins and breaches 
in the world, which is my third part, its comparative sinful- 
ness, “‘ It shall be more tolerable,” ἕο. 

And this will appear, if we consider it, 1. in itself; 2. 
in its consequences. In itself it is fuller of guilt, in its con- 


. sequences fuller of danger, than any ordinary breach of the 


Heb. x. 38. 


ver. 39. 


2 Mace. vi. 
12. 


Gal. ii. 12. 


moral law. In itself, so it is 1. the greatest aversion from 
God,—in which aversion the schoolmen place the formalis 
ratio, the very essence of sin—it is the perversest remotion 
and turning away of the soul from God, and getting as far as 
we can out of His sight, or ken, the forbidding of all manner 
of commerce or spiritual traffic, or correspondence with God, 
as may appear by that admirable place, Heb. x. 38, “ The 
just shall live by faith; but if any man draw back, my soul 
hath no pleasure in him ;” and ver. 39, “ We are not of them 
which draw back unto perdition, but of them that do believe 
to the saving of the soul.” Where the phrase of drawing 
back opposed here to faith and believing, is in the original 
ὑποστολὴ, ἃ cowardly, pusillanimous subducing of one’s-self, 
a getting out of the way, a not daring to meet, or approach, 
or accept of Christ when He is offered them; the same with 
συστολὴ among the physicians, a contraction of the soul, 
a shrivelling of it up, a sudden correption and depression of 
the mind, such as the sight of some hideous danger is wont 
to produce, so 2 Macc. vi. 12, συστέλλεσθαι, x. τ. λ., to 
be discouraged, and to forsake the Jewish religion, because 
of the calamities. So is the word used of Peter, ὑπέστελ- 
he καὶ ἀφώριζεν ἑαυτὸν, φοβούμενος, x.T.r., “he withdrew 
and separated himself, fearing those that were of the cir- 
cumcision.” The infidel, I say, draws back, withdraws and 
sneaks out of the way, as if he were afraid of the mereies of ᾿ 
his Saviour, as if it were death to him to be so near salva- 
tion; as if Christ coming to him with the mercies of the 


SERMON XXIII. 501] 


gospel, were the mortalest enemy under heaven, and there 

were no such mischief to be done him as his conversion. 

This indeed is an aversion in the highest degree, when we 

fly and draw back from God when He comes to save us, 

when the sight of a Saviour makes us take our heels. Adam 

might well hide himself when God came to challenge him 

about his disobedience; the guilty conscience being afraid 

of revenge, may well slink out of His presence with Cain. Gen. iv. 16, 
But to tremble and quake at a proclamation of mercy, when 

God “draws with cords of a man,” a powerful phrase expressed Hos. xi. 4. 
in the next words with “the bands of love; when He loveth 

us, and calls His Son out for us, then to be “bent to back- 
sliding,” in the seventh verse, to draw back when He comes 

to embrace, this is a stubbornness and contraction of the 

soul, a crouching of it in, a συστολὴ or ὑποστολὴ, that 

neither nature nor reason would be guilty of: an aversion 

from God, which no other sin can parallel, and therefore of 

all other most intolerable in the first place. 

2. Infidelity gives God the he, and denies whatever God 
proclaims in the gospel. The reason or ground of any one’s 
belief, the objectum formale quo, that, by assenting to which I 
-come to believe, is God’s veracity; the confidence that God 
speaks true, the relying on His word, is that which brings 
me to lay hold on Christ ; and therefore the infidel is down- 
right with God; he will not take His word, he will never be 
persuaded that these benefits of Christ’s death that are offered 
to all men, can ever do him any good. Let God call him to 
accept them, he will never come; his surly, resolute carriage 
is in effect a contradicting of whatever God hath affirmed, a 
direct thwarting, a giving the lie to God and His Evangelists : 
and this is an aggravation not to be mentioned without reve- 
rence or horror, the most odious affront in the world; the 
Lord be merciful to us in this matter. 

Next, this sin is a sin of the most dangerous consequences 
of any. 

1. It produces all other sins; and that positively, by 
doubting of His justice, aud so falling into adulteries, blas- 
phemies, and the like, in security and hope of impunity; by 
distrusting of His providence and mercy, and so flying to 
covetousness, murmuring, tempting, subtlety, all arts and 


[Eph. ii. 
20.] 


John iii. 18. 


Ecclus. xx. 
25. 


1 Cor. xv. 


17. 


502 SERMON XXIII. 


stratagems of getting for our temporal estate, and ordinary 
despair in our spiritual: then privatively, depriving us of that 
which is the mother and soul of our obedience and good 
works, I mean faith, so that every thing for want of it is 
turned into sin, and thereby depopulating the whole man, 
making him nothing in the world but ruins and noisomeness, 
a confluence of all manner of sins, without any concomitant 
degree of duty or obedience. 

2. It frustrates all good exhortations, and forbids all man- 
ner of superstructions which the ministers are wont to labour 
for in moving us to charity, and obedience, and joy, and 
hope, and prayer, by not having laid any foundation where- 
on these must be built; any of these set or planted in any 
infidel heart will soon wither: they must have a stock of 
faith whereon to be grafted, or else they are never likely to 
thrive. As Galba’s wit was a good one, but it was unluckily 
placed, ill-seated, there was no good to be wrought by it. 
The proudest of our works or merits, the perfectest morality 
wilf stand but very weakly, unless it be founded on that 
foundation whose corner-stone is Christ Jesus. 

3. It leaves no place in the world for remedy: he that 
is an idolater, a sabbath-breaker, or the like; he that is 
arraigned at the law, and found guilty at that tribunal, hath 
yet an advocate in the gospel, a higher power to whom he 
may appeal to mitigate his sentence: but he that hath sinned 
against the gospel, hath no further to go, he hath sinned 
against that which should have remitted all other sins; and 
now he is come to an unremediable estate, to a kind of hell, 
or the grave of sin, from whence there is no recovery. There 
is not a mercy to be fetched in the world but out of the 
gospel, and he that hath refused them is past any further 
treaty: “He that believeth not is condemned already ;” his 
damnation is sealed to him, and the entail past cutting off; 
it is his purchase, and now wants nothing but livery and 
seizin ; nay, it is his patrimony, ἀπώλειαν ἐκληρονόμησεν, he 
is as sure of it, as of any pennyworth of his inheritance. 
And the reason is implied, “If Christ be not risen, you are 
yet in your sins:” there is no way to get out of our 
sins but Christ’s resurrection, and he that believeth not, 
Christ is not risen to him: it were all one to him if there 


SERMON XXIII. 503 


had never been a Saviour; and therefore he remains in his 
old thraldom; he was taken captive in Adam, and hath never 
since had any other means to restore him: the ransom that 
was offered all, he would none of, and so he sticks unredeemed, 
he is yet in his sins, and so for ever like to continue. And 
now he is come to this state, it were superfluous further to 
aggravate the sin against him; his case is too wretched to be 
upbraided him, the rest of our time shall be employed in 
providing a remedy for him, if it be possible, and that must 
be from consideration of the disease, in a word and close of 
application. 

The sin being thus displayed to you with its consequences, 
O what a spirit should it raise in us! O what a resolution 
and expression of our manhood, to resist and banish out of 
us this “evil heart of unbelief !’? What an hatred should it Heb. iii. 
work in our bowels, what a reluctancy, what an indignation, as 
what a revenge against the fruit of our bosom, which hath 
so long grown and thrived within us, only to our destruction ! 
which is provided as it were to eat our souls, as an harbinger 
to prepare a place within us for the worm in hell, where it 
may lie and bite and gnaw at ease eternally! It is an ex- 
amination that will deserve the most precious minute of our 
lives, the solemnest work of our souls, the carefulest muster 
of our faculties, to shrift and winnow, and even set our hearts 
upon the rack, to see whether any fruit or seed of infidelity 
lurk in it; and in a matter of this danger to prevent God’s 
inquest by our own, to display every thing to ourselves, just 
as it shall be laid open before God in judgment, γυμνὸν καὶ Heb. iv. 13. 
τετραχηλισμένον, naked and discernible as the entrails of a 
creature cut down the back, where the very method of nature 
in its secrecies is betrayed tothe eye. I say, to cut ourselves 
up, and to search into every cranny of our souls, every wind- 
ing of either our understanding or affections; and observe 
whether any infidel thought, any infidel lust be lodged there: 
and when we have found this execrable thing which hath 
brought all our plagues on us, then must we purge, and 
cleanse, and lustrate the whole city for its sake: and with 
more ceremony than ever the heathen used, even with a 
superstition of daily, hourly prayers, and sacrificing ourselves 
to God, strive and struggle, and offer violence to remove this 


2 Kings 
xxiii. 12. 


John xviii. 
iL 
Ps, ὉσΣ. ἢ: 


[Is. Ixv. 
2. ] 


John xix. 
19. 


2 Cor. v. 
20. 


504 SERMON XXIII. 


unclean thing out of our coasts ; use these unbelieving hearts 
of ours, as Josiah did the altars of Ahaz, “ break them down, 
beat them to powder, and cast the dust of them into the 
brook Kidron ;” that Cedron which Christ passed over when 
He went to suffer, even that brook which “Christ drank of 
by the way.” And there indeed is there a remedy for infi- 
delity, if the infidel will throw it in. If he will put it off, be 
it never so dyed in the contempt of Christ’s blood, that very 
blood shall cleanse it: and therefore 

In the next place, let us labour for faith; let not His 
hands be stretched out any longer upon the cross to a 
faithless and stubborn generation. It were a piece of igno- 
rance that a scholar would abhor to be guilty of, not to be 
able to understand that inscription written by Pilate in 
either of three languages, “ Jesus of Nazareth, King.” Nay 
for all the Gospels and comments written on it, both by 
His disciples and His works, still to be non-proficients, this 
would prove an accusation written in marble, nay, an ex- 
probration above a στηλιτευτικόν. In a word, Christ is still 
offered and the proclamation not yet outdated, His sufferings 
in the Scripture proposed to every one of you to lay hold on, 
and His ministers sent as ‘“ ambassadors beseeching you to be 
reconciled,” and more than that, in the Sacrament of the Eu- 
charist, His body and blood set before our eyes to be felt and 
gazed on, and then even a Didymus would believe; nay, to 
be divided amongst us, and put in our mouths, and then 
who would be so sluggish as to refuse to feed on Him in his 
heart ? 

For your election from the beginning to this gift of faith, 
let that never raise any doubt or scruple in you, and foreslow 
that coming to Him; this is a jealousy that hath undone 
many, in a resolvedness that if they are not elected, all their 
faith shall prove unprofitable. Christ that bids thee repent, 
believe,and come unto Him, is not so frivolous to command im- 
possibilities, nor so cruel to mock our impotence. Thou mayest 
believe, because He bids: believe, and then thou mayest be 
sure thou wert predestinated to believe; and then all the de- 
crees in the world cannot deny thee Christ, if thou art thus 
resolved to have Him. If thou wilt not believe, thou hast re- 
probated thyself, and who is to be accused that thou art not 


SERMON XXIII. 505 


saved? But if thou wilt come in, there is sure entertainment 

for thee. He that begins in God’s counsels, and never thinks 

fit to go about any evangelical duty, till he can see his name 

writ in the Book of life, must not begin to believe till he be 

in heaven; for there only is that to be read radio recto. The 

surer course is to follow the Scripture; to hope comfortably 

every one of ourselves, to use the means, apprehend the mer- 

cies, and then to be confident of the benefits of Christ’s suf- 
fering: and this is the way to make our election sure, to read 

it in ourselves radio reflexo, by knowing that we believe, to 
resolve that we are elected; thereby “we know that we are 1 John iii, 
past from death to life, if we love the brethren.” And so is !* 

it also of faith; for these are inseparable graces. So Psalm Ps. xxv. 
xxv. 14; Prov. iii. 32, God’s secret and His covenant, being eta 
taken for His decree, is said to be “with them that fear Him,” 

and to be “shewed to them,” i. 6. their very fearing of God is 

an evidence to them that they are His elect, with whom He 

hath entered covenant. Our faith is the best argument, or 
κριτήριον, by which to make a judgment to God’s decree 
concerning us. I say, if we will believe God hath elected 

us; it is impossible any true faith should be refused upon 
pretence the person was predestined to destruction; and if 

it were possible, yet would I hope that God’s decrees—were 

they as absolute as some would have them—should sooner be 
softened into mercy, than that mercy purchased by His Son, 
should ever fail to any that believes. The bargain was made, 

the covenant struck, and the immutability of the Persian laws 

are nothing to it, that “ whosoever believeth in Him should John iii. 
not perish, but have everlasting life.’ Wherefore, in brief, !* 

let us attend the means, and let what will or can come of the 

end; Christ is offered to every soul here present to be a Jesus, 

only do thou accept of Him, and thou art past from death 

to life; there is no more required of thee, but only to take 

Him; if thou art truly possessor of Him, He will justify, He 

will humble, He will sanctify thee; He will work all reforma- 

tion in thee: and in time seal thee up to the day of re- 
demption: only be careful that thou mistakest not His per- 

son; thou must receive Him, as well as His promises; thou 

must take Him as a Lord and King, as well as a Saviour, 

and be content to be a subject, as well as a saint. He is 


[Ps. xev. 


8.] 


Pe: ii. 12: 


506 SERMON XXIII. 


now proclaimed in your ears, and you must not foreslow the 
audience, or procrastinate ; “ To-day if you will hear His voice, 
harden not your hearts.” He holds Himself out on purpose 
to you, and by the minister woos you to embrace Him: and 
then it nearly concerns you not to provoke so true, so hearty, 
nay, even so passionate a friend: if He be not kissed He 
will be angry. Lastly, if in this business of believing so vul- 
garly exposed, there yet appear some difficulties in the prac- 
tice, to be overcome before it prove a possible duty: if self- 
denial be incompatible with flesh and blood; if delights and 
worldly contentments, if an hardened heart in sin, and a 
world of high imaginations, refuse to submit or humble 
themselves to the poverty of Christ; if we cannot empty 
our hands to lay hold, or unbottom ourselves to lean wholly 
on Christ, then must we fly, and pray to that Spirit of power, 
to subdue, and conquer, and lead us captive to itself, to in- 
struct us in the baseness, the nothingness, nay, the dismal, 
hideous wretchedness of our own estate, that so being spiri- 
tually shaken and terrified out of our carnal pride and secu- 
rity, we may come trembling and quaking to that throne of 
grace, and with the hands of faith, though feeble ones, with 
the eye of faith, though dimly, with a hearty sincere resign- 
ing up of ourselves, we may see and apprehend, and fasten, 
and be united to our Saviour: that we may live in Christ, 
and Christ in us, and having begun in the life of grace here, 
we may hope and attain to be accomplished with that of 
glory hereafter. 
“Now to Him which hath elected us,” &c. 


SERMON XXIV. 


Acts xvi. 30. 


And the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now 
commandeth all men every where to repent. 


Tue words in our English translation carry somewhat in 
the sound, which doth not fully reach the importance of the 
original, and therefore it must be the task of our preface not 
to connect the text, but clear it; not to shew its dependence 
on the precedent words, but to restore it to the integrity of 
itself, that so we may perfectly conceive the words, before we 
venture to discuss them; that we may ὑποτυπῶσαι πρῶτον, 
ὕστερον ἀναγράφειν, as Aristotle* phrases it, “ first represent 
them to you in the bulk, then describe them particularly in 
their several lineaments.” Our English setting of the words 
seems to make two propositions, and in them a direct opposi- 
tion betwixt the condition of the ancient and present Gen- 
tiles ; that God had winked at, 1. 6. either approved, or pitied, 
or pardoned the ignorance of the former heathens, but now 
was resolved to execute justice on all that did continue in 
that was heretofore pardonable in them, on every one every 
where that did not repent. Now the original runs thus, 
TOUS μὲν οὖν χρόνους THY ἀγνοίας ὑπεριδὼν ὁ Θεὸς, τὰ νῦν 
παραγγέλλει, κ-τ.λ., that is, in a literal construction, “God 
therefore passing over the times of ignorance, as if He saw 
them not, doth now command all men every where to re- 
pent.” Which you may conceive thus, by this kind of vulgar 
ἀνάβασις, or sensible proceeding in God. God always is, 
essentially and perfectly, every one of His attributes, wisdom, 
justice, mercy, &c., but yet is said at one time to be peculi- 


a (Eth. Nicom., i. c. 7. ] 


508 SERMON XXIV. 


arly one attribute, at another time another, i.e. to be at one 
time actually just, at another time actually merciful, accord- 
ing to His determination to the object. As when God fixes 
His eyes upon a rebellious people, whose sins are ripe for His 
justice, He then executes His vengeance on them as on 
Sodom: when He fixes His eyes upon a penitent, believing 
people, He then doth exercise His mercy, as on Nineveh. 
Now when God looks upon any part of the lapsed world on 
which He intends to have mercy, He suffers not His eye to 
be fixed or terminated on the medium betwixt His eye and 
them, on the sins of all their ancestors from the beginning 
of the world till that day; but having another account to 
cal] them to, doth for the present, ὑπεριδεῖν, ὑπερβλέπειν, 
ὑπερορᾷν, “look over all them,” as if they were not in His 
way, and imputing not the sins of the fathers to the children, 
fixeth on the children, makes His covenant of mercy with 
them, and commandeth them the condition of this covenant, 
whereby they shall obtain mercy, that is, “every one every 
where to repent.” So that in the first place, ὑπεριδὼν παρ- 
ἀγγέλλει must not be rendered by way of opposition, “ He 
winked then, but now commands,” as if their former igno- 
rance were justifiable, and an account of knowledge should 
only be exacted from us. And in the second place, ὑπεριδὼν, 
a word read but this once in all the New Testament, must be 
rendered, not “ winking at,” but “looking over,” or not in- 
sisting upon; as when we fix our eyes upon a hill we suffer 
them not to dwell on the valley on this side of it, because 
we look earnestly on the hill. Nowif this be not the common 
Attical acception of it, yet it will seem agreeable to the pen- 
ning of the New Testament, in which whosoever will observe, 
may find words and phrases which perhaps the Attic purity, 
perhaps grammar, will not approve of. And yet I doubt not 
but classic authorities may be brought where ὑπεριδεῖν shall 
signify, not a winking, or not taking notice of, but a looking 


further, a not resting in this, but a driving higher, for so it - 


is rendered by Stephanus, ad ulteriora oculos convertere, and 
then the phrase shall be as proper as the sense, the Greek as 
authentical as the doctrine, that God looking over and not 
insisting upon the ignorance of the former heathen, at Christ’s 
coming entered a covenant with their successors, the condi- 


EEE 


| 
| 
| 


SERMON XXIV. 509 


tion of which was, “that every man every where should 
repent.” 

And this is made good by the Greek Scholia of the New 
Testament, οὐ τοῦτό φησιν", «.7.r., “that is spoken, not that 
the former heathen should be unpunished, but that their 
successors to whom St. Paul preached, if they would repent, 
should not be called to an account of their ignorance,” should 
not fare the worse for the ignorance of their fathers; and at 
this drives also Chrysostom®, out of whom the scholiasts may 
seem to have borrowed it, their whole ἐξήγησις being but 
ἔκλεκτα, gleanings out of the fathers before them. I might 
further prove the necessity of this interpretation if it were re- 
quired of me: and thus far I have stayed you to prove it, 
because our English is somewhat imperfect in the expression 


‘of it. Avo κύβοι οὐκ εἰσὶ κύβος, saith Aristotle, “Two cubes 


are not a cube,” but another figure very different from it: 
and indeed our English translations by making two proposi- 
tions of this verse, have varied the native single proposition 
in that regard, and made it unlike itself, which briefly—if I 
can inform myself aright—should run thus, by way of one 
simple enunciation; ‘God therefore not insisting on, but 
looking over those times of ignorance, doth now command all 
men every where to repent ; of which those three lines in 
Leo’s* fourth sermon de Passione Domini are a just para- 
phrase, Nos sub veteris ignorantie profunda nocte pereuntes, 
in patriarcharum societatem, et fortem electi gregis adoptavit. 
So then the words being represented to you in this scheme 
or single diagram, are the covenant of mercy made with the 
progeny of ignorant heathens, upon condition of repentance, 
in which you may observe two grand parallel lines, 1, the 
ignorance of the heathen, such as in the justice of God might 
have provoked Him to have pretermitted the whole world of 
succeeding Gentiles: 2, the mercy of God, not imputing their 
ignorance to our charge, whosoever every where to the end 


of the world shall repent. And first of the first, the ignorance 


of the heathen in these words, τοὺς μὲν οὖν χρόνους, “the 
times,” &c. 


> [Gicumenius Ennarrat in loc. et Op., tom. ix. p. 291. C, D.] 
Op., tom, i. p. 139. Paris. 1631. ] 4 [S. Leo. Serm. lv. de Passione 
© [In Acta Apostol. Hom. xxxviii, Domini, iv. cap. 5. Op., tom.i. p. 210.] 


510 SERMON XXIV. 


If for the clearing of this bill we should begin our inquest 
at Japhet the father of the Gentiles, examine them all by 
their gradations, we should in the general find the evidence 
to run thus; 1. that they were absolutely ignorant, as igno- 
rance is opposed to learning; 2. ignorant in the affairs of 
God, as ignorance is opposed to piety or spiritual wisdom ; 
3. ignorant supinely, perversely, and maliciously, as it is op- 
posed to a simple or more excusable ignorance. 

Their absolute ignorance or ἀπαιδευσία, their want of 
learning is at large proved by St. Austin xviii. de Civ. Dei, 


Eusebius Prepar. x., Clemens in his Protrep. and others, — 


some of whose writings to this purpose—because it is easier 
for my auditors to believe me in gross, than to be troubled 
with the retail—is this, that the beginnings of learning in all 
kinds was among the Jews, whilst the whole heathen world be- 
sides was barbarously ignorant ; that Moses appointed masters 
among the tribes, γραμμάτων εἰςαγωγεῖς, which initiated the 
youth of Israel] in all kind of secular learning; or if you will 
believe Patricius® and his proofs, that Shem erected, and after- 
wards Heber enlarged, scholas doctrinarum, schools or semi- 
naries of learning, where learning was professed and taught ; 
that Abraham, as Eusebius cites Nic. Damascenus! for it, was 
excellent in the mathematics, and dispersed and communi- 
cated his knowledge in Chaldea, from whence the Egyptians, 
and from them the Grecians came to them; that Enoch was 
probably judged by Polyhistor® to be that Atlas to whom the 
heathen imputed the beginning of astronomy; that in the 
sum, all learning was primitive among the Hebrews, and 
from them, by stealth and filching, some seeds of it sown in 
Phenicia, Egypt, and at last in Greece. For they make it 
plain by computation, that Moses,—who yet was long after 
Enoch, and Shem, and Heber, and Abraham, all in confesso 
great scholars,—that Moses, I say, was fifteen hundred years 
ancienter than the Greek philosophers, that all the learning 
that is found and bragged of amongst the Grecians—whose 
ignorance my text chiefly deals with, St. Paul’s discourse 
here being addressed to the Athenians—was but a babe of a 


© Zoroaster, p. 4. s [Ap. Euseb., ibid., lib. ix. p. 419 
τ [Nicol. Damascenus, ap. Euseb., d.]_ 
Prepar. Evang., lib. ix. p. 417 d.] 


————— eet 


> 
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ee ee 18 


ὦ. = 


-Ὶ- 


SERMON XXIV. 511 


day old in respect of the true antiquity of learning: that all 
their philosophy was but scraps, ἀποσπασμάτια, which fell 
from the Jews’ tables; that in their stealth they were very 
imprudent, gleaned only that which was not worth carrying 
away, οὐδὲν ἢ πρὸς Θεὸν, ἢ πρὸς σώφρονα βίον, x.T.r., stuffed 
their sacks, which they carried into Egypt to buy food, only 
with some unprofitable chaff, with empty speculations that 
would puff up, not fill or nourish the soul, but brought no 
valuable real commodity away with them, whereby they might 
improve their knowledge, or reform their manners; upon 
which two grounds, 1. the vanity and unprofitableness of their 
learning ; 2. the novelty of it in respect of the Hebrews from 
whom they stole it afar off; they are not thought worthy of 
the title of scholars; and forall the noise of their philosophy, 
are yet judged absolutely ignorant, as ignorance is opposed 
to learning. 

In the second place, for their ignorance in the affairs of 
God, their own author’s examination will bring in a sufficient 
evidence. If you will sort out the chiefest names of learned 
men amongst them, you will there find the veriest dunces in 
this learning. The deipnosophists, the only wits of the time, 
are yet described by Athenzus to employ their study only 
how to get good cheer a free cost, ἀοιδοὶ αἰὲν ἄκαπνα θύο- 
μεν ἢ, they fed deliciously, and yet were at no charge for the 
provision; and amongst them you shall scarcely find any 
knowledge or worship of even their heathen gods, but only 
in drinking, where their luxury had this excuse or pretence 
of religion, that it was δεῖγμα τῆς δυνάμεως τοῦ Θεοῦ ἀγαθοῦ, 
“an experiment of the power of that good God” which had 
provided such a creature as wine for them to abuse; which 
perhaps a drunken Romish casuist stole from them, where 
he allows of drinking supra modum, ad glorificandum Deum, 
§c., “to the glorifying of God,” creator of so excellent a 
creature, which hath the effect in it of turning men into 
beasts. So that it seems by the story of them in brief, that 
the deipnosophists, men of the finest, politest conceits, as 
Ulpianus Tyrius, Calliphanes, and the like in Athenzeus, in 
the multitude of the Grecian gods had but one deity, and 
that was their belly, which they worshipped religioso luxu, 

» [ Lib. i. c. 14. p. 8 E. ed. Casaub. ] 


512 SERMON XXIV. 


not singing, but eating and drinking praises to his name; 
to this add the Sophistz, Protagoras, Hippias, and the like 
great boasters of learning in Socrates’s time, and much 
followed by the youth, till he persuaded them from admiring 
such unprofitable professors, and these are observed by Plu- 
tarch, to be mere hucksters of vainglory; getting great 
store of money and applause from their auditors, ἀργύριον καὶ 
οἴημα, “silver and popularity,” but had no manner of profit- 
able learning to bestow upon them, as Plutarch dooms them 
in his Platonic Questions‘, and Socrates in his Dialogues in 
confutation of them; and certainly by their very profession 
it is plain that these men had no God to know or worship, 
except their gain. But not to insist on these or other their 
professors of more curious, trim, polite learning, as their 
philosophers, grammarians, and rhetoricians, it will be more 
seasonable to our text to examine St. Paul’s auditors here, 
the great speculators among them: 1. the deepest philoso- 
phers, and there where you expect the greatest knowledge 
you shall find the most barbarous ignorance ; in the midst 
of the πολυθεότης of the Grecians, the philosophers (saith 
Clement *, and it is plain by their writings,) finding out and 
acknowledging in private this multitude of gods to be a pro- 
digious vanity, and infinitely below the gravity and wisdom 
of their profession, took themselves off from this unreason- 
able worship, and almost each of them in private worshipped 
some one God. And here you would think that they jumped 
with the Jews of that time, in the acknowledging an unity: 
but if you mark them you shall find that they did not reform 
the popular atheism, but only varied it into a more rational 
way. Thales would not acknowledge Neptune, as the poets 
and people did, but yet he deifies the water as Clement! ob- 
serves: another scorned to be so senseless as to worship wood 
or stone, and yet he deifies the earth, the parent of them 
both, and as senseless as them both; and does at once cal- 
care terram et colere, “tread on the earth with his feet, and 
adore it with his heart.” So Socrates,—who by bringing in 
morality was a great refiner and pruner of barren philosophy,— 
i [Platonice Questiones, Quest. i. 5. sq.] 


Op., tom. x. p. 160. Reiske. } ' [Id., Ibid. ] 
{Clemens Alex. Protrept., cap. 


SERMON XXLY. 5138 


absolutely denying the Grecian gods, and thence called 
ἄθεος, is yet brought in by Aristophanes™, worshipping the 
clouds, ὦ δέσποτ᾽ ἀὴρ, x.7-r., and by a more friendly historian 
described addressing a sacrifice to Asculapius", being at the 
point of death. So that in brief, the philosophers, disliking 
the vulgar superstition, went to school, saith Clement?, to the 
Persian magi, and of them learnt a more scholastic atheism. 
The worship of those venerable elements, which because they 
were the beginnings out of which natural bodies were com- 
posed, were by these naturalists admired and worshipped 
instead of the God of nature. From which a man may 
plainly judge of the beginning and ground of the general 
atheism of philosophers, that it was a superficial knowledge 
of philosophy, the sight of second causes and dwelling on 
them, and being unable to go any higher. For men by 
nature being inclined to acknowledge a Deity, take that to 
be their God which is the highest in their sphere of know- 
_ ledge; or the supremum cognitum which they have attained 
to ; whereas if they had been studious, or able by the depend- 
ence of causes to have proceeded beyond these elements, they 
might possibly, nay, certainly would have been reduced to 
piety and religion, which is εὐσέβεια, θεοσέβεια, “the know- 
ledge and worship of God ;” but there were many hindrances 
which kept them grovelling on the earth, not able to ascend this 
ladder. 1. They wanted that οἰκεία εὐεξία τῆς ψυχῆς, which 
Aphrodisiensis’ on the Topics speaks of, that kindly, fami- 
liar good temper, or disposition of the soul, καθ᾽ ἣν εὑρετική τε 
ἀληθοῦς καὶ κριτική ἐστι; “ by which the mind is able to find 
out-and judge of truth ; they wanted either that natural har- 
mony, or spiritual concord of the powers of the soul, by which 
it is able to reach those things which now in corrupt nature 
are only spiritually discerned. For it is Clement’s4 Chris- 
tian judgment of them, that the Gentiles being but bastards, 
not true-born sons of God, but aliens from the common- [Eph. ii. 
wealth of Israel, were therefore not able to look up toward 12: 
the light, (as it is observed of the bastard-brood of eagles,) or 


m Nub. 264. P (Alex. Aphrodis. in Aristot. To- 

» (Cf. Plato, Phzed. ad fin.} pica, f. 17.] 

* [Clemens Alex. Protrept., § 64. p. 4 [Clemens Alex. Protrept., ch. x. 
57, ed. Potter. | § 92. p. 75. ed. Pott. j 


HAMMOND. 1: l 


514 SERMON XXIV. 

consequently to discern that inaccessible light, till they were 
received into the covenant, and made τέκνα φῶτος γνήσια, 
true proper “children of light.” A second hindrance was 
the grossness and earthiness of their fancy, which was not 
able to conceive God to be any thing but a corporeous sub- 
stance, as Philoponus observes in his Scholia on the books 
de anima", ὅταν θέλωμεν, κιτιλ. “ When we have a mind to 
betake ourselves to divine speculation,” our fancy comes in, 
καὶ θόρυβον κινεῖ, “raises such a tempest” in us, so many 
earthly meteors to clog and over-cloud the soul, that it can- 
not but conceive the Deity under some bodily shape, and this 
disorder of the fancy doth perpetually attend the soul, even 
in the fairest weather, in its greatest calm and serenity of 
affections, ὅταν σχολὴν, K.T.r., Saith Plato, even when the 
soul is free from its ordinary distractions, and hath provided 
itself most accurately for contemplation. Philoponus in this 
place finding this inconvenience, fetches a remedy out of 
Plotinus for this rarifying and purifying of the fancy, and it 
is the study of the mathematics, ἀγέσθωσαν νέοι, x.7.r., “ Let 
young men be brought up in the study of the mathematics,” 
to some acquaintance with an incorporeous nature; but 
how unprofitable a remedy this study of the mathematics 
was, to the purpose of preparing the soul to a right conceit 
of God, I doubt not but he himself afterwards found, when 
he turned Christian, and saw how far their mathematical 
and metaphysical abstractions fell below those purest theolo- 
gical conceits, of which only grace could make him capable. 
So that in brief their understanding being fed by their 
fancies, and both together fattened with corporeous phan- 
tasms, as they increased in natural knowledge, grew more 
hardened in spiritual ignorance, and as Clement® saith of 
them, were like birds crammed in a coop; fed in darkness and 
nourished for death: their gross conceits groping on in ob- 
scurity, and furnishing them only with such opinions of God, 
as should increase both their ignorance and damnation. 
That I bé not too large and confused in this discourse, let us 
pitch upon Aristotle, one of the latest of the ancient philoso- 
phers, not above three hundred and forty years before Christ, 


* [Philoponus, Comment. in Aristot. 5. [Clemens Alex. Protrept., ch. x. 
De Anima, ff. 1, 2. ed. Aldus. ] § 113. p. 87. (ad fin.) Potter. | 


SERMON XXIV. 515 


who therefore seeing the vanities, and making use of the 
helps of all the Grecian learning, may probably be judged to 
have as much knowledge of God as any heathen ; and indeed 
the Cologne divines had such an opinion of his skill and ex- 
pressions that way, that in their tract of Aristotle’s Salvation, 
they define him to be Christ’s precursor in naturalibus, as 
John Baptist was in gratuitis. But in brief, if we examine 
him, we shall find him much otherwise, as stupid in the 
affairs of 1. God, 2. the soul, 3. happiness, as any of his fel- 
low Gentiles. If the book περὶ κόσμου were his own legiti- 
mate work, a man might guess that he saw something, though 
he denied the particular providence of the Deity, and that he 
acknowledged His omnipotence, though he would not be so 
bold with Him as to let Him be busied in the producing of every 
particular sublunary effect. The man might seem somewhat 
tender of God, as if being but newly come acquainted with 
Him he were afraid to put Him to too much pains, as judging 
it μηδὲ καλὸν, K.T.r., “neither comely nor befitting the majesty 
of a God to interest Himself in every action upon earth +” It 
might seem areverence and awe which made him provide the 
same course for God, which he.saw used in the courts of Susa 
and Ecbatana, where the king, saith he, lived invisible in his 
palace, and yet by his officers, as through prospectives and 
otacoustics, saw and heard all that was done in his domini- 
ons. But this book being not of the same complexion with 
the rest of his philosophy, is shrewdly guessed to be a spu- 
rious issue of later times, entitled to Aristotle and translated 
by Apuleius, but not owned by its brethren, the rest of his 
books of philosophy ; for even in the Metaphysics "—where he 
is at his wisest—he censures Xenophanes for a clown for look- 
ing up to heaven, and affirming that there was one God there, 
the cause of all things, and rather than he will credit him he 
commends Parmenides for a subtle fellow, who said nothing 
at all, or I am sure to no purpose. 

Concerning his knowledge of the soul, it is Philoponus’ * 
observation of him, that he persuades only the more under- 
standing, laborious, judicious sort to be his auditors in that 


τ [Pseud-Aristot. De Mundo, c. 6.1 1. cap. 1. ad init. Cf. also Schol. on the 
" [Aristot. Metaph. A. c, ὅ.} Categories, p. 36. b. ed. Berlin. ] 
* (Cf. Com. in Aristot. de Anima, lib. 


Tale? 


516 SERMON XXIV. 


subject, τοὺς δὲ ῥᾳθυμοτέρους ἀποτρέπει, K.T.r., but de- 
horts men of meaner vulgar parts, less intent to their study, 
from meddling at all with this science about the soul, for he 
plainly tells them in his first de anima, it is too hard for any 
ordinary capacity, and yet in the first of the Metaphysics’ he 
defines the wise man to be one who besides his own accu- 
rate knowledge of hard things, as the causes of the soul, &c., 
is also able to teach any body else, who hath such an habit of 
knowledge, and such a command over it, that he can make 
any auditor understand the abstrusest mystery in it. So 
then out of his own words he is convinced to have had no 
skill, no wisdom in the business of the soul, because he could 
not explain nor communicate this knowledge to any but choice 
auditors. The truth is, these were but shifts of pride, and 
ambitious pretences to cloak a palpable ignorance, under the 
habit of mysterious, deep, speculation: when, alas, poor man ! 
all that which he knew, or wrote of the soul, was scarce worth 
learning, only enough to confute his fellow ignorant philoso- 
phers, to puzzle others, to puff himself; but to profit, instruct, 
or edify none. 

In the third place, concerning happiness, he plainly be- 
wrays himself to be a coward, not daring to meddle with 
divinity. For’ being probably given to understand, or rather 
indeed plainly convinced, that if any thing in the world were, 
then happiness must likely be θεόσδοτος, “the gift of God” 
bestowed on men, yet he there staggers at it, speaks scepti- 
cally, and not so magisterially as he is wont, dares not be so 
bold as to define it: and at last does not profess his igno- 
rance, but takes a more honourable course, and puts it off to 
some other place to be discussed. Where Andronicus Rho- 
dius’ Greek paraphrase tells us he meant his tract περὶ προ- 
νοίας, “about Providence :” but in all Laertius’ catalogue of 
the multitude of his writings we find no such title, and I much 
suspect by his other carriages, that the man was not so valiant 
as to deal with any so unwieldy a subject as the providence 
would have proved. Sure I am he might, if he had hada 
mind to it, have quitted himself of his engagements, and 
seasonably enough have defined the fountain of happiness 


y [Aristot. Metaph. A.c. 2.] * (Id., Eth. Nicom., lib. i. ὁ. 10.] 


SERMON XXIV. 517 


there, in Ethics, but in c, 11* it appears that it was no pre- 
termission, but ignorance; not a care of deferring it to a 
fitter place, but a necessary silence where he was not able to 
speak. For there mentioning happiness and miserableness 
after death,—where he might have shewed his skill if he had 
any,—he plainly betrays himself an arrant naturalist in de- 
fining all the felicity and misery “to be the good or ill proof 
of their friends and children left behind them,” which are to 
them being dead, happiness or miseries, ἄλλ᾽ οὐκ αἰσθανο- 
μένοις, “of which they are not any way sensible.” By what 
hath been spoken it is plain that the heathen never looked after 
God of their own accord, but as they were driven upon Him 
by the necessity of their study, which from the second causes 
necessarily lead them in a chain to some view of the first mover, 
and then some of them, either frighted with the light, or de- 
spairing of their own abilities, were terrified and discouraged 
from any further search; some few others sought after Him, 
but, as Aristotle saith the geometer doth after a right line”, 
only, ὡς θεατὴς τἀληθοῦς, “as a contemplator of truth,” 
but not as the knowledge of it is any way useful or condu- 
cible to the ordering or bettering of their lives; they had 
an itching desire to know the Deity, but neither to apply it 
as arule to their actions, nor to order their actions to His 
glory. For generally whensoever any action drove them on 
any subject which intrenched on divinity, you shall find 
them more flat than ordinary, not handling it according to 
any manner of accuracy, or sharpness, but only ἐφ᾽ ὅσον οἰ- 
κεῖον τῇ μεθόδῳ, “ only as much use or as little as their study 
in the search of things constrained them to,” and then for 
the most part they fly off abruptly, as if they were glad to be 
quit of so cumbersome a subject. Whence Aristotle observes °, 
that the whole tract de causis was obscurely and inartificially 
handled by the ancients, and if sometimes they spake to the 
purpose, it was as unskilful, unexercised fencers τύπτουσι κα- 
Aas πληγὰς, they lay on, and sometimes strike a lucky blow or 
two, but more by chance than skill, sometimes letting fall from 
their pens those truths which never entered their understand- 
ings, as Theophilus ad Autolycum* observes of Homer and 


ἃ (Ibid. lib. 1. ο. 1 


1.1 « [Id., Metaph. Δ. c. 4.7 
» (Ibid., lib. ic. 7.] 


1 [ἤτοι yap of ποιηταὶ, Ὅμηρος δὴ καὶ 


518 SERMON XXIV. 


Hesiod, that being inspired by their muses, i.e. the devil, 
spake according to that spirit lies and fables, and exact 
atheism, and yet sometimes would stumble upon a truth of 
divinity, as men possessed with devils did sometimes confess 
Christ, and the evil spirits being adjured by His name, came 
out and confessed themselves to be devils. Thus it is plain 
out of the philosophers and heathen discourses, 1. of God, 
2. the soul, 3. happiness, that they were also ignorant, as 
ignorance is opposed to piety or spiritual wisdom, which was 
to be proved by way of premise in the second place. 

Now in the third place, for the guilt of their ignorance, 
that it was a perverse, gross, malicious, and inexcusable igno- 
rance, you shall briefly judge. Aristotle * being elevated above 
ordinary in his discourse about wisdom, confesses the know- 
ledge of God to be the best knowledge and most honourable 
of all, but of no manner of use or necessity ; ἀναγκαιότεραι, 
x.T.r., “no knowledge is better than this, yet none more un- 
necessary,” as if the evidence of truth made him confess the 
nobility of this wisdom, but his own supine, stupid, perverse 
resolutions made him contemn it as unnecessary. But that 
I may not charge the accusation too hard upon Aristotle 
above others, and take as much pains to damn him as the 
Cologne divines did to save him, we will deal more at large, as 
Aristotle prescribes his wise men‘, and rip up to you the in- 
excusableness of the heathen ignorance in general: 1. by the 
authority of Clemens’, who is guessed to be one of their kind- 
est patrons in his προτρεπτικὸς, where having cited many testi- 
monies out of them, concerning the unity, he concludes thus, 
εἰ yap, «.7.r., “Seeing that the heathen had some sparks of 
the divine truth,” some gleanings out of the written word, and 
yet make so little use of it as they do, they do, saith he, “ shew 
the power of God’s word to have been revealed to them, and 
accuse their own weakness that they did not improve it to the 
end for which it was sent ;” that they increased it not into a 
saving knowledge; where (by the way) the word weakness is 
used by Clement by way of softening, or mercy, as here the 
Apostle useth ignorance, when he might have said impiety. 


Ἡσίοδος, ὥς φασιν, ὑπὸ μουσῶν ἐμπνευ- e ΓΑτβίοί. Metaph. A. ο. 2.] 
σθέντες, φαντασίᾳ καὶ πλάνῃ ἐλάλησαν, f f Ibid. 
καὶ ov καθαρῷ πνεύματι, ἀλλὰ TAGY@.— [Clemens Alex. Protrept., ¢, vii. 


Theophilus 11. 8. [ad cale. S. Justini, ὃ 74. p. 64. ] 
p. 354, C. Paris. 1742.] 


SERMON XXIV. 519 


For sure if the accusation run thus, that the word of God was 
revealed to them, and yet they made no use of it, as it doth 
here in Clemens, the sentence then upon this must needs con- 
clude them, not only ἀσθενεῖς, “ weak,” but perverse contem- 
ners of the light of Scripture. Again, the philosophers them- 
selves confess that ignorance is the nurse, nay, mother of all im- 
piety: πάντα ὅσα πράττουσιν)", x.T.X., “whatsoever an ignorant 
man or fool doth, is unholy and wicked necessarily ;” ignorance 
being μανίας εἶδος, “a species of madness,” and no madman 
being capable of any sober action ; so that if their ignorance 
were in the midst of means of knowledge, then must it be 
perverse; if it had an impure influence upon all their actions, 
then was it malicious and full of guilt. 2. Their chief ground 
that sustained and continued their ignorance, proves it to be 
not blind but affected, which ground you shall find by the 
heathen objection in Clemens’, to be a resolution not to change 
the religion of their fathers. It is an unreasonable thing, 
say the heathens, which they will never be brought to, to 
change the customs bequeathed to them by their ancestors. 
From whence the father solidly concludes, that there was not 
any means in nature which could make the Christian religion 
contemned and hated, but only this pestilent custom, of never 
altering any customs or laws, though never so unreasonable ; 
ov yap ἐμισήθη, K.T.r., “it is not possible that ever any na- 
tion should hate and fly from this greatest blessing that ever 
was bestowed upon mankind,” to wit, the knowledge and wor- 
ship of God, unless being carried on by custom they resolved 
to go the old way to hell, rather than to venture on a new 
path to heaven. Hence it is that Athenagoras * in his Treaty 
with Commodus for the Christians, wonders much that among 
so many laws made yearly in Rome, there was not one enacted 
μὴ στέργειν τὰ πάτρια κἄν γέλοια ἢ), “ that men should forsake 
the customs of their fathers, which were any way absurd.” 
From whence he falls straight to their absurd deities’, as if it 
being made lawful to relinquish ridiculous customs, there 
would be no plea left for their ridiculous gods. So Eusebius™, 


» [Clemens Alex. Protrept., c. xii. init., ὃ 1.] 


§ 122. p. 94. Pott.] 'TIbid., § 1.] 
i [Ibid., 6. x. ad init., p. 73. ad fin. m (Eusebius Prep. Evang., lib. ii. 
Tertull. Apol. ] p. 74. C.] 


* [ Athenag. Leg. pro Christianis, ad 


Acts xvii. 
18. 
Acts xvi. 
PHIIE 


520 SERMON XXIV. 


Prep., lib. 11., makes the cause of the continuance of super- 
stition to be, that no man dared to move those things which 
ancient custom of the country had authorized; and so also in 
his fourth book", where to bring in Christianity was accounted 
κινεῖν τὰ ἀκίνητα, “to change things that were fixed,” καὶ 
πολυπραγμονεῖν, K.T.r., “and to be pragmatical,” friends of 
innovation ; and so it is plain they esteemed St. Paul, and 
hated him in that name, as an innovator, because he preached 
unto.them “Jesus and the resurrection,” Acts xvii. 18. So 
Acts xvi. 21, St. Paul is said to teach “ customs which were 
not lawful for them to receive nor observe, being Romans,” 
because, saith Casaubon out of Dio, it was not lawful 
for the Romans to innovate any thing in religion, for saith 
Dio®, “this bringing in of new gods will bring in new laws 
with it.” So that if—as hath been proved—their not ac- 
knowledging of the true God was grounded upon a perverse 
resolution not to change any custom of their fathers, either 
in opinion or practice, though never so absurd, then was the 
ignorance—or as St. Paul might have called it, the idolatry — 
of those times, impious, affected ; not a natural blindness, but 
a pertinacious winking; not a simple deafness, but a resolved 
stubbornness not to hear the voice of the charmer; which we 
might further prove by shewing you, thirdly, how their learn- 
ing or πολυμαθία, which might be proved an excellent prepa- 
rative to religion, their philosophy, which was to them as the 
law to the Jews, by their using of it to a perverse end, grew 
ordinarily very pernicious to them. 4. How that those which 
knew most, and were at the top of profane knowledge, did 
then fall most desperately headlong into atheism; as Hippo- 
crates observes, that ἀθλητικὴ ἕξις, and St. Basil”, that ἡ ἐπ’ 
ἄκρον εὐεξία, “the most perfect constitution of body,” so of 
the soul, is most dangerous, if not sustained with good care 
and wisdom. 5. How they always forged lies to scandal the 
people of God, as Manetho the famous Egyptian historian 
saith, that Moses and the Jews were banished out of Egypt, 
διὰ λέπραν, “because of an infectious leprosy” that over- 
spread the Jews, as Theophilus@ cites it, and Justin out of 


bid., lib. iv. p. 130. C.] hom. ix. Op., tom. i. p. 83. D.] 
sf. supr., p. 380. ] a Theophilus ad Autolye., lib. iii. 


n [1 
ο [ ( 
Ρ [S. Basil. Cf. e.g. In Hexameron, ὃ 21. [p. 392. E, sq. ad cale. S. Just.} 


SERMON XXIV. 521 


Trogus", and also Tacitus; and the primitive Christians were 
branded and abomined by them for three special faults which 
they were little likely to be guilty of: 1. Atheism, 2. Eating 
their children, 3. Incestuous, common using of women, as we 
find them set down and confuted by Athenagoras in his Treaty 
or Apology’, and Theophilus‘, ad Autol. το. 6. By their own 
confession, as of Plato to his friend, when he wrote in earn- 
est, and secretly acknowledging the unity which he openly 
denied against his conscience and the light of reason in 
him; and Orpheus the inventor of the πολυθεότης, pro- 
fessing and worshipping three hundred and sixty-five gods 
all his life-time, at his death left in his will ἕνα εἶναι 
θεὸν ", that, however he had persuaded them all the while, 
there was indeed but one God. And lastly, how these two 
affections in them, admiration and gratitude; admiration 
of men of extraordinary worth, and gratitude for more 
than ordinary benefactions done either to particular men 
or nations, were the chief promoters of idolatry; making 
the heathens worship them as gods, whom they were ac- 
quainted with, and knew to be but men, as might be proved 
variously and at large. If I could insist upon any or each of 
these, it would be most evident, what I hope now at last is 
proved enough, that the ignorance of those times was not sim- 
ple, blind ignorance, but malign, perverse, sacrilegious, affected, 
stubborn, wilful*, I had almost said, knowing ignorance in 
them; which being the thing we first promised to demonstrate, 
we must next make up the proposition which is yet imper- 
fect, to wit, that ignorance in these heathen, in God’s jus- 
tice, might have provoked Him to have pretermitted the 
whole world of succeeding Gentiles, which I must dispatch 
only in a word, because I would fain to descend to applica- 
tion, which I intended to be the main, but the improvident 
expense of my time hath now left only to be the close of 
my discourse. 


The ignorance of those times being of this composition, both 


τ [Justin. xxxvi. 2. Tacit. Hist.v.3.] πέντε θεοὶ, ods αὐτὸς ἐπὶ τέλει τοῦ βίου 
5. |Athenag. Leg. pro Christianis, ἀθετεῖ, ed ταῖς διαθήκαις αὐτοῦ λέγων 
§ 3. ἕνα εἶναι Oedbv.—bid., lib. iii. § 2. p. 
‘ [Theophilus ad Autolyc, lib. iii, 381 C.] 
δὲ +, 5. p. 382. E, sq. ] x [S. Chrysost. in Matt. Hom. i. ὃ 
“ [ἢ Ὀρφέα οἱ τριακόσιοι ἑξήκοντα 5. Op., tom. vii. p. 10 sq.] 


Acts x. 


ver. 16. 


ver. 15. 


ver. 34. 


ver. 45. 


Eph. iii. 9, 
10. 


522 SERMON XXIV. 


in respect of the superstition of their worship, which was per- 
verse, as hath been proved, and the profaneness of their lives, 
being abominable even to nature—as might farther be shewed 
—is now no longer to be called ignorance, but profaneness, 
and a profaneness so epidemical over all the Gentiles, so in- 
bred and naturalized among them, that it was even become 
their property, radicated in their mythical times, and by con- 
tinual succession derived down to them by their generations. 
So that if either a natural man with the eye of reason, or a 
spiritual man by observation of God’s other acts of justice, 
should look upon the Gentiles in that state which they were 
in at Christ’s coming, all of them damnable superstitious, or 
rather idolatrous in their worship ; all of them damnable pro- 
fane in their lives; and which was worse, all of them peremp- 
torily resolved, and by a law of homage to the customs of 
their fathers necessarily engaged to continue in the road of 
damnation; he would certainly give the whole succession of 
them over as desperate people, infinitely beyond hopes or 
probability of salvation. And this may appear by St. Peter 
in the tenth of the Acts, where this very thing, that the Gen- 
tiles should be called, was so incredible a mystery, that he 
was fain to be cast into a trance, and to receive a vision to 
interpret it to his belief: and a first or a second command 
could not persuade him “to arise, kill, and eat,” that is, to 
preach to Gentiles ; he was still objecting the τὸ κοινὸν καὶ 
ἀκάθαρτον, “the profaneness and uncleanness of them.” And 
at last, when by the assurance of the Spirit, and the heathen 
Cornelius’s discourse with him, he was plainly convinced, 
what otherwise he never dreamt possible, that God had a 
design of mercy on the Gentiles, he breaks out into a phrase 
both of acknowledgment and admiration, “ Of a truth I per- 
ceive,” &c.; and that you may not judge it was one single 
doctor’s opinion, it is added, “ And they of the circumcision 
which believed were astonished, because that on the Gentiles 
also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost.” Nay, in 
the third to the Ephesians, verse 10, it is plain that the call- 
ing of the Gentiles was so strange a thing, that the angels 
themselves knew not of it till it was effected. “For this 
was the mystery which from the beginning of the world 
had been hid in God, which was now made known by the 


SERMON XXIV. 525 


Church to principalities and powers.”’ The brief plain mean- 
ing of which hard place is, that by St. Paul’s preaching to 
the Gentiles, by this new work done in the Church, to wit, 
the calling of the Gentiles, the angels came to understand 
somewhat which was before too obscure for them, till it was 
explained by the event, and in it the manifold wisdom of 
God. And this proposition I might prove to you by many 
topics ; 1. by symptoms that their estate was desperate, and 
their disease ὀλέθριον κάρτα λίαν, “very, very mortal ;” as 
that God, when He would mend a people, He punisheth 
them with afflictions, when He intends to stop a current of 
impetuous sinners, He lays the axe to the root, in a πανω- 
λεθρία or total subversion of them; but when His punish- 
ments are spiritual, as they were here, when He strikes nei- 
ther with the rod nor with the sword, but makes one sin the 
punishment of another, as unnatural lust of idolatry and the 
like; when He leaves a nation to itself, and the very judg- 
ment laid upon them makes them only less capable of mercy ; 
then is it much to be feared that God hath little mercy in- 
tended for that people, their desertion being a forerunner of 
judgment without mercy. 2. I might prove it ab exemplo, 
and that exactly with a nec datur dissimile in Scripture, that 
the nine monarchies which the learned observe in Scripture, 
were each of them destroyed for idolatry, in which sin the 
heathen now received to mercy, surpass all the precedent 
world, and for all their many destructions, still uniformly 
continued in their provocation. ‘These and the like argu- 
ments I purposely omit, as conceiving St. Peter’s vision 
mentioned before out of the tenth of the Acts sufficiently 
to clear the point, and therefore judging any further en- 
largement of proofs superfluous, I hasten with full speed to 
application. 

And, first, from the consideration of our estate, who being 
the offspring of those Gentiles, might in the justice of God 
have been left to heathenism, and in all probability, till St. 
Peter’s vision discovered the contrary, were likely to have 
been pretermitted eternally ; to make this both the motive 
and business of our humiliation; for there is such a Christian 
duty required of us, for which we ought to set apart some 
tithe, or other portion of time, in which we are to call our- 


524 SERMON XXIV. 


selves to an account for all the general guilts, for all those 
more catholic engagements that either our stock, our nation, 
the sins of our progenitors back to the beginning of the world, 
nay, the common corruption of our nature hath plunged us 
in. To pass by that ranker guilt of actual sins,—for which 
I trust every man here hath daily some solemn assizes to 
arraign himself,—my text will afford us yet some further 
indictments; if seventeen hundred years ago our father 
were then an Amorite, and mother an Hittite, if we being 
then in their loins, were inclosed in the compass of their 
idolatry ; and as all in Adam, so besides that we again in 
the gentilism of our fathers, were all deeply plunged in a 
double common damnation ; how are we to humble ourselves 
infinitely above measure; to stretch, and rack, and torture 
every power of our souls to its extent, thereby to enlarge 
and aggravate the measure of this guilt against ourselves, 
which hitherto perhaps we have not taken notice of? There 
is not a better μαλακτικὸν in the world, no more powerful 
medicine for the softening of the soul, and keeping it in a 
Christian tenderness, than this lading it with all the burdens 
that its common or private condition can make it capable οἵ; 
this tiring of it out, and bringing it down into the dust in the 
sense of its spiritual engagements. For it is impossible for 
him, who hath fully valued the weight of his general guilts, 
each of which hath lead enough to sink the most corky, vain, 
fluctuating, proud, stubborn heart in the world; it is impos- 
sible, I say, for him either wilfully to run into any actual 
sins, or insolently to hold up his head in the pride of his in- 
tegrity. This very one meditation, that we all here might 
justly have been left in heathenism, and that the sins of the 
heathens shall be imputed to us their children, if we do not 
repent, is enough to loosen the toughest, strongest spirit, to 
melt the fiintiest heart, to humble the most elevated soul, to 
habituate it with such a sense of its common miseries, that 
it shall never have courage or confidence to venture on the 
danger of particular rebellions. 

2. From the view of their ignorance or impiety, which was 
of so heinous importance, to examine ourselves by their in- 
dictment, 1. for our learning; 2. for our lives; 3. for the life of 
grace in us. 1. For our learning, whether that be not mixed 


SERMON XXIV. 525 


with a great deal of atheistical ignorance, with a delight, and 
acquiescence, and contentation in those lower elements, which 
have nothing of God in them; whether we have not sacri- 
ficed the liveliest and sprightfulest part of our age and souls 
in these philological and physical disquisitions, which if they 
have not a perpetual aspect and aim at divinity, if they be not 
set upon in that respect, and made use of to that purpose, κάρ- 
ta βλάπτει, saith Clement ¥, their best friend, they are very 
hurtful and of dangerous issue; whether out of our circle of 
human heathen learning, whence the fathers produced pre- 
cious antidotes, we have not sucked the poison of unhallowed 
vanity, and been fed either to a pride and ostentation of our 
secular, or a satiety or loathing of our theological learning, 
as being too coarse and homely for our quainter palates ; 
whether our studies have not been guilty of those faults 
which cursed the heathen knowledge, as trusting to our- 
selves, or wit and good parts, like the philosophers in Athe- 
nagoras *, οὐ παρὰ Θεοῦ, x.T.X., “ not vouchsafing to be taught 
by God” even in matters of religion, but every man con- 
sulting, and believing, and relying on his own reason; 
again, in making our study an instrument only to satisfy 
our curiosity, ὡς τἀληθοῦς θεαταὶ, only as speculators of 
some unknown truths, not intending or desiring thereby 
either to promote virtue, good works, or the kingdom of 
God in ourselves, or which is the ultimate end—which only 
commends and blesses our study or knowledge—the glory 
of God in others. 

2. In our lives, to examine whether there are not also 
many relics of heathenism, altars erected to Baalim, to Ce- 
res, to Venus, and the like; whether there be not many 
amongst us whose god is their belly, their back, their lust, 
their treasure, or that ἄγνωστος θεὸς, that earthly unknowr 
god (whom we have no one name for, and therefore is 
called at large) the god of the world; whether we do not 
with as much zeal, and earnestness, and cost, serve and wor- 
ship many earthy vanities which our own fancies deify for us, 
as ever the heathen did their multitude and shoal of gods; 
and in brief, whether we have not found in ourselves the sins, 


Y [Cf Strom. i. c. 6. § 36. p. 337. ed. Pott. ] 
* Athenag. Legat. pro Christianis. [ὃ 7. p. 285. A.] 


526 SERMON XXIV. 


as well as the blood of the Gentiles, and acted over some or 
all the abominations, set down to judge ourselves by, Rom. i. 
from the 21st verse to the end. 

Lastly, for the life of grace in us, whether many of us are 
not as arrant heathens, as mere strangers from spiritual illu- 
mination, and so from the mystical commonwealth of Israel, 
as any of them; Clemens ?*, Strom. 11. calls the life of your un- 
regenerate man a heathen life, and the first life we have by 
which we live, and move, and grow, and see, but understand 
nothing; and it is our regeneration by which we raise our- 
selves ἐξ ἐθνῶν, “ from being still mere Gentiles :”” and Tati- 
anus », further, that without the spirit we differ from beasts 
only κατ᾽ ἔναρθον φωνὴν, “by the articulation of our voice.” 
So that in fine, neither our reason, nor Christian profession, 
distinguisheth us either from beasts or Gentiles, only the 
Spirit is the formalis ratio by which we excel and differ from 
the heathen sons of darkness. Wherefore, I say, to conclude, 
we must in the clearest calm and serenity of our souls make 
a most earnest search and inquest on ourselves, whether we 
are yet raised out of this heathenism, this ignorance, this un- 
regeneracy of nature, and elevated any degree im the estate 
of grace; and if we find ourselves still Gentiles, and—which 
is worse than that—still senseless of that our condition, we 
must strive, and work, and pray ourselves out of it, and not 
suffer the temptations of the flesh, the temptations of our 
nature, the temptations of the world, nay, the tempta- 
tions of our secular, proud learning, lull us one minute 
longer in that carnal security, lest after a careless unregene- 
rate natural life, we die the death of those bold, not vigilant, 
but stupid philosophers. And for those of us who are yet 
any way heathenish, either in our learning or lives; which 
have nothing but the name of Christians to exempt us from 
the judgment of their ignorance; “O Lord, make us in time 
sensible of this our condition, and whensoever we shall hum- 
ble ourselves before Thee, and confess unto Thee the sinful- 
ness of our nature, the ignorance of our ancestors, and every 
man the plague of his own heart, and repent and turn, and 
pray toward Thy house, then hear Thou in heaven Thy dwell- 


* (Clemens Alex. Strom., lib. ii. ο. 13. p. 459. ] 
» Or. ο. Grecos, ὃ 15. [p. 256. D. ad eale. S. Just. ] 


SERMON XXIV. δ27 


ing-place, and when Thou hearest forgive; remember not our 

offences, nor the offences of our heathen fathers, neither take 

Thou vengeance of our sins, but spare us, O Lord, spare Thy 

people whom Thy Son hath redeemed, and Thy Spirit shall 

sanctify, from the guilt and practice of their rebellions.” 
Now to God, who hath elected us, hath, &c. 


SERMON XXV. 


Acrs xvii. 30. 


And the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now 
commandeth alt men every where to repent. 


* Tuxy which come from either mean or dishonoured progeni- 
tors, will desire to make up their fathers’ defect by their own 
industry, φιλοκινδυνότεροι γίνονται, saith Leo in his Tactics 4, 
will be more forward to undertake any valiant enterprize, to 
recover that reputation, which their ancestors’ cowardice and 
unworthy carriage forfeited. So doth it nearly concern the 
son of a bankrupt to set upon all the courses of thrift, and 
stratagems of frugality, to get out of that hereditary poverty 
in which his father’s improvidence had engaged him. Thus 
is it also in the poverty and bankrupt estate of the soul; 
they who come from prodigal ancestors, which have em- 
bezzled all the riches of God’s mercy, spent profusely all the 
light of nature, and also some sparks out of the Scriptures, 
and whatsoever knowledge and directions they meet with, 
either for the ordering of their worship, or their lives, spent 
it all upon harlots, turned all into the adoring of those idol- 
gods, wherein consists the spiritual adultery of the soul; 
those I say who are the stems of this ignorant, profane, 
idolatrous root, ought to endeavour the utmost of their 
powers, and will, in probability, be so wise and careful as 
to lay some strict obligations on themselves, to strive to 
some perfection in those particulars which their ancestors 
failed in; that if the Gentiles were perversely blind, and 
resolutely, peremptorily ignorant, then must their progeny 
strive to wipe off the guilt and avoid the punishment of their 


δ [Leo Imperator, Tactica, cap. ii. § 24. ap. Meursium. Op., tom. vi. p. 549. ] 


SERMON ΧΧΥ. 529 


ignorance. Now this ignorance of theirs being not only by 
Clemens and the fathers, but by Trismegistus in his Paema.i- 
der”, defined to be μέθη καὶ ἀσέβεια καὶ ὕπνος ἄλογος, “a 
profaneness, an irrational sleep, and drunkenness of the soul ;” 
in sum, an ignorance of themselves and of God, and a stupid 
neglect of any duty belonging to either; this ignorance being 
either in itself or in its fruits κακία τῆς ψυχῆς “, “the wicked- 
ness of the soul,” and all manner of transgression; the only 
way for us, the successors of these ignorant Gentiles, to repair 
those ruins, to renew the image of God in ourselves, which 
their idolatrous ignorance defaced, must be to take the oppo- 
site course to them, and to provide our remedy anti-parallel 
to their disease, i.e., in respect of their simple ignorance, 
to labour for knowledge; in respect of the effects of their 
ignorance, idolatry, profaneness, and all manner of wicked- 
ness, to labour for piety and repentance; briefly, if their 
ignorance of God was an heinous sin, and virtually all kind 
of sin, then to esteem repentance the greatest knowledge, to 
approve and second the force and method of St. Paul’s argu- 
ment, to prescribe ourselves whatever God commands. For 
so here in this chapter, having discoursed over their igno- 
rance, he makes that a motive of our repentance, and that 
backed with a special item from God, who now “commands 
every man every where to repent.” 

We have heretofore divided these words, and in them handled 
already the ignorance of the ancient heathen, which in the 
justice of God might have provoked Him to have pretermitted 
the whole world of succeeding Gentiles. We now come to 
the second part, the mercy of God, not imputing their igno- 
rance to our charge, whosoever every where to the end of the 
world shall repent. And in this you must consider, first, 
God’s covenant made with the Gentiles, or the receiving 
them into the Church, deduced out of these words, “but 
now commands,” for all to whom God makes known His 
commands, are by that very cognizance known to be parts 
of His Church; and with all these He enters covenant, He 

> [ὦ λαοὶ, ἄνδρες γηγενεῖς, of μέθῃ 110. ii. prope finem. 
καὶ ὕπνῳ ἑαυτοὺς ἐκδεδωκότες, καὶ τῇ © Pomander, lib. iv. [p. 10; ap- 
ἀγνωσίᾳ τοῦ θεοῦ, νήψατε, παύσασθε pendedtothe Nova De Universis Phi- 


κραιπαλῶντες, θελγόμενοι ὕπνῳ ἀλόγῳ.) losophia of Patricius. Venice, 1593. | 
— Hermes Trismegistus, Pcemander, 


HAMMOND, Mm 


530 SERMON XXV. 


promiseth salvation upon performance of the condition re- 
quired by His commands—repentance. Secondly, the con- 
dition itself, in the last words, “to repent.” And then lastly 
the extent of both; the latitude of the persons with whom 
this covenant is made, and from whom this condition is ex- 
acted, ‘all men every where.” And first of the first, the 
covenant made with the Gentiles, or the receiving them into 
the Church, noted in these words, “ but now commands,” &e. 

It is observable in our common affairs, that we do not use 
to lay our commands on any but those who have some relation 
to us; a king will not vouchsafe to employ any in any pecu- 
liar service but those whom he hath entertained, and by 
oath admitted into his court. And it is the livery by which 
one is known to belong to such a family, if he be employed 
in either common or special service by the master of it. To 
express it more generally, they are called natural members 
of a kingdom, who are tied to obedience to all laws or cus- 
toms national, who are engaged in the common burdens as 
well as privileges, the services as well as benefits of a sub- 
ject. The ecclesiastical canons are meant and exhibited only 
to those, who are either in truth or profession parts of the 
Church; the Turk or infidel professed is not honoured so 
much as to be bound to them. The orders and peculiar laws 
of a city or country are directed to those who are either cives 
or civitate donatt ; and our oaths and obligations to these, or 
these local collegiate statutes, argue us, dvaxpitixas, to be 
members of this or that foundation. Now to whomsoever 
these laws and commands do belong, whosoever is thus en- 
tertained and admitted into services, is partaker also of all 
advantages which belong to a member of a family; and is 
by covenant to receive all emoluments in as ample a man- 
ner as any other of his quality. And this, briefly, is the state 
of the Gentiles here in the text, who, in that God commands 
them here to repent—which is the law and condition of the 
New Testament—are judged upon these grounds to be re- 
ceived into the covenant of the New Testament; and conse- 
quently made members of the Church. For as once it was 
an argument that only Jewry was God’s people, because they 
only received His commands, and the heathen had not know- 
ledge of His laws; so now was it as evident a proof that the 


SERMON XXV. 531 


heathen were received into His Church, 1. 6. into the number 
of those whom He had culled out for salvation, because He 
made known His ordinances to them, entertained them in 
His service, and commanded them “ every one every where to 
repent.” Appian“ observes in his procem to his History, that 
the Romans were very coy in taking some nations into their 
dominions ; they could not be persuaded by every one to be 
their lords; he saw himself many ambassadors from the bar- 
barians, who came solemnly to give themselves up to the 
Roman greatness, ambitious to be received into the number 
of their dominions, καὶ οὐ δεξάμενον βασιλέα, “and the 
king would not receive such low unprofitable servants.” It 
was esteemed a preferment, which it seems every nation 
could not attain to, to be under the Roman government, 
and commanded by the Roman laws; and there were many 
reasons, if we may judge by the outside, why the Gentiles 
should not be hkely to obtain this privilege from God, to 
be vouchsafed His commands. For 1. they had been neazled 5 
up in so many centuries of ignorance, they had been so 
starved with thin hard fare, under the tyranny of a continued 
superstition, which gave them no solid nourishment, nothing 
but husks and acorns to feed on, that they were now grown 
horrid and almost ghastly, being past all amiableness or 
beauty, és οὐδὲν χρήσιμοι, “ good for nothing” in the world. 
We 866 in histories that perpetual wars hinder tillage, and 
suffer them not to bestow that culture on the ground which 
the subsistence of the kingdom requires. Thus was it with 
the Gentiles in the time of their θεομάχία, their hostility with 
God; they generally bestowed no trimming or culture on the 
soul, either to improve or adorn it; and then, receiving no 
spiritual food from God, all passages being shut up by their 
idolatry, they were famished into such a meagreness, they 
were so ungainly and crest-fallen, that all the fat kine of 
Egypt according to Pharaoh’s dream, all heathen learning 
could not mend their looks, they were still for all their 
philosophy, like the lean kine that had devoured the 
fat, yet thrived not on it; they were still poor and ill- 


4 [ Appian, Hist. Rom. Prefat. § 7. tle,no doubt. The same in Cheshire W., 
tom. i. p. 8. ed. Schweigh. ] and in other counties probably.--Moor’s 

ὁ [Neezle, Imsinuating oneself into Suffolk Words and Phrases, p. 246. So 
something snug or desirable—fromnes- neezing for nesting. Ibid. } 


Mm 2 


Gen. xli. 
19. 


John 
xviii. 21. 
Matt. xx. 
19. 


532 SERMON XXV. 


favoured, “such as were not to be seen in all the land of 
Jewry for badness.” 

2. They had engaged themselves in such a course that 
they could scarce seem ever capable of being received into any 
favour with God. Polybius* observes it as a policy of those 
which were delighted in stirs and wars, to put the people 
upon some inhuman, cruel practice, some killing of ambas- 
sadors, or the like feat, which was unlawful even amongst 
enemies, that after such an action the enemy should be in- 
censed beyond hope of reconciliation. So did Asdrubal in 
Appian‘ use the captive Romans with all possible cruelty, 
with all arts of inhumanity, flayed them, cut off their fingers, 
and then hanged them alive; to the end, saith he, that 
thereby he might make the dissensions of Carthage and 
Rome ἀδιάλλακτα, not possibly to be composed, but to be 
prosecuted with a perpetual hostility. This was the effect 
of Ahitophel’s counsel to Absalom, that he should lie with 
his father’s concubines; and this also was the devil’s plot 
upon the Gentilés, who, as if they were not enough enemies 
unto God for the space of two thousand years’ idolatry, at 
last resolved to fill up the measure of their rebellions, to 
make themselves, if it were possible, sinful beyond capability 
of mercy; and to provoke God to an eternal revenge, they 
must needs join in crucifying Christ, and partake of the 
shedding of that blood, which hath ever since so dyed the 
souls, and cursed the successions of the Jews. For it is 
plain, 1. by the kind of His death, which was Roman; 2. by 
His judge, who was Cesaris rationalis, by whom Judza was 
then governed ; or, as Tacitus saith in the 15th of his Annals §, 
Czsar’s procurator ; all capital judgments being taken from 
the Jews’ Sanhedrim, as they confess, “it is not lawful for 
us to put any one to death ;” 3. by the prophecy, “ They shall 
deliver Him to the Gentiles;” by these, 1 say, and many 
other arguments, it is plain that the Gentiles had their part 
and guilt in the crucifying of Christ, and so by slaying of the 
Son, as it is in the parable, provoked and deserved the im- 
placable revenge of the Father. And yet for all this, God 
enters league, and truce, and peace with them, thinks them 
worthy to hear and obey His laws; nay, above the estate of 


€ [Polyb. i. 70.] cis, c. cxviii. ed. Schweigh.] ὁ 
* | Appian, lib. viii; De Reb. Puni- & Tacitus, Annal. xv. [c. 44.] 


SERMON XXV. bod 


servants, takes them into the liberty and free estate of the 

gospel, and by binding them to ordinances as citizens, ex- 
presseth them to be civitate donatos cewlesti, within the pale 

of the Church, and covenant of salvation. ‘They which are 
overcome and taken captives in war, may by law be possessed 

by the victor for all manner of servitude and slavery, and 
therefore ought to esteem any the hardest conditions of 

peace and liberty as favours and mercies, ἐν χάριτι καὶ δω- 

ped λαμβάνειν, saith Marcus in Polybius"; they which are 
conquered must acknowledge themselves beholden to the 

victor, if he will upon any terms allow them quarter or truce. 

Thus was it above all other sinners with the Gentiles of that 

time; after two thousand years’ war with the one God, they 

were now fallen into His hands, ready to receive the sorest 
strokes, to bear the shrewdest burdens He could lay on 

them; had it not been then a favour above hope, to be re- 

ceived even as hired servants, which was the highest of the 
prodigal’s ambition? had it not been a very hospitable car- Luke xv. 
riage towards the dogs, as they are called, to suffer them to Rees =a 
lick up those “ crumbs which fell from the children’s table ?” 26. 

Yet so much are God’s mercies above the pitch of our ex- 
pectation or deserts, above what we are able or confident 
enough to ask or hope, that He hath assumed and adopted 

these captives into sons. And as once by the counsel of God 

Jacob supplanted Esau, and thrust him out of his birth-right, 

so now by the mercy of God, Esau hath supplanted Jacob, 

and taken his room in God’s Church and favour; and instead 

of that one language of the Jews, of which the Church so 

long consisted, now is come in the confusion of the Gentiles, 
Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and the Babel of tongues. And Acts ii. 9. 
as once at the dispersion of the Gentiles by the miracle of a 
punishment, they which were all of one tongue could not un- 
derstand one another, so now at the gathering of the Gen- Gen. xi. 9. 
tiles by a miracle of mercy’, they which were of several tongues 
understood one another, and every “nation heard the Apo- Acts ii. 6. 
stles speak in their own language;” noting thereby, saith 
Austin, that the Catholic Church should be dispersed over 

all nations, and speak in as many languages as the world 


» [Polybius, lib. i. c. 31. ὃ 6.] apud S, Leonis Opera, tom. ii. p. 225. 
' S. Leo Magn. [vide librum de Vo- This treatise is more probably to be as- 
catione omnium Gentium, Jib. ii, c.xiv. signed to 5. Prosper. | 


Hos. i. 11. 


Isa. liv. 1. 


10, 


Acts x. 


534 SERMON XXV. 


hath tongues. Concerning the business of receiving the 
Gentiles into covenant, St. Austin is plentiful in his 18th 
book de Civit. Dei*, where he interprets the symbolical writ- 
ing, and reads the riddles of the prophets to this purpose, 
how they are called “the children of Israel,” as if Esau had 
robbed Jacob of his name as well as inheritance; that they 
are declared by the title of “barren and desolate,” whose 
fruitfulness should break forth, surpass the number of the 
children of the married wife!. To this purpose doth he en- 
large himself to expound many other places of the prophets, 
and among them the prophecy of Obadiah, from which— 
Edom by a pars pro toto signifying the Gentiles—he expressly 
concludes their calling and salvation™; but how that can hold 
in that place, seeing the whole prophecy is a denunciation of 


Obad. ver. judgments against Edom, and it is expressly read, “ For thy 


violence against thy brother Jacob, shame shall cover thee, 
and thou shalt be cut out for ever;” how, I say, from that 
place, amongst others, this truth may be deduced, I leave to 
the revealers of revelations, and that undertaking sort of peo- 
ple, the peremptory expounders of depths and prophecies. In 
the meantime we have places enough of plain prediction he- 
yond the uncertainty of a guess, which distinctly foretold this 
blessed catholic truth, and though Peter had not marked or 
remembered them so exactly, as to understand that by them 
the Gentiles were to be preached to, and no longer to be ac- 
counted profane and unclean, yet it is more than probable that 
the devil, a great contemplator, and well seen in prophecies, 
observed so much; and, therefore, knowing Christ’s coming to 
be the season for fulfilling it, about that time drooped and sen- 
sibly decayed; lost much of his courage, and was not so ac- 
tive amongst the Gentiles as he had been; his oracles began to 
grow speechless, and to slink away beforehand, lest tarrying 
still they should have been turned out with shame. Which 
one thing, the ceasing of oracles, though it be by Plutarch”, 
and some other of the devil’s champions, referred plausibly to 
the change of the soil, and failing of enthusiastical vapours 
and exhalations; yet was it an evident argument that at 


k [S. Aug. De Civit. Dei, lib. xviii. = [Ibid., cap. 31.] 
cap. 28. Op., tom. vii. p. 509. ] » [Plutarch., de Defectu Oracul., 
* [Ibid., cap. 29.] Op., tom. vii. p. 704, sq. Reisk. ] 


SERMON XXV. 530 


Christ’s coming Satan saw the Gentiles were no longer fit 

for his turn, they were to be received into a more honourable 

service under the living God, necessarily to be impatient of 

the weight and slavery of his superstitions, and therefore it 
concerned him to prevent violence with a voluntary flight, 

lest otherwise he should with all his train of oracles have been 

forced out of their coasts; for Lucifer was to vanish like 
lightning, when the “light to lighten the Gentiles” did but pucks ii, 
begin to appear; and his laws were outdated when God would © 

once be pleased to command. Now that, in a word, we may 

more clearly see what calling, what entering into covenant 

with the Gentiles, is here meant by God’s commanding them, 

we are to rank the commands of God into two sorts, 1, com- 

mon catholic commands, and these extend as far as the visible 
Church; 2, peculiar commands, inward operations of the 

Spirit, these are both privileges and characters, and properties 

of the invisible Church, i.e. the elect, and in both these re- 

spects doth He vouchsafe His commands to the Gentiles. In 

the first respect God hath His louder trumpets, σάλπιγγος Matt. xxiv. 
φωνὴν μεγάλην, which all acknowledge who are in the noise oF 

of it, and that is the sound of the gospel, the hearing of 

which constitutes a visible Church. And thus at the preach- 

ing of the gospel, εἰς πάντα ἔθνη, all the heathens had know- 

ledge of His laws, and so were offered the covenant if they 

would accept the condition. For however that place, Acts 1. Acts i. 25. 
25, be by one of our writers of the Church wrested, by chang- 
ing—that I say not, by falsifying—the punctuation, to wit- 

ness this truth, I think we need not such shifts to prove that 

God took some course by the means of the ministry and 
apostleship, to make known to all nations under heaven, 1. 6. 

to some of all nations, both His gospel and commands; “the Rom. x. 
sound of it went through all the earth,” Rom. x. 18, cited out 18 

of Psalm xix. 4, though with some change of a word, their Ps. xix. 4. 
“sound” in the Romans, for their “line” in the Psalmist— 

caused by the Greek translators, who either read and rendered 

nbyp for np, or else laid hold of the Arabic notion of the word, 

the loud noise and clamour which hunters make in their pur- 

suit and chase. So Mark xiv. 9, “This Gospel shall be Mark xiv. 
preached throughout the world ;” so Mark xvi. 15, “to every δὲ ΣΎ ΤΟ: 


Tatt. δ 
creature ;” Matt. xxiv. 14, “in all the world,” and many the 14. ie: 


Acts ii. 39. 


536 SERMON XXV. 

like, as belongs to our last particular to demonstrate. Besides 

this, God had in the second respect His vocem pedissequam, 

which the prophet mentions, a voice attending us to tell us 

of our duty, to shew us the way, and accompany us therein. 

And this, I say, sounds in the heart, not in the ear, and they 

only hear and understand the voice, who are partakers as well 

of the effect as of the news of the covenant. Thus in these 

two respects doth He command—by His word in the ears of 
the Gentiles, by giving every man every where knowledge of 
His laws; and so in some Latin authors ὃ mandare signifies to 

give notice, to express one’s will, to declare or proclaim; and 

thus, secondly, doth He command by His Spirit in the spirits 

of the elect Gentiles, by giving them the benefit of adoption ; 

and in both these respects He enters a covenant with the 

Gentiles—which was the thing to be demonstrated—with the 

whole name of them at large, with some choice vessels of them 

more nearly and peculiarly ; and this was the thing which by 

way of doctrine we collected out of these words, “but now 

commands.” Now that we may not let such a precious truth 

pass by unrespected, that such an important speculation may 
not float only in our brains, we must by way of application ~ 
press it down to the heart, and fill our spirits with the com- 
fort of that doctrine, which hath matter for our practice, as 
well as our contemplation. For if we do but lay to our 
thoughts, 1. the miracle of the Gentiles’ calling—as hath 
been heretofore and now insisted on—and 2. mark how 
nearly the receiving of them into covenant concerns us their 
successors, we shall find real motives to provoke us to a 
strain and key above ordinary thanksgiving. For as Peter 
spake of God’s promise, so it is in the like nature of God’s 
command—which is also virtually a promise—it belonged 
not to them only, but it is “to you and your children, and 
to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God 
shall call.” From the first, the miracle of their calling, our 
gratitude may take occasion much to enlarge itself. It is 
storied of Brasidas in the fourth of Thucydides”, that imput- 
ing the victory which was somewhat miraculous to some 
more than ordinary human cause, he went presently to the 
temple loaded with offerings, and would not suffer the gods 


° Justin, lib. xxiv. cap. 2. P [ Thucyd. iv. 116.] 


SURMON XXV. 537 


to bestow such an unexpected favour on him unrewarded ; 
and can we pass by such a mercy of our God without a spiri- 
tual sacrifice, without a daily anthem of magnificats and hal- 
lelujahs ? Herodotus 4 observes it is as a proverb of Greece, 
that if God would not send them rain, they were to famish ; 
for they had, said he, no natural fountains, or any other help 
of waters, ὅτε μὴ ἐκ τοῦ Διὸς μοῦνον, but what God from 
above sent. So saith Thucydides" in the fourth of his His- 
tory, there was but one fountain within a great compass, and 
that none of the biggest. So also was Egypt, another part of 
the heathen world, to be watered only by Nilus, and that 
being drawn by the sun, did often succour them and fatten 
the land, for which all the neighbours fared the worse; for 
when Nilus flowed the neighbouring rivers were left dry, 
saith Herodotus’. You need not the mythology ; the philo- 
sophers, as well as soil of Greece, had not moisture enough 
to sustain them from nature; if God had not sent them 
water from heaven, they and all we Gentiles had for ever 
suffered a spiritual thirst. Egypt and all the nations had 
for ever gasped for drought, if the sunshine of the gospel 
had not by its beams called out of the well which had no 
bucket, ζῶν ὕδωρ, “living or enlivening water.” But by this John iv. 6. 
attraction of the sun, these living waters did so break out 
upon the Gentiles, that all the waters of Jewry were left dry, 
as once the dew was on Gideon’s fleece, and drought on all Judg. vi. 
the earth besides. And is it reasonable for us to observe this °” 
miracle of mercy, and not return even a miracle of thanks- 
giving? Can we think upon it without some rapture of our 
souls? Can we insist on it, and not feel a holy tempest 
within us, a storm and disquiet, till we have some way dis- 
burdened and eased ourselves, with a pouring out of thanks- 
giving? That spirit is too calm, that I say not stupid, which 
can bear and be loaded with mercies of this kind, and not 
take notice of its burden; for besides those peculiar favours 
bestowed on us in particular, we are, as saith Chrysostom ¢, 
in our audit of thanksgiving, to reckon up all the τὰ κοινῇ 
ywopeva, “all those common benefactions of which others 


4 [ Herod. ii. 13.] t [S. Chrysost. in Acta Apostol. Ho- 
r [Thucyd. iv. 20. mil. xxxviii, Op., tom. ix. p. 292, C.] 
s [ Herod. ii. 25.] 


Acts xiv. 
13. 


538 SERMON XXV. 


partake with us ;” for it is, saith he, an ordinary negligence 
in us to recount God’s mercies as we confess our sins, only in 
gross, with an ἁμαρτωλοί ἐσμεν, καὶ εὐηργέτησε Θεὸς, “we 
are great sinners, and God hath abounded in mercies to us ;” 
never calling ourselves to a strict retail either of our sins or 
His mercies; and this neglect, saith he, doth deprive us of a 
great deal of spiritual strength. For 1. the recounting of the 
multitude of God’s mercies to us formerly might give us con- 
fidence of the continuance of them, according to St. Cyprian, 
donando debet, God’s past blessings are engagements and 
pawns of future. 2. It is, saith he, of excellent use, πρὸς τὸ 
οἰκειοῦν, “ to bring us acquainted” and familiar with God, and 
infinitely increaseth our love to Him, and desire of perform- 
ing some manner of recompense. Which one thing made the 
heathen of old so love and respect their benefactors, that they 
worshipped them, and would not suffer any common real 
benefaction to be done them without an ἀποθέωσις to the 
author of it, as might be proved through all ancient writ- 
ings; for on these grounds was it that they would needs 
sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas. In the second place, if we 
consider how nearly it concerns us, that if they had been 
pretermitted, we to the end of the world might probably 
have lived in the same darkness, that we now hold our right 
to heaven by the covenant made to them, that those com- 
mands belong also to us and our children, then we must in 
some reason of proportion thank God liberally for that call- 
ing of the Gentiles, as we cannot choose but do for our pre- 
sent adoption, and enlarge our thanksgiving not for our own 
only, but for that first justification, sanctification, and salva- 
tion of the Gentiles. And this effusion of our souls in thanks 
will prove of good use to us, both to confirm our confidence, 
and keep us in a Christian temper of humility and cheerful 
obedience. And therefore I thought good to present it to 
you in the first place as a duty of no ordinary moment. 

2. If God hath commanded, and consequently expects our 
obedience; if these commands concern us, and contain in 
them all that belongs to our salvation ; if they are, as hath 
been proved, God’s covenant with the Gentiles; then, not to 
be wanting to ourselves, but earnestly to labour and provide 
that no one circumstance of them may be without its peculiar 


SERMON XXV, 539 


profit and advantage to our souls. Polybius from the war 
betwixt the Numidians and Uticenses observes, that if a vic- 
tory gotten by the captain, be not by the soldiers prosecuted 
to the utmost, it likely proves more dangerous than if they 
had never had it ; if the king, saith he, take the city", of δὲ 
πολλοὶ Sia προστήρημα ῥαθυμοῦντες, “and the multitude 
overjoyed with the news, begin to grow less earnest in the 
battle,” a hundred to one but the conquered will take notice 
and heart from this advantage, and, as the Uticenses did, 
make their flight a stratagem to get the victory. Thus 15 it 
in those spiritual combats, where God is our leader, our com- 
mander, our conqueror against the devil’s host; if we of His 
command, the oi πολλοὶ, the many who expect our part in 
the profit of the victory, do not prosecute this conquest to 
the utmost, to the utter discomfiting and disarming of our fu- 
gitive enemy; if we should grow secure upon the news, and 
neither fear nor prevent any further difficulties, we may be 
in more danger for that former conquest, and as it was or- 
dinary in story, by that time we have set up our trophies, 
ourselves be overcome. I might prescribe you many courses, 
which it would concern you to undertake for the right man- 
aging of this victory, which this our commander hath not 
by His fighting, but by His very commanding, purchased us. 
But because my text requires haste, and I go on but slowly, 
I must omit them, and only insist on that which is specified 
in my text, repentance, which drives to the condition of the 
covenant, the matter of the command which comes next to 
be discussed. 

The word “repent” may in this place be taken in a double 
sense; 1. generally for a sorrow for our sins, and on that a 
disburdening of ourselves of that load which did formerly 
press down the soul; for a sense of our former ill courses, 
and a desire to fit ourselves for God’s service; for an hum- 
bling ourselves before God, and flying to Him as our only 
succour; and so it well may be called the condition of God’s 
covenant with us, that which God requires at our hands 
under the gospel; for it was the first word at the first preach- 
ing of the gospel by John Baptist, “ Repent, for the king- Matt. iii. 2. 
dom of God is at hand,” which, saith the text, was in effect, 

ἃ Polybius, [lib. i. c. 74. § 10.] 


ver, 3. 


Matt. xxvi. 


70. 


540 SERMON XXY. 


“ Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.” 
So that, briefly, this “repent” is a straightening and rectify- 
ing all crookedness, every distortion of the soul, and thereby 
a preparing of it for the receiving of Christ and embracing 
His gospel. 2. In a nearer relation to the first words of the 
verse, repentance is taken more especially by way of opposi- 
tion, for a mending and forsaking of that which of old was 
the fault and guilt of the Gentiles, a reforming of every 
thing which was either formally or virtually contained in 
their ignorance; and what that is you shall briefly judge. 

It is observed by interpreters, that doing or suffering, 
action or passion, are expressed in Scripture by the word 
knowing; soto know sin is to commit sin, to know a woman, 
and the like. So Peter to the maid, “1 know not what thou 
sayest,’” i.e. 1 am not guilty of the doing what thou im- 
putest to me. According to which Hebraism, to know God 
and His laws is to worship Him, and perform them; and, 
consequently, to be ignorant of both is neither to worship 
God nor practise any thing which His laws command; and 
so, knowledge shall contain all piety and godly obedience, or 
love of God’s commandments, as God is said to know those 
whom He loves; and ignorance, all profaneness and neglect, 
yea, and hatred either of God or goodness. According to 
which exposition are those two sayings, the one of Hermes * 
in his tenth book called νοῦς ἡ τριςκακία τὸ ἀγνοεῖν τὸν 
Θεὸν, “ the ignorance of God is all manner οὗ sin;” the other 
of Pastor in Clemens’, μετάνοια σύνεσις μεγάλη; “ repentance 
is a great piece of knowledge or wisdom.” So that, briefly, 
the recovering of the soul to the pure knowledge of God and 
goodness, the worshipping, loving, and obeying of God, is 
the thing here meant byrepentance; which yet we may press 
into a nearer room, into one single duty, the directing all 
our actions to His glory; for this is in effect to worship, to 
obey, to love God, to worship for obedience’ sake, because he 
commands it, to obey Him for love’s sake, because we desire 
He should be glorified in our obedience. And this is the 
excellency and perfection of a Christian, infinitely above the 
reach of the proudest moralists; this is the repentance of a 


x [Hermes Trismeg. (ut supr.) lib. x. y [Herme Pastor (i. 4, ΕΞ .) ut ἃ 
ad fin. ] Clem. Alex. Strom. ii. 12. p. 458 ire 


SERMON XXV. 541 


Christian, whereby he makes up those defects which were most 
eminently notorious in the heathen; this is the impression 
of that humbling spirit, which proud heathen nature was 
never stamped with, for it was not so much their ignorance 
in which they offended God,—though that was also full of 
guilt, as hath been proved,—as their misusing of their know- 
ledge to ungainly ends, as either ambition, superstition, or 
for satisfying their curiosity, as partly hath, and for the pre- 
sent needs not further to be demonstrated. Only for us, 
whom the command doth so nearly concern of repenting for 
and reforming their abuses, how shall we be cast at the bar, 
if we still continue in the same guilt! The orderly com- 
position of the world, saith Athenagoras’, the greatness, com- 
plexion, figure, and harmony of it, are πρὸς θεοσέβειαν ἐνέ- 
χυρα ἡμῖν, “engagements to us and pawns to oblige us to a 
pious worship of God.” For what Philoponus observes of 
the doctrine of the soul, is in like manner true of all kind of 
learning, εἰς ὅλον τὸν βίον τείνει δόγματα ταῦτα, “they ex- 
tend and have an influence over all our conversation ;᾽ and 
if they be well studied, and to purpose, leave their characters 
and impressions in our lives as well as our understandings ; 
and from thence arose the Gentiles’ guilt, who did only enrich 
their intellectual part with the knowledge and contempla- 
tion of them, no whit better their lives, or glorify God which 
made them. But for us, whose knowledge is much elevated 
above their pitch, who study and ordinarily attain to the un- 
derstanding of those depths which they never fathomed, the 
reading of those riddles which they never heard of, the ex- 
pounding of those mysteries which they never dreamt of; 
for us, I say, who have seen a marvellous light, thereby only 
to enlighten our brains and not our hearts, to divert that 
precious knowledge to some poor, low, unworthy ends; to 
gather nothing out of all our studies which may advance 
God’s kingdom in us, this is infinitely beyond the guilt of 
heathenism; this will call their ignorance up to judgment 
against our knowledge, and in fine make us curse that light 
which we have used to guide us only to the chambers of 
death. Briefly, there was no one thing lay heavier upon the 
Gentiles than the not directing that measure of knowledge 


z [ Athenag. Legat. pro Christianis, § 4. [p. 283, A.] 


542 SERMON XXV. 


they had to God’s glory and a virtuous life ; and nothing more 
nearly concerns us Christians to amend and repent of. For 
the most exquisite knowledge of nature, and more specially the 
most accurate skill in theological mysteries, if it float only in 
the brain, and sink not down into the heart, if it end not in 
reformation of erroneous life, as well as doctrine, and glorify- 
ing God in our knowledge of Him, it is to be reputed but a 
glorious, specious curse, not an enriching, but a burdening 
of the soul, durum Tholosanum, an unlucky merchandise, that 
can never thrive with the owner, but commonly betrays and 
destroys all other good affections and graces in us. Socrates 
was the first that brought morality into the schools, ideogue 
ad hominum salutem natus est, said an old philosopher”; and 
that made the oracle so much admire him for the wisest man 
in the world. At any piece of speculation the devil durst 
challenge the proudest philosopher amongst them; but for a 
virtuous life he despaired of ever reaching to it; this set him 
at a gaze, this posed and made a dunce of him, and forced 
him to proclaim the moralist the greatest scholar under hea- 
ven; οἴησις ἱερὰ νόσος, saith Hesychius® περὶ σοφῶν, the 
“making use of knowledge to ambition or puffing up, is a dan- 
gerous desperate disease,’ and pray God it be not ἱερὰ also 
in its other sense, a disease that attends our holiest specula- 
tions, even our study of divinity. For as Arrian® saith of 
those who read many books and digest none, so is it most 
true of those who do not concoct their πολυμαθία, and turn 
it into spiritual nourishment of the soul, ἐμοῦσι καὶ ἀποπέπ- 
τουσι, they vomit it up again, and are never the better for it ; 
they are oppressed with this very learning, as a stomach with 
crudities, and thereby fall many times εἰς στρόφους καὶ καταρ- 
ροίας, into vertigoes and catarrhs, the first of which disorders 
the brain, and disables it from all manner of action; or if the 
more classical notion of the word take place, it disaffects the 
bowels, entangles and distorts the entrails, and, as St. Paul 
complains on this occasion, leaves without natural affection, 


a §. Augustin., De Civitate Dei, lib. his Nova De Universis Philosophia. 
viii. cap. 3, &c. [Op., tom. vii. p.191.] Venice, 1593.] 


Ὁ [Verum Socrates, caritate patriz ¢ [Hesychius, s. v. Heraclitus, ap. 
ardens, et, ut Proclus ait, ad hominum Meursium. Op., tom. vii. p. 249.] 
salutem natus, &c. Patricius in his 4 [Arrian., Epicteti Dissertat., lib. i. 


Plato Exotericus, p. 43, appended ἰο ο. 26. § 16.) 


SERMON XXV. 543 


and then, 2, by the defluxion of the humours on the breast, 
clogs and stifles the vital parts, and in fine brings the whole 
man to a φθίσις, or corruption of all its spiritual graces. Thus 
have you at once the doctrine and the use of my second part, 
the nature of that repentance which is here meant in oppo- 
sition to the Gentiles’ fault, which we have shewed to be the 
directing of our knowledge to a sober pious end, God’s glory 
and our own edification, together with the danger and sinful- 
ness attending the neglect of these ends, both which are sufli- 
cient motives to stir you up, to awake and conjure you to the 
practice of this doctrine. To which you may add but this one 
more, that even some of the heathen were raised up by the 
study of the creatures to an admiration of God’s excellency, 
which was a kind of glorifying His power, and those Philo- 
ponus® calls τελείους φυσιολόγους, “perfect exact natural- 
ists ;’ who from physical causes ascend to divine. Witness 
Galen‘, de Usu Partium, where from the miraculous struc- 
ture of the foot, he falls off into a meditation and hymn of 
God’s providence, δημιουργήσαντος ἡμᾶς ὕμνον ἀλήθινον, “a 
psalm or holy elogy of Him that hath so wonderfully made 
us.” So Hermes, in his first book of piety and philosophy, 
makes the only use of philosophy to return thanks to the 
Creator as to a good father and profitable nurse, which duty 
he professes himself resolved never to be wanting in; and 
after, in the latter end of his fifth book ἢ, he makes good his 
word, breaking out into a kind of holy rhythm, ποῦ δὲ βλέ- 
πων εὐλογήσω σε, ἄνω, κάτω, ἔσω, K.T.X. The like might be 
shewed in some measure out of others, more classic heathen 
writers, which may briefly serve to upbraid our defects, and 
aggravate our offence, if we with all our natural and spiri- 
tual light go on yet in learning, as travellers in peregrina- 
tion, only either as curious inquisitors of some novelties, 
which they may brag of at their return, or else having no 
other end of their travel but the journey itself, without any 
care to direct our studies to the advancement either of God’s 
glory in other, or grace’s kingdom in ourselves. For this is 
the thing no doubt here aimed at, and the performance of it 


e [Philoponus, Comment. in Aris- 8. [Herm. Trismeg., De Pietate et 
tot. de Anima, Pref. in lib, i, ad fi- Philosophia, lib. i. ad init., p. 4.] 
nem. | h [Id., ibid., lib. v. ad finem. ] 


f Galen, De Usu Part., lib. iii. c. 6. 


Mark xvi. 
15. 


1 Cor. ii. 4. 


Gen. viii. 
11. 


544 SERMON XXVv. 


as strictly required of us Christians, and that not some only 
of us, but as many as the commandment is here given to, 
“every man every where.” So I come to my last particular, 
the extent and latitude of the persons with whom this cove- 
nant is made, and from whom this condition is exacted, “ All 
men every where.” 

Now the universality of the persons reflects either to the 
preceding words, commands, or to the subsequent, the mat- 
ter of these commands, repentance. From the first, the 
point is, that God’s commands were made known by the 
preaching of the gospel to “all men every where.” From 
the second, that the repentance here meant is necessary to 
every man that will be saved. For the first, it hath been 
already proved out of Scripture, that the vocal articulation 
of God’s commands, the sound and preaching of the gospel, 
hath gone out into all the world, and that not universis, but 
singulis, directed and promulged at least to every creature, 
the whole Gentile world has title to it. Now for the spiri- 
tual efficacy of this voice, the “demonstration of the Spirit 
and of power,” hath not this also waited on the voice, and in 
some kind or other evidenced itself in the like extensive lati- 
tude? Yes, no doubt; for there being two effects of the preach- 
ing of the word, either converting or hardening, either dis- 
solving the wax, or stiffening the clay, you shall im every man 
be sure to meet with one of them. 

For the conversion; what a multitude came in at the first 
noise of it, primo mane, as soon as ever the Sun of righteous- 
ness began to dawn. In the ancient sea-fights they had their 
λεμβάδια, little hight ships, πρωτόπλοι, saith Xenophon’, zpe- 
mot, Kal σκοποὶ, say Thucydides* and Polybius', which they 
sent out as spies in the night, or at day-break, to bring word 
how the seas were cleared; that so they might dare to make 
use of the first opportunity to go out with their whole navy. 
Thus was Job and some few other Gentiles before the Gospel, 
and Cornelius at the dawning of it, sent before in a manner, 
ut lembi ante classem, to spy and bring word whether the 
Gentiles might enter and be received ; and these returning to 
them like Noah’s dove “ with an olive-leaf in her mouth,” as a 


i [Xenophon, Hist. Grec., lib. v. κα [ Thucydides, lib. vi. c. 44. 46.] 
cap. 1. ὃ 27.] ' [ Polybius, lib. 1, c. lin. § 8.1 


SERMON XXV. 5A5 


token of peace and safety to all that would venture, then did 

the whole navy and troop follow, then did the τὸ πλέον καὶ 

οἱ πολλοὶ, “the many,” the rout, the common people of the 

world, out of all nations and conditions some, hasten and 

run and crowd for a part in this salvation, and “the glory of 

the Lord was revealed, and all flesh saw it together,” as it is Isa. xl. 5. 
in the phrase of the prophecy, or in the words of the story, 
*“there were daily added to the Church such as should be [eet ii. 
saved.” Look but on the doctor of the Gentiles, as he sits 

in his chair in Tyrannus’ school, and you shall find that at Acts xix. 9. 
that one lecture—which indeed was two years long—all the 

lesser Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and 
Greeks. The three thousand souls which were added to the Acts ii. 4. 
Church at St. Peter’s sermon, was a sufficient hour’s work, 

and a thing so admired by the wise men of the Gentiles, that 

they imputed it magicis Petri artibus et veneficis carminibus, 

saith Austin™, to some incantations and magical tricks which 

Peter used. And they got the dying oracle to confirm it 

with some supposititious verses, to the purpose forged by 

them; that the Christian religion was raised by Peter’s 
witcheraft, and by it should last three hundred and sixty- 

five years, and then be betrayed and vanish". But had these 

same Gentiles in this humour of malice and prejudice seen 

a third part of the Roman world, all the proconsular Asia, 
converted by one Paul’s disputations, they would certainly 

have resolved that ail the sorcery of hell or Chaldza could 

never have yielded such miraculous enchantments. And 

this the sons of Sceva had experience of, who with all their Acts xix. 
exorcisms, and the name of Jesus added to them, could not ae 

yet imitate the Apostles in any one miracle; but the devil 

was too hard for them, wounded, overcame, prevailed against 

them. Briefly, it was more than the magic either of men or 

devils, which so convinced the artificers of hell, that they 
“brought out their books and burnt them openly ;” which Acts xix. 
beside the price of their most profitable skill, were rated at !® 
50,000 pieces of silver, which is computed to be about £6,250. 

“So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed,” and [ver. 20.] 
the first effect of it, conversion, was miraculously manifest, 
though not on all, yet on many of all people every where. 


m S. Aug. De Civ, Dei, lib. xviii. c. 53. [Op., t. vii. p. 536, E, F.) lla 07] 
HAMMOND. Nn 


Acts xix. 9. 


546 SERMON XXV. 


Now for the other effect of it, the hardening of obdurate 
atheists, look on Acts xix. 9, where it is plain, that for all 
Paul’s logic and rhetoric, “ disputing and persuading for the 
space of three months,” many were hardened and believed 
not. They had within them νοῦν ἀντίτυπον, as Theodoret 
calls it, a heart that would reverberate either precept or in- 
struction, and make it rebound against the hand that sent it; 
πνεῦμα παχυνόμενον, as Philoponus® phrases it in his first - 
book de anima, their spirits fattened and incrassated within 
them, stalled up and fed to such a brawniness, that neither the 
understanding nor the affections were capable of any im- 
pression, and so their condition proved like that of the anvil, 
which by many strokes is somewhat smoothed but no whit 
softened; all they got by one day’s preaching was to enable 
them the better to resist the second. Every sermon of a 
Paul or Peter was but an alarum to set them on their guard 
of defence, to warn them to cast up some more trenches and 
bulwarks, to fortify themselves stronger against any possible 
invasion of God’s Spirit ; according to that of the Egyptian 
Hermes?, speaking περὶ δυνάμεως ἱερῶν λόγων, which is in a 
Christian phrase the “power of the Scripture ;” they have, 
saith he, this property in them, that when they meet with 
evil men, μᾶλλον παροξύνουσιν εἰς κακίαν, “they do more 
sharpen and egg them on to evil.” Thus was the preaching 
of the word to all men every where attended with some effects 
or other, according to the materials it met with, never re- 
turned unprofitably, but either was the power of God to sal- 
vation unto all that believed, or the witness of God to con- 
demnation to those which were hardened. Now if this 
precious receipt administered to all find not in all the hike 
effect of recovering, yet from hence is neither the physic to 
be underprized nor the prescriber; the matter is to be im- 
puted sometimes to the weakness and peevishness of the 
patient, ὡς ἀδυνατέειν Ta προστασσόμενα ὑπουργέειν, “ that 
he cannot or will not perform the prescriptions,” sometimes 
τὴν δύναμιν αἰτιᾶσθαι τοῦ πάθεος, “the fault is to be laid on 
the stubbornness and stoutness of the disease,” which turns 


° [Philoponus, Comment. in Aristot. tate et Philosophia, p. 5. 4. i. ad 
de Anima, Pref. in lib. 1. ad finem. ] finem. ] 
p [Hermes Trismegistus, De Pie- 


SERMON XXV. 547 


every medicine into its nourishment, and so is not abated 
but elevated by that which was intended to assuage it, as 
Hippocrates defines it medicinally in his book περὶ teyvijs. 
So then by way of use, if we desire that these commands, 
this covenant offered to all men every where, may evidence 
itself to our particular souls in its spiritual efficacy, we must 
with all the industry of our spirits endeavour to remove those 
hinderances, which may any way perturb, or disorder, or 
weaken it in its working in us; προκατασκευάσθω σοι pa- 
λαγμάτων γένεα, K.T.r., Saith Hippocrates", you must furnish 
yourself beforehand with a shop of several softening plasters, 
and take some one of them as a preparative before every ser- 
mon you come to, that coming to church with a tender, 
mollified, waxy heart, you may be sure to receive every holy 
character, and impression, which that day’s exercise hath 
provided for thee, lest otherwise, if thou shouldst come to 
church with an heart of ice, that ice be congealed into 
erystal, and by an ἀντιπερίστασις, the warmth of God’s word 
not abate, but increase the coldness of a chill frozen spirit, 
and finding it hard and stubborn, return it obdurate. O 
what a horrid thing is it that the greatest mercy under 
heaven should by our unpreparedness be turned into the 
most exquisite curse that hell or malice hath in store for us! 
that the most precious balm of Gilead should by the malig- 
nity of some tempers be turned into poison; that the leaves 
which are appointed for the healing of the nations should 
meet with some such sores, which prove worse by any re- 
medy; that the most sovereign μαλακτικὸν, or lenitive, in 
the world, should only work to our obduration, and the 
preaching of the word of mercy add to the measure of our 
condemnation! This is enough to persuade you by an horror 
into some kind of solicitude to prepare your souls to a capa- 
bility of this cure, to keep yourselves in a Christian temper, 
that it may be possible for a sermon to work upon you, that 
that breath which never returns in vain may be truly gospel, 
happy in its message, may convert not harden you; to which 
purpose you must have such tools in store which the physi- 


4 [Cf. Hippocrates, rep) rexv7js, tom. ® (Hippocrates, περὶ εὐσχημοσύνης, 
i, p. 12. Medici Greci, tom, xxi. ed. tom.i. p. 73. Καὶ μη. ut supr. | 
Kiihn. J 


Nn 2 


¢ 


Acts xix.4. 


548 SERMON XXV. 


cian’ speaks of, ὄργανα, καὶ μηχανὰς, καὶ σίδηρον, “ imstru- 
ments of spiritual surgery,” to cut and prune off all luxuriant 
cumbersome excrescences, all rankness and dead flesh, which 
so oppress the soul, that the virtue of medicine cannot search 
to it. And for this purpose there is no one more necessary, 
of more continual use for every man every where, than that 
which here closeth my text, “ repentance.” 

And so I come to the second respect, the universality of 
the persons, as it refers to the matter of the command, re- 
pentance, every man every where to repent. 

And here I should shew you that repentance, both gene- 
rally taken for a sorrow for sin, containing in it virtually 
faith also,—so the baptism of repentance is interpreted, Acts 
xix. 4, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, say- 
ing unto the people,that they should believe,” &c.,—and more 
especially in this place taken for the directing of our know- 
ledge to practice, and both to God’s glory, as hath been 
shewn, is and always was necessary to every man that will 
be saved. For according to Aristotle’st rule, κατὰ παντὸς, 
noting both an universality of subject and circumstance, is a 
degree of necessity; and therefore repentance being here 
commanded, πᾶσι πανταχοῦ, is to be judged a condition 
necessary to every man who answers at the command, i.e. 
who expects his part in the covenant of salvation; this, I 
say, I might prove at large, and to that purpose vindicate 
the writings of some of the fathers, especially of Clemens, 
who, I am almost confident, is groundlessly cited for bestow- 
ing salvation on the heathen, without exacting the condition 
of faith and repentance, which now it were superfluous to 
insist on. 2. Urge it both to your brains and hearts, and by 
the necessity of the duty, rouse and enforce, and pursue you 
to the practice of it. But seeing this catholic duty is more 
the inspiration of the Holy Ghost than the acquisition of our 
labours, seeing this fundamental cardinal gift comes from the 
supreme donor, seeing nature is no more able spiritually to 
re-enliven a soul than to animate a carcass, our best endea- 
vour will be our humiliation, our most profitable directions 
will prove our prayers, and what our frailty cannot reach to, 
our devotions shall obtain. 


* Hippocrates, [ibid., p. 72.] t [ Aristot. Post. Anal., lib. i. c. 4.) 


SERMON ΧΧΥ. 549 


And let us labour and pray, and be confident, that God 
which hath honoured us with His commands will enable us 
to a performance of them, and having made His covenant 
with us, will fulfil in us the condition of it ; that the thunder- 
ing of His word being accompanied with the still voice of 
His Spirit, may suffer neither repulse nor resistance; that 
our hearts being first softened, then stamped with the Spirit, 
may be the images of that God that made them; that all of 
us every where endeavouring to glorify God in our know- 
ledge, in our lives, in our faith, in our repentance, may for 
ever be glorified by Him, and through Him, and with Him 
hereafter. 

Now to Him that hath elected us, hath created, re- 
deemed, ce. 


Ezek. xvi. 
6. 


SERMON XXVI. 


Rom. 1. 26. 


For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections. 


In this most accurate Epistle that ever the pen of man 
could lay title to, in which all the counsels, and proceedings, 
and methods of God in the work of our salvation are de- 
scribed, our Apostle in his discourse goes on the same way 
that God is said to do in His decree; lays the foundation of 
it as low and deep as possible, begins with them as it were in 
massa, and though they were already Romans and Christians, 
yet before he openeth heaven gates to them, and either teaches 
or suffers them to be saints, he stays them awhile in the con- 
templation of their impurity, and damned neglected estate of 
the stock they come from; looks upon them as “ polluted or 
trodden down in their own blood,” as the phrase is. He 
ploughs and harrows, and digs as deep as possible, that the 
seed which he meant to sow might be firm rooted, that their 
heaven might be founded in the centre of the earth, and their 
faith being secured by the depth of its foundation, might in- 
crease miraculously both in height and fruitfulness. Thus 
in the latter part of this first chapter doth he shew them the 
estate and rebellions, and punishment of their heathen an- 
cestors, that the unregenerate man may in that glass see his 
picture at the length, the regenerate humble himself in a 
thankful horror, overjoyed, and wondering to observe him- 
self delivered from such destruction. And that all may be 
secured from the danger of the like miscarriage, he sets the 
whole story of them distinctly before their eyes. 1. How the 
law and light of nature was sufficient to have instructed them 
into the sight and acknowledgment of God, and therefore 
that they could not pretend want of means to direct them to 


‘ 
SERMON XXVI. 551 


His worship. 2. That they contemned and rejected all the 
helps and guidances that God and nature had afforded them ; 
and that therefore, 3. God had deserted, and given them up 
unto the pride, and luxury, and madness of their own hearts, 
all “vile affections ;” for this is the force of the illation, they 
abused those instructions which God had printed in the 
creature to direct them, and therefore He will bestow no 
more pains on them to so little purpose; their own reason 
convinced them there was but one God, and yet they could 
not hold from adoring many, and therefore He will not be 
troubled to rein them in any longer; for all His ordinary 
restraints they will needs run riot, and “for this cause God 
gave them up to vile affections.” So that in the text you 
may observe the whole state and history of a heathen, 
natural, unregenerate life, which is a progress or travel 
from one stage of sinning to another, beginning in a con- 
tempt of the light of nature, and ending in the brink of 
hell, all vile affections. For the discovery of which we shall 
survey, 1. The law or light of nature, what it can do; 2. 
The sin of contemning this law or light, both noted in the 
first words, “ for this cause,” that is, because they did reject 
that which would have stood them in good stead; 3. The 
effect or punishment of this contempt, sottishness leading 
them stupidly into all vile affections; and lastly, the inflicter 
of this punishment and manner of inflicting of it, “God gave 
them up ;” and first of the first, the law and light of nature, 
what it can do. 

To suppose a man born at large, left to the infinite liberty 
of a creature, without any terms or bounds, or laws to cir- 
cumscribe him, were to bring a river into a plain, and bid it 
stand on end, and yet allow it nothing to sustain it; were to 
set a babe of a day old into the world, and bid him shift for 
a subsistence; were to bestow a being on him only that he 
may lose it, and perish before he can ever be said to live. If 
an infant be not bound in, and squeezed, and swathed, he 
will never thrive in growth or feature, but as Hippocrates 
saith of the Scythians, for want of girdles, run all out into 
breadth and ugliness. And therefore it cannot agree either 
with the mercy or goodness of either God or nature to create 


4 (Hippocrates, De aére, locis et aquis, tom. i. p. 559. ] 


552 SERMON XXVI. 


men without laws, or to bestow a being upon any one with- 
out a guardian to guide and manage it. Thus, lest any 
creature for want of this law any one moment should imme- 
diately sin against its creation, and no sooner move than be 
annihilated ; the same wisdom hath ordered that his very 
soul shall be his law-giver, and so the first minute of its 
essence should suppose it regular. Whence it is that some 
atheists in Theophilus ad Autolycum”, which said that all things 
were made by chance and of their own accord, yet affirmed 
that when they were made they had a God within them to 
guide them, their own conscience, and in sum affirmed, 
μόνον εἷναι Θεὸν συνείδησιν, “that there was no other God 
in the world.” Aristotle’ observes that in the creatures which 
have no reason phantasy supplies its place, and does the bee 
as much service to perform the business of its kind as reason 
doth in the man. Thus further in them whose birth in an 
uncivilized country hath deprived of any laws to govern 
them, reason supplies their room, λόγος φύσει νόμος, saith 
Arius Didymus4, “reason is naturally a law,” and hath as 
sovereign dictates with it, pronounceth sentence every minute 
from the tribunal within, as authoritatively as ever the most 
powerful Solon did in the theatre. There is not a thing in 
the world purely and absolutely good, but God and nature 
within commends and prescribes to our practice; and would 
we but obey their counsels and commands, it were a way 
to innocence and perfection that even the Pelagians never 
dreamt of. Τὸ speak no further than will be both profitable 
and beyond exception, the perfectest law in the world is not 
so perfect a rule for our lives as this ἔμφυτος καὶ φυσικὸς 
νόμος, as Methodius® calls it, “this law of nature born with 
us,” is for these things which are subject to its reach. Shall 
I say Scripture itself is in some respect inferior to it? I 
think I shall not prejudice that blessed volume, for though 
it be as far from the least spot or suspicion of imperfection 
as falsehood, though it be true, perfect, and righteous alto- 
gether, yet doth it not so evidence itself to my dull soul; it 


υ Theophil. ad Autolyc., lib. ii.§ 4. 15. p. 817, D.] ἶ 
[ Ad calc, 5. Just. M., p. 349, D.] 6 [Ap. Photium, Biblioth., p. 915. 
¢ (Arist. Metaph. A.c. 1.] ed. Hoeschel. ] 


ἃ [Euseb, Prep. Evang., lib. xv. c. 


* 


SERMON XXVI. 5538 


speaks not so clearly and irrefragably, so beyond all contra- 
diction and demur to my atheistical understanding, as that 
law which God hath written in my heart. For there is a 
double certainty, one of adherence, another of evidence, one 
of faith, the other of sense; the former is that grounded on 
God’s word, more infallible because it rests on divine autho- 
thority, the latter more clear, because I find it within me by 
experience. The first is given to strengthen the weakness 
of the second, and is therefore called βεβαιότερος λόγος, “a 2 Pet. i. 19. 
more firm sure word ;” the second given within us to explain 
the difficulties and obscurities of the first, αὐτοπταὶ γεννη- 
θέντες, we “saw it with our eyes:” so that Scriptures being ver. 16. 
conceived into words and sentences, are subject either not to 
be understood or amiss; and may either be doubted of by 
the ignorant, or perverted by the malicious. You have learnt 
so many words without book, and say them minutely by 
heart, and yet not either understand or observe what you are 
about; but this unwritten law, which no pen but that of 
nature hath engraven, is in our understandings, not in words 
but sense, and therefore I cannot avoid the intimations; it 
is impossible either to deny or doubt of it, it being written 
as legible in the tables of our hearts, as the print of humanity 
in our foreheads. The commands of either Scripture or 
emperor may be either unknown or out of our heads, when 
any casual opportunity shall bid us make use of them; but 
this law of the mind is at home for ever, and either by inti- 
mation or loud voice, either whispers or proclaims its com- 
mands to us; be it never so gagged it will mutter, and will be 
sure to be taken notice of when it speaks softliest. To define 
in brief what this law of nature is, and what offices it per- 
forms in us, you are to know that at that grand forfeiture of 
all our inheritance,—goods truly real and personal,—all those 
primitive endowments of soul and body upon Adam’s rebel- 
lion, God afterwards, though He shined not on us in His full 
image and beauty, yet cast some rays and beams of that 
eternal light upon us; and by an immutable law of His own 
counsel hath imprinted on every soul that comes down toa 
body, a secret, unwritten, yet indelible law, by which the 
creature may be warned what is good or bad, what agreeable, 
what hurtful to the obtaiming of the end of its creation. Now 


Rom. i. 
21 


554 SERMON XXVI. 


these commands or prescriptions of nature, are either in 
order to speculation or practice, to increase our knowledge 
or direct our lives. The former sort I omit, as being fitter 
for the schools than pulpit to discourse on, I shall meddle 
only with those that refer to practice, and those are either 
common, which they call first principles, and such are in 
every man in the world equally, e¢ secundum rectitudinem et 
notitiam, saith Aquinas‘; every one doth both conceive them 
in his understanding what they mean, and assent to them in 
his will, that they are right and just, and necessary to be 
performed ; and of this nature are the worship of God and 
justice amongst men; for that lumen super nos signatum, in 
Bonaventure’s® phrase, that “ light which nature hath sealed 
and imprinted on our souls,” is able to direct us in the know- 
ledge of those moral principles, without any other help re- 
quired to persuade us; or else they are particular and proper 
to this or that business, which they call conclusions drawn 
out of these common principles; as when the common prin- 
ciple commands just dealing, the conclusion from thence 
commands to restore what I have borrowed, and the like. 
And these also if they be naturally and directly deduced, 
would every man in the world both understand and assent 
to; did not some hinderance come in, and forbid or suspend 
either his understanding or assent. Hinderances which keep 
him from the knowledge or conceiving of them, are that con- 
fusion and chaos, and black darkness, I had almost said that 
Tophet and hell of sensual affections, which suffers not the 
light to shew itself, and indeed so stifles and oppresses it, 
that it becomes only as hell fire, not to shine but burn, not 
to enlighten us what we should do, but yet by gripes and 
twinges of the conscience to torment us for not doing of it. 
And this hinderance the Apostle calls the vanity of imagi- 
nations by which a foolish heart is darkened. Hinderances 
which keep us from assenting to a conclusion in particular 
which we do understand, are sometimes good ; as, first, a sight 
of some greater breach certain to follow the performance of 
this; so though I understand that I must restore every man 
his own, yet I will never return a knife to one that I see re- 


£ S. Thom, Aq. Summa 1™* 2* qu. 5. §. Bonaventura, in lib. ii. Sentent. 
94, [art. 4. ] Dist. 39. Art. 3. quest. 2. [conclus. ] 


—— <r 


SERMON XXVI. 555 


solved to do some mischief with it; and 2. Divine laws, as 
the command of robbing the Egyptians, and the like; for [Exod. xi. 
although that in our hearts forbid robbing, yet God is J 
greater than our hearts, and must be obeyed when He pre- 
scribes it. Hinderances in this kind are also sometimes bad ; 
such are either habitude of nature, custom of country, which 
made the Lacedzemonians esteem theft a virtue ; or again the 
tyranny of passions; for every one of these hath its several 
project upon the reasonable soul, its several design of malice 
either by treachery or force to keep it hoodwinked, or cast it 
into a lethargy, when any particular virtuous action requires 
to be assented to by our practice. If I should go so far as 
some do, to define this law of nature to be the full will of 
God written by His hand immediately in every man’s heart 
after the fall, by which we feel ourselves bound to do every 
thing that is good and avoid every thing that is evil, some 
might through ignorance or prejudice guess it to be an eleva- 
tion of corrupt nature above its pitch, too near to Adam’s 
integrity; and yet Zanchy", who was never guessed near a 
Pelagian, in his fourth tome, lib. i. c. 10. Thesis 8, would au- 
thorize every part of it, and yet not seem to make an idol of 
nature, but only extol God’s mercy, who hath bestowed a soul 
on every one of us with this character and impression, Holi- 
ness to the Lord; which though it be written unequally, in 
some more than others, yet saith he, in all in some measure 
so radicated, that it can never be quite changed or utterly 
abolished. However I think we may safely resolve with 
Bonaventure‘ out of Austin against Pelagius, Non est parum 
accepisse naturale indicatorium, it is “no small mercy that we 
have received a natural glass,” in which we may see and 
judge of objects before we venture on them, a power of dis- 
tinguishing good from evil", which even the malice of sin 
and passions in the highest degree cannot wholly extinguish 
in us; as may appear by Cain, the voice of whose conscience 
spake as loud within him as that of his brother’s blood; as 
also in the very damned, whose worm of sense, not penitence 
for what they have done in their flesh, shall for ever bite and 


» Zanchii Opera Theologica, tom.iv. ο. 20. Op., tom. i. p. 633, A.] 
p- 190. Genev. 1619. k Which Damascene calls, lucem na- 
i [S. Bonaventura, ut supr.,quoting turalem intellectus, as the schools have 
S. August. de Libero Arbitrio, lib, iii. it from him.— Wiggers. {supr., p. 277.] 


556 SERMON ΧΧΥΙ. 


gripe them hideously. This light indeed may either by, first, 
blindness, or secondly, delight in sinning, or thirdly, peremp- 
tory resolvedness not to see, be for the present hindered, secun- 
dum actum, from doing any good upon us. He that hath but a 
veil before his eyes, so long cannot judge of colours ; he that 
runs impetuously cannot hear any one that calls to stop him 
in his career; and yet all the while the light shines, and the 
voice shouts; and therefore when we find in Scripture some 
men stupified by sin, others void of reason, we must not 
reckon them absolutely so, but only for the present besotted. 
And again, though they have lost their reason, as it moves 
per modum deliberationis, yet not as per modum nature, their 
reason which moves them by deliberation and choice to that 
which is good, is perhaps quite put out or suspended; but 
their reason which is an instinct of nature, a natural motion 
of the soul to the end of its creation, remains in them though 
it move not, like a ship at hull and becalmed is very still and 
quiet, and though it stir not evidently, yet it hath its secret 
heaves and plunges within us. 

Now that the most ignorant, clouded, unnurtured brain 
amongst you may reap some profit from this discourse, let 
him but one minute of his life be at so much leisure as to 
look into his own heart, and he shall certainly find within 
him that which we have hitherto talked of, his own soul shall 
yield him a comment to my sermon; and if he dare but once 
to open his eyes, shall shew him the law and light of nature 
in himself, which before he never dreamt of. Of those of 
you that ever spared one minute from your worldly affairs to 
think of your spiritual, there is one thought that suddenly 
comes upon you, and makes short work of all that spiritual 
care of yourselves. You conceive that you are of yourselves 
utterly unable to understand, or think, or do any thing that 
is good, and therefore you resolve it a great pain to no pur- 
pose ever to go about so impossible a project. God must 
work the whole business in you, you are not able of your- 
selves so much as either to see, or move, and that is the busi- 
ness which by chance you fell upon and as soon shook off 
again, and being resolved you never had any eyes, you are 
content to be for ever blind, unless, as it was wont to be in 
the old tragedies, some θεὸς ἀπὸ μηχανῆς, some new super- 


SERMON XXVI. 557 


natural power come down and bore your foreheads, and 
thrust and force eyes into your heads. It is a blessed desire 
and gracious humility in any one to invoke God to every 
thought they venture on, and not to dare to pretend to the 
least sufficiency in themselves, but to acknowledge and desire 
to receive all from God; but shall we therefore be so un- 
gratefully religious as for ever to be a craving new helps and 
succours, and never observe or make use of what we have 
already obtained, as it is observed of covetous men, who 
are always busied about their incomes, are little troubled with 
disbursements, ἀκαταλλήλοις λήψεσι, καὶ δόσεσι', “with- 
out any proportion betwixt their receipts and expenses.” 
Shall we be so senseless as to hope that the contempt 
of one blessing will be a means to procure us as many ? 
I told you that God had written a law in the hearts of 
every one of you, which once was able, and is not now 
quite deprived of its power to furnish with knowledge 
of good and evil; and although by original, and actual, 
and habitual sin this inheritance be much impaired, this 
stock of precepts drawn low; yet if you would but ob- 
serve those directions which it would yet afford you, if 
you would but practise whatever that divine light in your 
souls should present and commend to you, you might with 
some face petition God for richer abilities, and with better 
confidence approach and beg, and expect the grace that 
should perfect you to all righteousness. In the meantime, 
bethink yourselves how unreasonable a thing it is that God 
should be perpetually casting away of alms on those who 
are resolved to be perpetually bankrupts; how it would be 
reckoned prodigality of mercies, to purchase new lands for 
him that scorns to make use of his inheritance. As ever 
you expect any boon from God, look, I conjure you, what 
you have already received, call in your eyes into your brains, 
and see whether your natural reason there will not furnish 
you with some kind of profitable, though not sufficient direc- 
tions, to order your whole lives by; bring yourselves up to 
that staidness of temper, as never to venture on any thing, 
till you have asked your own soul’s advice whether it be to be 
done or no; and if you can but observe its dictates, and keep 


i Arrian. Dissert. Epicteti, [lib. ii. ον. 9. § 12.) 


558 SERMON XXVI. 


your hands to obey your head; if you can be content to ab- 
stain when the soul within you bids you hold, you shall have 
no cause to complain that God hath sent you impotent into 
the world; but rather acknowledge it an invaluable mercy 
of His, that hath provided such an eye within you to direct 
you, if you will but have patience to see; such a curb to 
restrain and prevent you, if thou wilt only take notice of its 
checks. It is a thing that would infinitely please the reader 
to observe, what a price the heathen themselves set upon this 
light within them, which yet certainly was much more dim- 
med and obscured in them by their idolatry and superstition, 
than I hope it can be in any Christian soul by the unruliest 
passion. Could ever any one speak more plainly and dis- 
tinctly of it than the Pythagoreans and Stoics have done, 
who represent conscience not only as a guide and moderator 
of our actions, but as ém/tpo7rov δαίμονα, “atutelary spirit,” or 
angel, or genius, which never sleeps or dotes, but is still pre- 
sent and employed in our behalf? And this Arrian* specifies to 
be the reasonable soul, which he therefore accounts of as a 
part of God sent out of His own essence, μόριον καὶ ἀπο- 
σπασμάτιον, “a piece or shred,” or as others more according 
to modest truth call it, ἀπαύγασμα, “a ray or beam” of that 
invisible sun, by which our dull, inactive, frozen bodies, after 
the fall, were warmed and re-enlivened. Now if any one shall 
make a diligent inquisition in himself, shall, as the philoso- 
pher in his cynical humour, light a candle to no purpose, or 


[Jer.v. 1.1 as the Prophet Jeremy, seek and make hue and cry after a 


[John xx. 
13. | 


man through all Jerusalem, and yet not meet with him; if, 
I say, any body shall search for this light in himself, and 
find all darkness within, then will you say I have all this 
while possessed you with some fancies and ideas, without any 
real profit to be received from them; you will make that 
complaint as the women for our Saviour, we went to seek 
for Him, and when we went down all was dark and empti- 
ness, “They have taken Him away, and I know not where 
they have laid Him.” Nay, but the error is in the seeker, 
not in my directions; he that would behold the sun must 
stay till the cloud be over; he that would receive from the 
fire, either light or warmth, must take the pains to remove 


k [ Avvian, Dissertat. Epicteti, lib. i, c. 14. δὲ 6, 12.] 


SERMON XXVI. 559 


the ashes. There be some encumbrances which may hinder 
the most active qualities in the world from working, and abate 
the edge of the keenest metal. In sum, there is a cloud, and 
gloom,and vail within thee, like that darkness on the face of the 
deep, when the earth was yn3) 1ΠΠ, “ without form and void,” Gen. i. 2. 
or like that at Lot’s door among the Sodomites, or that of [Gen. xix. 
Egypt, thick and palpable; and this have we created to our- re a 
selves, a sky full of tempestuous, untamed affections; this 
cloud of vapours have we exhaled out of the lower part of our 
soul, our sensitive faculty ; and therewith have we so filled 
the air within us with sad, black meteors, that the sun in its 
zenith, the height or pride of its splendour, would scarce be 
able to pierce through it. So that for to make a search for 
this light within thee, before thou hast removed this throng 
and crowd of passions which encompass it, and still to com- 
plain thou canst not meet with it, were to bring news that 
the sun is gone out when a tempest hath only masked it, or 
to require a candle to give thee light through a mud wall. 
Thou must provide a course to clear the sky, and then thou 
shalt not need to entreat the sun to shine on thee; especially 
if this cloud fall down in a shower, if thou canst melt so 
thick a viscous meteor as those corrupt affections are, into a 
soft rain, or dew of penitent tears, thou mayest then be con- 
fident of a fair bright sunshine. For I dare promise that 
never humble, tender, weeping soul, had ever this light quite 
darkened within it, but could at all times read and see the 
will of God and the law of its creation, not drawn only, but 
almost engraven and woven into its heart. For these tears 
in our eyes will spiritually mend our sight; as whatever you 
see through water, though it be represented somewhat dimly, 
yet seems bigger and larger than if there were no water in the 
way, according to that rule in the optics, whatever is seen 
through a thicker medium seems bigger than it is. -And then 
by way of use, shall we suffer so incomparable a mercy to be 
cast away from us? Shall we only see and admire, and not 
make use of it? Shall we fence, as it were, and fortify our out- 
ward man with walls and bulwarks, that the inner man may 
not shine forth upon it? Or shall we like silly improvident 
flies make no other use of this candle but only to singe, 
and burn, and consume ourselves by its flame; receive only 


Mal. ii. 15. 


560 SERMON XXVI. 


so much light from it as will add to our hell and darkness? 
It is a thing that the flintiest heart should melt at, to see 
such precious mercies undervalued, such incomparable bless- 
ings either contemned or only improved into curses. Arrian 
calls those in whom this light of the soul is, as I shewed you, 
clouded and obscured, νεκρὰ and capxiéia!, “dead trunks 
and carcasses of flesh,” and to keep such men in order were 
human laws provided, which he therefore calls ταλαυπώρους 
τοὺς τῶν νεκρῶν νόμους", “ miserable hard laws to keep dead 
men in compass,” and again, γῆν καὶ βάραθρον, “earth and 
hell,” the places to which dead bodies are committed. And 
certainly, if so, then by way of contrary, all the life that 
we possess is but by obedience to this law within us, and it 
is no longer to be called life, but either sleep, or death, or 
lethargy, every minute that we move out of the circle of its 
directions. There is not a step, or moment in our lives, but 
we have a special use and need of this law to manage us; 
every enterprise of our thoughts or actions will yield some 
difficulty which we must hold up, and read, and judge of by 
this candle; nay, sometimes we have need of a glass or in- 
strument to contract the beams and light of it, or else it 
would scarce be able to get through to our actions; passion, 
and folly, and the atheism of our lives hath so thickened the 
medium. Wherefore in brief, remember that counsel, “take 
heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously with the 
wife of his youth ;” the wife of his youth, i.e. saith Jerome’s 
gloss", legem naturalem scriptam in corde, the law of nature 
written in his heart, which was given him in the womb as a 
wife and help to succour him. Let us set a value on this 
polar star within us, which hath, or shall have an influence, 
at least directions on all our actions; let us increase, and ἡ 
nourish, and make much of the sparks still warm within us. 
And if scholars and antiquaries prize nothing so high asa 
fair manuscript or ancient inscription, let us not contemn 
that which God’s own finger hath written within us, lest the 
sin of the contempt make us more miserable, and the mercy 
profit us only to make us inexcusable. And so I come to 


1 [Epicteti Dissert., lib. i. ο. 9. § 19; n [S. Hieron. Comment. in Malach, 
and lib. i. σ, 3. § 5, &e.] iii. 15. Op., tom. vi. p. 967, D.] 


m (lib. 1. ο, 13. § 5.] 


SERMON XXVI. 501] 


my second part, the sin of contemning or rejecting this law. 
For this cause He gave them up, 1. 6. because the contempt of 
His law thus provoked Him. 

The guilt arising from this contempt shall sufficiently be 
cleared to you by observing and tracing of it, not through 
every particular, but in general through all sorts of men 
since the fall, briefly reducible to these three heads, first, the 
heathens, secondly, the Jews, thirdly, present Christians ; and 
then let every man that desires a more distinct light descend 
and commune with his own heart, and so he shall make up 
the observation. 

The heathens’ sin will be much aggravated, if we consider 
how they reckoned of this law, as the square, and rule, and 
canon of their actions, and therefore they will be inexcusable 
who scarce be ever at leisure to call to it to direct them, 
when they had use of it. The stoic® calls it ἐπαγγελίαν ἀν- 
θρώπου, the “promise that every man makes,” the obliga- 
tion that he is bound in to nature at his shaping in the 
womb, and upon which condition his reasonable soul is at his 
conception demised to him; so that whosoever puts off this 
obedience doth, as he goes on, renounce and even proclaim 
his forfeiture of the very soul he lives by, and by every un- 
natural, that is, sinful action, ὠπολύει τὸν ἄνθρωπον, “ de- 
stroys the natural man” within him, and by a prodigious rege- 
neration is in a manner transubstantiate into a beast of the 
field. Which conceit many of them were so possessed with, 
that they thought in earnest that it was ordinary for souls to 
walk from men into cocks and asses, and the like, and return 
again at nature’s appointment, as if this one contempt of the 
law of nature were enough to unman them and make them 
without a figure, comparable, nay, co-essential to the beasts 
that perish. It were too long to shew you what a sense the 
wisest of them had of the helps that light could afford them ; 
so that one of them cries out confidently, gay πάντες οἱ 
νόμοι», x.T.r. “If all other laws were taken out of the world, 
we philosophers would still live as we do;” those directions 


ο {Arrian. Epicteti Dissert., lib. 11, ἀναιρεθῶσιν, ὁμοίως Bidcowev.—Hesy- 
e. 9. § 1.) chius, De Viris Claris. s. v. Aristippus. 
P [οὗτος ἐρωτηθεὶς τί πλέον ἔχουσιν ap. Meursium. Op., tom. vii. p. 212. ] 

οἱ φιλόσοφοι, ἔφη, ἄν πάντες οἱ νόμοι 
HAMMOND, 00 


Rom. i. 21. 


ver. 24. 


562 SERMON XXVI. 


within us would keep us in as much awe as the most impe- 
rious or severest lawgiver. And again, how they took no- 
tice of the perverseness of men in refusing to make use of 
it; for who, saith one, ever came into the knowledge of men 
without this ἔμφυτος ἔννοια, this knowledge and discretion 
of good and evil, as old in him as his soul? And yet who 
makes any use of it in his actions? nothing so ordinary as to 
betray, and declare that we have it, by finding fault, and 
accusing vices in other men; by calling this justice, this 
tyranny, this virtue, this vice in another, whilst yet we never 
are patient to observe or discern aught of it in ourselves. Tis 
ἡμῶν φείδεται, «.7.r., “ Whoever spares to call injustice 
which he sees in another by its own name?” for his own 
reason tells him it is so, and he must needs give it its title. 
But when the case concerns his own person, when his pas- 
sions counsel him against the law within him, then is he 
content not to see, though it shine never so bright about 
him; and this was one degree of their guilt, that they ob- 
served the power of it in their speculations, and made use of 
it also to censure and find fault with others; but seldom or 
never strived to better themselves, or straighten their own 
actions by it. Again, to follow our apostle’s argument, and 
look more distinctly upon them in their particular chief sins 
which this contempt produced in them, you shall find them 
in the front to be idolatry and superstition, in the verses next 
before my text; ‘‘ When they knew God they glorified Him 
not as God,” “but changed His glory into an image,” &c. 
And then we may cry out with Theodoret" in his θεραπευτ. 
θεοχάρακτα πάλαι γράμματα διέφθειρεν ὁ δυσσεβείας πλάνος, 
“the errors and vanities of their worship hath rased out all 
the characters that God anciently had written in them.” 
And can any man shew a greater contempt to a book, or 
writing, than to tear, and scrape, and scratch out every let- 
ter in it? The first voice of nature in the creature which it 
uttered even in the cradle, when it was an infant in the world, 
and therefore perhaps, as children are wont, not so plainly 
and syllabically, and distinctly, as could have been wished, 
is the acknowledgment and worship of one eternal God, 


4 [Arrian. Epicteti Dissert., lib. ii. τ [Theodoret. Therapeut., p. 54. ed. 
6. 1, ὃ 3.) Gaisford. ] 


SERMON XXVI. 563 
Creator of that soul we breathe by, and world we live in; as 
one simple, incorporeal, everlasting essence; and thus far, 
no doubt, could nature proclaim in the heart of every Gen- 
tile, though it was by many of them either silenced or not 
hearkened to, which if it were doubted of, might be deduced 
out of the 19th verse of this chapter, ‘God hath shewed unto Rom. i. 19. 
them,” &c. Now this light shining not equally in all eyes, 
some being more overspread with a film of ignorance, stupid 
conditions and passions, and the like, yet certainly had enough 
to express their contempt of it, “so that they are without ver. 20. 
excuse.” All that would ever think of it, and were not blind 
with an habit of sottishness, acknowledged a God, yet none 
would think aright of Him. Some would acknowledge Him 
a simple essence, and impossible to be described or wor- 
shipped aright by any image, as Varro an heathen observes, 
that the city and religion of old Rome continued one hundred 
and seventy years without any images of the gods init’. Yet 
even they which acknowledged Him simple from all corporeity 
and composition, would not allow Him single from plurality. 
Jupiter and Saturn, and the rest of their shoal of gods, had 
already got in and possessed both their temples and their 
hearts. In sum, their understandings were so gross within 
them, being fattened and incrassate with magical phantasms, 
that let the truth within them say what it would, they could 
not conceive the deity without some quantity, either cor- 
poreity or number; and either multiply this god into many, 
or make that one god corporeous. And then all this while 
how plainly and peremptorily, and fastidiously, they rejected 
the guidance of nature, which in every reasonable heart coun- 
selled, nay, proclaimed the contrary; how justly they pro- 
voked God’s displeasure and desertion, by their forsaking 
and provoking Him first by their foolish imaginations, I 
need not take pains to insist on. Aristotle* observes in his 
Rhetoric that a man that hath but one eye loves that very 
dearly, ἀγάπητον καὶ μόνον, and sets a far higher price on it, 
is much more tender over it than he that hath two; so he 
that hath but one son cannot choose but be very fond of him, 


5 [S. Origen. c. Celsum, lib. i. ὃ 4, (ad init.) ] 
sq. Op., tom. i. p. 323. Clemens Alex- τ [Aristot, Rhet., lib. i. c. 7. ad fin. ] 
andr. Strom., lib. 1, c. 15. § 71. p. 359. 


002 


Amos viii. 
10; Zech. 
xii. 10. 


[ Wisd. 
xvii. 14] 


Gen. ii. 17. 


564 SERMON XXVI. 


and the greatest lamentation that can be expressed, is but a 
shadow of that which is for one’s only son, as may appear, 
when it is observed that μονογενὴς and ἀγάπητος, the “ only- 
begotten” and the “beloved” are taken in Scripture promis- 
cuously as signifying all one. And then, what a price should 
the heathen have set upon this eye of nature, being μονόφ- 
θαλμοι, having no other eye to see by? having neither Scrip- 
ture, nor the Spirit, those two other glorious eyes of the world, 
to enlighten them; and therefore being sure, by the contemn- 
ing and depriving themselves of this light, to turn all into hor- 
rible darkness. It would strike a man into agony of pity and 
amazement to see a world of Gentiles for many years thus 
imprisoned, and buried in a dungeon and grave of invincible 
idolatrous ignorance; and from thence engaged in inevitable 
hell, as it is in the book of Wisdom, and all this directly by 
contemning this first and only-begotten light in them, which 
God set in the firmaments of their hearts, to have led and 
directed them in a more comfortable way. Aud this, or as 
bad, is every unregenerate man’s case exactly, if they be not 
forewarned by their elder brethren the heathens’ example ; 
as we shall anon have more leisure to insist on. 

Secondly, among the Jews, under which name I contain 
all the people of God, from Adam to Christ, it is a lament- 
able contemplation to observe, and trace the law and the 
contempt of it; like a Jacob at the heels supplanting it in 
every soul which it came to inhabit. Those characters of 
verum and bonum which in Adam were written in a statelier 
copy, and fairer manuscript than our slow undervaluing con- 
ceits can guess at; nay, afterwards explained with a particu- 
lar explication to his particular danger ; “ΟΥ̓ the tree of know- 
ledge,” &c., “thou shalt not eat.” Yet how were they by 
one slender temptation of the serpent presently sullied and 
blurred! so that all the aqua fortis and instruments in the 
world will never be able to wash ont or erase that blot; or 
ever restore that handwriting in our hearts to the integrity 
and beauty of that copy in its primitive estate. And since, 
when by that sin darkness was in a manner gone over their 
hearts, and there remained in them only some tracks and 
reliques of the former structure, the glory whereof was like 
that of the second temple, nothing comparable to the beauty 


SERMON XXVI. 565 


of the first; instead of weeping with a loud voice, as many 
of the priests and Levites did, or building, or repairing of it 
with all alacrity, as all Israel did through that whole book ; 
their whole endeavour and project was even to destroy the 
ruins, and utterly finish the work of destruction which Adam 
had begun, as being impatient of that shelter which it would 
yet, if they would but give it leave, afford them. Thus 
that συντήρησις and συνείδησις, two sparks of that primitive 
sacred flame, which came from heaven still alive and warm, 
though weak in them, intended by God to direct them in 
His will, and for ever set either as their funeral pile or their 
ordeal fire, their punishment or acquittal, either as their 
devil or their God, to accuse, or else excuse them, were both 
in their practice neglected and slighted; nay, in a manner 
oppressed and stifled. For any natural power of doing good, 
God knows, it was utterly departed; and therefore this thin 
measure of knowledge or judgment betwixt good and evil 
that was left them (which my awe to God’s sincere love of 
His creature makes me hope and trust He bestowed on them 
for some other end than only to increase their condemna- 
tion, to stand them in some stead in their lives, to restrain 
and keep them in from being extremely sinful;) this, I 
say, they horribly rejected, and stopt their ears against that 
charmer in their own bosoms, and would not hear that soft 
voice which God had still placed within them, to upbraid 
their ways and reprove their thoughts. What a provocation 
this was of God’s justice, what an incentive of His wrath, 
may appear by that terrible promulgation of the ten com- 
mandments at mount Sinai. They despised the law in their 
hearts, where God and nature whispered it in calmly, insen- 
sibly, and softly; and therefore now it shall be thundered 
in their ears in words, and those boisterous ones, at which 
the “whole mount quaked greatly,” Exod. xix. 18. Andin 
the 16th verse, it must be ushered with variety of dismal me- 
teors upon the mount, and the voice of a “ trumpet exceeding 
loud, so that all the people that was in the camp trembled.” 
Thus upon their contempt and peevishness was this manu- 
script put in print, this privy seal turned into a procla- 
mation, and that a dreadful one, bound and subscribed, with 
a “Cursed is he that continues not in every tittle of it to 


ΤΥ 11], 
12. 


Exod. xix. 
18. 


ver. 16. 


[1 Sam. 
xxiv. 10.] 


Exod. xxx, 
12, 


John xi. 48, 


566 SERMON XXVI. 


perform it.” Meanwhile the matter is not altered, but only 
the dispensation of it. That which till then had taught men 
in their hearts, and had been explained from tradition, from 
father to son, Adam instructing Seth, and Seth Enoch, in 
all righteousness, is now put into tables, that they may have 
eyes to see, that would not have hearts to understand, that 
the perverse may be convinced, and that he that would not 
before see himself bound, may find and read himself accursed. 
And after all this, yet is not the old law within them either 
cast away or cancelled by the promulgation of the other; for 
all the book is printed, the old copy is kept in archivis, 
though, perhaps, as it always was, neglected, soiled, and 
moth-eaten, and he shall be censured either for ambition 
or curiosity, that shall ever be seen to enquire, or look after 
it. Still I say, throughout all their ways, and arts, and 
methods of rebellions, it twinged, and pricked within, as 
God’s judgments attended them without, and as often as 
sword, or plague wounded them, made them acknowledge 
the justice of God, that thus rewarded their perverseness. 
Nay, you shall see it sometimes break out against them, 
when perhaps the written law spake too softly for them to 
be understood. Thus did David’s heart smite him when he 
had numbered the people; though there was no direct com- 
mandment against mustering or enrolment, yet his own con- 
science told him that he had done it either for distrust, or 
for ostentation, and that he had sinned against God in trust- 
ing and glorying in that arm of flesh, or paid not the tribute 
appointed by God on that occasion. To conclude this dis- 
course of the Jews, every rebellion and idolatry of theirs was 
a double breach of a double law, the one in tables, the other 
in their heart ; and could they have been freed from the kiil- 
ing letter of the one, the wounding sense of the other would 
still have kept them bound, as may appear in that business 
of crucifying Christ, where no human law-giver or magistrate 
went about to deter them from shedding His blood, or deny- 
ing His miracles, yet many of their own hearts apprehended, 
and violently buffeted, and scourged, and tormented them. 
At one time when they are most resolved against Him, the 
whole senate is suddenly pricked, and convinced within, and 
express it with a “surely this man doth many miracles.” 


SERMON XXVI. 567 


At another time at the top and complement of the business, [ Mat. 
Pilate is deterred from condemning, and though the fear of **¥ 25] 
the people made him valiant, yet, as if he contemned this 
voice of his conscience against his will, with some reluctance, 
he washes his hands when he would have been gladder to 
quench the fire in his heart, which still burnt and vexed him. 
Lastly, when Judas had betrayed and sold Him, and no man [ver. 3, 4, 
made hue and cry after him, his conscience was his pursuer, ay 
judge, and executioner, persecuted him out of the world, 
haunted him, would not suffer him to live, whom otherwise 
the law of the country would have reprieved, till a natural 
death had called for him. 

Lastly, even we Christians are not likely to clear ourselves 
of this bill; it is much to be feared, that if our own hearts 
are called to witness, our judge will need no farther indict- 
ments. It was an heathen speech* concerning this rule of our 
lives and actions, that to study it hard, to reform and repair 
all obliquities and defects in it, and then βεβαιοῦν, to set it 
up strong and firm as a pillar in our hearts, was the part and 
office of a philosopher; and then afterwards to make use 
of it in our whole conversation, this was the part of a vir- 
tuous man complete and absolute. And how then will our 
contempt be aggravated, if Christianity, which Clemens calls 
spiritual philosophy, and is to be reckoned above all moral 
perfections, hath yet wrought neither of these effects in us! 
if we have continued so far from straightening, or setting up, 
or making use of this rule, that we have not so much as ever 
enquired or marked whether there be any such thing left 
within us or no! TheodoretY in his second @epam. is very 
passionate in the expression of this contempt of the τὸ νοερὸν 
pas τὴς ἀληθείας, “the light of truth shining in our under- 
standings.” ‘There be a sort of birds, saith he, that fly or 
move only in the night, called from thence night-birds, and 
night-ravens, which are afraid of light, as either an enemy 
to spy, to assault, or betray them; but salute, and court, and 
make love to darkness as their only queen and mistress of 


x [Καὶ τὸ φιλοσοφεῖν τοῦτό ἐστιν, —Arrian. Epicteti Dissertat., lib. ii. 
ἐπισκέπτεσθαι καὶ βεβαιοῦν τοὺς kavd- ο, 11. ὃ 24.] 
vas. τὸ δ᾽ ἤδη χρῆσθαι τοῖς ἐγνωσμένοις, Υ [Theodoret. Therapeut. ii. p. 58. 


τοῦτο TOU καλοῦ καὶ ἀγαθοῦ ἔργον ἐστίν. ed. Gaisf. | 


568 SERMON XXVI. 


their actions, ὡς σωτήριον, as a creature sent on purpose to 
preserve them; and these, saith he, deserve not to be chid 
but pitied, for nature at first appointed them this condition 
of life, ἀπεκλήρωσεν, it is their birthright and inheritance, 
and therefore nobody will be angry with them for living on 
it; of δὲ αὐθαιρέτως, x.7.r.; but for them who were made 
creatures of light, and, had it not been for their wilfulness, 
had still continued light in the Lord, who are altogether 
encompassed and environed with light, light of nature, light 
of reason, light of religion, nay, the most glorious asterism, 
or conjunction of lights in the world, the light of the gospel 
to walk in; for these men merely out of perverseness of wilful 
hearts, to hate and abjure, and defy this light, to run out of 
the world almost for fear of it, to be for ever a soliciting 
and worshipping of darkness, as Socrates was said to adore 
the clouds’, this is such a sottishness, that the stupidest ele- 
ment under heaven would naturally scorn to be guilty of; 
for never was the earth so peevish, as to forbid the sun when 
it should shine on it, or to slink away, or subduce itself from 
its rays. And yet this is our case, beloved, who do more 
amorously, and flatteringly court, and woo, and solicit dark- 
ness, than ever the heathens adored the sun. Not to wan- 
der out of the sphere my text hath placed me in, to shew 
how the light of the gospel and Christianity is neglected by 
us, our guilt will lie heavy enough on us, if we keep us to 
the light only of natural reason within us. How many sins 
do we daily commit, which both nature and reason abhor 
and loathe! How many times do we not only unman, but 
even uncreature ourselves! Aristotle* observes, that that by 
which any thing is known first,that which doth distinguish one 
thing from another a priore, ἀρχὴ λέγεται, is to be called 
the beginning or cause of that thing; and that the light of 
reason distinguishing one action from another, being the 
first thing that teaches me that this is good, that otherwise 
may from thence be termed the beginning of every reason- 
able action in us, and then wherever this cause or beginning 
is left out and wanting, there the thing produced is not so 
called a positive act, or proper effect, but a defect, an abor- 
tion, or still-born frustrate issue; and of this condition in- 
z [Aristoph. Nubes. y. 253.] a [Aristot. Metaph., A. c. 1. ad init. ] 


SERMON XXVI. 569 


deed is every sin in us. Every action where this law 
within us is neglected, is not truly an action, but a passion, 
a suffering or a torment of the creature. Thus do we not 
so much live and walk, which note some action, as lie en- 
tranced, asleep, nay, dead in sin; by this perverseness it is 
perpetual night with us, nay, we even die daily; our whole 
life is but a multiplied swoon or lethargy, in which we re- 
main stupid, breathless, senseless, till the day of death or 
judgment with a hideous voice affrights and rouses us, and 
we find ourselves awake in hell; and so our dark souls 
having a long while groped wilfully in the sun, are at last 
led to an everlasting, inevitable darkness, whither the mercy 
or rays of the sun can never pierce; where it will be no 
small accession to our torment, to remember and tremble at 
that light which before we scorned. Thus, I say, do we ina 
manner uncreature ourselves, and by the contempt of this 
law of our creation, even frustrate and bring to nothing our 
creation itself, and this is chiefly by sins of sloth, and stupid, 
sluggish, unactive vices, which, as I said, make our whole 
life a continued passion, never daring, or venturing, or at- 
tempting to act or do any thing in Church or commonwealth, 
either toward God or our neighbour; and of such a con- 
ditioned man nobody will be so charitable as to guess he 
hath any soul, or light of reason in him, because he is so 
far from making use of it, unless it be such a soul as Tully® 
saith a swine hath, which serves it only instead of salt, to 
keep it from stinking. For it is Aristotle’s° observation, that 
every one of the elemeuts, besides the earth, was by some 
philosopher or other defined to be the soul. Some said the 
soul was fire, some that it was air, some water, but never 
any man was so mad, as to maintain the earth to be it, be- 
cause it was so heavy and unwieldy. So then this heavy, 
motionless, unactive Christian, this clod of earth, hath, as 
I said, uncreatured himself, and by contemning this active 
reason within him, even deprived himself of his soul. Again, 
how ordinary a thing is it to unman ourselves by this con- 
tempt of the directions of reason, by doing things that no 
man in his right mind would ever have patience to think of ! 


» [Cicero, De Nat. Deorum, lib. ii. c. 64. ] 
© [Aristot. De Anima, lib. i. c. 2.] 


Gen. i. 25. 


ver. 26. 28. 


570 SERMON XXVI. 


Beloved, to pass by those which we call unnatural sins, i. 6. so 
in the highest degree, as too horrid for our nature, set down 
in the latter end of this chapter, for all Christian ears to 
glow and tingle at, and I had hoped for all English spirits 
to abhor and loathe; to pass these, I say, our whole life al- 
most affords minutely sins which would not argue us men, 
but some other creatures. There be few things we do in our 
age, which are proper peculiar acts of men; one man gives 
himself to eating and drinking, and bestows his whole care 
on that one faculty, which they call the vegetative, growing 
faculty ; and then what difference is there betwixt him and 
a tree, whose whole nature it is to feed and grow? Certainly 
unless he hath some better employment, he is at best but 
ζωόφυτον, a plant-animal, whose shape would perhaps per- 
suade you that it hath some sense or soul in it, but its 
actions betray it to be a mere plant, little better than an 
artichoke or cabbage; another goes a little higher, yet not 
far; doth all that his sense presents to him, suffers all that 
his sensitive faculties lust and.rage to exercise at freedom‘ ; 
is as fierce as the tiger, as lustful as the goat, as ravenous 
as the wolf, and the like; and all the beasts of the field, and 
fowls of the air, be but several emblems and _ hieroglyphics 
concurring to make up his character; carries a wilderness 
about him, as many sins as the nature of a sensitive creature 
is capable of; and then who will stick to compare this man 
to the beasts that perish? For it is Theophilus’© note, that 
the cattle and beasts of the field were created the same day 
with man, to note θηρία τίνων ἀσεβούντων, the brutish con- 
dition of some men, and that therefore the blessing was not 
bestowed on them, but reserved for the man which should 
“have the dominion over them.” In sum, every action which 
reason, or Scripture, or God’s Spirit guides not in us, is to 
be called the work of some other creature of one of these 
three sorts; either earthly, the work of a plant, or sensual, 
the work of a brute‘, or thirdly, above the condition of both 
these, devilish. 


4 [πῶς δὲ οὐκ ἄλογον πολλοὺς τῶν © Theophilus ad Autolyc., lib. ii. 
ἀνθρώπων ἐπ᾽ αἰσθήσει μόνον ζῶντας [ὃ 17. p. 361, D.} 
ὁρῶντας, νοῦν δὲ καὶ λόγον οὐκ ἔχον- f Jamblichus, Protrept., p. -145. 


τας, kK.7.A.—Porphyt., De Abstinentia, [Symb. xvi.]} 
lib. iii. § 19.] 


SERMON XXVI. 571 


Thus do you see the sin of the contempt of the light of na- 
ture, which although it be dimmed in us by our corruption, 
yet shined so bright in the heathen, that they were left with- 
out excuse; in the Jews, that even their own hearts accused 
them for their rebellions; and in us Christians, that unless 
we move according to its directions, we are fallen below the 
condition of men, almost of creatures. It were now su- 
perfluous further to demonstrate it, our time will be better 
spent if we close with some use of it; and that will prove 
manifold, 1. by way of caution, not to deify, or exalt too high, 
or trust in this light of nature. It was once a perfect glori- 
ous rule, but is now distorted and defaced ; it once was light 
in the Lord, almost an angel of light; it shone as the sun in 
the firmament, in majesty and full brightness, but is now only 
as the moon, pale and dim, scarce able to do us any service, 
unless it borrows some rays from the Sun of Righteousness. 
The fall hath done somewhat with it, I know not what to call 
it, either much impaired it and diminished its light in its es- 
sence, or else much encumbered or oppressed it in its opera- 
tions, as a candle under a veil, or lantern, which, though it 
burn and shine as truly as on a candlestick, yet doth not so 
much service in enlightening the room; the soul within us is 
much changed, either is not in its essence so perfect, and ac- 
tive, and bright, as once it was; or else being infused in a 
sufficient perfection, is yet terribly overcast with a gloom and 
cloud of corruptions, that it can scarce find any passage to 
get through, and shew itself in our actions; for the “ corrup- Wisd. x. 
tible body presseth down the soul,” &c. And from this cau- ἷ 
tion grow many lower branches, whence we may gather some 
fruit ; as in the second place, infinitely to humble ourselves 
before God for the first sin of Adam, which brought this 
darkness on our souls, and account it not the meanest or 
slightest of our miseries, that our whole nature is defiled, 
and bruised, and weakened ; to aggravate every circumstance 
and effect of that sin against thyself, which has so liberally 
afforded fuel to the flames of lust, of rage, and wild desire, and 
thereby, without God’s gracious mercy, to the flames of hell. 
This is a most profitable point, yet little thought on ; and there- 
fore would deserve a whole sermon to discuss to you. Thirdly, 
to observe and acknowledge the necessity of some brighter 


572 SERMON XXVI. 


light than this of nature can afford us, and with all the care 
and vigilancy of our hearts, all the means that Scripture will 
lend us, and at last with all the importunities and groans, 
and violence of our souls, to petition and solicit, and urge 
God’s illuminating Spirit to break out and shine on us. To 
undertake to interpret any ancient author, requires, say the 
grammarians, a man of deep and various knowledge, because 
there may be some passage or other in that book, which will 
refer to every sort of learning in the world, whence it is ob- 
served that the old scholiasts and ἐξηγηταὶ, were most exqui- 
site scholars. Thus, certainly, will not any ordinary skill serve 
turn to interpret and explain many dark sayings, which were 
at first written in the book of our hearts, but are now almost 
past reading ; only that omniscient Spirit,that hath no shadow 
of ignorance, the finger that first writ, must be beseeched 
to read and point out the riddle. We must make use of 
that rotten staff of nature, as far as its strength will bear, 
and that very gingerly too, never daring to lean or lay our 
whole weight upon it, lest it either wound with its splinter, 
or else break under us; our help and stay, and subsistence, 
and trust must be in the Lord, our eyes must wait on His 
enlightening Spirit, and never lose a ray that falls from it. 
Fourthly, to clear up as much as we can, and re-enliven this 
light within us; and that, first, 

By stirring up and blowing, and so nourishing every spark 
we find within us. The least particle of fire left in a coal, 
may by pains be improved into a flame; it is held possible 
to restore, or at least preserve for a time any thing that is 
not quite departed. If thou findest but a spark of religion 
in thee, which saith, a God is to be worshipped; care, and 
sedulity, and the breath of prayers may in time by this in- 
flame the whole man into a bright fire of zeal towards God. 
In brief, whatever thou doest, let not any the least atom of 
that fire, which thou once feelest within thee, ever go out; 
quench not the weakest motion, or inclination even of rea- 
son towards God or goodness; how unpolished soever this 
diamond be, yet if it do but glisten, it is too precious to be 
cast away. And then, secondly, 

By removing all hinderances or encumbrances that may any 
way weaken oroppress it, and these you have learntto be corrupt 


SERMON XXVI. 573 


affections. That democracy, and crowd, and press, and com- 
mon people of the soul, raises a tumult in every street within 
us, that no voice of law or reason can be heard. If you will 
but disgorge and purge the stomach, which hath been thus 
long oppressed, if you will but remove this cloud of crudities, 
then will the brain be able to send some rays down to the 
heart, which till then are sure to be caught up by the way, 
anticipated, and devoured. For the naked simplicity of the 
soul, the absence of all disordered passions, is that οἰκεία εὐεξία 
τῆς ψυχῆς, saith Aphrodiseus®, that kindly, familiar, good 
temper of the soul, by which it is able to find out and judge 
of truth. In brief, if thou canst crop thy luxuriant passions, 
if thou canst either expel or tame all the wild beasts within 
thee, which are born to devour any thing which is weak or 
innocent, then will that mild voice within thee, in the cave, 
take heart and shew itself. In the mean time this hurry of 
thy senses drowns that reason, and thou canst not hope to 
see, as long as like old Tobit, the dung and white film doth 
remain upon thine eyes. If thou canst use any means to 
dissolve this dung of affections, which an habit of sin hath 
baked within thee, the scales will fall off from thine eyes, and 
the blind Tobit shall be restored to his sight. In brief, do 
but fortify thy reasonable soul against all the undermining, 
and faction, and violence of these sensual passions, do but 
either depose, or put to the sword that atheistical tyrant and 
usurper, as Jamblichus calls the affections, do but set reason 
in the chair, and hear and observe his dictates, and thou 
hast disburthened thyself of a great company of weights and 
pressures ; thou wilt be able to look more like a man, to hold 
thy head more courageously, and bend thy thoughts more 
resolutely toward heaven; and I shall expect, and hope, and 
pray, and almost be confident that if thou dost perform sin- 
cerely what thy own soul prompts thee to, God’s Spirit is 
nigh at hand to perfect, and crown, and seal thee up to the 
day of redemption. 

In the next place, thou mayst see thine own guilts the 
clearer, call thyself to an account even of those things which 
thou thinkest thou art freest from; that which the Apostle 
in this chapter and part of my discourse hath charged the 


8 [Cf. Alex. Aphrodis. in Aristot. Top., lib. i. f. 17. Ald.] 


Wisd. xiii. 
17, sq. 


574 SERMON XXVI. 


heathens with ; and if thou lookest narrowly I am afraid thou 
wilt spy thine own picture in that glass, and find thyself in 
many things as arrant a Gentile as any of them. For any 
sincere care of God, or religion, how few of us are there that 
ever entertained so unpleasant a guest in their hearts; we go 
to church, and so did they to their temples; we pray, and they 
sacrificed ; they washed and bathed themselves before they 
durst approach their deities, and we come in our best clothes 
and cleanest linen; but for any further real service we mean 
towards God there, for any inward purity of the heart, for any 
sincere worship of our soul, we are as guiltless, as free from 
it, we do as much contemn and scorn it, as ever did any hea- 
then. Again, what man of us is not in some kind guilty even 
of their highest crime, idolatry ? Some of them took the brain 
to be sacred, ἐγκέφαλος ἱερὸς, saith Athenzeus*; and there- 
fore hearing some cry God help when one sneezed, the igno- 
rant sort worshipped that noise as an expression of a deity 
in the brain ; and so, as senselessly, many of us deify our own 
brains, and adore every thing that ever comes out of them. 
Every conceit of ours must be like the birth of Jupiter's 
brain, a Minerva at least; be we never so ignorant or me- 
chanical, every device, every fancy of our own—especially 
in matters of religion—is straight of divine authority; and 
having resolved ourselves the children of God, every crotchet 
we fall upon must be necessarily theopneust, and inspired, 
and others accused for irreligious, or singular, that will not 
as soon give homage to it. In sum, every imagination be- 
comes an image, and the artificer deifies his own handiwork, 
forgetting that he made it, as it is described in the thirteenth 
of Wisdom toward the end; and this is one kind of idolatry. 
Again, who is there that hath not some pleasure in his heart 
which takes place of God there? They had their sun and 
moon, most glorious creatures, their heroes, whose virtues had 
even deified their memory, and silly men they admired and 
could not choose but worship. The devil, and a humour of 
superstition customary in them, feed and bribed the law in 
their hearts to hold its peace, and not recall them. But how 
basely have we outgone their vilest worships! How have we 
outstript them! Let but one appearance of gain, like that 
h [Athenzus, lib. ii. ὃ 72. p. 66. ed. Casaub.] 


SERMON XXVI. 575 


golden calf of the Israelites; a beautiful woman, like that 
Venus of the heathens; nay, in brief, whatever image or re- 
presentation of delight thy own lusts can propose thee, let it 
but glance, or glide by thee, and Quis non incurvavit ? Shew 
me aman that hath not at some time or other fallen down 
and worshipped. In sum, all the lower part of the soul or 
carnal affections are but a picture of the city of Athens, 
“wholly given to idolatry.” The basest, unworthiest plea- Acts xvii. 
sure or content in the world, that which is good for nothing 10: 
else, the very refuse of the refuse, is become an idol, and Wisd. xiii. 
hath its shrines in some heart or other; and we crouch and 15, 
bow, and sacrifice to it, and all this against the voice of our 
soul, and nature within us, if we would suffer it to speak 
aloud, or but hearken to its whisperings; φύσεως yap τροφὴ, 
ἐπιθυμίας ἡδονὴ, saith Philoponus', Nature only bids us feed 
ourselves with sufficient, lust brought in superfluity and plea- 
sure. But this only by the way, lest you might think that 
part of my sermon concerning the heathens’ contempt of this 
law, did belong little to you, and so might have been spared. 

Lastly, not to lade every part of my former discourse with 
its several use, or application, take but this one more. If 
this light shines but dimly within us, then let us so much 
the more not dare contemn it. That master that speaks but 
seldom, then surely deserves to be obeyed; he that is slow in 
his reproofs, certainly hath good reason when he falls foul 
with any body. If Croesus’ dumb son in Herodotus *, seeing 
one come to kill his father, shall by violence break the string 
of his tongue that formerly hindered his speech, and he that 
never spake before roar out an ἄνθρωπε, μὴ κτεῖνε Κροῖσον, 
“ Sir, kill not Croesus,” I wonder not that the Persian held 
his hand; a very barbarian would be amazed and stopped by 
such a prodigy; it must needs be an odious thing when the 
child which can scarce speak expresses indignation. Where- 
fore if ever our bestial soul, that of our sense, shall seduce us 
to any thing that our manly soul, that of our reason, which 
is now somewhat decrepit, and dim-sighted, shall yet espy 
and find fault with; if in any enterprise this natural law 
within us shall give the check, let us suddenly remove our 
project, and not dare to reject such fatherly, sage admonish- 

' [Philoponus, in Aristot. de Anima, f. 4. ] « { Herod., lib. 1, ο, 85, ] 


[Judg. i.] 


576 SERMON XXVI. 


ments ; if all the means in the world can help to avoid it, let 
us never fall into the snare. And if at thy audit with thy 
own soul, and examination of thyself, amongst the root of 
thy customary ignorant sins,—and, O Lord deliver me from 
my secret faults—if in that heap and chaos, thy own heart 
can pick out many of this nature, and present them to thee, 
which it before forewarned thee of; then let the saltest, most 
briny tear in thy heart be called out to wash off this guilt ; 
let the saddest, mortified thought thou canst strain for, be 
accounted but a poor unproportionable expiation. Think of 
this seriously, and if all this will nothing move you, I cannot 
hope that any farther rhetoric, if I had it to spare, would do 
any good upon you. Only I will try one suasory more, which 
being somewhat rough may chance to frighten you, and that 
is, the punishment that here expects this contempt, and that 
a dismal hideous one, all the wild savage devourers in the 
wilderness, vile affections, which punishment together with 
the inflicter and manner of inflicting it, are the last parts of 
my discourse, of which together in a word; “ God gave them 
up to vile affections.” 

A punishment indeed; and all the fiends of hell could not 
invent or wish a man a greater; there is not a more certain 
presage of a πανωλεθρία, or total subversion of body and 
soul, not a more desperate prognostic in the world. It is 
observed in Photius!, as a sure token that Jerusalem should 
be destroyed, because punishment came upon it in a chain, 
every link drew on another, no intermission or discontinu- 
ance of judgments, τῷ γὰρ λιμῷ ὁ λοιμὸς, K.T.rA. A single 
judgment that brings no train after it is cheaply entertained, 
and is therefore called not a calamity, but a visitation; but 
when one plague shall invade, shall supplant another; when 
the pestilence shall fright out the famine, and the sword 
pursue the pestilence, that neither may slay all, but each 
join in the glory of the spoil; then must the beholder ac- 
knowledge θεομηνίας ἔργον, that God is resolved to make 
them the scene of His rage, not only of His wrath. ‘Thus also 
in the spiritual κρίσις of the estate of the soul, some sins may 
be suffered to invade us, and stick as did the Amorites, to 
goad our sides, not destroy but humble us. But when sins 

' [Photius in Biblioth., p. 36. ed. Heschel. | 


SERMON XXVI. til 


shall come like gaol birds linked and chained together, when 
our corruptions and insolent tyrannical passions shall make 
us contemn the light and law of reason and nature; when 
that contempt shall bring forth idolatry, and the like, either 
worship of idol gods, or vain conceits, or imaginary delights, 
every lust of our baser soul; then can it not be expected that 
God will have so little to do, as to take any more care of us, 
that He will have so much mercy as even to punish us any 
longer. The next voice that we can expect is that horrible 
mercy of His, “Why should you be smitten any more?” 
Any restraint either of chastisement or instruction would 
be scarce seen upon us, and therefore it is but lost labour to 
beat the air, or to lay stripes upon the sea with Xerxes™. The 
height of God’s wrath in this world is but our just reward, 
and that is desertion, or dereliction, and giving us over, and 
giving us up, which will suddenly bring us to that which our 
corrupt nature posts after, all vile affections. 

The issue of all is this; that those that contemn God’s 
ordinary restraints, God ordinarily leaves to themselves, and 
suffers them to run into most horrible sins. It is justice 
that they which delight in error, should be let alone in their 
course, that they may see and acknowledge the error of their 
delight, that they which have contemned God’s voice, and 
nature’s within them, should be forsaken and left without 
either, ungodly, unnatural; that they which lulled their 
reasonable soul into a lethargy, for fear it should awake 
them, or disturb their delights, should not have life enough 
without it, ever to awake or rouse themselves or it; that 
they which have maliciously, and contemptuously put out 
the sun, should for ever suffer a continued night. It is 
Hippocrates" observation that the Africans are very libidi- 
nous; they are neither hardy nor valiant, nor laborious, 
ἀλλὰ Kpatéew τὴν ἡδονὴν, lust hath so effeminated them, 
that they are fit for nothing but for softness; and there- 
fore, saith he, πολύμορφα γίνεται τὰ ἐν τοῖς θηρίοις, there 
be among them beasts of all sorts of strange shapes, the 
heat and violence of the same lust makes the very beasts 
unnatural, the confusion of species is ordinary among them ; 


m [ Herod., lib. vii. c. 45.] cis, tom. i. p. 349. Med. Gree., tom. 
n {Hippocrates De aqua, aere et lo- xxi. ed. Kiihn.] 


HAMMOND. P Ρ 


Isaiah i. 5. 


578 SERMON XXVI. 


and so almost every birth a monster; nature is almost lost 
among them, and many beasts may be found in Africa, 
which never had any of their kind in the ark; Africa semper 
aliquod apportat novi, whosoever hath a mind to a strange 
sight, there he shall have store of them. ‘Thus is it in the 
soul, if the upper, the manly part of it be overswelled with 
lust, it straight becomes effeminate, and enervate, hath 
neither strength, nor sinews, nor courage for any undertak- 
ing; and then the beasts of the field, the lower, baser, 
sensual faculties of the soul are not only lusty, but out- 
rageous; having no keeper to govern them, they become 
wild; scorn any limits, or bounds of nature, do every day 
conceive horrid, unnatural, vile imaginations, and every sea- 
son grow big, and bring forth monsters,—monstrous oaths, 
monstrous delights, monstrous vanities. Some new art or 
trick of sinning that was never heard of before, is invented 
against every solemn season of our jollity, and this we carry 
about, and shew, and brag of as a new creature, or strange 
sight, and get a great deal of applause, and admiration, and 
perhaps some money by the employment. It were too long 
to point out the several sorts of these vile affections, which 
contempt of this light hath produced in every one of us; 
only let us strive and strain, and stretch the eyes that are 
left us to examine, and observe every degree and symptom, 
and prognostic of them in ourselves, and never leave poring 
till we have pierced through that carnal security that blinded 
us, and fully humble ourselves in a sense of that desperate 
estate, and almost the hell that we are fallen blindfold into. 
And if we are still blinded, still unable to see, or move, or 
relieve ourselves, let us then lay hold of the next post or 
pillar we meet with, and there fix, and dwell, and weep, and 
pray to that omnipotent Physician of our souls, that restorer 
of reasonable creatures, that He will by some spiritual eye- 
water recover us to that sense. It is impossible, saith Jobius®, 


of... οὐδὲν ἕτερον διαλαμβάνει, ἤ φώσασθαι' καὶ ds ἔδει τὸν ἀληθῆ καὶ 


ὅτι τῶν πρεπωδεστάτων ἣν, τὴν ἀπαράλ- 
λακτον καὶ φυσικὴν εἰκόνα τοῦ πατρὸς 
ἡμᾶς τοὺς κατ᾽ εἰκόνα μὲν γεγονότας, 
τὴν δὲ χαρακτῆρα κιβδηλεύσαντας, ταύ- 
Thy ἡμᾶς ἀποκαθᾶραί τε τῶν κηλιδωμά- 
των, καὶ εἰς τὸ ἀρχαῖον κάλλος ἀναμορ- 


ἐνυπόστατον τοῦ θεοῦ σοφίαν τοὺς εἰς 
ἀλογίαν παρατραπέντας καὶ πρὸς τὸν 
κτηνώδη βίον ἀπονεύσαντας, ἀπάλλαξαί 
τε τῆς ἀλογίας, καὶ πρὸς τὸ νοερὸν ἐπα- 
ναγαγεῖν &&lwua,—Photius Biblioth., 
p- 601. ed. Hoeschel. } 


SERMON XXVI. 579 


for any one to restore us to the image of the Father, which 
was once on us, but Him only who was the eternal image of 
the Father, He only could ἀπάλλαξαι τὴς ἀλογίας, καὶ πρὸς 
TO νοερὸν ἐπαναγαγεῖν ἀξίωμα, turn out that unreasonable 
blind soul within us, made up of our sins which move us, 
and reduce us to the dignity of reasonable creatures. He 
hath already by His incarnation, delivered us from one long 
night, the dark gloom of our heathen ancestors; O that He 
would be born again spiritually in our souls, to deliver us 
from other more Cimmerian darkness, the night and hell of 
habituate sin, wherein we grope! He once breathed on us 
the breath of life to make us men; O that He would again but 
breathe on us the τὸ ἅγιον πνεῦμα, His holy breath, His 
hallowing breath, His breath of holiness to make us saints! 
It is He that must prevent us with His Spirit, or else we run 
headlong into all vile affections. 

O that He would but sanctify us! and then the most plau- 
sible flattering sin in the world, nay, the most boisterous, 
impetuous lust, should not be able to tyrannize over us. 
In the meantime, let us remain men till it shall please that 
free voice to call us into saints. Grace is never placed but 
in a reasonable creature; and is therefore said to be sent to 
make reason see, what by nature only it cannot, never to 
blemish it in what it can comprehend, as the learned bishop 
hath observed against the Jesuit. Let us make much of all 
the light that nature and reason will afford us, let us not 
suffer one precious ray to be cast away upon us, but improve 
it to the extent of its virtue, for the direction of our lives. 
And whensoever this light shall fail, that it cannot guide us, 
or our eyes dazzle that we cannot follow, let us pray to the 
Father of lights, and God of spirits, that He will shine spiri- 
tually in our hearts, and fulfil us with His light of grace 
here, which may enable us to behold Him, and enjoy Him, 
and rejoice with Him, and be satisfied with that eternal light 
of His glory hereafter. 

Now to Him which hath elected us, hath created, re- 
deemed, &c. 


Ppe2 


Gal. vi. 12. 


SERMON XXVIL. 


Gat. vi. 15. 


But a new creature. 


Amoncst all other encumbrances, and delays in our way 
to heaven, there is no one that doth so clog and trash, so 
disadvantage and backward us, and in fine, so cast us be- 
hind in our race, as a contentedness in a formal worship of 
God, an acquiescence and resting satisfied in outward per- 
formances, when men upon a confidence that they perform 
all that can be required of a Christian, they look no further 
than the outward work, observe not what heart is under this 
outside, but resolve their estate is safe, they have as much 
interest in heaven as any one. Such men as these the 
Apostle begins to character and censure in the twelfth verse 
of the chapter, “ As many as desire to make a fair shew in the 
flesh,” &c. They that stand only on a fair specious outside, 
and think all the sap and life of religion lies in the bark, 
they do this and this; these will have you circumcised, and 
constrain you to a many burthensome ceremonies ;-measur- 
ing out religion to you by the weight, thus much is required 
of you to do (as popish confessors set their deluded votaries: 
their task of Ave Maries and Pater nosters by tale) and thus 
you may be sure to be saved. In brief, the Apostle here 
shews the unprofitableness of all these, and sets up the in- 
ward sanctity and renewedness of heart against them all, as 
the only thing that will stand us in stead, and appear to be 
of any weight in the balance of the sanctuary. If you 
observe all the commands, and submit yourselves to all the 
burden of both law and gospel, and bear it upon your 
shoulders never so valiantly; if you be content to be cir- 


SERMON XXVII. 581 


cumcised as Christ was, or because He hath now abrogated 
that, make use of Christian liberty, and remain uncircum- 
cised, notwithstanding all inducements to the contrary; in 
brief, be you outwardly never so severe a Jew or Christian, 
all that is nothing worth, there is but one thing most 
peremptorily required of you, and that you have omitted ; 
“or neither circumcision availeth any thing, neither uncir- 
cumcision, but a new creature.” 

The particle ‘but’ in the front of my text is exclusive and 
restrictive, it excludes every thing in the world from pre- 
tending to avail any thing, from being believed to do us any 
good. For by circumcision the Church of the Jews, and by 
uncircumcision the whole profession of Christian religion 
beimg understood, when he saith neither of these availeth 
any thing, he forcibly implies that all other means, all pro- 
fessions, all observances that men think or hope to get 
heaven by, are to no purpose, and that by consequence it 
exactly restrains to the new creature; there it is to be had, 
and nowhere else; thus doth he slight and undervalue, and 
even reprobate all other ways to heaven, that he may set the 
richer price, and raise a greater estimation in us of this. 
The substance of all the Apostle’s discourse, and the ground- 
work of mine shall be this one aphorism, nothing is effica- 
ciously available to salvation, but a renewed, regenerated 
heart. For the opening of which we will examine by way 
of doctrine, wherein this new creature consists, and then by 
way of use, the necessity of that, and unprofitableness of all 
other plausible pretending means; and first of the first, 
wherein this new creature consists. 

It is observable, that our state of nature and sin is in 
Scripture expressed ordinarily by old age, the natural-sinful Rom. vi.6; 
man, that is, all our natural affections that are born and Sanaa 
grow up with us, are called the old man, as if since Adam’s 22. 
fall we were decrepit, and feeble, and aged as soon as born, 
as a child begotten by a man in a consumption never comes 
to the strength of a man, is always weak, and crazy, and 
puling, hath all the imperfections and corporal infirmities 
of age before he is out of his infancy. And according to 
this ground the whole analogy of Scripture runs; all that is 
opposite to the old decrepit state, to the dotage of nature, is 


582 SERMON XXVII. 


Marki.27; phrased new; “the new covenant ;” the language of believ- 
a ers ; “new tongues ;” “anew commandment ;” “anew man.” 
Ἢ Hag In sum, the state of grace is expressed by πάντα καινὰ, “allis 
2Cor. vy. become new.” So that old and new, as it divides the Bible, 
17. the whole state of things, the world; so it doth that to which 
all these serve, man; every natural man which hath nothing 
but nature in him, is an old man, be he never so young, is 
full of years, even before he is able to tell them. Adam was 
a perfect man when he was but a minute old, and all his 
Eph. ii. 5. children are old even in the cradle, nay, even dead with old 
age. And then consequently, every spiritual man which hath 
somewhat else in him than he received from Adam, he that 
John iii, 3. is “born from above,” γεννηθῇ ἄνωθεν, (for it may be so 
rendered from the original, as well as born again, as our 
English read it,) he that is by God’s Spirit quickened from 
Eph. ii. 5. the old death, he is contrary to the former, a new man, 
a new creature; the old eagle hath cast his beak and is 
grown young; the man, when old, has “entered the second 
time into his mother’s womb, and is born again,” all the 
gray hairs and wrinkles fall off from him, as the scales 
anh xi. from blind Tobit’s eyes, and he comes forth a refined, glori- 
5: ous, beauteous new creature, you would wonder to see the 
change. So that you find in general, that the Scripture 
presumes it, that there is a renovation, a casting away of the 
old coat, a youth and spring again in many men from the 
old age and weak bed-rid estate of nature. Now that you 
may conceive wherein it consists, how this new man is 
brought forth in us, by whom it is conceived, and in what 
womb it is carried, I will require no more of you, than to 
observe and understand with me what is meant by the or- 
dinary phrase in our divines, a new principle, or inward 
principle of life, and that you shall do briefly thus. A 
man’s body is naturally a sluggish, unactive, motionless, 
heavy thing, not able to stir or move the least animal 
motion, without a soul to enliven it; without that it is 
but a carcass, as you see at death; when the soul is sepa- 
rated from it, it returns to be but a stock or lump of flesh; 
the soul bestows all life and motion on it, and enables it 
to perform any work of nature. Again, the body and soul 
together considered in relation to somewhat above their 


SERMON XXVII. 583 


power and activity, are as impotent and motionless, as 
before the body without the soul. Set a man to remove a 
mountain, and he will heave perhaps to obey your command, 
but in event will do no more towards the displacing of it, 
than a stone in the street could do; but now let an omni- 
potent power be annexed to this man, let a supernatural 
spirit be joined to this soul, and then will it be able to 
overcome the proudest, stoutest difficulty in nature. You 
have heard in the primitive Church of a grain of faith re- 
moving mountains, and believe me, all miracles are not yet 
out-dated. The work of regeneration, the bestowing of a 
spiritual life on one “ dead in trespasses and sins,” the making 
of a carcass walk, the natural old man to spring again, and 
move spiritually, is as great a miracle as that. Now the 
soul, in that it produces life and motion, the exercise of life 
in the body, is called a principle, that is, a spring or fountain 
of life, because all comes from it; in like manner, that which 
moves this soul, and enables it to do that which naturally it 
could not; that which gives it a new life, which before it 
lived not, furnisheth it with spiritual powers to quell and 
subdue all carnal affections which were before too hard for 
it ; this, I say, is called properly an inward principle; and an 
inward, because it is inwardly and secretly infused, doth not 
only outwardly assist us as an auxiliary at a dead lift, but 
is sown and planted in our hearts, as a soul to the soul, to 
elevate and enable it above itself, hath its seat and palace in 
the regenerate heart, and there exercises dominion, executes 
judgment, and that is commonly either by prison or banish- 
ment, it either fetters, or else expels all insolent rebellious 
lusts. Now the new principle, by which not the man, but 
the new man, the Christian, lives, is, in a word, the Spirit of 
God, which unites itself to the regenerate heart, so that now 
he is said to be a godly man, a spiritual man from the God, 
from the Spirit, as before a living reasonable man from the 
soul, from the reason that informed and ruled in him; which 
is noted by that distinction in Scripture betwixt the regene- 
rate and unregenerate, expressed by a natural or animal, 
and a spiritual man. Those creatures that have no soul in 
them are called naturals, having nothing but nature within 
to move them; others which have a soul, animals, or living 


Gal. 1'. 20. 


584 SERMON ΧΧΥΤΙ. 

creatures, by both which the unregenerate is signified in- 
differently, because the soul which he hath stands him in 
little stead, his flesh rules all, and then he is also called 
a carnal man, for all his soul he is but a lump of flesh, and 
therefore, whether you say he hath a soul, and so call him 
an animal, or hath not a soul, and so call him a mere natu- 
ral, there is no great difference in it. But now the rege- 
nerate man which hath more than a soul, God’s Spirit to 
enliven him, he is of another rank, πνευματικὸς, a spiritual 
man, nay, only he properly a Christian, because he lives by 
Christ, he lives, yet not he, but Christ liveth in him. This 
being premised, that now you know what this new creature 
is, he that lives and moves by a new principle, all that is 


‘behind will be clearliest presented to you by resolving these 


John iii. 3. 


Jamak. 17. 


John xv. 
20. 


1 Cor. vi. 


19: 


four questions; 1. whence it comes; 2. where it lodges; 3. 
when it enters; 4. what works it performs there. 

To the first, whence it comes, the answer is clear and punc- 
tual, ἄνωθεν, from above, from whence comes every good, and 
especially “every perfect gift,’ but this most peculiarly by a 
several and more excellent way than any thing else. Since 
Christ’s ascension the Holy Ghost of all the Persons in the 
Trinity is most frequently employed in the work of descend- 
ing from heaven, and that by way of mission from the Father 
and the Son, according to the promise of Christ, ‘‘ The Com- 
forter, whom I will send from the Father.” Now this Spirit 
being present every where in its essence, is said to come to 
us by communication of His gifts, and so to be peculiarly 
resident in us, as God is in the Church, from which analogy 
our bodies are called the “temples of the Holy Ghost which 
is in us.” God sends then His Spirit into our hearts; and 
this, I said, by a peculiar manner, not by way of emission, 
as an arrow sent out of a bow, which loses its union which it 
had with the bow, and is now fastened in the butt or white; 
nor properly by way of infusion, as the soul is in the body, 
infused from God, yet so also, that it is in a manner put into 
our hands, and is so in the man’s possession that hath it, that 
it is neither in any man’s else, nor yet by any extraordinary 
tie annexed to God from whom it came; but by way of irra- 
diation, as a beam sent from the sun, that is in the air in- 
deed, and that substantially, yet so as it is not separated 


SERMON XXVIT. 5S5 


. 


from the sun, nay, consists only in this, that it is united to 
the sun; so that if it were possible for it to be cut off from 
the sun, it would desist to be, it would illuminate no longer. 
So that you must conceive these beams of God’s Spirit at the 
same time in the Christian’s heart and in the Spirit, and so 
uniting that Spirit to the heart, as you may conceive by this 
proportion. I have a javelin or spear in my hand; if I would 
mischief any thing, or drive it from me, I dart it out of my 
hand at it, from which God’s judgments are compared to 
shooting and lightning, “He hath bent His bow, He hath 
sent forth His arrows, He cast forth lightnings.” But if I 
like any thing that I meet with, if I would have it to me, I 
reach out my spear and fasten in it, but still hold the spear 
in my hand, and having pierced it draw it to me. Thus doth 
God reach forth His graces to us, and as I may so say, by 
keeping one end in His hand, and fastening the other in us, 
plucks and unites us to Himself, from which regeneration is 
ordinarily called an union with Christ, and this union by a 
strong able band, διὰ μείζονος καὶ κυριωτέρου δέσμου, in 
Eusebius’ phrase, which no man can cut asunder. It is im- 
possible to divide or cut a spirit, and this bond is δέσμος 
πνευματικὸς, a spiritual one, and that made St. Paul so con- 
fident, that no creature should ever separate him. And 
this God-does by way of emanation, as a loadstone sending 
out its effluvia or magnetic atoms draws the iron to itself, 
which never stays till it be united. Thus do you see from 
whence this principle comes to me, and in what manner, 
from God’s Spirit by this means uniting me to Himself. 

To the second question, where it lodges, my answer is, in 
the heart of man, in the whole soul; not in the understand- 
ing, not in the will—a distinction of faculties invented by 
philosophers to puzzle and perplex divines, and put them to 
needless shifts—but, I say, m the whole soul, ruling and 
guiding it in all its actions, enabling it to understand and 
will spiritually ; conceived, I say, and born in the soul, but 
nursed, and fed, and increased into a perfect stature by the 
outward organs and actions of the body, for by them it be- 
gins to express and shew itself in the world, by them the 
habit is exerted and made perfect, the seed shot up into an 
ear, the spring improved to autumn, when the tongue dis- 


Ps. xvili. 
14. 


Rom. viii, 
39. 


Luke xi. 
27. 


Rom. i. 28. 


586 SERMON XXVII. 


courses, the hands act, the feet run the way of God’s com- 
mandments. So, I say, the soul is the mother, and the ope- 
rations of soul and body, the nurse of this spirit in us, and 
then who can hold in his spirit without stiflmg, from break- 
ing out into that joyful acclamation, “ Blessed is the womb 
that bears this incarnate Spirit, and the paps that give Him 
suck !” Now this inward principle, this grace of regenera- 
tion, though it be seated in the whole soul, as it is an habit, 
yet as it is an operative habit producing, or rather enabling 
the man to produce several gracious works, so it is peculiarly 
in every part, and accordingly receives divers names accord- 
ing to several exercises of its power in those several parts. As 
the soul of man sees in the eye, hears in the ear, understands 
in the brain, chooses and desires in the heart, and being but 
one soul, yet works in every room, every shop of the body in 
a several trade, as it were, and is accordingly called a seeing, 
a hearing, a willmg or understanding soul; thus doth the 
habit of grace seated in the whole, express and eyidence itself 
peculiarly in every act of it, and is called by as several names 
as the reasonable soul hath distinct acts or objects. In the 
understanding, it is, first, spiritual wisdom and discretion in 
holy things, opposite to which is νοῦς ἀδόκιμος, an unapprov- 
ing, as well as unapproved or reprobate mind, and frequently 
in Scripture, spiritual blindness. Then as a branch of this, 
it is belief or assent to the truth of the promises, and the 
like; in the practical judgment it is spiritual prudence in 
ordering all our holy knowledge to holy practice; im the will 
it is aregular choice of whatsoever may prove available to sal- 
vation, a holy love of the end, and embracing of the means 
with courage and zeal. Lastly, in the outward man it is an 
ordering of all our actions to a blessed conformity with a 
sanctified soul. In brief, it is one principle within us doth 
every thing that is holy, believes, repents, hopes, loves, obeys, 
and what not? And consequently, is effectually in every part 
of body and soul, sanctifying it to work spiritually, as an holy 
instrument of a divine invisible cause, that is, the Holy Ghost 
that is in us and throughout us. 

For the third question, when this new principle enters; 
first, you are to know that it comes into the heart in a three- 
fold condition; 1. as an harbinger; 2. as a private secret 


SERMON XXVII. 587 


guest; 3. as an inhabitant or housekeeper. As it is an 
harbinger, so it comes to fit and prepare us for itself; trims 
up, and sweeps, and sweetens the soul, that it may be readier 
to entertain Him when He comes to reside ; and that He doth 
—as the ancient gladiators had their arma prelusoria—by 
skirmishing with our corruptions before He comes to give 
them a pitch battle; He brandishes a flaming sword about 
our ears, and as by a flash of lightning, gives us a sense of a 
dismal hideous state; and so somewhat restrains us from ex- 
cess and fury ; first, by a momentary remorse, then by a more 
lasting, yet not purifying flame, the spirit of bondage. In 
sum, every check of conscience, every sigh for sin, every fear 
of judgment, every desire of grace, every motion or inclina- 
tion toward spiritual good, be it never so short-winded, is 
preludium Spiritus, a kind of John Baptist to Christ, some- 
thing that God sent before to prepare the ways of the Lord. 
And thus the Spirit comes very often, in every affliction, every 
disease—which is part of God’s discipline to keep us im some 
order—in brief, at every sermon that works upon us at the 
hearing; then I say, the lightning flashes in our eyes, we 
have a glimpse of His Spirit, but cannot come to a full sight 
of it; and thus He appears to many, whom He will never 
dwell with. Unhappy men, that they cannot lay hold on Him 
when [He comes so near them! and yet somewhat more happy 
than they that never came within ken of Him; stopped their 
ears when He spake to them even at this distance. Every 
man in the Christian Church hath frequently in his life a 
power to partake of God’s ordinary preparing graces; and it 
is some degree of obedience, though no work of regeneration, 
to make good use of them; and if he without the inhabitance 
of the Spirit cannot make such use as he should, yet to make 
the best he can; and thus, I say, the Spirit appears to the 
unregenerate almost every day of our lives. 2. When this 
Spirit comes a guest to lodge with us, then is He said to 
enter; but till by actions and frequent obliging works He 
makes Himself known to His neighbours, as long as He 
keeps His chamber, till He declare Himself to be there, so 
long He remains a private secret guest; and that is called the 
introduction of the form, that makes a man to be truly rege- 
nerate, when the seed is sown in his heart, when the habit is 


Acts ix. 


[ Actsil. 3. } 


Luke i. 41. 
Jer. i. 5. 


158. xlix. 5. 


5388 SERMON XXVII. 


infused; and that is done sometimes discernibly, sometimes 
not discernibly, but seldom, as when Saul was called in the 
midst of his madness, he was certainly able to tell a man the 
very minute of his change, of his being made a new creature. 
Thus they which have long lived in an enormous antichris- 
tian course, do many times find themselves stricken on a sud- 
den, and are able to date their regeneration, and tell you 
punctually how old they are in the Spirit. Yet because there 
be many preparations to this Spirit; which are not this Spirit ; 
mauy presumptions in our hearts false-grounded, many tremb- 
lings and jealousies in those that have it, great affinity be- 
tween faith natural and spiritual; seeing it is a spirit that 
thus enters, and not as it did light on the disciples in a bodily 
shape, it is not an easy matter for any one to define the time 
of his conversion. Some may guess somewhat nearer than 
others, as remembering a sensible change in themselves ; but 
in a word, the surest discerning of it, is in its working, not 
at its entering. I may know that now I have the. Spirit 
better than at what time I came to it. Undiscernibly God’s 
supernatural agency interposes sometimes in the mother’s 
womb, as in John Baptist springing in Elizabeth at Mary’s 
salutation, and perhaps in Jeremiah, “ Before thou camest 
out of the womb I sanctified thee,’ and in Isaiah, “The 
Lord that formed me from the womb to be His servant.” 
But this divine address attends most ordinarily till the time 
of our baptism, when the Spirit accompanying the outward 
sign infuses itself into their hearts, and there seats and plants 
itself,and grows up with the reasonable soul, keeping eventheir 
most luxuriant years within bounds; and as they come to an 
use of their reason, toa more and more multiplying this habit 
of grace into holy spiritual acts of faith and obedience; from 
which it is ordinarily said, that infants baptized have habitual 
faith, as they may be also said to have habitual repentance, 
and the habits of all other graces, because they have the root 
and seed of those beauteous healthful flowers which will ac- 
tually flourish then, when they come to years. And this, I 
say, is so frequent to be performed at baptism, that ordina- 
rily it is not wrought without that means, and in those 
means we may expect it, as our Church doth in our Litur- 
gies, where she presumes at every baptism that “it hath 


SPRMON XXVII. 589 


pleased God to regenerate the infant by His Holy Spirit.” 
And this may prove a solemn piece of comfort to some who 
suspect their state more than they need; and think it is im- 
possible that they should be in a regenerate condition, be- 
cause they have not as yet found any such notable change 
in themselves, as they see and observe in others. These 
men may as well be jealous they are not men, because they 
cannot remember when their soul came to them; if they can 
find the effects of spiritual life in themselves, let them call 
it what they will, a religious education, or a custom of well- 
doing, or an unacquaintedness with sin; let them comfort 
themselves in their estate, and be thankful to God who 
visited them thus betimes; let it never trouble them that 
they were not once as bad as other men, but rather acknow- 
ledge God’s mercy, who hath prevented such a change, and 
by uniting them to Him in the cradle, hath educated, and 
nursed them up in familiarity with the Spirit. 

Lastly, the Spirit sometimes enters into our hearts upon 
occasional emergencies, the sense of God’s judgments on our- 
selves or others, the reflection on His mercies, the reading 
good books, falling into virtuous acquaintance, but most emi- 
nently at, and with the preaching of the Word; and this 
by degrees as it seems to us; but indeed at some one especial 
season or other, which yet perhaps we are not able to discern, 
and here indeed are we ordinarily to expect this guest if we 
have not yet found Him; here doth it love to be cherished, and 
refreshed, and warmed within us, if we have it, “ for even it is 
the power of God unto salvation.” The third condition in 
which this Spirit comes into our hearts, is as an inhabitant 
or housekeeper. ‘The Spirit,” saith Austin ὃ, “first is in us, 
then dwells in us; before it dwells, it helps us to believe; 
when it dwells, it helps, and perfects, and improves our faith, 
and accomplishes it with all other concomitant graces.” So, 
I say here, the Spirit is then said to inhabit, and keep house 
in us, not as soon as it is entertained and received, but when 
it breaks forth into acts, and declares itself before all men, 
“when men see our good works, and glorify our Father.” 
Before we were said to “live in the Spirit,” now to walk, as 
you shall see the phrases used distinctly. To walk, that is, 


4S. Aug. Epist. ον, ad Xystum. [epist. exciv. § 18, tom. ii. p. 720. ed. Ben. ] 


Rom. i. 16. 


Mat. v. 16. 
Gal. v. 25. 


Eph. v. 13. 


Wisd. ii. 
14. 


Heb. xi. 6. 


590 SERMON XXVII. 


to go about conspicuously in the sight of all men, breaking 
forth into works—as the sun after the dispersions of a mist or 
cloud—whereby all men see and acknowledge his faith and 
obedience, and find their own evil ways reprehended and 
made manifest by his good, as is noted in the 13th verse, 
“All things that are reproved, are made manifest by the 
light.” Semblable to which is that of the atheists’ repining 
at the godly man, “ He is made to reprove our thoughts.” 
Thus is the third query resolved also, when this inward prin- 
ciple enters. 1. It comes as an harbinger, in every outward 
restraint by which God keeps us from sinning. 2. It enters 
as a guest in some season or other, once for all. In the 
womb, at baptism, at some sermon, sometimes at a notable 
tempest, shaking and stirring us violently, ordinarily and for 
the most part not to be discerned by us; and lastly, it comes 
and dwells with us, and shews itself in its works, yet that not 
at any set time after His entrance, not constantly without 
ever covering His face, but when and as often as He pleases, 
and the flesh resisteth not. 

To the last query, what works it performs, the answer 
shall be brief; every thing that may be called spiritual, 
faith, repentance, charity, hope, self-denial, and the rest; 
but these not promiscuously, or in a heap altogether, but 
by a wise dispensation, in time and by degrees. The soul 
being enabled by this inward principle, is equally disposed 
to the producing of all these, and as occasions do occur, 
doth actually perform and produce them; so that in my 
conceit that question concerning the priority of repentance, 
or faith, is not either of such moment, or difficulty, as is 
by some disputers pretended. The seeds of them both are at 
one time planted in the soul; and then there is no faith in 
any subject, but there is repentance also; nor repentance 
without faith. So that where it is said, “without faith it 
is impossible to please God” in any thing else, it is true; 
but argues no necessary precedence of it before other graces, 
for the habits of them all are of the same age in us, and then 
also will it be as true, that without repentance, or without 
love, faith itself cannot please God; for if it be truly accept- 
able faith, there is both repentance and love in the same 
womb to keep it company. Thus are we wont to say that 
only faith justifieth, but not faith alone; and the reason 


SERMON XXVII. 591 


these promises in Scripture are made sometimes to one grace 
precisely, sometimes to another, is because they are all at 

once rooted in the man, and in their habits chained toge- 

ther inseparably. Faith saves every man that hath it, and yet 

the believingest man under heaven shall not be saved without 

charity. ‘Charity hides a multitude of sins,” and yet the ! Pet. iv. 8. 
charitablest man in the world shall never have his score 

crossed without repentance. A catalogue of these fruits of 

the Spirit you may at your leisure make up to yourselves for 

your trial out of the fifth to the Galatians from the twenty- Gal. v. 22. 
second verse, and 1 Pet. i. 5. All these graces together, 1 Pet. i. δ. 
though some belonging to one, some to another faculty of 

the soul, are yet all at once conceived in it, at once begin 

their life in the heart, though one be perhaps sooner ready 

to walk abroad and shew itself in the world than another. 

As in the second of Kings iv. 34, “ Elisha went up on the bed 2 Kingsiv. 
and lay on the child, and put his mouth on his mouth, and oa 

eyes upon his eyes, and hands upon his hands, and stretched 

himself upon the child, and the flesh of the child waxed 

warm,” and verse 35, “the child sneezed seven times, and ver. 35. 
opened his eyes;” thus, I say, doth the Spirit apply itself 

unto the soul, and measure itself out to every part of it; and 

then the spiritual life comes at once into the soul—as motion 
beginning in the centre diffuses itself equally through the 

whole sphere, and affecteth every part of the circumference— 

“and the flesh of the child waxed warm;’’ where the flesh 
indefinitely signifieth every part of it together, and in the 
spiritual sense the whole soul; and this is when the inward 
principle, when the habit enters. Then for acts of life, one 

perhaps shews itself before another, as the child first “sneezed 

seven times,” a violent disburdening itself of some trouble- 

some humours that tickle in the head; to which may be an- 
swerable our spiritual clearing and purging ourselves by self- 

denial, “the laying aside every weight,” then ‘“ opened his Heb, xii. 1. 
eyes,” which in our spiritual creature, is spiritual illumina- 

tion, or the eye of faith; these, I say, may first shew them- 

selves as acts, and yet sometimes others before them, yet all 

alike in the habit, all of one standing, one conception, one 
plantation in the heart; though indeed ordinarily—like Esau 

and Jacob—the rougher come out first. We begin our spiri- 


Mat. xvi. 
24, 


[ Rom. vii. 
23. | 


Gal. ii. 20. 


592 SERMON XXVII. 


tual life in repentance and contrition, and with many harsh 
twinges of the Spirit; and then comes faith, like Jacob at the 
heels, smooth and soft, applying all the cordial promises to 
our penitent souls. In brief, if any judgment be to be made, 
which of these graces is first in the regenerate man, and 
which rules in chief; I conceive self-denial and faith to be 
there first, and most eminent, according to that notable 
place where Christ seems to set down the order of graces 
in true disciples; “Let him deny himself, and take up his 
cross,” that is, forego all his carnal delights, and embrace all 
manner of punishments and miseries, prepare himself even 
to go and be crucified, and “then follow Me;” that is, by 
a live faith believe in Christ, and prize Him before all the 
world besides; and indeed in effect these two are but one, 
though they appear to us in several shapes ; for faith is no- 
thing without self-denial, it cannot work till our carnal affec- 
tions be subjected to it. Believe a man may, and have flesh 
and fleshly lust in him, but unless faith have the pre-emi- 
nence, faith is no faith. The man may be divided betwixt 
“the law of his members, and the law of his mind ;” so many 
degrees of flesh, so many of spirit; but if there be constantly 
but an even balance, or more of flesh than Spirit, if three de- 
grees of Spirit and five of flesh, then can there not be said to 
be any true self-denial, and consequently any faith, no more 
than that can be said to be hot, which hath more degrees of cold 
than heat in it. In brief, it is a good measure of self-denial 
that sets his faith in his throne, and when by it faith hath con- 
quered, though not without continual resistance, when it hath 
once got the upper hand, then is the man said to be regene- 
rate, whereupon it is that the regenerate state is called the 
life of faith. Faith is become a principle of the greatest 
power and activity in the soul. And so much for these four 
queries ; from which I conceive every thing that is material, 
and directly pertinent to instruct you, and open the estate of 
a new creature, may be resolved. And for other niceties 
how far we may prepare ourselves, how co-operate and join 
issue with the Spirit, whether it work irresistibly by way of 
physical influence, or moral persuasion, whether bemg once 
had, it may totally or finally be lost again, and the like; 
these, I say, if they are fit for any, 1 am resolved are not 


SERMON XXVII. 593 


necessary for a country auditory to be instructed in. It will 
be more for your profit to have your hearts raised, than your 
brains puffed up; to have your spirits and souls inwardly 
affected to an earnest desire and longing after it, which will 
perhaps be somewhat performed, if we proceed to shew you 
the necessity of it, and unavailableness of all things else, and 
that by way of use and application. 

And for the necessity of renewedness of heart, to demon- 
strate that, I will only crave of you to grant me, that the per- 
formance of any one duty towards God is necessary, and then 
it will prove itself; for it is certain no duty to God can be 
performed without it. For it is not a fair outside, a slight 
performance, a bare work done that is accepted by God; if 
it were, Cain would deserve as much thanks for his sacrifice 
as his brother Abel; for in the outside of them there was no 
difference, unless perhaps on Cain’s side, that he was for- 
wardest in the duty, and offered first. But it is the inside of Gen. iy. 3. 
the action, the marrow and bowels of it that God judges by. 
If a sum in gross, or a bag sealed up would pass for payment 
in God’s audit, every man would come and make his ac- 
counts duly enough with Him; and what he wanted in gold 
for his payment should be made up in counters. But God 
goes more exactly to work when He comes to call thee to an 
account of thy stewardship; He is a God of thoughts, and [Ps. vii. 9.] 
a searcher of the heart and reins, and it will then be a 
harder business to be found just when He examines, or 
clear when He will judge. The least spot and blemish [Ps. li. 4.] 
in the face of it, the least maim or imperfection in the offer- 
ing, the least negligence or coldness in the performance, nay, 
the least corruption in the heart of him that doth it, hath 
utterly spoiled the sacrifice. Be the bulk and skin of the 
work never so large and beautiful to the eye, if it come not 
from a sanctified, renewed, gracious heart, it will find no 
acceptance but that in the prophet, “ Who hath required it [Isa. i. 2.] 
at your hands?” This is not it that God is taken with, or 
such as He commanded; it may pass for a compliment or a 
work of course, but never be valued as a duty or real service. 
Resolve thyself to dwell nowhere but in the Church, and 
there—like Simeon στηλίτης, in Eusebius >—plant thyself 

> [Evagrii Hist, Eccl., lib.i. c. 18. Ε΄. H. iii. p. 265.] 

HAMMOND. Qaqg 


Jam. i. 6. 


94 SERMON XXVII. 


continually in a pillar, with thy eyes, and words, fixed and 
shot up perpetually towards heaven. If there be not a spirit 
within thee to give light to the eyes, to add sighs and groans 
to the voice, all this that thou hast done is nothing but as a 
blind man’s pretensions to sight, and a dumb man’s claim to 
speech ; and so im like manner in all our duties which the 
world and carnal men set a price on. And the reason is, be- 
cause every spiritual seeming work done by a natural man is 
not truly so; it is nothing less than that which it is said to 
be; his prayers are not prayers, lip-labour perhaps, but not 
devotion; his serving of God is formality, not obedience ; 
his hope of heaven, not a hope but a fancy. If God, or 
Satan, a judge, or a tempter, should come to reason with 
him about it, he would soon be worsted, never be able to 
maintain his title to it. 

In brief, the fairest part of a natural man, that which is least 
counterfeit, his desire and good affections to spiritual thngs— 
which we call favourably natural desires of spiritual obedi- 
ence—these I say, are but false desires, false affections. 1. They 
have no solidity or permanency in the will, only fluid and tran- 
sitory, some slight sudden wishes, tempests and storms of a 
troubled mind, soon blown over: the least temptation will be 
sure to do it. They are like those wavering prayers without any 
stay of faith, Jam. i. 6, “like a wave of the sea driven by the 
wind and tossed.” 2. That being which they have is counter- 
feit, they are not that which they are taken for. We are wont to 
say that acts are distinguished by their objects; he sees truly 
which judges the thing to be that that it is; it is true deed 
that another man sees, he that takes blue for green, but he does 
not see truly; so also he only willeth a good thing that wills that 
in it which is truly good. Now the natural man, when he is 
said to choose spiritual things, as heaven, happiness, and the 
like, he desires not a spiritual, but a carnal thing; in desir- 
ing heaven, he desires somewhat that would free him from 
misery in happiness, a natural or moral good, that would be 
acceptable to any creature under heaven: and so a Turk will 
desire paradise, and that very impatiently, in hope that he 
shall have his fill of lust there. Generally you may mark 
that in such desires of spiritual things, it is some carnality 
that moves unregenerate men: somewhat it is that may 


SERMON XXVII. 595 


please the flesh, and then it is not the spiritual but the car- 
nal part of it that is their object, which they woo and make 
love to; which you may judge of by this, that they are fre- 
quent and importunate in their wishes for glory, seldom or 
never for grace—though that also may be wished for carnally, 
to make us more renowned and better esteemed in the world. 
For the most part, I say, they desire glory, for that will make 
them happy, and out of danger of worldly misfortunes ; re- 
mission of sins, for these lie heavy on their consciences, and 
give them many a twinge that they would fain be eased of ; 
but seldom petition for grace, as if holiness without other 
conveniences or gains, were not worth the having. And this 
arises from hence, that our love of Christ grows by sending 
out and fastening our affections on Him as an object fittest 
for our turns, that will advantage us most; but not by re- 
ceiving in His image and shape into our souls; this indeed 
would make us not only love, but imitate Him, and having 
once tasted, long after Him; this would sanctify our souls, 
whereas the other doth but only satisfy our greedy affections. 
By what hath been said it is plam enough—though it might 
be much more amplified—that grace is of absolute necessity 
to performance of any holy work acceptable to God: that 
without it, whatsoever is done in spiritual matters is carnal, 
not indeed spiritual, but equivocally and absurdly so called. 
The natural man’s desires of heaven are not desires of 
heaven: his faith, no faith: his believing of the Scripture, 
infidelity ; because he doth not apply them particularly to 
himself to obey them. In sum, when he prays, hopes, or 
gives alms, he does somewhat indeed, and it is well done of 
him; but he doth not truly either pray, or hope, or give 
alms; there is some carnality in them that hath poisoned 
them, and quite altered the complexion, the constitution, 
and inward qualities of the work. And then indeed how 
impatient should every Christian be of this cologuintida 
within him? There is mors in olla, as the prophet once 
spake, that is, death in the pot, that so infects and kills 2 Kings iv. 
every thing that comes out of it. How should we abhor, a 
and loathe, and detest this old leaven that so besours all 
our actions; this heathenism of unregenerate carnal nature, 
which makes our best works so unchristian? To insist longer 
Qaq2 


[ Gal. vi. 
15.] 

15. xXxvi. 
6. 


596 SERMON XXVII. 


upon this, were but to increase your thirst, not to satisfy 
it: to make you sensible of that marasmus and desperate 
drought that hath gone over your souls, but not to help you 
to any waters for the cure: that shall come next, as the last 
work of this exercise to be performed, in a word. 

Having learnt what this new creature is, and how ab- 
solutely necessary to a Christian, O let us not defer one 
minute longer to examine our estates, whether we are yet 
renewed or no, and by the acts which we daily perform, 
observe whether the sanctifying habit be as yet infused into 
our souls. If the grounds of our best duties, that which 
moves us in our holiest actions, be found upon search to be 
but carnal; if a careful religious education, custom of the 
place which we live in, fear of human laws, nay, perhaps a 
good, soft, tender disposition, and the like, be the things that 
make thee love God, and perform holy duties, and not any 
inward principle of sanctity within thee: I counsel thee 
to think better of thine estate, and consider whether the 
like motives, had it so happened that thou hadst been born 
and brought up in Turkey, might not have made thee wor- 
ship Mahomet. I would be sorry to be rigid; 1 fear thou 
wilt find they might: well then, a new course must be taken, 
all thy former heathen, carnal, or at best, good moral life, all 
thy formal performances, the best of thy natural desires must 
be content to be ranked here with circumcision, and uncir- 
cumcision availing nothing; there is no trust, or confidence 
to be placed on these Egyptian staves “of reed.” And then, if 
thou wilt not live heartless for ever, if ever thou meanest to 
move or walk, or do any thing, you must to that Creator of 
spirits and lover of souls, and never leave soliciting till He 
hath breathed another breath into your nostrils, another soul 
into your soul: you must lay yourself at His feet, and with 
all the violence and rhetoric, and humility, that these wants 
will prompt thee to, and woo, and importune the Holy Spirit 
to overshadow thee, to conceive all holy graces spiritually in 
thee: and if thou canst not suddenly receive a gracious an- 
swer, that the Holy Ghost will come in unto thee, and lodge 
with thee this night, yet learn so much patience from thy 
beggarly estate, as not to challenge Him at thy own times, 
but comfortably to wait His leisure. There is employment 


SERMON XXVIL. 597 


enough for thee in the while to prepare the room against 
His coming, to make use of all His common graces, to cleanse 
and reform thy foul corruptions, that when the Spirit comes 
it may find thee swept and garnished. All the outward means 
which God hath afforded thee, He commands thee to make 
use of, and will require it at thy hands in the best measure, 
even before thou art regenerate ; though thou sin in all thy 
unregenerate performances, for want of inward sanctity, yet 
it is better to have obeyed imperfectly than not at all: the 
first is weakness, the other desperate presumption ; the first, 
material, partial obedience, the second, total disobedience. 
Yet whilst thou art preparing, give not over praying; they 
are acts very compatible; thou mayest do them both toge- 
ther. Whilst thou art a fortifying these little kingdoms 
within thee, send these ambassadors abroad for help, that 
thou mayest be capable of it when it comes. But above all 
things be circumspect, watch and observe the Spirit, and be 
perpetually ready to receive Its blasts; let It never have 
breathed on thee in vain; let thine ear be for ever open to 
Its whisperings: if It should pass by thee either not heard, 
or not understood, it were a loss that all the treasures upon 
earth could not repair, and for the most part you know It 
comes not in the thunder. Christ seldom speaks so loud 
now-a-days as he did to Saul. It is in a soft, still voice, and 
I will not promise you that men that dwell in a mill, that are 
perpetually engaged in worldly, loud employments, or that 
men asleep shall ever come to hear of it. The sum of all 
my exhortation is, after examination, to cleanse, and pray, 
and watch; carefully to cleanse thyself, incessantly to pray, 
and diligently to watch for the Sun of righteousness, when 
He shall begin to dawn, and rise, and shine in thy heart by 
grace. And do thou, O Holy Lord, work this whole work 
in us, prepare us by Thy outward, perfect us by Thy inward 
graces: awaken us out of the darkness of death, and plant a 
new seed of holy light and life in us: infuse into our heathen 
hearts a Christian habit of sanctity, that we may perform 
all spiritual duties of holiness; that we may glorify Thee 
here by Thy Spirit, and be glorified with Thee by Thy Christ 
hereafter. 
Now to Him that hath elected us, hath, &c. 


Acts xix. 
{1 Kings 
mix, 12%] 


Mat. ii. 16. 


Wisd. ii. 1. 


SERMON XXVIII. 


2 Per. ii. ὃ. 
Scoffers walking after their own lusts. 


Tuat we may take our rise luckily, and set out with the 
best advantage, that we may make our preface to clear our 
passage to our future discourse, and so spend no part of our 
precious time unprofitably, we will by way of imtroduction 
examine what is here meant, 1, by scoffers, 2, by walking 
after their own lusts. And first, scoffers here do not signify 
those whom confidence joined to a good natural wit, hath 
taught to give and play upon every man they meet with, which 
in a moderate use is called εὐτραπελία, “ facetiousness,” in 
an immoderate, scurrility*. But scoffers here are of a more 
special stamp, those who deal out their scoffs only on God and 
religion. The word in the original (ἐμπαίζειν) signifies to 
mock, to abuse, and that either in words, and then it is ren- 
dered “ scoffing;” or in our actions, when we promise any man 
to perform a business, and then deceive his expectation, and 
then it is rendered “deluding.” So when Herod saw he was 
mocked, ὅτε ἐνεπαίχθη, that he was “ deluded” by the magi- 
cians. So that in the first primitive sense, scoffers must 
signify those who either laugh at God, or else delude Him 
in not performing what He expects, and they by their pro- 
fession promised. In the secondary notion, to scoff is by 
way of argument to oppose any truth contumeliously or 
bitterly, as Solomon begins his discourse of the atheists’ 
scoffs, “The ungodly said, reasoning with themselves ;” and 
these are said to set their mouth against heaven, managing 
disputes, which have both sting and poison in them; the 
first to wound and overthrow the truth spoken of, the other 
to infect the auditors with a contrary opinion. And these 


a [ Aristot. Eth. Nic. iv. 8.] 


SERMON XXVIII. 599 


rational scoffs, for which Socrates anciently was very famous, 
are ordinarily in form of question, as in the Psalmist often, 
“Where is now their God?” 1. 6. certainly, if they had a God, [Ps. xlii, 
He would be seen at time of need, He would now shew Him- oe 10; 
self in their distress. In which they do not only laugh at the ¢xv- 2.) 
Israclites for being such fools as to worship Him that will not 
relieve them, but implicitly argue, that indeed there is no 
such God as they pretend to worship. And just in this man- 
ner were the scoffers in my text, who did not only laugh, but 
argue, saying, “ Where is the promise of His coming?’ per- ver. 4. 
suading themselves, and labouring to prove to others, that what 
is spoken of Christ’s second coming to judgment was but a 
mere dream, a μορμολύκειον, a bugbear, or fable to keep men 
in awe, and therefore laugh at it, as the Athenians did at the 
resurrection, Acts xvii. 3; ‘ and when they heard of the resur- [Acts xvii. 
rection of the dead, some mocked,” &c., i.e. disputed sarcasti- 52 
cally ἃ Πα contumeliously against it, that certainly there was no 
such matter. And thus also is the same word used of those 
which jomed their reason and malice to disprove Christ’s 
omnipotence, where they reviled and mocked Him, saying, 
He saved others, Himself He cannot save.” In which [Matt. 
speech the bitterest part of the scoff was the reason there ον 52] 
used, plausible enough amongst ignorant Jews, that surely 
if He had any power, He would make use of it for Himself. 

Thirdly, to scoff is sometimes without words or actions to 
shew a contempt or neglect of any body. So Herod’s mock- 
ing of Christ is set as an expression that He did not think 
Him worthy talking with, “He set Him at nought, and [Luke 
mocked Him, and sent Him back to Pilate ;? He would not ™* 1.1 
vouchsafe to take notice of Him, nor to be troubled with the 
examination of so poor, contemptible a fellow, And so in 
Aristotle», not to know a man’s name, not to have taken so 
much notice of him, as to remember what to call him, is 
reckoned the greatest neglect, the unkindest scoff in the 
world, and is ordinarily taken very tenderly by any one who 
hath deserved any thing at our hands. So that in brief—to 
gather up what we have hitherto scattered—the scoffers here 
meant, are those, who promising themselves to God’s service, 
do delude Him when He looks to find them amongst His 

» [ Aristot. Rhet., lib. ii. ο. 2. § 26.] 


Ps. x. 4. 


Mat. xxiv. 


600 SERMON XXVIII. 


servants, i. 6. remain errand ° atheists under a Christian pro- 
fession, who by letting loose either their wits to profane 
jests, or their reason to heathenish conceits and disputings, 
or their actions to all manner of disobedience, demonstrate 
that indeed they care not for God, they scarce remember His 
name, neither is He in all their thoughts. 

In the next place, walking after their own lusts, is giving 
themselves liberty to follow all the directions of corrupt pol- 
luted nature, in entertaining all conceits and practices which 
the pride of their understandings and rankness of their affec- 
tions shall propose to them in opposition to God. And this 
without any reluctancy or twinge of conscience, walking on 
as securely and confidently as if it were indeed the night 
highway. 

So that now you have seen the outside of the text, and 
looked it over in the gross, it is time to survey it more par- 
ticularly in its parts, and those are two: 1. The sin of 
atheism, and the subjects in which it shews itself, “There 
shall come in the last days scoffers.” 2. The motive and 
impellent to this sin, a liberty which men give themselves, 
to walk after their own lusts. 

And first of atheism, and the subjects in whom it shews itself, 
“Tn the,” &c. Where you may note that the words being in a 
form of a prophecy, do note a sort of people which were to 
come, in respect of St. Peter who writes it; and though in its 
first aspect it refer to the period of the Jewish nation, and de- 
struction of Jerusalem, takes in the parallel state of things 
under the last age, and dotage, and declination of the world. 
Accordingly we see at the 24th of St. Matthew, the prophecy 
of both, as it were interwoven and twisted into each other; so 
that what St. Peter saith shall be, we may justly suspect is 
fulfilled amongst us, his future being now turned into a pre- 
sent, his prophecy into a story. In the Apostles’ times, when 
Christianity was in the cradle, and wanted years and strength 
to move and shew itself in the world, there were but very 
few that would acknowledge it; many sects of philosophers, 
who peremptorily resolved themselves against this profession, 
joined issue with the Apostles in assiduous disputation, as 
we may find in the 17th of the Acts. Amongst those the 


© | Errand or errant, an early way of spelling arrant. ] 


SERMON XXVIII. 601 


Epicureans did plainly deny that there was any God that 
governed the world, and laugh at any proof that Moses and 
the prophets could afford for their conviction. And here a 
man might think that his prophecy was fulfilled in his own 
days, and that he needed not to look beyond that present 
age for store of scoffers. Yet so it is, that the infidelity which 
he foresaw should in those last ages reign confidently in the 
world, was represented to him in a larger size and uglier 
shape than that of the present philosophers. The Epicurean 
unbelief seemed nothing to him, being compared to this 
Christian atheism, where men under the vizard of religion 
and profession of piety, are in heart arrant heathens, and in 
their fairest carriages do indeed but scoff, and delude, and 
abuse the very God they worship. Whence the note is, that 
the profession of Christianity is mixed with an infinite deal 
of atheism, and that, in some degree, above the heathenism of 
the perversest philosophers. There were in St. Peter’s time 
Epicureans, and all sects of scoffers at Christianity, and yet 
the scoffers indeed, the highest degree of atheism, was but yet 
heaving; it would not rise and shew itself till the last days. 
It is worth observing what variety of stratagems the 
- devil hath always had to keep us in defiance with God, and 
to nourish in us that hostility and enmity against heaven, 
which is so deep and predominant im himself. He first set 
them a work to rebel and fortify themselves against God, and 
make themselves, by building of a tower, so impregnable that 
God Himself could not be able to disperse them. Afterwards, Gen. xi. 
when by the punishment and defeating of that design, the 
world was sufficiently instructed that no arm of flesh, no 
bodily strength could make resistance against heaven; when 
the body could hold out in rebellion no longer, he then in- 
structs the inward man, the soul, to make its approaches, and 
challenge heaven. Now the soul of man consisting of two 
faculties, the understanding and the will, he first deals with 
the understanding, and sets that up against God in many 
monstrous fashions; first, in deluding it to all manner of 
idolatrous worship, in making it adore the sun, the moon, and 
the whole host of heaven, which was a more generous kind 
of idolatry. Afterwards, in making them worship dogs and 
cats, onions and garlic, for so did the Egyptians; and this 


Gen. iii. 15. 


602 SERMON XXVIII. 


was a more sottish stupid affection ; a man would wonder how 
the devil could make them such fools. Afterward he wrought 
still upon their understanding, in making them—under pre- 
tence of two laudable qualities, admiration and gratitude, ad- 
miration of any kind of virtue, and gratitude for any good turn 
—to deify and worship as gods any men which had ever done, 
either their nation, or private persons, any important good or 
favour. So that every heros, or noble, famous man, as soon 
as he was dead, was worshipped. It were long to shew you 
the variety of shifts in this kind, which the devil used to 
bring in the πολυθεότης of the Gentiles, i.e. their worship- 
ping of many gods. In brief, this plot lasted thus till Chris- 
tianity came into the world, and turned it out of doors, and 
at Christ’s resurrection all the gods of the heathen expired. 
However, the devil still stuck close to that faculty of the 
soul which he had been so long acquainted with, I mean the 
understanding, and seeing through the whole world almost 
the doctrine of Christ had so possessed men, that he could 
not hope to bring in his heathen gods again, he therefore 
hath one design more on the understanding; seeing it is 
resolved to believe Christ in spite of heathenism, he then 
puzzles it with many doubts about this very Christ it is so 
possessed with. He raises up, in the first ages of the Church, 
variety of heresies concerning the union of His natures, 
equality of His person with the Father, and the like: and 
rung as many changes in men’s opinions as the matter of 
faith was capable of. There was no truth almost in Chris- 
tianity, but had its heretic to contradict and damn it. Now 
since at last, reason and truth, and the power of Scripture 
having outlived in a good degree fundamental error in 
opinion, hath almost expulsed the devil out of the head—or 
upper part of the soul, the understanding—his last plot is on 
the heel, i.e. the will and affections; and that he hath bruised 
terribly, according to that prophecy, Gen. iti. 15. He deals 
mainly on our manners, and strives to make them, if it 
be possible, sinful beyond capability of mercy. And this 
design hath thrived with him wonderfully; he hath wrought 
more opposition against God, more heresy against Christ in 
our lives than ever he was able to do in our doctrine. In 
a kingdom, where the custom of the country and education 


SERMON XXVIII. 603 


hath planted purity of faith in the understanding, he there 
labours to supplant and eradicate charity and devotion in the 
will, and crucifies Christ more confidently in our corrupt 
heathenish practices than ever the Jews did in their incre- 
dulity. And on this plot he hath stuck close, and insisted 
a long while, it being the last and most dangerous stratagem 
that the policy of hell can furnish him with, to corrupt, and 
curse, and make abominable a sincere belief by an atheistical 
conversation. And this doth prove in general, that it is the 
devil’s aim, and from thence probably the Christian’s curse, to 
have more hostility against God in our wills, and so to be 
more horrible atheists, than ever the heathen had in their 
understandings. Now that we may the more distinctly 
discover the Christian atheist, who is very orthodox in his 
opinion, very heretical in his practice; we will observe how 
every part of his life, every piece of his conversation doth 
directly contradict his doctrine, and pluck down and deface 
the very fabric of godliness, expunge those very notions of 
piety, which reason and Scripture hath erected in the soul. 
And first, 

He is in his knowledge sufficiently catechised in the know- 
ledge of Scripture, and is confident that all its dictates are 
to be believed, and commands practised. But if you look to 
find this assent confirmed by his practice, and expressed in his 
carriage, you are much mistaken in the business. Is he such 
a fool as to order his life according to the rigour of them? 
No, no doubt, it is not one man’s work to believe the Scrip- 
ture and obey it. Suppose I should tell you that there are 
but a few of you that read Scripture to that purpose, that 
observe any edict of piety or virtue only because the Scrip. 
ture hath commanded it, There be many restraints that 
keep unregenerate men from sinning; a good disposition, re- 
ligious education, common custom of the place or times where 
we live, human laws, and the like; and each or all of these 
may curb our forwardness, and keep us in some order. But 
who is there amongst us, that being tempted with a fair, 
lovely, amiable vice, which he may commit without any re- 
gret of his good nature, scandal to his former carriages, fear 
or danger of punishment, either future or present, or any 
other inconvenience: who is there, I say, that from the 


1 ἐπιπολῆς. 


Mark v. 
17. 


604 SERMON XXVIIL. 


mere awe and respect that he bears to Scripture, retires and 
calls himself off from that sin which he had otherwise fallen 
into? If I should see all manner of conveniences to sin in 
one scale, and the bare authority of the Scriptures in the 
other quite outweighing all them with its heaviness, I should 
then hope that our hearts were catechised, as well as our 
brains, in the acknowledgment of this truth, that Scripture 
is to be believed and obeyed. But I much fear me, if I 
should make an enquiry in every one of our hearts here 
single, the greatest part of the jury would bring in an eyi- 
dence of guilt, that in any our most entire obediences some 
other respect casts the scales; and this is one piece of di- 
rect atheism, that though our understandings affirm, yet our 
will and affections deny that Scripture is for its own sake 
to be obeyed. 

Secondly, our brains are well enough advised in the truth 
of the doctrine of God’s essence and attributes, our under- 
standings have a distinct conceit of awe and reverence, to an- 
swer every notion we have of God; and yet here also our con- 
versation hath its postures of defiance, its scoffs and arts of 
reviling, as it were, to deface and scrape out every of these 
notions out of our wills, and to persuade both ourselves and 
others, that that knowledge doth only float’ in our brains, 
but hath no manner of weight to sink it deep into our hearts. 
To glance at one or two of these; we believe, or at least pre- 
tend we do so, the immensity} i.e. the ubiquity and omni- 
presence of God, that He indeed is every where, to fill, to 
see, to survey, to punish; and yet our lives do plainly proclaim, 
that in earnest we mean no such matter; we shut up our 
hearts against God, and either as the Gadarenes did Christ, 
being weary of His presence, fairly entreat, or else directly 
banish Him out of our coasts, because He hath been or is 
like to be the destruction of some swine, 1. 6. bestial affec- 
tions in us. And in sum, those bodies of ours, which He 
hath marked out for His temples, we will scarce allow Him 
for His inn to lodge with us one night. Again, can we ex- 
pect to be credited when we say we believe the ubiquity 
aud omnipresence of God, and yet live and sin as con- 
fidently as if we were out of His sight or reach? Do we 
behave ourselves in our outrages, in our luxury, nay, even 


SERMON XXVIII. 605 


in our gravest devotions, as if God were within ken? 
Without all doubt, in every minute almost of our lives we 
demonstrate that we doubt either of His omnipresence to 
see, or else His justice to punish us: for those very things 
which we dare not to venture on in the sight of an earthly 
magistrate that may punish us, nay, of a spy that may com- 
plain of us, nay, of an enemy that will upbraid us, nay, of a 
friend that will check and admonish us; we never doubt, or 
demur, or delay to practise in private, or the dark, where 
still God is present to oversee and punish. And if this be 
not a scoffing, a deluding, a mere contemning of God, to do 
that without any fear or regret in His sight, which we never 
offer to attempt before a man, nay, a friend, I know not 
what may be counted atheism. In like manner, we ac- 
knowledge God to be αὐτάρκης, “all-sufficient ;” and if we 
should be examined in earnest, we would confess that there 
is no ability in any creature to bestow or provide any good 
thing for us; and yet our will here also hath its ways and 
arguments of contradiction. Our whole life is one continued 
confutation of this piece of our faith; our tremblings, our 
jealousies, our distrusts, our carefulness, our worldly provi- 
dence and importunate carking, our methods and _strata- 
gems of thrift and covetousness, and the whole business of 
our lives in wooing, and soliciting, and importuning every 
power of nature, every trade and art of the world, to succour, 
to assist, and provide for us, are most egregious evidences 
that we put no trust or confidence in God’s all-sufficiency, 
but wholly depend and rely upon the arm of flesh, both to 
raise and sustain us. This very one fashion of ours, in all our 
distresses, to fly to and call upon all manner of second causes, 
without any raising or elevating our eyes or thoughts toward 
God, from whom cometh our help, plainly shews that God [2 Sam. 
still dwells abroad in tents: we have seen or heard of Him, τ ®! 
but have not yet brought Him home into our hearts, there 
to possess, and rectify, and instruct our wills, as well as our 
understandings. 

Thirdly, the whole mystery of Christ articulately set down 
in our Creed we as punctually believe, and to make good our 
names, that we are Christians in earnest, we will challenge 
and defy the fire and fagot to persuade us out of it; and 


Lev. xix. 7. 


606 SERMON XXVIII. 


these are good resolutions, if our practices did not give our 
faith the lie, and utterly renounce at the church door what- 
soever we professed in our pews. This very one thing, that He 
which is our Saviour, shall be our Judge, that He which was 
“crucified, dead, and buried, sits now at the right hand of 
God, and from thence shall come to judge the world ;” this 
main part, yea, sum of our belief, we deny and bandy 
against all our lives long. If the story of Christ coming to 
judgment, set down in the 25th of Matthew after the 30th 
verse, had ever entered through the doors of our ears to the 
inward closets of our hearts, it is impossible but we should 
observe and practise that one single duty there required of 
us. Christ there as a Judge exacts and calls us to account 
for nothing in the world, but only works of mercy, and 
according to the satisfaction which we are able to give Him 
in that one point, He either entertains or repels us; and 
therefore our care and negligence in this one business, will 
prove us either Christians or infidels. But alas! it is too 
plain, that in our actions we never dream either of the judg- 
ment or the arraignment; our stupid neglect of this one 
duty argues us not only unchristian but unnatural. Besides 
our alms-deeds, which concern only the outside of our neigh- 
bour, and are but a kind of worldly mercy, there are many 
more important, but cheaper works of mercy, as good counsel, 
spiritual instructions, holy education of them that are come 
out of our loins, or are committed to our care, seasonable 
reproof, according to that excellent place, “Thou shalt not 
hate thy brother in thine heart, but in any wise reprove 
him :” a care of carrying ourselves that we may not scandal, 
or injure, or offer violence to the soul and tender conscience 
of him that is flexible to follow us into any riot. These and 
many other works of mercy in the highest degree, as con- 
cerning the welfare of other men’s souls, and the chief thing 
required of us at the day of judgment, are yet so outdated 
in our thoughts, so utterly defaced, and blotted out in the 
whole course of our lives, that it seems we never expect that 
Christ in His majesty as a Judge, whom we apprehend, and 
embrace, and hug in His humility as a Saviour. Beloved, 
till by some severe hand held over our lives, and particu- 
larly by the daily study and exercise of some work of mercy 


SERMON XXVIIT. 607 


or other, we demonstrate the sincerity of our belief; the 
saints on earth and angels in heaven will shrewdly suspect, 
that we do only say over that part of our Creed, that we 
believe only that which is for our turn, the sufferings and 
satisfactions of Christ, which cost us nothing, but do not pro- 
ceed to His office of a Judge, do not either fear His judg- 
ments, or desire to make ourselves capable of His mercies. 
Briefly, whosoever neglects or takes no notice of this duty 
of exercising works of mercy, whatsoever he brags of in his 
theory or speculation, in his heart either denies or contemns 
Christ as Judge, and so destroys the sum of his faith; and 
this is another kind of secret atheism. 

Fourthly, our Creed leads us on to a belief and acknowledg- 
ment of the Holy Ghost; and it is well we have all conned 
His name there, for otherwise I should much fear that it 
would be said of many nominal Christians, what is reported 


of the Ephesian disciples, “They have not so much as heard Acts xix. 


whether there be an Holy Ghost or no.” But not to suspect 2 
so much ignorance in any Christian, we will suppose in- 
deed men to know whatsoever they profess, and enquire only 
whether our lives second our professions, or whether indeed 
they are mere infidels and atheistical, in this business con- 
cerning the Holy Ghost. How many of the ignorant sort 
which have learnt this name in their Catechism or Creed, 
have not yet any further use to put it to, but only to make 
up the number of the Trimity, have no special office to ap- 
point for Him, no special mercy, or gift, or ability to beg of 
Him in the business of their salvation, but mention Him only 
for fashion’s sake, not that they ever think of preparing their 
bodies or souls to be temples worthy to entertain Him, not 


that they ever look after “the earnest of the Spirit”’ in their 2 Cor. i. 


hearts! Further yet, how many better learned amongst us 
do not yet im our lives acknowledge Him in that epithet 
annexed to His title, the Holy Ghost, i. 6. not only eminently 
in Himself holy, but causally, producing the same quality in 
us, from thence called the sanctifying and renewing Spirit! 
how do we for the most part fly from, and abandon, and 
resist, and so violently deny Him, when He once appears to 
us in this attribute! When He comes to sanctify us, we are 
not patient of so much sourness, so much humility, so much 


608 SERMON XXVIII. 


non-conformity with the world, as He begins to exact of us; 
we shake off many blessed motions of the Spirit, and keep 
ourselves within garrison, as far as we can out of His reach, 
lest at any turn He should meet with, and we should be 
converted. Lastly, the most ordinary morally qualified, tame 
Christians amongst us, who are not so violent as to profess 
open arms against this Spirit, how do they yet reject Him out 
of all their thoughts! How seldom do mary peaceable orderly 
men amongst us, ever observe their wants, or importune the 
assistance of this Spirit! In sum, it was a shrewd speech of 
the fathers‘, which will cast many fair outsides at the bar 
for atheists, “ that the life of an unregenerate man is but the 
life of an heathen,” and that it is our regeneration only that 
raises us up ἐξ ἐθνῶν, from being still mere Gentiles. He 
that believes in his Creed the Person, nay, understands in 
the schools the attributes and gifts of the Holy Ghost, and 
yet sees them only in the fountain, neither finds nor seeks 
for any effects of them in his own soul; he that is still unre- 
generate, and continues still gaping and yawning, stupid and 
senseless in this his condition is still, for all his Creed and 
learning, in effect an atheist. And the Lord of heaven give 
him to see, and endeavours to work, and a heart to pray, and 
His Spirit to draw and force him out of this condition. 
Fifthly, not to cramp in every article of our Creed into this 
discourse, we will only insist on two more. We say therefore 
that we believe “the Forgiveness of Sins,” and it is a blessed 
confidence, that all the treasures in the world cannot equal. 
But do ourselves keep equipage, and hand in hand accom- 
pany this profession? Let me catechise you a while. You 
believe the forgiveness of sins, but I hope not absolutely, 
that the sufferings of Christ shall effectually clear every 
man’s score at the day of judgment: well then, it must 
be meant only of those that by repentance and faith are 
grafted into Christ, and shall appear at that great marriage 
in a wedding-garment, which shall be acknowledged the 
livery and colours of the Lamb. But do our lives ever stand 
to this explication and restriction of the article? Do they 
ever expect this beloved remission by performing the condi- 


4 Clemens Alcx. Sirom., p. 281. [ut supr.] 


SERMON XXVIII. 609 


tion of repentance ? Do we ever go about to make ourselves 
capable of receiving this mercy conditionally offered us? Nay, 
do we not by our wilful stupidity, and pertinacious con- 
tinuing in sin, nullify in respect of us all that satisfaction 
of Christ, and utterly abandon those means which must 
bring home this remission to us? The truth is, our faith runs 
only on general terms, we are willing to lay all our sins on 
Christ’s shoulders, and persuade ourselves somewhat slightly 
and coldly, that He will bear them in the root and in the 
fruit, in the bullion and in the coin, in the gross and in the 
retail, 1. 6. both our original and our actual transgressions : 
but we never take any course to rest satisfied that we in 
particular shall participate of this happiness. This requires 
the humiliation of the whole man, the spirit of bondage for 
a while, afterwards a second purity and virginity of the soul 
recovered by repentance, and then a soberly grounded faith 
and confidence, and an expressing of it by our own forgiving 
of others. And till this piece of our Creed be thus explained 
and interpreted in our conversation, we remain but confident 
atheists, not able to persuade any body that hears us that 
indeed we believe what we profess. 

Sixthly and lastly, “the Resurrection of the Body,” and its 
consequent, “ Everlasting Life,” is the close of our faith, and 
end, and prop, and encouragement, and consummation of 
our hope; and yet we take most pains of all to prove our- 
selves infidels in this; our whole carriage, both in the choice 
and observance of our religion, shew that we do not depend 
on it, that we put no confidence in the resurrection. If we 
went on this assurance, we should contemn any worldly en- 
couragement, and make the same thing both the object and 
end of our service. We should scorn to take notice of so 
poor a thing as profit or convenience is, in a matter of so 
high importance, knowing and expecting that our reward 
shall be great in heaven. This one thought of a resurrec- 
tion, and an infinite reward of any faithful undertaking of 
ours, would make us disdain, and almost be afraid of any 
temporal recompense for our worship of God, for fear it 
should, by paying us beforehand, deprive us of that everlast- 
ing one. We should catch and be ambitious of that ex- 
pression of devotion, which were most painful and least pro- 

HAMMOND. ΤΥ 


Hos. x. 11. 


[ Deut. 
xxv. 4. ] 


77 


610 SERMON XXVIII. 


fitable as to worldly advantage: and yet we in the stupidity 
of atheistical hearts are so improvidently covetous, so hasty 
and impatient in our religion, that unless some present gain 
allure and draw us, we have no manner of life, or spirit, or 
alacrity to this, as we count it, unprofitable service of God. 
The least encumbrance in the world will fright us from the 
greatest forwardness, and nimbleness, and activity in re- 
ligion: and the least appearance of promotion, or other like 
encouragement, will produce and raise in us these affections 
and expressions of zeal, which the expectation of the resur- 
rection could never work in us. Our religion is somewhat 
like that of the Samaritans, before Christ’s time, either Jews 
or heathens, according as their king Antiochus would have 
them*; after Christ’s time were perpetually either Jews or 
Christians, according as the Romans, their new lords and 
masters, either threatened or granted privilege to the Jews. 
If there were any thing to be gotten by the profession, they 
would be as solemn Christians as any. So when the Goths 
and Vandals overrun Italy, and—whether upon good affec- 
tion or compulsion from God, I know not—spared them that 
fled to the basilica in Rome‘, the place where the Christians 
exercised; then, 1 say, they which formerly persecuted the 
Christians, now bore them company very friendly to their 
churches, and to save their lives fled to the temple for a 
refuge, which before they abomined; and made use of 
Christianity for their safeguard, which they would not own 
for their religion, and hurried to that sanctuary for their 
lives, which they would not visit for their souls. The condi- 
tion of our religion is like that which is upbraided to Ephraim, 
“ Ephraim is like an heifer that loveth to tread out the corn.” 
It was prohibited by the law to muzzle the ox or heifer that 
treadeth out the corn; it was allowed them to feed as long 
as they did the work, and that made Ephraim love the toil 
so well, because that at the very time he performed the labour, 
he enjoyed the fruit of it; had, as we say, his wages in his 
hand; had some present emolument that would ingratiate 
his work to him; was not left to such a tedious expectation, 


€ Josephus, Antiq. Jud., lib. xii. c. ‘ (Cf. S. August. De Civit. Dei, lib. 
5. [vol. i. p. 538. ed. Huds.] et lib. xi. i.e. 1. Op., tom. vii. init. ] 
c. 8. [§ 6. p. 504. ] 


SERMON XXVIII. 611 


to so long a date as to wait for his reward till the resurrec- 

tion: those were too hard terms for him, he could not endure 

to be tied so long up to the empty rack, or feed upon the 

bit. And thus hasty are we in the exacting of our reward 

for our service of God: we will never set our hands to it, 

unless we may make our conditions: we are resolved not to 

be such fools, as to serve God for nought, to spend the 

quickest of our spirits in a sour crabbed ‘profession, and 

expect our thanks at doomsday, This plainly demonstrates, 

that however our theory be possessed, our practice places no 

trust, no confidence, no assurance in that part of our Creed, 

the resurrection. Again, it was an excellent argument to 

persuade doubtful Christians in the youth and nonage of 

the Church, of the certainty of the resurrection, that religious 

men, and those whom undoubtedly God loved, were full of 

sufferings in this world, and lived and died many of them 

without any expression of God’s favour to them, which made 

them certaimly to conclude, that no doubt God hath some 

other course to exhibit Himself in the riches of His mercy to 

them; and seeing there was no hope but in another world, 

‘Verily there should be a reward for the righteous, doubtless ees viii. 

there is a God that judgeth the earth ;” and by this argument τι 

we may try ourselves for the sincerity of our faith in this 

business. If we can be patient to endure afflictions here, 

and not complain or grumble for a respite and deliverance, 

but keep all our hopes to be accomplished, defer all our 

happiness to be performed to us at the resurrection, and 

though God kill us, yet trust im Him, and be able to see [Job xiii. 

through death, in a trust “that our Redeemer lives, and that }* 1 
Job xix. 

with these eyes we shall behold Him,” then may we cheer up, 25. 

and persuade ourselves on good grounds that our hearts 

and lives do assent to the resurrection, which our tongues 

brag of: ‘Take no heaviness to heart, but drive it away and Ecclus. 

remember the end.” But if this consideration cannot digest 3**¥"* 

the least oppression of this life, cannot give us patience for 

the lightest encumbrance, but for all our Creed we still fly 

out into all outrages of passion and ecstacies of impatience, 

we plainly betray ourselves men of this present world, whose 

happiness or misery is only that which is temporary, and 

before our eyes, are not able by the perspective of faith to 

Rr2 


{1 Thess. 
iv. 13.] 


[ Ps. xlix. 
20. 


{ Luke xvi. 
9.] 


612 SERMON XXVIII. 


behold that which easily ‘we might, all our wants relieved, 
all our injuries revenged, all our wounds bound up in the 
day of the resurrection: but all our life long we repine and 
grumble, and are discontented as men without hope; and 
whilst we do thus, what do we but act the part of these 
atheists here in my text, scoffing and saying, “‘ Where is the 
promise of His coming,” in the next verse to my text. This 
very impatience and want of skill in bearing the brunts of 
this our warfare, is but a piece of cowardly atheism, either a 
denying or mocking at the resurrection. Every sigh is a 
scoff, every groan a gibe, every fear a sly art of laughing at 
the stupidity of those who depend upon the fulfilling of the 
promise of His coming. Lastly, say we what we will, we 
live as if there were no resurrection, as Sadducees, if not as 
atheists; all our designs look no further than this life, all 
our contrivances are defeated and frustrate in the grave; we 
manage ourselves with so little understanding, that any 
spectator would judge by our actions that it is no injury to 
compare us to the beasts that perish and never return again. 
Certainly if we had any design upon heaven or another life, 
we would here make some provision for it, “ make ourselves 
friends of our unrighteous mammon, that when we fail, they 
may receive us into everlasting habitations,” i.e. use those 
good things that God hath given us with some kind of pro- 
vidence, that they may stand us in stead when we have need 
of them, 1. 6. not only as instruments to sin—for that is to 
get us more enemies—but as harbingers to be sent before us 
to heaven. It was a bitter sarcasm of the fool to the abbot 
on his death-bed, that the abbot deserved his staff, as bemg 
the verier fool of the two, that being straight to die, to 
remove his tent to another world, he had sent none of his 
household-stuff before him. The truth is, we live generally 
as men that would be very angry, much displeased if any 
should persuade us there were a resurrection, the very 
mentioning of it to us might seem to upbraid our ordinary 
practices, which have nothing but the darkness of death 
and silence of the grave to countenance them. I may justly 
say that many ignorant heathens, which were confident 
there was nothing beyond this life, expected certainly with 
death to be annihilated, and turn again into a perpetual 


SERMON XXVIII. 613 


nothing; yet either for the awe they bore to virtue, or fear 
of disgrace after death, kept themselves more regularly, 
lived more carefully than many of us Christians. And this 
is an horrid accusation, that will lie very heavy upon us, 
that against so many illuminated understandings the igno- 
rance of the Gentiles should rise up in judgment, and the 
learned Christian be found the most desperate atheist. I 
have been too large upon so rigid a doctrine as this, and 
I love and pray God I may always have occasion to come 
up to this place upon a more merciful subject: but I told 
you even now out of Lev. xix. 17, that it was no small work 
of mercy, it was the most friendly office that could be per- 
formed any man, to reprehend, and as the text saith, “not to 
suffer sin upon thy neighbour,” especially so sly a covert lurk- 
ing sin as this of atheism, which few can discern in them- 
selves. I shall now come to application, which because the 
whole doctrine spoke morally to your affections, and so in a 
manner prevented uses, shall be only a recapitulation and 
brief knitting up of what hitherto hath been scattered at 
large. 

Seeing that the devil’s policy of deluding, and bewitching, 
and distorting our understandings, either with variety of 
false gods, or heresies raised upon the true, is now almost 
clearly out-dated, and his skill is all bent to the deforming 
of the will, and defacing the character of God, and the ex- 
pression of the sincerity of our faith in our lives; we must 
deal with this enemy at his own weapon, learn to order our 
munition according to the assault, and fortify that part most 
impregnably, toward which the tempest binds and threatens. 
There is not now so much danger to be feared from the in- 
road of heretics in opinion as in practice, not so much 
atheism to be dreaded from the infidelity of our brains, as 
the heathenism and gentilism of our lusts, which even in 
the midst of a Christian profession deny God even to His 
. face. And therefore our chiefest frontiers and fortifications 
must be set up before that part of the soul, our most careful 
watch and sentinel placed upon our affections, lest the devil 
enter there and depopulate the whole Christian, and plant 
the atheist in his room. To this purpose we must examine 
what seeds are already sown, what treachery is a working 


Lev. xix. 
ive 


(Ps, x. 4. ] 


014 SERMON XXVIII. 


within; and no doubt most of us at the first cast of the eye 
shall find great store, unless we be partial to ourselves, and 
bring in a verdict of mercy, and construe that weakness, 
which indeed signifies atheism. 

When upon examination we find our lives undermining 
our belief, our practices denying the authority of Scripture, 
and no whit forwarder to any Christian duty upon its com- 
mands; when we find God’s essence and attributes reviled 
and scoffed at in our conversation, His omnipresence con- 
temned by our confidence in sinning, and argued against 
by our banishing God out of all our thoughts, His all-suffi- 
ciency doubted of by our distrusts, and our scorn to depend 
upon it; when we perceive that our carriages do fall off at 
this part of our belief in Christ, that He shall come again 
to be our Judge, and by our neglect of those works, espe- 
cially of mercy, which He shall then require of us, shew that 
indeed we expect Him not, or think of Him as a Judge, but 
only as a Saviour; when we observe our wills resisting the 
gifts, and falsifying the attribute, whilst our Creed confesses 
the person of the Holy Ghost, and see how little, how 
nothing of the sanctifying Spirit, of the earnest of our re- 
generation is in our hearts, and we still stupidly senseless of 
the want; when we believe forgiveness of sins, and that 
only upon condition of repentance, and yet abhor so much 
as to hear or think of the performing of it, or to make good 
that mercy to others which ourselves challenge of God; 
lastly, when we prove to ourselves, and all the world beside, 
by our requirmg of a present reward for all our goodness, 
and ruling our religion to our earthly profit, by our impa- 
tience of any affliction, by our heathenish neglect, and stu- 
pidity, and riot, that we do not in earnest look for the re- 
surrection to life; when, I say, by a just, but exact survey 
and inquest, we find these so many degrees of secret atheism 
in us, then must we shrift, and purge, and cleanse, and rinse 
our souls from these dregs of heathenism; then must we 
humble ourselves below the dust, and not dare to look the 
veriest Gentile in the face, till we have removed this plague 
from us. And do Thou, O Lord, assist our endeavours, and 
by the violence of Thy Spirit force and ravish us in our lives, 
as well as belief, to a sincere acknowledgment and expres- 


SERMON XXVIII. 615 


sion of every minute part of that religion which is purely 
Christian, that we may adore Thee in our hearts as well as 
our brains, and being sanctified throughout, from any tinc- 
ture, or colour, or suspicion of irreligion in either power of 
our soul, we may glorify Thee here, and be glorified by Thee 
hereafter. 


Now to Him which hath elected us, hath, &c. 


SERMON XXIX. 


2 Per. ui. 3. 
Scoffers walking after their own lusts. 


Tr is an excellent observation of Aristotle’s, that rich men 
are naturally most contumelious, most given to abuse and de- 
ride others, which he expresses thus, in the seventh of his Poli- 
tics*; ἡ δὲ THs εὐτυχίας ἀπόλαυσις Kal TO σχολάζειν μετ᾽ εἰρή- 
νης, ὑβριστὰς ποιεῖ μᾶλλον. The contentment which they 
enjoy in the continuance of their worldly happiness, the per- 
petual rest, and quiet, and tranquillity, which their plenty 
bestows on them, makes them contemn and despise the estate 
of any other man in the world; upon this conceit, saith the 
same Aristotle”, (ὅτε ὑπερέχειν φαίνονται.) that their hap- 
piness is elevated infinitely above the ordinary pitch; that 
whatever contentments any other sort of people can glory or 
delight in, is but some imaginary, slight, poor happiness that 
men are fain to solace themselves withal, to keep them from 
melancholy, all far enough below the size of their felicity, 
which all agreeable circumstances have conspired to make 
exactly complete. Hence is it that you shall ordinarily 
observe the rich man, in this confidence of his opinion, that 
no man is happy but himself, either contemn or pity the 
poverty, and improvidence, and perhaps the sottishness of 
such spirits, that can rejoice or boast in the possession of 
wisdom, knowledge, nay, even of God’s graces; no object is 
more ridiculous in his eye, than either a scholar or a Christian, 
that knows not the value of riches: for saith Aristotle, 6 πλοῦ- 
Tos οἷον τιμή τις ἐστὶ τῆς ἀξίας τῶν ἄλλων, διὸ φαίνεται πάντα 
ὦνια εἶναι αὐτοῦ, “ Money is reckoned the price of all things 


* [Aristot. Polit., lib. vii. ο. 15.] > [ Aristot. Rhetor., lib. ii. ο. 16.} 


SERMON XXIX. 617 


else,” that which can easily purchase whatever else we can 
stand in need of ; and therefore the rich man, if he could think 
learning and religion worth any thing, having his money by 
him (which is in effect every thing) thinks he can call for 
them when he pleases. In the mean, he hath more wit than 
to forsake his pleasures, and go to school to the Stoic, to 
divest himself of his robes, and put on the sourness, the 
rigid, sad behaviour which the profession of wisdom or 
Christianity requires. He is better pleased in his present 
pomp, than to go and woo that misery and ruggedness, 
which the severity of discipline looks for. Let silly beggars 
boast of the contents of wisdom or hopes of heaven, at mihi 
plaudo domi‘, his coffers at home are better companions than 
all the melancholy of books, or sullen solaces of the spirit. 
He hath learnt by experience, that he ought to pity and 
contemn these fictions of delight which the poets fetch from 
the Fortunate Islands to delude, and cozen, and comfort 
beggars: his glory, and pride, and riches, are happiness 
indeed, and whatever else the poverty of the world can 
boast of, are objects not of his envy but his scorn. 

What we have hitherto noted to you concerning the rich 
man is appliable on the same grounds to any sort of people 
which have fixed upon any worldly content, and resolved 
upon some one object, beside which they will never value or 
prize any thing. Thus the epicure or voluptuous man, who 
hath set up his idol lust, to whom he owes all his sacrifice, 
and from whom he expects all his good fortune, that hath 
fixed his pillars, and cast his anchor, and is peremptorily 
constant in his course, that he is resolved for ever to walk 
in; this man, I say, being possessed with an opinion of the 
happiness which he is placed in, like the sun in his pride, 
rejoices to run his course, and scorns any contrary motion 
that he meets or hears of; and only observes the ways of 
virtue and religion, to hate and laugh at them; and the 
further he walks, the deeper he is engaged in this humour 
of self-content, and contempt of others, of security, and 
scoffing. For this is the force and implicit argument co- 
vertly contained in the close of these words, “There shall 
come in the last days scoffers,” &c.; i.e. this resolution to 

[ Horat. Sat. i. 1. 65.] 


[Wisd. 11, 
21.] 


618 SERMON XXIX. 


walk on in their own lusts hath brought them to this pitch 
of atheism, to scoff and deride both God and goodness. 
“There shall,” &c. 

We have heretofore divided these words, and in them 
observed and handled already the sin of atheism, together 
with the subjects in which it works, Christians of the last 
times, noted from this prophetic speech, “There shall come 
in the last days scoffers.” We now come to the second par- 
ticular, the motive or impellent to this sin, a liberty which 
men give themselves, and a content which they take to walk 
after their own lusts. 

The second chapter of the Wisdom of Solomon is an ex- 
cellent description of the atheist: and though it be of apo- 
cryphal authority, yet it is of most divine canonical truth. 
I could find in my heart, nay, I can scarce hold from read- 
ing and paraphrasing the whole chapter to you; it is so 
solid, so strong, so perfect a discourse upon this theme, it 
contains so many strains of atheistical reason in opposition 
to godliness, and the root, and growth, and maturity of this 
tree of knowledge and death, that the clear understanding 
of that one place might suffice without any enlargement of 
proofs or expressions. But for brevity sake, and on promise 
that you will at your leisure survey it, I will omit to insist 
on it: only in the end of the twenty-first verse, after all the 
expressions of their atheistical counsels, you have the rea- 
son, or motive, or first worker of all, “ for their own wicked- 
ness hath blinded them ;” their stupid perseverance in those 
dark ways, in that black Tophet on earth, habituate custom 
of sinning, had so thickened their sight, had drawn such a 
film over their eyes, that in the judgment of divine affairs 
they were stark blind: they could see nothing in all the 
mystery of godliness which was worth embracing, and there- 
fore had no employment but to walk on after their own 
lusts, and to scoff at those that were so foolishly friendly to 
them as to call them out of their way: they were well 
enough acquainted with their own paths, they could walk 
them blindfold, and therefore had more wit than forsake the 
road for a nearer by-way. The issue of all is this, that a 
voluptuous course of life is a great promoter and advancer of 
atheism: there had never been so many scoffers in the Chris- 


SERMON XXIX. 619 


tian world, had there not been also those that were resolute 
to walk after their own lusts. 

In the first verse of the Psalms, there be steps and rounds, 
and gradations of a sinner specified; 1. Walking in the coun- 
sel of the ungodly; 2. Standing in the way of sinners; 3. 
Sitting in the seat of the scorner: the two first beg de- 
grees in his motion, several stages of his journey to this ἀκμὴ, 
or top pitch of sinning in the last. Walking in the counsel 
of the ungodly is the first entrance to his course ; and he that 
hath such a rise as this, hath a great advantage of all other 
sinners; he will perform his race with speed, and come sud- 
denly to his goal. This deliberate walking in the ways, and 
with the companions and contrivers of ungodliness, this par- 
taking and prosecuting of the counsels, the enjoying this, 
familiarity with sin, proves a strong engagement to continue 
and persevere, and delight in its acquaintance. Yet because 
walking is a laborious motion, and will tire the sinner in 
time, he is fain to betake himself to an easier posture, and 
that is standing in the way of sinners, continuing in a still, 
sober, quiet, stupid tranquillity of sinning, standing like a 
Mercury’s post in the midst of a road, never removed or 
stirred an inch, though never so justled by the passengers. 
Let all the contrary virtues never so thwart and cross him, 
he hath fixed his station, and neither force nor allurements 
shall make him move. Yet because standing also is a painful 
posture, with which the valiantest legs will at last be numbed, 
if not tired, he hath in the last place his chair of ease and 
state, and here he sets up his rest, here he sins with as much 
majesty as delight: 1. in cathedra, as a seat of greatness, 
lording it, and sinning imperiously, commanding every spec- 
tator to follow his example of scoffing at God and goodness : 
2. in cathedra, as a seat of authority, sinning doctorally, and 
magisterially, by his practice defining the lawfulness of 
these scoffs, even setting up a school of atheism: and 8. in 
cathedra, as a seat of rest, and ease, and pleasure, which he is 
resolved never to rise out of, which he hath reposed himself 
in, that he may laugh at ease, and without any pains or 
trouble or charges blaspheme God for ever. And for the 
most part indeed he proves as bad as his resolution, having 
once given himself this licence of laughing at and deriding 


620 SERMON XXIX. 


religion, he seldom ever recovers himself to a sober counte- 
nance; like men whose custom of scoffing hath made wry- 
mouthed, he lives and continues, and for the most part dies 
scoffing. He comes as it were laughing into hell, and seldom 
forsakes this habit of profaneness, till horror hath put smiling 
out of date. There is not a sin in the world that sits closer 
to him which hath once entertained it, and he that is once a 
merry atheist, seldom, if ever, proves a sad sober Christian. 
He is seated in his chair of scorning, and contemns the mercy 
of that Spirit that should take him out of it. Thus you see, 
that walking in the steps, and standing in the way, 1. 6. fol- 
lowing the commands of their own lusts, they are soon arrived 
to the pitch of atheists, to the chair of scorners, and then 
there is but little preferment more that they are capable of, 
unless they will strive with Lucifer for pre-eminence in hell, 
or else challenge Rabshakeh to rail, or Julian to blaspheme. 
But this is the highest degree of scoffers, and I hope the devil 
hath but few such valiant, bold, forward champions in the 
world, since Julian or Lucian’s time. And therefore I hope 
I have pricked no man’s conscience here whilst I have spoke 
of them; but I have formerly proved that there be some lower, 
tamer, secret degrees of atheism, which every man may chance 
to spy in some angle or corner of his soul, some implicit arti- 
ficial ways of scoffing, or abasing God, which most of us are 
guilty of; and it will be worthy our pains to shew how these 
seeds are warmed, and cherished, and animated by a licen- 
tious life. Hippocrates‘ observes of the Scythians that they do 
not swathe themselves, nor bind in their loins with any kind of 
girdle, but go with their bodies very loose, that they may ride 
the easier, which is the only exercise they use: and from 
hence, saith he, they grow so corpulent and fleshy, so broad 
and bulky, that they are both ugly and unwieldy, an eye-sore 
to others and cumbersome to themselves: these accessions, 
which in other people extend themselves proportionably in 
length and breadth, in height as well as bulk, in them grow 
all into thickness; so that you shall see a pigmy in stature 
as big as a giant inthe girt. Thus is it with those whose affec- 
tions are not ruled, and restrained in order, and within limits, 
are not swathed and kept in, have not some set terms of tem- 
4 Hippocrates, de Aqua, Aere et Loco. [ut supr. ]} 


SERMON XXIX. 621 


perance, and other virtues, beyond which they suffer not 
themselves to fly out. If, I say, these affections within us be 
by the owners left ungirt to their own freedom, they will 
never grow upward toward heaven; they will still be dwarf- 
ish, of small growth in religion; but yet like those Scythians, 
they will run into a strange bulk and corpulence, into some 
unwieldy misshapen forms of atheism, or the like. Certainly 
they will grow into a greater breadth than the reasonable 
soul will be able to manage; unless the spirit vouchsafe to 
come down, and contract and call it into bounds, it will in- 
crease beyond all proportion, beyond all acknowledgment of 
God orreligion. We are used to say in nature, that all moist 
things are apt to be contained in other terms, but hardly in 
their own; the water is easily cooped up in a glass or bucket, 
where there are boundaries to keep it in, but being let loose 
on a table or a floor, it flies about and never stays again till 
it meet with some ocean or hollow place which may inclose, 
and bestow the consistency on it which it has not of itself. 
Thus you may see a river, whilst it is kept within the chan- 
nel, go on in its stream and course very soberly and orderly, 
but when it hath overswelled the banks which before kept it in, 
then doth it run about the pastures, scorns to be kept within 
any compass. Thus is it with the soul of man; if it be ordered 
within terms and bounds, if it have a strict hand held over it, 
if it be curbed and brought to its postures, if it have reason and 
grace, and a careful tutor to order it, you shall find it as tame 
a creature as you need deal with; it will never straggle or 
stray beyond the confines which the spirit hath set it; the 
reason is, because though it be in itself fluid and moist, and 
ready to run about like water, yet Deus firmavit aquas, “ God Gen. i. 7. 
hath made a firmament betwixt the waters,” as He did Gen. 
i. 7,1.e. He hath established it, and given it a consistency, that 
it should not flow or pour itself out beyond its place. But 
if this soul of man be left to its own nature, to its own fluid, 
wild, incontinent condition, it presently runs out into an 
ocean, never stays, or considers, or consults, but rushes head- 
long into all inordinacy; having neither the reins of reason 
nor God to keep it in, it never thinks of either of them, 
and unless by chance, or by God’s mercy, it fall into their 
hands, it is likely to run riot for ever. Being once let loose, 


622 SERMON XXIX. 


it ranges, as if there were neither power on earth to quell nor 
in heaven to punish it. Thus do you see how fiuid, how in- 
constant the soul is of its own accord, how prone it is, how 
naturally inclined to run over like a stream over the banks, 
and if it be not swathed, and kept in, if it be left to the licen- 
tious condition of itself, how ready is it to contemn both rea- 
son and God, and run headlong into atheism. Nay, we need 
not speak so mercifully of it, this very licentiousness is the 
actual renouncing of religion, this very “ walking after their 
own lusts,” is not only a motive to this sin of scoffing, but the 
very sin itself. 

A false conception in the womb is only a rude, confused, 
ugly chaos, a mere lump of flesh, of no kind of figure or 
resemblance, gives only disappoitment, danger, and torment 
to the mother. It is the soul at its entrance which defines, 
and trims, and polishes into a body, that gives it eyes, and 
ears, and legs, and hands, which before it had not distinctly 
and severally, but only rudely altogether with that mass or 
lump. ‘Thus is it with the man, till religion hath entered 
into him as a soul to inform and fashion him; as long as 
he lives thus at large, having no terms, or bounds, or limits 
to his actions, having no form, or figure, or certain motion 
defined him, he is a mola, a mere lump of man, an arrant 
atheist ; you cannot discern any features or lineaments of a 
Christian in him; he hath neither eyes to see, nor ears to 
hear, nor hands to practise any duty that belongs to his 
peace. Only it is religion must take him up, must smooth 
and dress him over, and according to its etymon must 7e- 
ligure, swathe and bind up this loose piece of flesh, must 
animate and inform him, must reduce him to some set form 
of Christianity, or else he is likely after a long and fruitless 
travel to appear a deformed monstrous atheist. But not to 
deal any longer upon similes, lest we seem to confound and 
perplex a truth by explaining it, I told you the licentious, 
voluptuous life was itself perfect heathenism. For can you 
imagine a man to be any but a Gentile, who hath abandoned 
all love, all awe, all fear, all care of God—any one of which 
would much contract and draw him into compass—who hath 
utterly put off every garb of a Christian, who hath enjoyed 
the reins so long, that now he is not sensible, or at least 


SERMON XXIX. 623 


contemns the curb or snaffle if he be but checked with it, 
gets it in his teeth and runs away with it more fiercely. 
The heathen are noted not so much that they worshipped no 
god at all, but that they worshipped so many, and none of 
them the true. Every great friend they had, every delight 
and pleasure, every thing that was worth praying for, straight 
proved their god, and had its special temple erected for its 
worship. So that do but imagine one of them every day 
worshipping every god whom he acknowledged, in its several 
oratory, spending his whole life, and that too little too, in 
running from one temple to another, and you have described 
our licentions man posting on perpetually to his sensual de- 
votions, worshipping, adoring, and sacrificing every minute 
of his life, to some idol-vanity, and bestowing as much pains 
and charges in his profane, heathenish pleasures, as ever 
the Gentiles did on their false gods, or the most superero- 
gating papist on their true. 

We are wont to say in divinity “, and that without an hy- 
perbole, that every commission of sin is a kind of idolatry, an 
incurvation, and bending down of the soul to some creature, 
which should always be erect, looking up to heaven, from 
whence it was infused, like water naturally inclined to climb 
and ascend as high as the fountain, or head from whence it 
sprang. And then certainly a licentious life is a perpetual 
idolatry, a supineness, and proneness, and incurvation of the 
soul to somewhat that deserves to be called an idol, i. 6. 
either in St. Paul’s acceptation of it, nothing—“ an idol is 1 Cor. viii. 
nothing,” or else, in the most honourable signification, only = 
an image, or some rude likeness or representation of God. 
We are the image of God ourselves, and whatsoever is below 
us, is but an imperfect draught of Him, containing some linea- 
ments, some confused resemblances of His power which 
created them, have no being of their own, but only as 
shadows which the light doth cast. And therefore every 
love, every bow, every cringe which we make to any creature, 
is the wooing and worshipping of an image at best, in plain 
terms of an idol, nothing. What degree then of idolatry 
have they attained to, who every minute of their lives bow 
down and worship, make it their trade and calling for ever 


* Wiggers in 14" secunde, quest. 1. art. 5. p. 27, 28. 


[ Mat. vi. 
24. | 


624 SERMON XXIX. 


to be a soliciting some pleasure or other! some exquisite 
piece of sensuality to bless and make them happy, which 
have no other shrines to set up, but only to their own lust, 
to which they do so crouch, and creep, and crawl, that they 
are never able tg stand upright again: like those trees 
which the papists talk of, which by bowing to our Lady’s 
house, when in walks by the wood toward Loretto, have 
ever since stood stooping. Thus do you see how the latter 
part of my text hath overtook the former: the walking after 
his own lusts becomes a scoffer, the licentious man proceeded 
atheist, and that with ease, his very voluptuous life is a kind 
of atheism; and the reasons of this are obvious, you need not 
seek or search far for them. 

For first, this walking in their own lusts, notes an habit 
gathered out of many acts; he hath walked there a long 
while, and therefore now hath the skill of it, walks on con- 
fidently, and carelessly, without any rub or thought of stop- 
ping. And contrary to this, the worship of God, of which 
atheism is a privation, is an holy, religious habit of piety and 
obedience. Now we know two contrary habits cannot consist 
or be together in the same subject. An habit and its opposite 
privation are incompatible, light and darkness at the same 
time, though they may seem to meet sometimes as in twilight ; 
but for two opposite positive habits, never any man’s conceit 
was so bold or fantastical as to join them; you cannot ima- 
gine one, but you must remove the other. You may suppose 
a man distempered or weak, which is a privation of health, 
and yet suppose him pretty healthy, as long as his natu- 
ral strength is able to overcome it; but can you suppose a 
man in a violent fever actually upon him, and yet still ima- 
gine him in perfect health? Thus is it with a sinner, who 
hath given himself over to the tyranny and impotency of his 
lusts, he hath utterly put off all degrees, all sparks of any 
habit of religion, according to that of our Saviour, “you 
cannot serve God and mammon,” where mammon signifying 
in a vast extent the god of this world, imports all lusts, all 
earthly vanities, which any habituate sinner deifies. 

Secondly, every habit notes a delight, an acquiescence, and 
joy, in enjoying of that which through many actions, perhaps 
some brunts and rubs, he hath at last arrived to. Now this 


i is ee i i ee a ee 


SERMON XXIX. 625 


delight and contentation, that it may be complete, is impa- 
tient of any other encumbrance, which at any time may come 

in to interrupt or disorder it. If any thing so happen, it is 
never quiet, till it have removed it. The scholar that hath 
all his life laboured, and at last attained to some habit of 
knowledge, and then resolves to enjoy the happiness and 
fruits of learning, in the quiet and rest of a perpetual con- 
templation, is impatient if any piece of ignorance cross or 
thwart him in his walk, he will to his books again, and never 
rest till he hath overcome and turned it out. Thus doth the 
sensual man, being come to the ἀκμὴ, and pitch, and entered 
into the paradise of his worldly joys, if he do but meet with 
any jar, if he feel any pluck or twinge from his conscience, 
any grudge or compunction of the spirit within him, any 
spark or heat, or warmth of religious fear in his breast, he 
will never rest till he hath abandoned it, he is impatient of 
such a qualm of godliness, he must needs put it over, he is 
sick at heart till he hath disgorged himself of this choler, and 
then returns securely godless to his walk, having banished 
God out of all his thoughts. Thus shall you see the atheist [Ps. x. 14.] 
on his humour, for want of some compunction at home, 
grumble at every godly man or action which they saw in 
the street. In the 2nd of Wisdom at the 14th; “He is Wisd. ii. 
grievous unto us to behold, he was made to reprove our 1 
thoughts ;” and they do not return to their content, they 
are not pleased again, till they have gotten him into their 
inquisition, to examine him with despitefulness and_tor- 
ture. Thus do they abhor, and stifle, and strangle every ver:.19. 
godly action in others, or motion in themselves, because the 
holiness of the one is an exprobation to their profaneness, 
and the other was a pang of conscience, made, as it were on 
purpose, by God to reprove their thoughts. 

Thirdly, this walking in the text, though it be with some 
motion, yet it is a slow one, a kind of walking in one’s sleep, or 
that of amelancholy man, that can walk till he be wet through, 
and not mark that it rained. I say, it notes here an heavy, 
drowsy, unactive habit, expressed by the Psalmist by sitting 
in a chair, as we shewed you; it notes a kind of churlish reso- 
luteness, to walk on, whatever come in his way; he is grown 


even a passive to his lusts, he doth not so much act as suffer 
HAMMOND- ss 


Ecclus. 
xxii. 8, 


626 SERMON XXIX. 


them, he walks on snorting in his road; do what you can, you 
shall neither tw nor wake him. Now this slow, drowsy, 
unactive habit begets a kind of numbness in him, a sluggish, 
sullen stupidity over all his faculties, that even a spur or 
goad cannot rouse him ; all the pores, as it were, and passages, 
and entries to the soul are so stopped and bunged up, all 
his affections are grown so gross and brawny, so hardened and 
incrassate, that no air or breath from heaven can pierce it. 
He that tells him of religion, or God, or virtue, is as he that 
waketh one from a sound sleep; he that telleth such a fool a 
tale of wisdom, speaketh to one in “a slumber, and when he 
hath told his tale, he will say, What is the matter?” Thus do 
you see; 1. the repugnance and inconsistence of a voluptuous 
life and religion; 2. the delight; 3. the stupidity of this 
habit; each of which have made a place for the libertine, 
and set him in the chair of the scorner. And all this while 
methinks I have but talked to your ears; now that your 
hearts and affections may partake of the sound, that the 
softer waxy part of you may receive some impression from 
this discourse, let us close all with an application. 

And, first, from the guilt and dangerous condition of a licen- 
tious life, to labour by all means possible to keep out of it. 
He that is once engaged in it, goes on with a great deal of 
content, and in the midst of his pleasures on the one side, 
and carnal security on the other, his understanding, and will, 
and senses are lulled into a lethargy, nay, the very fancy in 
him is asleep, which in other sleeps is most active; he never 
imagines, never dreams of any fear or danger, either God 
or devil. Oh what a lamentable woeful estate is it to be thus 
sick beyond a sense of our disease, to be so near a spiritual 
death, and not so much as feel our weakness! Oh what an 
horrid thing it were to pass away in such a sleep, and never 
observe ourselves near death, till Satan hath arrested beyond 
bail, to sleep on and snort, as men without dread or danger, 
till the torments of hell should awake us! You cannot ima- 
gine how easy a thing it is for an habituate sinner to fall into 
the devil’s paws before he thinks of it, as a melancholy man 
walking in the dark may be drowned in a pit, and no man 
hear him complain that he is fallen. 

Again, we are wont to say that custom is another nature, 


SERMON XXIX. 627 


and those things which we have brought ourselves up to, we 
can as ill put off, as our constitution or disposition. Now 
those things which spring from the nature of any thing, are 
inseparable from the subject ; banish them as oft as you will, 
usque recurrent’, they will return again as to their home, they 
cannot subsist any where else, they dwell there. So wallow- 
ing in the mire being a condition natural to the swine, can 
never be extorted from them: wash them, rince them, purge 
them with hyssop, as soon as ever they meet with mire again, 
they will into it. Their swinish nature hath such an in- 
fluence on them, that all care or art cannot forbid or hinder 
this effect of it. So that a customary sinner, who hath as it 
were made lust a part of his nature, hath incorporated pro- 
faneness, and grafted it into his affections, can as hardly 
be rid of it, as a subject of his property ; it is possible for 
fear, or want of opportunity sometime to keep him in, and 
make him abstain: the loadstone may lie quiet, whilst no 
iron is within ken, or it may be held by force in its presence ; 
but give it materials and leave to work, and it draws inconti- 
nently. So for all his temporary forbearance, upon some 
either policy or necessity, the habituate sinner hath not yet 
given over his habit. Leave him to himself, give him room 
and opportunity, and he will hold no longer. If he be once 
advanced to this pitch of sin to be walking after his own 
lusts, he may possibly be driven back with a storm or 
thunder; but he will hardly give over his walk, he will 
forward again as soon as ever the tempest is over. Nay 
farther, even when he wants objects and opportunities, he 
will yet shew his condition, he will betray the desire and 
good affection he bears to his old lusts; his discourse or 
fashions argue him incontinently bent, even when he is at 
the stanchest. As Aristotle® observes of the fearful man, 
that even when no formidable object is near, he falls into 
many frights: so the voluptuous man’s fancy is perpetually 
possessed with the meditation of his own ways, when some 
disease or necessity will not let him walk. In brief, unless 
this second nature be quite taken out of him, and another holy 
spiritual nature created in its room, unless a stronger come [Luke xi. 
and bind this devil and dispossess him of it, he hath small 71:1 
f (Hor. Epist. i. 10. 24.] ® [ Arist. de Anima, lib. i. ο, 1.] 
ss2 


628 SERMON XXIX. 


hopes of getting himself out of his dominion and tyranny ; 
there is a great deal more stir in the converting of one 
customary sinner, than of a thousand others; it is not to 
be accomplished without a kind of death and resurrection, 
without a new creation of another nature. So that (if we 
should judge of God’s actions by our own) the Spirit should 
seem to be put to more pains and trouble with this one 
habituate, than in the ordinary business of converting many 
a tamer sinner. This is enough by the desperateness of the 
cure to move you to study some art, some physic of preven- 
tion, lest when it is grown upon you, it be too late to enquire 
for remedies. How should we dare to entertain and natu- 
ralize such an evil spirit within us, which if ever he be ravished 
out of us again, cannot without tearing, and torturing, and 
rending even our whole nature in pieces! If we must needs 
be sinful, yet let us keep within a moderation, let us not so 
follow the devil’s works, as to transubstantiate ourselves into 
his nature; let us not put off our manhood with our in- 
tegrity, and though we cannot be saints, let us keep our- 
selves men. It is a degree of innocence not to be extremely 
wicked, and a piece of godliness not to be atheists. Our 
lust is an infinite thing, said a philosopher, (ἀπέραντος ἐπι- 
θυμία, Jamblichus *,) and he that walks after it hath an end- 
less journey: there is no hope that he that hath so far to 
go, will ever have leisure to sit still. And therefore I say, 
if we must needs sin, yet let us not engage ourselves to sin 
for ever: if our being men lays a necessity of sinning on us, 
let our care to stay whilst it is possible for us, prove that we 
do not sin like devils, whose sin is their glory, and their 
resolution peremptory, never to give over sinning; and so 
may ours seem, and in all likelihood prove to be, if we give 
ourselves liberty to walk after our own lusts. 

Secondly, if our lusts be such dangerous paths to walk in, 
and this in that very respect as they are our own in oppo- 
sition to God’s commands; if they are the straight direct way 
to atheism, nay atheism itself: then what care and circum- 
spection is required at every setting down of our feet, at 
every entrance on any action, lest there be a serpent in the 
way, some piece of profaneness in every enterprise we enter 


h [Jamblichus Protrept, c. xvii. ] 


SERMON XXIX. 629 


on of ourselves! How ought we to fear, to suspect, and balk 
any way that is our own! For where it is atheism to walk, 
there surely it is a sin to tread: and where we have once 
ventured to tread, we shall be shrewdly tempted to walk ; 
every step we have safely taken being an encouragement to 
a second. Verebar omnia opera mea, saith Job, “I feared all 
my works:”’ whatever action I could entitle myself to, me- 
thought there was some danger in it, I was afraid it was 
not right as it should be, I should never be able to justify 
it. This is an excellent trial of all our serious deliberate 
actions, to mark whether they are our own or no, whether 
we went about them on our own heads, without our war- 
rant or directions from God: if we did, it is much to be 
doubted there is some poison, some guilt in them, some- 
thing that deserves to be feared, and fled from. This very 
suspecting of our own ways, will alien us from our own 
lusts, will bend us nearer to God, and never suffer us to 
dare to venture where He hath not secured us; will join us 
as it were in an engine to God Himself, where the lower 
wheels never begin to move without the example and govern- 
ment of the higher. If you can but persuade yourself to 
fear your own ways, it will be a good stop of your progress 
to atheism. Iam confident the devil will never get you to 
walk in your own lusts. 

Thirdly, if walking in our own lusts be direct atheism, 
what shall we think of them who make it a piece of religion 
and holy policy-to do so? Beloved, there be some learned 
catechised atheists, who upon confidence of an absolute 
eternal predestination of every man in the world that shall 
ever possibly be saved, set up their rest there, and expect 
what God will do with them. It is to no purpose to hope God 
will alter the decree; they are resolved to leave all to God, 
and if they perish, they perish. Mark with me, is not this 
a religious atheism to attribute so much to God as to become 
careless of Him, so to depend as never to think on Him, and 
by granting His decree in our understanding, to deny His 
Godhead in our conversation? He that lives negligently on 
confidence that his care may be spared, that if there be any 
salvation for him, God will work it out without his fear 
or trembling: he that believes God’s election so absolute, 


{Job ix. 
28. Vulg.] 


1 John 
1:1, 3. 


[ Gen. iv. 
18,1 


630 SERMON XXIX. 


that himself hath nothing to do in the business; whilst he 
expects mercy, makes himself uncapable of it; and though 
he acknowledge a resurrection, lives as though he looked to 
be annihilated. Certainly he that expects God should send 
him a fruitful harvest, will himself manure the ground; he 
that hopes will labour; according to that, 1 John iii. 3, “ He 
that hath this hope in him purifies himself,’ &c. So that 
whosoever relies on God for salvation, and in the midst of 
his hopes stands idle, and walks after his own lusts, by his 
very actions confutes his thoughts, and will not in a manner 
suffer God to have elected him, by going on in such repro- 
bate courses. 

Lastly, if it be this confident walking after our own lusts, 
which is here the expression of atheism, then here is a com- 
fort for some fearful sinners, who finding themselves not yet 
taken up quite from a licentious life, suspect, and would be 
in danger to despair of themselves as atheists. It is a 
blessed tenderness to feel every sin in ourselves at the 
greatest advantage; to aggravate and represent it to our 
conscience in the horridest shape; but there is a care also 
to be had, that we give not ourselves over as desperate ; 
Cain lied when he said his sin was greater than could be 
either borne or forgiven. When the physicians have given 
one over, at φύσεις ἱατροὶ νούσων, nature hath its spring 
and plunge, and sometimes quits and overcomes the disease. 
If thou art in this dangerous walk, and strivest and heavest, 
and canst not get out of it, yet sorrow not as one without 
hope: this very regret and reluctancy, this striving and 
plunging is a good symptom. If thou wilt continue with 
a good courage, and set thyself to it to the purpose, be con- 
fident thou shalt overcome the difficulty. If this sin be a 
walking, then every stop is a cessation, every check a degree 
to integrity, every godly thought or desire a pawn from God 
that He will give thee strength to victory: and if thou do but 
nourish and cherish every such reluctancy, every such gra- 
cious motion in thyself, thou mayest with courage expect a 
gracious calm deliverance out of these storms and tempests. 
And let us all labour, and endeavour, and pray that we may 
be loosed from these toils and gins, and engagements of our 


' Joan. Philoponus, i. de Anima, 


SERMON XXIX. 631 


own lusts, and being entered into a more religious severe 
course here, than the atheism of our ways would counsel us 
to, we may obtain the end, and rest, and consummation, and 
reward of our course hereafter. 

Now to Him which hath elected us, &c, , 


1 Tim. iv. 
11. 


Gal. vi. 
14. 


SERMON XXX. 


1 Trm. i. 15. 


Of whom I am the chief. 


Tue chief business of our Apostle St. Paul in all his 
Epistles is, what the main of every preacher ought to be, 
exhortation. There is not one doctrinal point but contains 
a precept to our understanding to believe it, nor moral dis- 
course, but effectually implies an admonishment to our wills 
to practise it. Now these exhortations are proposed either 
vulgarly in the downright garb of precept, as, “ These things 
command and teach,” &c., or in a more artificial, obscure, 
enforcing way of rhetoric, as, “ God forbid that I should glory, 
save in the cross of Christ, whereby the world is crucified to 
me, and I unto the world ;” which though in words it seems 
a protestation of St. Paul’s own resolution, yet in effect is a 
most powerful exhortatory to every succeeding Christian to 
glory only in the cross of Christ, and on it to crucify both 
the world and himself. This method of reducing St. Paul to 
exhortation I observe to you for the clearing of my text. 
For this whole verse at the first view seems only a mere 
thesis or point of belief, that Christ came into the world to 
save sinners, illustrated and applied by the speaker as one, 
and the chief of the number of those sinners to be saved. 
But it contains a most rhetorical powerful exhortation to 
both understanding and will; to believe this faithful saying, 
“that Christ came,” &c. and to accept, lay hold of, and with all 
our might to embrace and apply to each of ourselves this 
great mercy, toward this great salvation bestowed on sinners 
who can with humility confess their sins, and with faith lay 
hold on the promise. And this is the business of the verse, 


SERMON XXX. 633 


and the plain matter of this obscure double exhortation to 
every man’s understanding, that he believe “that Christ,” &c.; 
to every man’s affections, that he humble himself, and teach 
his heart, and that his tongue, to confess, Of all sinners, &c. 
This text shall not be divided into parts—which were to dis- 
order and distract the significancy of a proposition—but into 
several considerations; for so it is to be conceived either 
absolutely as a profession of St. Paul of himself; and there 
we will enquire whether and how Paul was the chief of all 
sinners: secondly, respectively to us, for whom this form of 
confessing the state, and applying the salvation of sinners to 
ourselves is set down. 

And first, whether and how Paul was the chief of all sin- 
ners; where we are to read him in a double estate, converted 
and unconverted, expressed to us by his double name Paul 
and Saul, Paul an Apostle of Jesus Christ, Saul a persecutor, 
mad against the Christians; and that both these estates may 
be contained in the text, although penned by Paul regene- 
rated, may appear, in that the pronoun ἐγὼ, I, signifying the 
whole complete person of Paul, restrains not the speech to 
his present being only, but considers also what he had been ; 
more especially set down at the thirteenth verse, “who was 
before a blasphemer,” &c. So then Paul in his Saul-ship 
being a blasphemer, a persecutor and injurious, and in sum, 
a most violent, perverse, malicious unbeliever, was a chief 
sinner, ranked in the front of the devil’s army; and this 
needs no further proof or illustration. Yet seeing that 
that age of the world had brought forth many other of 
the same strain of violent unbelief, nothing inferior to Saul, 
as may appear by those many that were guilty of Christ’s 
death (as Saul in person was not), and those that so madly 
stoned St. Stephen whilst Saul only “kept the witnesses’ 
clothes,’ and as the text speaks, “was consenting unto his 
death ;” seeing, I say, that others of that age equalled, if not 
exceeded Saul’s guilt, how can he be said above all other 
sinners to be the chief? I think we shall not wrest or en- 
large the text beside or beyond the meaning of the Holy 
Ghost or Apostle, if in answer unto this we say that there 
is intended not so much the greatness of his sins above 
all sinners in the world, but the greatness of the miracle in 


(ver. 13.] 


Acts vii. 
58. 


viii. 1. 


Rom. vi. 1. 


634. SERMON XXX. 


converting so great a sinner into so great a saint and Apo- 
stle. So that the words shall run, Of all sinners that Christ 
came into the world to save, and then prefer to such an emi- 
nence, I am the chief, or as the word primarily signifies, 
πρῶτος εἰμὶ, 1 am the first, i.e. Paul was the chief of all 
converts, and Paul was the first that from so great a perse- 
cutor of Christ was changed into so great, so glorious an 
Apostle. For so it follows in the verses next after my text, 
“For this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Christ 
Jesus might shew forth all long-suffering,” &c. The issue 
of all is this, that Saul unconverted was a very great sinner, 
yet not the greatest of sinners absolutely, but for aught we 
read in the New Testament, the greatest and first that was 
called from such a degree of infidelity, a blasphemer, a per- 
secutor, to so high a pitch of salvation, a saint, an Apostle, 
yea, and greater than an Apostle; whence the observation 
is, that though Saul were, yet every blasphemous sinner 
cannot expect to be called from the depth of sin to regene- 
racy and salvation. Although Saul being πρῶτος ἁμαρτω- 
λῶν, “ the chief of sinners,” was called and saved; yet Saul 
was also in another sense, for aught we read, πρῶτος, and 
perhaps the last that from so great a riot of sin obtained so 
great salvation. Wherefore, O sinner, be not presumptuous 
from Paul’s example, but from Paul’s single example begin 
to suspect thy state, and fear that such a miracle of salvation 
shall not be afforded thee. There hath been an opinion of 
late revived, perhaps original among the Romans, that the 
greatest sinner is the more likely object of God’s mercy, or 
subject of His grace, than the mere moral man, whom either 
natural fear, or the like, not spiritual respects, hath re- 
strained from those outrages of sin. The being of this 
opinion in the primitive Romans, and the falseness of it, 
is sufficiently proved by that expostulation of St. Paul, 
“ Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God 
forbid,” in answer to some, who, hearing that Christ came 
into the world to save sinners, thought that the excess of 
sin was the best qualification and only motive to provoke 
and deserve a more abundant grace and certain salvation. 
As if that Spirit which once, to manifest its power, called 
Saul, in the midst of his madness breathing out threatenings 


SERMON XXX. 635 


and slaughters against the Church, would not call any but 

those who had prepared themselves by the same degree of 
madness; but required that men should make themselves 
almost devils that they might be called into Christians; as 

if that God which could out of stones, could not also out of (Mat. iii, 
men raise up children unto Abraham; as if that Christ which 95] 
raised up Lazarus, being dead four days, and as they thought 39. 
stinking in his grave, could not as easily have healed him 
whilst he was yet alive: whereas we read that Christ dealt 
more on the cures of the impotent than resurrections of the 
dead; that is, in a spiritual application, healed more from 
the bed of languishment of their weaknesses and diseases, 
than He raised out of the graves of trespasses and sins; 
though some also hath He out of death quickened, to exalt 
the power and miracle of His mercy. Yet hath not this 
doctrine too been most confidently maintained among some 
of our times? That there is more hope of the debauched 
man, that he shall be called or saved, than of the mere 
moral, honest man, who yet is in the state of unregene- 
racy. Have not some men, defining this moral man by 
the formal hypocrite, set him in the greatest opposition to 
heaven? As if that degree of innocence, or rather not being 
extremely sinful, which a moral care of our ways may bestow 
on us, were a greater hindrance than promotion toward the 
state of grace, and the natural man were so much the fur- 
ther from God, the nearer he were to goodness, and no man 
could hope to come to heaven but he that had knocked at 
hell gates. I confess indeed that the Holy Ghost, where 
He means to inhabit, hath no need of pains to prepare Him 

a room, but can at His first knock open and cleanse, adorn 
and beautify the most uncouth, ugly, and unsavoury heart 
in the world. That omnipotent convincing Spirit can at the 
same instant strike the most obdurate heart, and soften it, 
and where it once enters cannot be repulsed by the most 
sturdy habituate sin or devil. I confess likewise, that some 
have been thus rather snatched than called, like the fire- 
brands out of the fire, and by an ecstasy of the Spirit 
inwardly in a minute changed from incarnate devils into 
incarnate saints. So was Mary dispossessed of seven devils, [Luke viii. 
who was after so highly promoted in Christ’s favour, that J 


n xi, 


Mark 


Xvi. 9. 


[ Luke viii. 
27 sqq. | 


woe 


au 


636 SERMON XXX. 


she had the honour to be the first witness of the resurrec- 
tion. So that Gadarene who had entrenched and fortified 
himself among the tombs, and was garrisoned with an army 
of devils, so that he brake fetters and chains, and could not 
be tamed or kept in any compass, yet in a minute at Christ’s 
word sent forth a legion of fiends sufficient to people and de- 
stroy a colony of swine. And so was Paul in my text, in a 
minute at Christ’s call delivered of a multitude of blasphem- 
ous malicious spirits, and straight became the joy of angels, 
the Apostle of the Gentiles. Yet meantime, these miracu- 
lous but rarer examples must not prescribe and set up, must 
not become a rule and encourage any one to Saul’s madness 
on confidence of Paul’s conversion, to a more impetuous 
course of sinning, that he may become a more glorious 
saint. It is a wrong way to heaven to dig into the deep, 
and a brutish arrogance to hope that God will the more 
eagerly woo us, the further our sins have divorced us from 
Him. If some, as hath been said, have been caught or 
strucken in the height of their rebellions, or in the fulness 
of the evil spirit called to a wane,—as diseases in the ἀκμὴ, 
or top-pitch, are wont to decay and weaken into health 
again,—if there have been some of these, as my Apostle, 
raised from the depth of sin, as Lazarus from the stench of 
the grave, yet these in respect of others more softly and 
ordinarily called, are found few in number; and such as 
were appointed for the miracles as well as the objects of 
God’s mercy. Hence it is that a strange disorder hath most 
times accompanied this extraordinary conversion of more 
violent outrageous sinners. Our Apostle—to go no further 
—was to be cast into a trance, and his regeneration not to 
be accomplished without a kind of death and resurrection, 
whereas others who are better morally qualified, or rather 
are less hardened in the sins of unregeneracy, do answer at 
the softest knock or whisperingest call of the Spirit, and at 
His beckon will come after Him. More might be said of 
this point, how St. Paul was most notably converted ; that 
he had the alleviation of ignorance, for which causé, as he 


i. says himself, he found mercy, and that others are not pro- 


bably to expect the like miracle, who have not those insuper- 
able prepossessions from custom and religion; but that this 


SERMON XXX. 637 


is not the business of the text, but a precognoscendum or 
passage to the clearing of it. Briefly therefore to conclude 
this note, Paul is the chief example mentioned in Scripture, 
and there be not many, though some more, that were called 
from the height of impiety, from the gall of bitterness, to 
this mystical third heaven, or so high degree of saint and 
apostle. The more ordinary course of God’s proceeding— 
if we may possibly judge of the decree by events and exam- 
ples—is to call such to the state of grace, and so conse- 
quently of glory, who have passed their unregeneracy most 
innocently, and kept themselves least polluted from the 
stains of habituate wickedness, that is, have lived as much 
as natural men can do, in the plainest, honestest course of 
morality, it being presupposed that among all other moral 
virtues they have purchased humility, the best—if there be 
any preparative—for the receiving of grace. Meanwhile we 
are not to be mistaken, as if we thought God’s purposes tied 
to man’s good behaviour, or man’s moral goodness to woo 
and allure God’s Spirit, as that the Almighty is not equally 
able to sanctify the foulest soul by His converting grace, 
and the less polluted; or that He requires man’s prepara- 
tion: but our position is, that in ordinary charitable reason 
we ought to judge more comfortably, and hope more confi- 
dently of a mere moral man naturally more careful of his 
ways, that he shall be both called and saved, that God will 
with His Spirit perfect and crown his morally good, though 
imperfect endeavours, than of another more debauched sin- 
ner utterly negligent of the commands of either God or 
nature. Which position I have in brief proved, though 
nothing so largely as I might, in confutation of them who do 
utterly condemn unregenerate morality, and deject it below 
the lowest degree of profaneness, as if they would teach a 
man his way to heaven by boasting arrogantly, what Paul 
converted confesses humbly, I am the nearer to Christ’s 
salvation, because of all sinners I am the chief. The use in 
brief of this thesis shall be for those who not as yet find the 
power of the regenerating Spirit in them, —for I am to fear 
many of my auditors may be in this case, and I pray God 
they feel, and work, and pray themselves out of it,—the use, 
I say, is for those who are not yet full possessors of the Spirit, 


Acts 
xxiii. 1. 


Acts x. 2, 


638 SERMON XXX. 


to labour to keep their unregeneracy spotless from the 
greater offence, that if they are not yet called to the prefer- 
ment of converts and saints, the second part of heaven, that 
earthly city of God, that yet they will live orderly in that 
lower regiment, wherein they yet remain, and be subject to 
the law of nature, till it shall please God to take them into 
a new commonwealth under the law of grace, to improve 
their natural abilities to the height, and bind their hands 
and hearts from the practice and study of outrageous sins 
by those ordinary restraints which nature will afford us; 
such as are a good disposition, education, and the like; not 
to leave and refer all to the miraculous working of God, and 
to increase our sins for the magnifying of the virtue in re- 
calling us. God requires not this glory at our hands that 
we should peremptorily over-damn ourselves, that He may 
be the more honoured in saving us. His mercy is more 
known to the world than to need this woeful foil to illus- 
trate it. God is not wont to rake hell for converts, to 
gather devils to make saints of; the kingdom of heaven 
would suffer great violence, if only such should take it. If 
Saul were infinitely sinful before he proved an Apostle,— 
though by the way we hear him profess he had lived im all 
good conscience,—yet expect not thou the same miracle, nor 
think that the excess of sins is the cue that God ordinarily 
takes to convert us. The fathers in an obedience to the 
discipline and pedagogy of the old law, possessed their souls 
in patience, expecting the prophesied approach of the new— 
did not by a contempt of Moses precipitate and hasten the 
coming of the Messias. Cornelius lived a long while de- 
voutly, and gave much alms, till at last God called him, and 
put him in a course to become a Christian: and do thou, if 
thou art not yet called, wait the Lord’s leisure in a sober 
moral conversation, and fright not Him from thee with un- 
natural abominations. God is not likely to be wooed by 
those courses which nature loathes, or to accept them whom 
the world is ashamed of. In brief, remember Saul and Cor- 
nelius; Saul, that he, not many, were called from a pro- 
fessed blasphemer ; Cornelius, that before he was called he 
prayed to God alway; and do thou endeavour to deserve the 
like mercy, and then in thy prayer confess thine undesery- 


SERMON XXX. 639 


ing, and petition grace, as grace, that is not as our merit, 
but as His free-will favour, not as the desert of our morality, 
but a stream from the bounty of His mercy, who—we may 
hope—will crown His common graces with the fulness of 
His Spirit. And now, O powerful God, on those of us which 
are yet unregenerate, bestow Thy restraining grace, which 
may curb and stop our natural inordinacy, and by a sober, 
careful, continent life, prepare us to a better capability 

of Thy sanctifying Spirit, wherewith in good time Thou 
shalt establish and seal us up to the day of redemption. And cet iv. 
thus much concerning Saul unconverted, how of all sinners 0 
he was the chief, not absolutely, that he surpassed the whole 
world in rankness of sin, but respectively to his later state, 
that few or none are read to have been translated from such 

a pitch of sin to saintship. Now follows the second conside- 
ration of him being proceeded Paul, i.e. converted, and then 
the question is, whether and how Paul converted may be 
said the chief of all sinners. 

It were too speculative a depth for a popular sermon to 
discuss the inherence and condition of sin in the regenerate; 
the business will be brought home more profitably to our 
practice if we drive it to this issue, that Paul in this place, 
intending by his own example to direct others how to believe 
the truth, and embrace and fasten on the efficacy of Christ’s 
incarnation, hath no better motive to incite himself and 
others toward it, than a recognition of his sins, that is, a 
survey of the power of sin in him before, and a sense of the 
relics of sin in him since his conversion. Whence the note 
is, that the greatness of one’s sins makes the regenerate man 
apply himself more fiercely to Christ. This faithful saying 
was therefore to Paul worthy of all acceptation, because of 
all simners he was the chief. St. Paul, as every regenerate 
man, is to be observed in a treble posture, either casting his 
eyes backward, or calling them in upon himself, or else look- 
ing forward and aloof; and accordingly is to be conceived in 
a treble meditation, either of his life past, or present state, 
or future hopes. In the first posture and meditation you 
may see, first, Paul alone, who was before a blasphemer, a per- 
secutor, and injurious; secondly, all the regenerate together. 


“ For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sin did work [Rom. vii. 
5.] 


Acts xxiii. 
[5.] 


2 Cor. xii. 


1 Cor. ix. 
27. 


Rom. vii. 
25. 

Phil. iii. 
13. 


[ Hab. i. 
16.] 


2Gor: 
xi. 7. 


64.0 SERMON XXX. 


in our members,” &c., and many the like. In the second 
posture and meditation you may observe him retracting an 
error, deprecating a temptation with earnest and repeated 
intercessions, fighting with and harassing himself, “ beating 
down his body, and keeping it in subjection, lest while he 
preached to others he himself might be a cast-away.” In the 
third posture we find him, where after a long disguise he 
cries out, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” 
And again most evidently, “ Forgetting those things that 
are behind, and reaching out to those things which are be- 
fore, 1 press toward the mark,” &c., like a racer in the heat 
of his course whose eyes desire to anticipate his feet, and en- 
joy the goal before he reach it. These three carriages of the 
regenerate man fully prove our observation: for if either of 
the two former sights could afford any content; if either his 
former or present state did not sufficiently terrify him, he 
would not be so eager on the third, it being the folly of 
human pride and self-love to contemn any foreign aid as 
long as it finds either appearance or hope of domestic. If in 
the view of his former life he should find any thing either 
good, or not extremely bad and sinful, he would under-prize 
the mercy of that Saviour that redeemed him from so poor 
a guilt; if he could observe in his present state any natural 
firmness or stability, any inherent purity, any essential jus- 
tice, he might possibly sacrifice to his own nets, and reckon- 
ing himself in perfect peace with God, neither invoke and 
seek, nor acknowledge a Mediator. But when in his former 
life he shall find nothing but the matter and cause of horror 
and amazement, nothing but hideous, ghastly affrightments, 
yea, and a body of damnation: when in hope to mend him- 
self, and ease his fears, he shall fly to the comfort of his 
present converted state, and yet there also espy many thorns 
of temptations, how can he but be frighted out of himself? 
How can he but fly from the scene of those his torments, 
and seek out and importune the mercy of a Saviour, which 
may deliver him out of all his fears? After the example of 
our Apostle in my text, where he does more peremptorily 
apprehend Christ, and more bodily believe, “that He came 
into the world to save sinners, because of all sinners he was 
chief,” making his own sinfulness—being the object and ex- 


SERMON XXX. 641 


ternal motive of God’s mercy—an argument and internal 
motive of his own faith and confidence. The plain meaning 
of this thesis is that among men things are not alway valued 
according to the merit of their nature, for then each com- 
modity should be equally prized by all men, and the man in 
health should bestow as much charges on physic as the 
diseased: but each thing bears its several estimation by its 
usefulness, and the riches of every merchandize is increased 
accordingly as men to whom it is proffered do either use or 
want it. Moreover, this usefulness is not to be reckoned of 
according to truth, but opinion, not according to men’s real 
wants, but according to the sense which they have of their 
wants; so a man distracted, because he hath not so much 
reason about him as to observe his disease, will contemn hel- 
lebore, or any other the most precious recipe for this cure: 
and generally no man will hasten to the physician, or justly 
value his art and drugs, but he whom misery hath taught 
the use of them. So then unless a man have been in some 
spiritual danger, and by the converting Spirit be instructed 
into a sense and apprehension of it, he will not sufficiently 
observe the benefit and use of a deliverer: unless he feels 
in himself some stings of the relics of his sin, some pricks 
of the remaining Amorite, he will not take notice of the 
want and necessity which he hath of Christ’s mediation. 
But when he shall with a tenderness of memory survey the 
guilt of his former state, from the imputation, not impor- 
tunity whereof he is now justified, when he shall still feel 
within him “the buffetings of Satan,’ and sensibly observe [2 Cor. xii. 
himself not fully sanctified, then, and not before, will he with ὯΙ 
a zealous earnestness apprehend the profit, yea, necessity of 
a Saviour, whose assistance so nearly concerns him. The 
second ground of this position is that an extraordinary unde- 
served deliverance is by an afilicted man received with some 
suspicion: the consideration of the greatness of the benefit 
makes him doubt of the truth of it, and he will scarce believe 
so important an happiness befallen him, because his misery 
could neither expect nor hope it. Hence upon the first 
notice of it he desires to ascertain it unto his sense, by a 
sudden possession of it, and not at all to defer the enjoying 
of that mercy which his former misery made infinitely “worthy 
AMMON D. πὶ Ὁ 


Mat. xx. 4. 


John xx. 
25. 


Cant. iii 


642 SERMON XXX. 


of all acceptation.” Thus may you see a shipwrecked man 
recovered to some refuge, cling about, and almost incorporate 
himself unto it, because the fortune of his life depends on 
that succour. The new regenerate man finding in the Scrip- 
ture the promise of a Redeemer, which shall free him from 
those engagements which his former bankrupt estate had 
plunged him in, cannot delay so great an happiness, but with 
a kind of tender fear and filial trembling, runs and strives, (as 
the disciples to the sepulchre), to assure his necessitous soul 
of this acceptable salvation: even sets upon his Saviour with 
a kind of violence, and will seem to distrust His promise, till 
His seal shall authorize and confirm it. Thus did the great- 
ness of the work of the unexpected resurrection beget in 
Thomas a suspicion and incredulity, “1 will not believe,” &c., 
where our charity may conjecture, that he above all the rest 
was not absolutely resolved not to believe the resurrection, 
but that he being absent at the first apparition, would not 
take so important a miracle upon trust, but desired to have 
that demonstrated to his sense, which did so nearly concern 
his faith; that so by putting his finger into the print of the 
nails, and thrusting his hand into His side, he might almost 
consubstantiate and unite himself unto his Saviour, and at 
once be assured of the truth, and partake of the profit of the 
resurrection. Hear but the voice of the spouse, and any 
further proofs shall be superfluous, where in violence and 
jealousy of love she importunes the eternal presence of the 
Beloved, “Set me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon 
thine arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy as cruel as the 
grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire which hath a vehement 
flame.” She had before often lost her beloved, which made 
her so fiercely fasten on him, for having roused him, rui¢ in am- 
plexus, she rushed into his embraces, she held him and would 
not let him go. Thus you see the jealousy and eagerness of 
love produced by either a former loss, or present more than 
ordinary want of the object, both which how pertinent they 
are to the regenerate man, either observing his past sins, or in- 
stant temptations, this discourse hath already made manifest. 

The use of this thesis (to wit, that the greatness of one’s 
sins makes the regenerate man apply himself more fiercely 
to Christ) is first, by way of caution, that we mistake not 


SERMON XXX. 643 


a motive for an efficient, an impulsive for a principal cause. 
For where we say, ‘it makes him apply himself, &c., we 
mean not that the increase of sin produces faith formally, 
but only inciteth to believe by way of instruction, by shew- 
ing us what distress we are in, and consequently in what 
a necessity of a deliverer. The meditation of our sinful 
courses may disclose our misery, not redress it; may ex- 
plore, not mend a sinner, like a touchstone to try, not 
any way to alter him. It is the controlling Spirit which 
must effectually renew our spirits, and lead us to the Christ 
which our sins told us we had need of. The sense of sin 
may rouse the soul, but it is the Spirit of God that lays the toils; 
the feeling of our guilt may beat the waters, but it is the 
great fisher of our souls which spreads the nets, which entraps 
us as we are on our way to hell, and leads us captive to salvation. 
The mere gripings of our conscience being not produced by 
any pharmacon of the Spirit, but by some distemper arising 
from sin, what anxiety doth it cause within us! what pangs 
and twinges to the soul! O Lord, do Thou regenerate us, and 
then Thy Holy Spirit shall sanctify even our sins unto our 
good; and if Thy grace may lead us, our sins shall pursue 
and drive us unto Christ! Secondly, by way of character, 
how to distinguish a true convert from a false. A man 
which from an inveterate desperate malady shall meet with a 
miraculous unexpected cure, will naturally have some art of 
expression above an ordinary joy; you shall see him in an 
ecstacy of thanksgiving and exultancy, whilst another, which 
was never in that distress, quietly enjoys the same health, 
and gives thanks softly by himself to his preserver. So is it 
in the distresses of the soul, which if they have been exces- 
sive, and almost beyond hope of recovery, as the miracle 
must, so will the expression of this deliverance be somewhat 
extraordinary. The soul which from a good moral or less 
sinful natural estate, is magis immutata quam genita, rather 
changed than regenerate into a spiritual, goes through this 
business without any great noise, the Spirit entering into it 
in a still small voice, or at a breathing: but when a robust- John xx. 
ous obdurate sinner shall be rather apprehended than called, 22: 
when the sea shall be commanded to give up his ship- 
wrecked, and the sepulchre to restore her dead, the soul 
Tt 2 


{Luke i. 
48. ] 

[1 Cor. xv. 
55—57. | 


[2 Pet. 1. 
10.] 


[ Philipp. 
iii. 14. ] 


[ Rom. vii. 
24. 


644 SERMON XXX. 


surely which thus escapeth shall not be content with a mean 
expression, but will practise all the halleluiahs and magni- 
ficats which the triumphant liturgies of the saints can afford 
it. Wherefore, I say, if any one, out of a full violent course 
of sinning conceive himself converted and regenerated, let him 
examine what a degree of spiritual exultancy he hath attained 
to, and if he find it but mean, and slight, and perfunctory, let 
him somewhat suspect, that he may the more confirm the 
evidence of his calling. Now this spiritual exultancy of the 
regenerate consists both in a solemn humiliation of himself, 
and a spiritual rejoicing in God his Saviour; both expressed 
in Mary’s Magnificat, where she specifies in the midst of her 
joy “the lowliness of His handmaid,” and in St. Paul’s vic- 
tory-song over death. So that if the conversion of an inordi- 
nate sinner be not accompanied with unwonted joy and sorrow, 
with a godly sense of his past distress, and a godly triumph 
for his delivery; if it be not followed with a violent eager- 
ness to fasten on Christ; finally, if there be not somewhat 
above ordinary in the expression, then I counsel not to dis- 
trust, but fear, that is, with a solicitous, not suspicious 
trembling, to labour to “make thy calling and election sure :” 
to pray to that Holy Spirit to strike our hearts with a mea- 
sure of holy joy and holy sorrow, some way proportionable to 
the size of those sins, which in our unregeneracy reigned in 
us; and for those of us whom our sins have separated far 
from Him, but His grace hath called home to Him, that He 
will not suffer us to be content with a distance, but draw us 
close unto Himself, make us “ press toward the mark,” and 
fasten ourselves on that Saviour, which hath redeemed us 
from the body and guilt of this so great death. The third. 
use is, of comfort and confirmation to some tender souls who 
are incorporate into Christ, yet finding not in themselves 
that excessive measure of humiliation which they observe in 
others, suspect their own state, and infinitely grieve that 
they can grieve no more. Whereas this doctrine being ob- 
served will be an allay to their sorrow, and wipe some un- 
necessary tears from their eyes. For if the greatness of sin 
past, or the plentiful rel’cs of sin remaining, do require so 
great a measure of sorrow, to expiate the one, and subdue 
the other; if it be a deliverance from an habituate servitude 


SERMON XXX. 645 


to all manner of sin, which provokes this extraordinary pains 
of expression; then certainly they who have been brought 
up with the Spirit, which were from their baptism never 
wholly deprived of it, need not to be bound over to this 
trade of sorrow, need not to be set apart to that perpetual 
humiliation which a more stubbern sin or devil is wont to be 
cast out by. I doubt not but a soul educated in familiarity 
with the Spirit, may at once enjoy herself and it; and so that 
if it have an humble conceit of itself, and a filial of God, 
may in earth possess God with some clearness of look, some 
serenity of affections, some alacrity of heart, and tranquillity 
of spirit. God delights not in the torment of His children, 
(though some are so to be humbled,) yea, He delights not in 
such burnt offerings as they bestow upon Him, who destroy, 
and consume, and sacrifice themselves; but “‘ the Lord’s de- 
light is in them that fear Him” filially, “and put their trust,” 
i.e. assurance, confidence, “in His mercy;” in them that re- 
joice, that make their service a pleasure, not an affliction, 
and thereby possess heaven before they come to it. It is ob- 
served in husbandry that soil, laid on hard, barren, starved 
ground doth improve it, and at once deface and enrich it, 
which yet in ground naturally fruitful, and kept in heart, 
and good case, is esteemed unnecessary and burthensome. 
You need not the application. Again, the husbandman can 
mend a dry, stubborn, wayward, fruitless earth, by over- 
flowing of it, and on such indeed is his ordinary requisite 
discipline, to punish it for its amendment. But there is a 
ground otherwise well tempered, which they call a weeping 
ground, whence continually water soaks out, and this proves 
seldom fruitful (if our learned husbandmen observe aright), 
whereof there is sometime need of draining, as well as water- 
ing. The application is that your soul, which either hath 
been naturally dry and barren, or else overwrought in the 
business of the world, needs a flood of tears to soften and 
purge it. But the well-tempered soul, which hath never been 
out of heart, but hath always had some inward life, some 
fatness of, and nourishment from the Spirit, is rather op- 
pressed than improved by such an overflow. The Christian 
is thereby much hindered in his progress of good works, and 
cannot serve the Lord with alacrity, that so perpetually hangs 


{ Psalm 
exlvii. 11.] 


646 SERMON XXX. 


down his head like a bulrush. Wherefore, the country rule 
is, that that ground is best which is mellow, which being 
crushed will break but not crumble, dissolve, but not exces- 
sively. Hence, I say, the habituate believer need not sus- 
pect his estate, if he find not in himself such an extremity 
of violent grief and humiliation as he observes in others ; 
knowing that in him such a measure of tears would both soil 
the face of his devotion, and clog the exercise of it. His 
best mediocrity will be to be habitually humbled, but actually 
lively and alacrious in the ways of godliness; not to be too 
rigid and severe a tyrant over his soul, but to keep it in a 
temper of Christian softness, tender under the hand of God, 
and yet man-like and able both in the performance of God’s 
worship and his own calling. And whensoever we shall find 
ourselves in either extreme, either too much hardened or too 
much melted, too much elevated or too much dejected, then to 
pray to that Holy Spirit so to fashion the temper of our souls, 
that we neither fail in humbling ourselves in some measure 
for our sins, nor yet too cowardly deject and cast down our- 
selves, below the courage, and comfort, and spiritual rejoicing 
which He hath prescribed us. “Ὁ Holy Lord, we are the 
greatest of sinners, and therefore we humble ourselves before 
Thee, but Thou hast sent Thy Christ into the world to save 
sinners, and therefore we raise up our spirits again, and 
praise and magnify Thy Name.”? And thus much of this point, 
and in brief, of the first consideration of these words, to wit, 
as they are absolutely a profession of Paul himself, to which 
end we beheld him in his double estate, converted and un- 
converted. In his unconverted state we found, though a 
very great sinner, yet not absolutely greater than those times 
brought forth, and therefore we were to think of him re- 
latively to his future estate, and so we found him the greatest 
sinner that ever was called in the New Testament into so 
glorious a saint. Whence we observe the rarity of such con- 
versions, that though Saul were, yet every blasphemous sinner 
could not expect to be called from the depth of sin to rege- 
neracy and salvation: and this we proved both against the 
ancient Romans and modern censors of morality, and applied 
it to the care which we ought to have of keeping our unre- 
generacy spotless from any reigning sin. Afterward we came 


SERMON XXX. 647 


to Paul converted, where we balked the discourse of the con- 
dition of sin in the regenerate, and rather observed the effect 
of it; and in it, that the greatness of his sin made (as Paul, 
so) every regenerate man more eagerly to fasten on Christ. 
Which being proved by a double ground, we applied first, by 
way of caution, how that proposition was to be understood ; 
2. by way of character, how a great sinner may judge of his 
sincere certain conversion; 3. by way of comfort to others, 
who find not the effects of humiliation and the like in them- 
selves, in such measure as they see in others; and so we have 
passed through the first consideration of these words, being 
conceived absolutely as St. Paul’s profession of himself, we 
should come to the other consideration, as they are set down 
to us as a pattern or form of confessing the estate, and ap- 
plying the salvation of sinners to ourselves, which business 
requiring the pains, and being worthy the expense of an en- 
tire hour, we must defer to a second exercise. 

Now the God which hath created us, hath elected, redeemed, 
called, justified us, will sanctify us in His time, will prosper 
this His ordinance, will direct us by His grace to His glory. 
To Him be ascribed due the honour, the praise, the glory, the 
dominion, which through all ages of the world have been 
given to Him that sitteth on the throne, to the Holy Spirit, 
and Lamb for evermore. 


PARS SECUNDA. 


SERMON XXXI. 


1 Tm. 1. 15. 
Of whom I am the chief. 


In all human writings and learning, there is a kind of 
poverty and emptiness, which makes them when they are 
beheld by a judicious reader look starved and crest-fallen : 
their speeches are rather puffed up than filled, they have a 
kind of boasting and ostentation in them, and promise more 
substance and matter to the ear, than they are able to per- 
form really to the understanding: whence it falls out, that 
we are more affected with them at the first hearing, and, if 
the orator be clear in his expression, we understand as much 
at the first recital, as we are able to do at the hundredth 
repetition. But there is a kind of excellency in the Scrip- 
ture, a kind of ὕψος, or sublimity above all other writings in 
the world. The reading of every section of it leaves a sting 
in the mind, and a perpetual conceit of a still imperfect 
understanding of it. An intelligent man at every view finds 
in it a fresh mystery, and still perceives that there is some- 
what beyond, not yet attained to: like men digging in mines, 
the deeper he dives he finds the greatest treasure, and meets 
with that under ground, which looking on the outward turf, 
or surface, he never imagined to have been there. This I 
observe unto you, to shew you the riches both of all, and 
especially of this Scripture, whereinto the deeper I dig, the 
more ore I find: and having already bestowed one hour in 
the discussing of it, without any violence, or wresting, or 
wire-drawing, find plenty of new materials. 

We have already handled the words at large in one con- 
sideration, as they area profession of Paul himself; I will not 
repeat you the particular occurrents. We now without any 
more delay of preface come to the second consideration of 


SERMON XXXI. 64.9 


them, as they are spoken by Paul respectively to us, i. e. as 
they are prescribed us for a form of confessing the estate, and 
applying the salvation of sinners unto ourselves, teaching 
each of us for a close of our faith and devotion to confess, 
“ Of all,” &c. 

Where first, the cadence or manner how Paul falls into 
these words, is worthy to be both observed and imitated: 
the chief and whole business of this verse being the truth, 
the acceptable truth, of Christ’s Incarnation, with the end of 
it, the saving of sinners. He can no sooner name this word 
sinners, but his exceeding melting tenderness abruptly falls 
off, and subsumes, “Of all sinners,” &c. ‘If there be any thing 
that concerns sinners, I am sure I have my part in that, for 
of that number 1 am the chief” The note by the way briefly 
is, that ‘‘a tender conscience never hears of the name of sin- 
ner, but straight applies it to itself.” It is noted by Aristotle, 
the master of human learning, that that rhetoric was very 
thin and unprofitable, very poor and like to do little good 
upon men’s affections, which insisted on general matters, 
and descended not to particulars, as if one should discourse 
of sin in general and sinners, without reference to this or 
that particular sin or sinner; and the reason of his note was, 
because men are not moved or stirred with this eloquence. 
The intemperate person could hear a declamation against 
vice, and never be affected with it, unless it stooped to take 
notice of his particular enormities; and so is it with other 
criminals. This reason of his was grounded upon the obdu- 
rateness of men’s hearts, which would think that nothing 
concerned them, but what was framed against the individual 
offender, all such being as dull and unapt to understand any 
thing that being applied might move or prick them, as men 
are to take notice of a common national judgment, which 
we never duly weigh, till we smart under it in particular. 
This senselessness may also seem to have been amongst St. 
Paul’s Corinthians, which made him use Aristotle’s counsel 
in driving his speech home to their private persons. Where [1 Cor. vi. 
telling them that neither fornicators nor idolaters, and the like, ” oe 
shall inherit the kingdom of God; for fear they should not 
be so tender conscienced as of their own accords to apply 

a { Rhetoric., lib. ii. ο. 22.] 


ver. 11]. 


[ Rom. i. 
28. ] 


[ Ps. exv. 
5, 6.] 


650 SERMON XXXI. 


these sins to themselves, and read themselves guilty in that 
glass; he is fain to supply that office, and plainly tell them 
what otherwise perhaps they would not have conceived, “ and 
such were some of you.’ This senseless hard-heartedness or 
backwardness in applying the either commands or threaten- 
ings of the law to one’s self, is by the Apostle called, νοῦς 
ἀδόκιμος, Which we ordinarily translate a reprobate mind, 
but may be brought to signify, a mind without judgment, 
that hath no faculty of discerning, that cannot in a general 
threatening observe something that may concern the danger 
of his particular state: or, as it may be rendered, a mind 
without sense, not apprehensive of those things which are 
manifestly proposed to them, like those walking idols de- 
scribed by the Psalmist, “Eyes have they and see not, ears and 
hear not, noses and smell not,” only beautiful carcasses of 
Christians, which have nothing but their shape and motion 
to persuade you that they live: unless we add this most 
unhappy symptom, which indicates a state more wretched far 
than death itself, that there is strength and vigour to oppose 
recovery, that amidst death there yet survives a hatred and 
antipathy to life. In such a soul as this there is a perpetual 
reaction, and impatience of the presence of any thing which 
may trash, encumber, or oppress it: a judgment or denuncia- 
tion is but cast away upon it, it shall be sure to return un- 
profitably, and neither move nor mend it. This hath been, 
and much more might be observed to you, of the carriage of 
the hard, stupid heart toward either Scripture or preacher, 
to the plain opening of this point ; for you shall more clearly 
understand the tender heart by observing the obdurate, 
and learn to be affected aright with God’s law or punish- 

ents, by knowing and hating the opposite stubborn sense- 
lessness. Now in brief, this tender heart in the discovery of 
a sin, or denunciation of a judgment needs not a particular, 
“Thou art the man,” to bring it home to his person. The more 
wide and general the proposal is, the more directly and 
effectually is this strucken with it. In a common satire, or 
declamation against sin in general, it hath a sudden art of 
logic to anatomize and branch this sin in general into all 
its parts; and then to lay each of them to its own charge; 
it hath a skill of making every passage in the Scripture a 


SERMON XXXI. 651 


glass to espy some of her deformities in, and cannot so much 
as mention that ordinary name of sin or sinner, without an 
extraordinary affection, and unrequired accusation of itself, 
“Of all sinners,” &c. The plain reason of this effect in the 
tender heart is, first, because it is tender. The soft and accurate 
parts of a man’s body do suffer without reaction, i. e. do yield 
at the appearance of an enemy, and not any way put forward 
to repel him. These being fixed on by a bee, or the like, are 
easily penetrated by the sting, and are so far from resisting 
of it, that they do in ἃ manner draw it to them, and by their 
free reception allure it to enter so far, that the owner can 
seldom ever recover it back again. Whereas on a dead car- 
cass, a thick or callous member of the body, a bee may fix 
and not forfeit her sting. So doth a tender heart never 
resist or defend itself against a stroke, but attenuates itself, 
lays wide open its pores, to facilitate its entrance, seems to 
woo a threatening, to prick, and sting, and wound it sharply, 
as if it rejoiced in, and did even court those torments which 
the sense of sin or judgment thus produced. 

Again, a tender heart ordinarily meets with more blows, 
more oppressions than any other: its very passiveness pro- 
vokes every one’s malice; the fly and dust, as if it were by a 
kind of natural instinct, drive directly at the eye, and no 
member about you shall be oftener rubbed or disordered 
than that which is raw or distempered; the reason being, 
because that which is not worthy notice to another part is an 
affliction to this, and a mote which the hand observes not, 
will torment the eye. So is it with the conscience, whose 
tenderness doth tempt every piece of Scripture to afflict it, 
and is more encumbered with the least atom of sin or threat, 
than the more hardened sinner is with a beam or mountain. 

Thirdly, one that hath any solemn business to do will not 
pass by any opportunity of means which may advantage him 
in it. One that hath a search to make will not slip any 
evidence which may concur to the helping of his discovery ; 
one that hath any treatise to write will be ready to apply 
any thing that ever he reads to his theme or purpose. Now 
the search, the discourse, the whole employment of a tender 
heart is the enquiry after the multitude of its sins, and in 
sum, the aggravation of each particular guilt, in and against 


Mat. xi. 26. 


652 SERMON XXXI. 


itself, that so having sufficiently loaded itself, and being tired 
with the weight and burden of its sins, it may in some 
measure perform the condition which Christ requires of them 
which come to Him, and be prepared to receive that ease 
which Christ hath promised to the “ weary and heavy laden.” 
So then if the tender conscience doth never repel, or rever- 
berate any mention of sin, but doth draw out the sting of 
it to its length, if it be much affected with the least atom of 
sin, and therefore meets with frequent disorders, if, lastly, it 
make its employment to gather out of all the Scripture, those 
places which may advantage her in the sight and sense of her 
sins; then certainly doth she never hear of the name of 
sinner, but straight she applies it to herself, which was the 
point we undertook to shew. 

The direct use of this proposition is for a κρίσις, or 
judgment of our estate. It is observed in the body that 
the rest of the senses may be distempered and lost with- 
out impairing of it, but only the touch cannot, which there- 
fore they call the sense of life, because that part or body 
which is deprived of feeling, is also at death’s door, and 
hath no more life in it, than it hath relics of this sense. 
So is it also in spiritual matters: of all other symptoms this 
of senselessness is most dangerous, and as the Greek physi- 
cians are wont to say of a desperate disease, ὀλέθριον κάρτα 
λίαν, “very very mortal.” This feeling tenderness is necessary 
to the life of grace, and is an inseparable both effect and 
argument of it. Wherefore, I say, for the judgment of your- 
selves, observe how every piece of Scripture works upon you. 
If you can pass over a catalogue of sins and judgments without 
any regret, or reluctancy, if you can read Sodom and Gomor- 
rah, Babylon and the harlot Jerusalem, and not be affected 
with their stories, if thou canst be the auditor of other men’s 
faults without any sense or griping of thine own, if the name of 
sin or sinner be unto thee but as a jest or fable, not worthy 
thy serious notice, then fear thy affections’ want of that tem- 
per, which the softening Spirit is wont to bestow where it 
rests, and accordingly as thou findest this tenderness increas- 
ing or waning in thee, either give thanks or pray: either 
give thanks for the plenty of that Spirit which thou enjoyest, or 
in the sense of thy wants importune it, that God will give us 


SERMON XXXI. 653 


softened relenting hearts, that the recital of other men’s 
sins may move us, other men’s judgments may strike us, 
other men’s repentance melt us with a sense, with a confes- 
sion, with a contrition of our own. But above all, O Holy 
Spirit, from hardness of heart, from an undiscerning, repro- 
bate spirit, from a contempt, nay neglect, a not observing of 
Thy Word, as from the danger of hell, Good Lord deliver us. 

And thus much of this point, of this effect of a tender 
heart, noted to you out of the cadence of the words. I now 
come to observe somewhat more real out of the main of the 
words themselves, “Of whom,” ἕο. We find not our Apostle 
here complimenting with himself, either excusing or attenu- 
ating his guilt, but as it were glorying in the measure of his 
sins, striving for pre-eminence above all other sinners, chal- 
lenging it as his right, and as eager upon the preferment, as his 
fellow-labourer Peter’s successor for a primacy (as he pro- 
fesses) of all bishops, yea the whole Church; so our Apostle 
here, “ Of all sinners I am the chief.” The note briefly is this, 
that every one is to aggravate the measure and number of his 
sins against himself, and as near as he can observe how his 
guilt exceedeth other men’s. This was St. Paul’s practice 
and our pattern, not to be gazed on, but followed, not to be 
discussed, but imitated. In the discourse whereof I shall not 
labour to prove you the necessity of this practice, which yet 
I might do out of David’s example in his penitential psalms, [Ps. li. ; 
especially the fifty-first, out of Nehemiah’s confession, and the ΟΣ 
like, but taking this as supposed, I shall rather mix doctrine, 
and reason, and use altogether, in prescribing some forms of 
aggravating ourselves to ourselves, yet not descending to a par- 
ticular dissection of sin into all its parts, but dealing only on 
general heads, equally applicable to all men, briefly reducible 
to these two, 1. original sin, or the sin of our nature, of which 
we are all equally guilty; 2. personal sin, grounded in and 
terminated to each man’s person. 

For original sin, it is the fathers’ complaint, and ought 
more justly to be ours of these times, that there is no 
reckoning made of it, it is seldom thought worthy to 
supply a serious place in our humiliation, it is mentioned 
only for fashion’s sake, and as it were to stop God’s 
mouth, and to give Him satisfaction, or palliate the guilt 


654 SERMON XXXI. 


of our wilful rebellions, not on any real apprehension that 
its cure and remedy in baptism is a considerable benefit, 
or the remnant weakness (after the killing venom is abated) 
were more than a trivial disadvantage. So that we have a 
kind of need of original clearness of understanding, to judge 
of the foulness of original sin, and we cannot sufficiently con- 
ceive our loss, without some recovery of those very faculties we 
forfeited in it. But that we may not be wilfully blind in a 
matter that so imports us, that we may understand somewhat 
of the nature and dangerous condition of this sin, you must 
conceive Adam, who committed this first sin, in a double 
respect, either as one particular man, or as containing in his 
loins the whole nature of man, all mankind, which should ever 
come from him. Adam’s particular sin,i. e. his personal disobe- 
dience is wonderfully aggravated from the fathers”, 1. from his 
original justice, which God had bestowed on him; 2. from the 
near familiarity with God, which he enjoyed and then lost; ὃ. 
from the perpetual blessed estate, which, had it not been for 
this disobedience, he might for ever have lived in; 4. from the 
purity and integrity of his will, which was then void of all 
sinful desire, which otherwise might have tempted to this 
disobedience; 5. from the easiness of both remembering and 
observing the commandment, it being a short prohibition, 
and only to abstam from one tree, where there was such 
plenty besides; 6. from the nature and circumstances of the 
offence, by which the fathers* do refer it to all manner of 
heinous sins, making it to contain a breach of almost each 
moral law, all which were then written in the tables of his 
heart, and therefore concluding it to be an aggregate or 
mixture of all those sins which we have since so reiterated, 
and so many times sinned over. So then this personal sin of 
Adam was of no mean size, not to be reckoned of as an every 
day’s offence, as an ordinary breach, or the mere eating of an 
apple. In the next place, as Adam was no private person, 
but the whole human nature, so this sin is to be considered 
either in'the root, or in the fruit, in itself, or in its effects. 
In itself; so all mankind, and every particular man is, and in 
that name must humble himself as concerned in the eating 


» S. August. De Civit. Dei, xxi. 12. © Thid., lib. xiv. ο. 12. 
4 S. Leo Magn., p. 143. [See above, p. 289. ] 


SERMON XXXI. 655 


of that fruit, which only Adam’s teeth did fasten on; is to 

deem himself bound to be humbled for that pride, that curi- 
| osity, that disobedience, or whatsoever sin else can be con- 
tained in that first great transgression; and count you this 
nothing, to have a share in such a sin which contains such a 
multitude of rebellions? It is not a slight, perfunctory humi- 
liation that can expiate, not a small labour that can destroy 
this monster which is so rich in heads, each to be cut off by 
the work of a several repentance. Now in the last place, as 
this sin of all mankind in Adam is considered in its effects, 
so it becomes to us a “ body of sin and death,” a natural dis- 
order of the whole man, an hostility and enmity of the flesh 
against the spirit, and the parent of all sin in us, as may 
appear, Rom. vii. and Jam. i. 14. Which that you may have 
a more complete understanding of, consider it as it is ordi- 
narily set down, consisting of three parts, 1. a natural defect, 
2. a moral affection, 3. a legal guilt; i.e. a guiltiness of 
the breach of the law, for these three (whatsoever you may 
think of them) are all parts of that sin of our nature, which 
is in, and is to be imputed to us, called ordinarily original 
sin in us, to distinguish it from that first act committed by 
Adam, of which this is an effect. And first, that natural 
defect is a total loss and privation of that primitive justice, 
holiness and obedience, which God had furnished the creature 
withal ; a disorder of all the powers of the soul, a darkness of 
the understanding, a perverseness of the will, a debility, weak- 
ness, and decay of all the senses, and in sum, a poverty and 
destruction, and almost a nothingness of all the powers of 
Soul and body. And how ought we to lament this loss with 
all the veins of our heart! to labour for some new strain of 
expressing our sorrow, and in fine to petition that rich grace, 
which may build up all these ruins; to pray to God that His 
Christ may purchase and bestow on us new abilities, that 
the second Adam may furnish us with more durable powers 
and lasting graces than we had, but forfeited in the first ! 
The following part of this sin of our nature, viz., a moral evil 
affection, is word for word mentioned Rom. vii.5; for there [Rom. vii. 
the Greek words παθήματα ἁμαρτιῶν, ordinarily translated J 
“motions of sins,” and in the margin ‘ the passions of sins,” are 
more significantly to be rendered “ affections of sins,” i. 6. by 


James i. 
14. 


656 SERMON XXXI. 


an usual figure, sinful affections. That you may the better 
observe the encumbrances of this branch of this sin, which 
doth so overshadow the whole man, and so fence him from 
the beams and light of the spiritual invisible Sun, I am to 
tell you that the very heathen that lived without the know- 
ledge of God, had no conversation with, and so no instruction 
from the Bible in this matter; that these very heathens, I say, 
had a sense of this part of original sin, to wit, of these evil 
moral lusts and affections, which they felt in themselves, 
though they knew not whence they sprang. Hence it is 
that a Greek philosopher® out of the ancients makes a large 
discourse of the unsatiable desire and lust which is in every 
man, and renders his life grievous unto him, where he useth 
the very same word, though with a significant epithet added to 
it, that St. James doth, ch. 1. ver. 14. ἀπέραντος ἐπιθυμία, “in- 
finite lust,” with which, as St. James saith, “a man is drawn 
away and enticed,” ἐξελκόμενος καὶ δελεαζόμενος, 80, saith he, 
that part of the mind in which these lusts dwell, is persuaded 
and drawn, or rather falls backward and forward, ἄνω καὶ 
κάτω μεταπίπτει Kal ἀναπείθεται, which lust or evil concu- 
piscence he at last defines to be’, ἀκολασία τῷ τετριμμένῳ 
πίθῳ διὰ THY ἀπληστίαν ἀπεικασμένη, “an unsatiable intem- 
perance of the appetite, never filled with a desire,’ never 
ceasing in the prosecution of evil; and again he calls it, πε- 
ριπεφυκυίαν ἡμῖν ἔξωθεν yéveows, “our birth and nativity 
derived to us by our parents,” i. e. an evil affection heredi- 
tary to us, and delivered to us as a legacy at our birth and na- 
tivity: all which seemsa clear expression of that original lust, 
whose motions they felt, and guessed at its nature. Hence is 
it, that it was a custom among all of them, I mean the com- 
mon heathen, to use many ways of purgations, especially on 
their children, who at the imposition of their names were to 
be lustrated and purified, with a great deal of superstition and 
ceremony, such like as they used to drive away a plague, or 
a cure for an house or city. As if nature by instinct had 
taught them so much religion, as to acknowledge and desire 
to cure in every one this hereditary disease of the soul, this 
“ plague of man’s heart,” as it is called 1 Kings viii. 38. And 


© Jamblichus, Protrept., ο. xvii. p. 101. ‘ Ibid., p. 102. 
® (Id. Explan. Symb., iii.] p. 136, 


. SERMON XXXI. 657 


in sum, the whole learning of the wisest of them, (such were 
the moralists,) was directed to the governing and keeping in 
order of these evil affections, which they called the unruly 
citizens" and common people of the soul, whose intemperance 
and disorders they plainly observed within themselves, and 
jaboured hard to purge out, or subdue to the government of 
reason and virtue, which two we more fully enjoy, and more 
christianly call the power of grace, redeeming our souls 
from this body of sin. Thus have I briefly shewed you the 
sense that the very heathen had of this second branch of 
original sin, which needs therefore no farther aggravation to 
you but this, that they who had neither Spirit nor Scripture to 
instruct them, did naturally so feelingly observe and curse it, 
that by reason of it they esteemed their whole life but a 
living death’, τίς οἶδεν εἰ τὸ ζῆν μέν ἐστι κατθανεῖν, τὸ κατ- 
θανεῖν δὲ ζῆν ; and their body but the sepulchre of the soul, 
τὸ σῶμα ἐστὶν ἡμῶν σῆμα, καὶ yap ἡμεῖς τῷ ὄντι τέθναμεν, 
both which together are but a periphrasis of that which St. 
Paul calls in brief the ‘body of death.” And shall we who (Rom. vii. 
have obtained plenty of light and instruction, besides that ?*1 
which nature bestowed on us with them, shall we, I say, let 
our eyes be confounded with abundance of day? shall we see 
it more clearly to take less notice of it? shall we feel the 
stings of sin within us, (which though they do but prick the 
regenerate, prove mortal to the rest of us,) and shall we not 
observe them? Shall we not rather weep those fountains dry, 
and crop this luxury of our affections with a severe sharp 
sorrow and humiliation? Shall we not starve this rank, 
fruitful mother of vipers, by denying it all nourishment from 
without, all advantages of temptations and the like, which it 
is wont to make use of to beget in us all manner of sin: let 
us aggravate every circumstance and inconvenience of it to 
ourselves, and then endeavour to banish it out of us, and 
when we find we are not able, importune that strong assistant 
the Holy Spirit to curb and subdue it, that in the necessity 
of residing, it yet may not reign in our mortal bodies; to 
tame and abate the power of this necessary Amorite, and free 
us from the activity, and mischief and temptations of it here, 
and from the punishment and imputation of it hereafter. 
Maximus Tyrius, [supr. p. 278.] i Euripides, Polyidus, frag. 7. ed. Dind, 


NAMMOND, U τι 


IPS wlieon 


James i. 
15. 


[Ps. Ixxiv. 
4. 


[ Rom. vii. 
23.] 


658 SERMON ΧΧΧΙ. * 


And so I come to the third part or branch of this original 
sin, to wit, its legal guilt, and this we do contract by such an 
early prepossession, that it outruns all other computations of 
our life. We carry a body of sin about us, before we have 
one of flesh, have a decrepit, weak old man, with all his crazy 
train of affections and lusts, before even infancy begins. ‘“ Be- 
hold,” saith the Psalmist, “I was shapen in iniquity, and in 
sin did my mother conceive me:” as if guilt were the plastic 
power that formed us, and wickedness the minera and ele- 
ment of our being, as if it were that little moving point which 
the curious enquirers into nature find to be the rudiment of 
animation, and pants not then for life, brt lust, and endless 
death. So that the saying of St. James, chap. 1. 15, seems a 
description of our natural birth, “ when lust hath conceived, it 
bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished, bringeth forth 
death.” Nor does this hasty inmate leave us when grown up : 
no, it improves its rancour against God and goodness, mixes 
with custom, passion, and example, and whatever thing is apt 
to lead us unto mischief, fomenting all the wild desires of 
our inferior brutal part, till it become at last an equal and 
professed enemy, making open hostility, setting up its sconces, 
fortifying itself with munition and defence, as meaning to 
try the quarrel with God, and pretending right to man, whom 
God doth but usurp. Thus shall you see it encamped, and 
setting up its ‘“ banners for tokens,” under that proud name 
of another law. “I see another law in my members, warring 
against the law of my mind,” and as if it had got the better 
of the day, “ bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which 
is in the members,” i. e. unto itself. And shall we feel such 
an enemy within us, laying siege at God and grace in us, 
and fiercely resolving, whether by deceit or battery to capti- 
vate us unto himself, and shall we not take notice of him? 
Shall we not think it worthy our pains and expense to defeat 
him, or secure ourselves? Beloved, that will be the best 
stratagem for the taking of this enemy, which is now-a-days 
most ordinary in sieges, to block up all passages, and hinder 
all access of fresh provision, and so by denying this greedy 
devourer all nourishment from without, to starve and pine 
him into such a tameness, that he may be taken without re- 
sistance; which how really you may perform by these means 


4 SHRMON ΧΧΧΙ. 659 


of mortification and repentance prescribed you in Scripture, 
you shall better learn by your own practice than my discourse. 
The fourth aggravation of this guilt is, that its minera 
and fuel lurks even in a regenerate man, wretched, &c., and 
enforceth Paul into a conflict, a war against himself. And 1 Cor. ix. 
is it possible for one otherwise happy, (as the regenerate ae 
man inwardly surely is,) to sleep securely, and never to try a 
field with the author of its so much misery, or finding it to 
be within itself part of itself, not to think it a sin worthy re- 
pentance, and sorrow, by which God’s Holy Spirit is so re- 
sisted, so affronted, and almost quelled and cast out? 
Fifthly, and lastly, the guilt of it appears by the effects of it, 
1. inclination, 2. consent to evil: for even every inclination to 
sin without consent is an irregularity and kind of sin, i. e. an 
aversion of some of our faculties from God; all which should 
directly drive amam to Him and goodness. That servant 
which is commanded with all speed and earnestness to go 
about any thing, offends against his master’s precept if he 
any way incline to disobedience, if he perform his commands 
with any regret or reluctancy. Now secondly, consent is so 
natural a consequent of this evil inclination, that in a man 
you can scarce discern, much less sever them. No man hath 
any inordinate lust, but doth give some kind of consent to it, 
the whole will being so infected with this lust, that that can no 
sooner bring forth evil motions, but this will be ready at hand 
with evil desires: and then how evident a guilt, how plain a 
breach of the law it is you need not mine eyes to teach you. 
Thus have I insisted somewhat largely on the branches of 
original sin, which I have spread and stretched the wider, 
that I might furnish you with more variety of aggravations 
on each member of it, which I think may be of important 
use, for this or any other popular auditory, because this sin 
ordinarily is so little thought of, even in our solemnest humi- 
lations. When you profess that you are about the business 
of repentance, you cannot be persuaded that this common 
sin which Adam, as you reckon, only sinned, hath any effect 
on you. I am yet afraid that you still hardly believe that 
you are truly, and in earnest to be sorry for it, unless the 
Lord strike our hearts with an exact sense, and professed feel- 
ing of this sin of our nature, and corruption of our kind. 


[ Eph. iv. 
19.] 


1 Kings 
viii. 37, &c. 


660 SERMON XXXI. - 


And suffer us not, Ὁ Lord, to nourish in ourselves such a 
torpor, sluggishness and security, lest it drive us headlong to 
all manner of hard-heartedness to commit actual sins, and 
that even with greediness. 

And so I come briefly to a view of each man’s personal 
sins, “ I am the chief :” where I might rank all manner of sins 
into some forms or seats, and then urge the deformity of © 
each of them single and naked to your view, but I will for 
the present presume your understandings sufficiently im- 
structed in the heinousness of each sin forbidden by the 
commandments. For others who will make more or less 
sins than the Scripture doth, I come not to satisfy them, or 
decide their cases of conscience. In brief I will propose to 
your practice only two forms of confessing your sins, and 
humbling yourselves for them, which I desire you to aggra- 
vate to yourselves, because I have not now the leisure to beat 
them low, or deep to your consciences. Besides original sin 
already spoken of, you are to lay hard to your own charges, 
1. your particular chief sins, 2. all your ordmary sms in 
gross. For the first, observe but that one admirable place 
in Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the Temple. “If 
there be in the land famine,” &c. ‘ Whatsoever plague, 
whatsoever sickness, what prayer or supplication soever be 
made by any man, or by all Thy people Israel, which shall 
know every man the plague of his own heart, and spread 
forth his hand to this house, then hear Thou in heaven,” &e. 
Where the condition of obtaining their requests from God is 
excellently set down, “if they shall know,” 1. e. be sensible of, 
be sorry for, and confess to God every man the “ plague of his 
own heart,” that is, m the bulk and heap of their sins, shall 
pick the fairest loveliest sin in the pack, the plague, 1. e. the 
pestilential, reigning, sweeping offence, on which all the lower 
train of petty faults do wait and depend, do minister and 
suppeditate matter to work. If, I say, they shall take this 
captain sin, and anatomize, and cut up, and discover 
every branch of him without any fraud or concealment 
before the Lord, and then sacrifice that dear darling, and 
with it their whole fleshly lust as an holocaust, or whole 
burnt-offering before the Lord: then will He “hear from 
heaven His dwelling-place, and when He heareth, forgive,” 


SERMON XXXI. 661 


even their other concealed sins, because they have disclosed 
so entirely, and parted so freely from that. For there is in 
every of us one master sin that rules the rabble, one fatling 
which is fed with the choicest of our provision, one captain of 
the devil’s troop, one “the plague” in every man’s heart. This 
being sincerely confessed and displayed, and washed in a full 
stream of tears, for the lower more ordinary sort, for the 
heap or bulk, we must use David’s penitential compendious Ps, xix. 
art, who overcome with the multitude of his sins to be re- !* 
peated, folds them all in this prayer, ‘‘ Who can tell how oft 
he offendeth?” &e. ‘* And do Thou, O Lord, work in us the 
sincere acknowledgment of, and contrition for both them, 
and the whole bundle of our unknown every day’s transgres- 
sions, and having purged out of us those more forward, 
known, notorious enormities, cleanse us also from our secret 
faults.” And thus much be spoken of this proposition, that, 
and how every man is to aggravate the measure and number 
of his sins against himself. The whole doctrine is, and in 
our whole discourse hath been handled for a store of uses; 
for in setting down how you are to aggravate your sins, 
especially your original sin against yourselves, I have spoken 
all the while to your affections, and will therefore presume 
that you have already laid them up in your hearts to that 
purpose. Only take one pertinent use for a close, which hath 
not been touched in the former discourse. If every one be 
to aggravate his own sins, and to reckon himself “of all sinners 
the chief;” then must no man usurp the privilege to see or 
censure other men’s sins through a multiplying glass, 1. e. 
double to what indeed they are, as most men do now-a-days. 
What so frequent among those who are most negligent of 
their own ways, as to be most severe inquisitors of other 
men’s? and to spy, and censure, and damn a mote or atom 
in another man’s eye, when their own is in danger to be put 
out by a beam? Hence is it that among laymen the sins of 
clergy are weighed according to the measure of the sanc- 
tuary, which was provided for the paying of their tithesk, Lev. xxvii. 
i.e. double the ordinary balance; and their own, if not 7” 
under, at most according to the common weight of the con- 
gregation. In a minister every error shall become an heresy, 

« Hooker, p.428. [Book ν. ch. 79. § 10. ed. Keble. ] 


662 SERMON XXXI. 


every slip a crime, and every crime a sacrilege, whereas, 
beloved, he that means to take out St. Paul’s lesson, must 
extenuate every man’s sins but his own, or else his heart will 
give his tongue the lie, when it hears him say, “ Of all,” &c. 
And so much of this doctrine of aggravating our sins to 
ourselves, which we are to perform in our daily audit betwixt 
us and our own consciences. There is another seasonable 
observation behind in a word to be handled; this particle ὧν, 
“of whom,” hath a double relation, either to sinners simply, 
and so it hath been handled already, or to sinners as they 
are here set down, to wit, those sinners which Christ came 
into the world to save: and so St. Paul here is changed from 
the chief of sinners to the chief of saimts, and then the doc- 
trine is become a doctrine of comfort fit for a conclusion, that 
he who can follow Paul’s example and precept, can suffi- 
ciently humble himself for his sins, accept that faithful say- 
ing, and rightly lay hold on Christ, may assure himself that 
he is become a chief saint, for so could Paul say, “Of all 
sinners I am the chief,” and therefore of all those sinners that 
Christ came into the world to save, πρῶτος εἰμὶ, “I am the 
chief too.” I shall not discuss this point at large, as being 
too wide to be comprehended in so poor a pittance of time, 
but shew the condition of it briefly. He that by God’s in- 
ward effectual working is come to a clear sight and accurate 
feeling of his sims; that hath not spared any one minute [of] 
circumstance for the discovery of them, not one point of 
aggravation for the humbling of himself, he that bemg thus 
prepared for his journey to Christ with his burden on his 
back, shall then take his flight and keep upon the wing, till 
he fix firmly on Him, may be as sure that he shall die the 
death, and reign the life of a saint, as he is resolved that 
God is faithful m His promises: then’ may he live with 
this syllogism of confidence, not presumption, in his mouth, 
“it is a faithful saying that Christ came into the world” to 
justify, sanctify, and “save believing humble sinners ;” but 
I find myself an humble and believing, and consequently, a 
justified, sanctified sinner, therefore it is as certain a truth, 
[Rom viii. that I shall be saved. And thus you see Paul’s, “I am the 
58: chief,” interpreted by that assured persuasion, “that neither 
death nor life, nor any creature shall be able to separate him,” 


SERMON XXXI. 663 


&e. I will not discuss the nature of this assurance, whether 

it be an act of faith or hope, only thus much, it seems to be 
derived or bestowed upon hope by faith, an expectation of 

the performances of the promises grounded upon a firm faith 

in them, and so to be either an eminent degree of faith, or 

a confirmed hope. The use of this point is, not to be content 

with this bare assurance, but to labour to confirm it to us by 

those effects which do ordinarily and naturally spring from 

it. Such are, first, joy, or glorying, mentioned Heb. iii. 6; Heb. iii. 6. 
the confidence and “ rejoicing of your hope firm unto the end:” 
secondly, a delight in God, mentioned 1 Pet.i. 3,6; “alively 1 Pet.i. 
hope,” &c., wherein ἀγαλλιᾶσθε, “ you exult,” you greatly Ὁ 
rejoice and are delighted: thirdly, a patient adhering to God 

in a firm expectation ofthis state, even in the midst of all 
manner of worldly evils, mentioned Isaiah vin. 17; “I will τ viii. 
wait upon the Lord which hideth His face, and I will look for |! 

Him,” i. e., I will wait His leisure patiently, for I am sure 

He will uncover His face. And Job more plainly and vehe- [et xiii. 
mently, “ Though He kill me, yet will I trust in Him.” So ver- ate πὶ 
batim, Rom. viii. 25, then “ do we in patience wait for it,” and 26. 

2 Thess. ii. 5, “ the patient waiting for Christ.” Fourthly, as ? aun 
an effect of ee patience, a silence and acquiescence “in the 
will of God,” without any desire of hastening or altering any 

effect of it. So Psalm xxxvii. 7; “ Restin the Lord,” where Ps. xxxvii. 
the Hebrew hath it, be silent to the Lord, “ and wait patiently 7-517 
for Him,” 1. 6. as the consequence interprets it, quarrel not 

with God for any thing that happens according to His will, 

but against thine, as the prosperity of the wicked, and the 

like. Fifthly, a confirmation of the mind, as making our 

hope “the anchor of our soul, sure and stedfast,” that we may Heb. vi. 
thereby in “ patience possess our souls.” And lastly, a desire of ἘΌΝ ἘΣ 
sanctifying ourselves, according tothat 1 John ii. 3; “ Every 19. 
man that hath this hope in him purifies himself, even as 1 John 
Christ is pure.” These six effects briefly set down, may be ie 
certain marks to you, by which you may judge how just 
grounds your assurance stands on, and whereby it is to be 
distinguished from presumption. O Lord, let the fulness 

of Thy Holy Spirit overshadow us, and increase our weaker 

faith into a richer measure of assurance, and our more fear- 

ful hopes into a degree of full persuasion and certain expec- 


664 SERMON XXXI. 


tation of those visions that Thou shalt reveal, and that blest 
estate that Thou shalt bestow upon us; and lest our confidence 
may either be or seem but a presumption, work in us those 
effects of patience, of silence, of joy, of delight, of confirma- 
tion of mind, and above all a desire and ability of sanctifying 
our lives unto Thee. 

Thus have I with all possible haste made an end of these 
words, and at this time out of the cadence of them observed 
to you the tenderness of St. Paul and every regenerate man, 
at the least mention of a sin or sinner, illustrated by the op- 
posite hardness of heart, proved of soft tender parts of our 
body, and made use of for a crisis or judgment of our estate 
and livelihood in grace. Secondly, out of the words themselves 
we observed the necessity and method of aggravating our 
sins, especially original sin, against ourselves, which we made 
use of against those that are more quick-sighted in other 
men’s estates and guilts than their own. Thirdly, we closed 
all with that comfortable doctrine of assurance, discussed to 
you in brief with six effects of it proposed for an example to 
your care and imitation. 

Now the God which hath created us, redeemed, called, 
justified us, will sanctify in His time, will prosper this His 
ordinance to that end, will direct us by His grace to His 
glory. To Him be ascribed due the honour, the praise, the 
glory, the dominion, which through all ages of the world have 
been given to Him that sitteth on the throne, to the Holy 
Spirit, and to the Lamb for evermore. 


OXFORD: PRINTED BY I. SHRIMPTON, 


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