Forty Sermons

Irreligion —but alas you have no prospect yonder, it's but faint before you who out-do the Example; whatsoever Judas and the rest did to the Man Christ Jesus, you attempt on God, you invade Heaven, Sentence, Cruicifie Divinity itself.

And now having shown my Sins this Copy of themselves, what they are in their own demerits, when my bowels do begin to turn within me at that miserable usage which Christ underwent, it will be a time to execute an act of Indignation at myself, who have resetted in my bosom all these Traitors to my Savior; made those things the joy and entertainment of my life which had their hands in the Blood of my God; and what a stupid senseless Soul have I, that was never troubled heartily at that, which did make him almost out of hope? and if this be the effect of sin, then it is time for me to throw it off, O my Jesu! sure I am, I am not able to support the weight of that thou didst sink under. Thou didst come to bear our sins in thy own Body on the Tree, therefore in thy Body they were nailed to the Cross, and then certainly I will not force and tear them thence: No, there I leave them, and will never re-assume them more; which resolution is the effect of that virtue and efficacy which is in the Cross of Christ to the crucifying of sin, which is the second sense in which the Christian does profess with S. Paul, I am Crucified with Christ.

There are some Learned Men, that when they would assign reasons sufficient to move God to lay the punishment of our iniquities upon his Son, and execute that Indignation that was due to us on the most innocent, most Holy Jesus, give this only, that this was the highest and most signal way imaginable to discover God's most infinite displeasure against Sin, and by consequence to terrify men from the practice of it: For if anything in Heaven or in Earth could make us fear, and from henceforth commit no such evil, it was surely this, to see Sin sporting in the Agonies of Christ, Iniquity triumphing in the Blood of God: To see those dire instances of the deservings of a Sinner, those amazing prelusions to his expectations; and consider it was easier for God to execute all this upon his Son than suffer Sin to go unpunished. Indeed they make all that is real in the whole account they give of satisfaction made to God for sin to consist in this, that the temporal Death of Christ (which God by virtue of his absolute Dominion may inflict on the most innocent, taking away that which himself had given, especially since Christ who had that right over his own life, which none else had, did of his own accord submit to it; and he laid down his life, who had a power to do so. ) That Death I say, might justly be ordained by God for an Example of his Wrath and Hatred against Sin, and then might be accepted in the stead of their death, who were warned by that example, and affrighted from committing sin. And truly there is color for it, for all satisfaction seems either of a loss sustained, which is acquired by compensation, or the satisfaction of our Anger, which is commonly appeased by the sufferings of the injurious party; or else the satisfaction of our fears and doubts, that we may be secure not to sustain the like again, which is most likely to be best provided for by punishment: For sure one will not venture upon that which he must suffer for the doing.

Now of all these the first, the satisfaction of compensation, as it cannot properly be made to God who could sustain no real diminution by Man's sin: For though thy wickedness, saith Job, may hurt a man as thou art, yet if thou sinnest what doest thou against God? or if thy transgressions be multiplied, what doest thou to him? but only as the breaking of his Law does in S. Paul 's expression dishonor him amongst men; so also it were easy to demonstrate that this one example does exalt more of God's attributes, and to a greater height, than either if his Law had been obeyed or executed, if that either were our business, or if this sort of satisfaction did not properly belong only to the offended party, not the supreme Judge or Governor as such, under which notion God is here to be considered. As neither does the second satisfaction, that of anger, the Judge being to be like his Law, that hath no passions or affections. And truly •• e the things that do satisfy our angers and revenges are no real goods, the satisfactions of them are unnatural, and therefore surely not Divine: Monstrous appetite that hath learned to desire mischief, hath also taught us to delight in misery, and be satisfied with the griefs of others, which being nothing to us cannot be our good: And although we are stilled Children of Wrath, as if our portion were to be only Plagues, our inheritance Perdition, and the fearful issues of God's Fury: Yet since to be angry signifies in God no more than this, to testify what great abhorrency he hath to sin, how contrary to him, how not to be indur'd it is: It was impossible for God when he had once resolved to pardon sin, to testify that more than by resolving not to pardon it without such an Example; so that it did satisfy his anger perfectly. But all true satisfaction lies in the provision that is made by punishment against future offenses.

This is that which the Magistrate and Law requires, nec enim irascitur, sed cavet; for by Punishment they cannot call back the offenses that are past, undo or make them not have been: but they can make men not to dare to do them again, nor others by their example.

This is the end why they annex Penalties to their Laws, expressly said so, Deut. xix. 20. Which end therefore when they attain by Punishment, the Law and Magistrate is satisfied. For it is not so much the Death of the Offender that is satisfaction of the Law, as the Example of Terror that it gives; and therefore human Lawgivers have oft thought fit to change the Penalty; and where Death was appointed, to assign other sufferings that consist with Life, and prolong Misery and Terror, as Proscription, and the Gallies, &c. Accordingly to propose an Example of Terror to us, God laid all the severe inflictions of the Passion-day upon his own Son. Now it is evident that the example of a Man suffering for the breach of Laws does certainly hedge in those Laws, keep them more safe from violence; therefore we see those Laws are best observed which the Magistrate's Sword does most guard; and Experience would quickly make it good, a Land would prove but a mere Shambles, and a Man's life cheaper than a Beast's, if Murderers and Duellists shall get impunity more easily than he that steals an Horse or Sheep. When on the other side, that Nation from whom we most receive the fashions of our Vices also, whom the honor of that sin is most peculiar to; though they seemed to value it above Estate, and Life, and Family, and Soul, yet we know could be beaten from it be some sharp Examples. And then when our Lawgiver, as he spake his Laws at first with Thunder and with Lightning, as if they brought their Sentence along with them, and the very promulgation was a Copy and Example of their Execution: So also he did write those Laws in Blood, to let us see what does await transgression, how he that spared not his own dear Son, will certainly not spare any impenitent, this could not choose but have some influence, if 'twere considered. Should we call to mind the kindness God had at this time to lost Man, how he so longed to pity him, that he resolved not to pity himself; how yet in all those turnings of his bowels within him, his repentings over Man, when his Compassion was at such an height as to give his well beloved Son to satisfy for our transgressions; in the midst of all those inclinations to us, at that very time how yet he did so hate our sins, that •• athing else could satisfy him, but the Blood of God: How he made the Son of God empty himself of his Divinity and of his Soul, and all to raise a sum only to purchase one example of that Indignation that attends a Sinner; it will be easy then to recollect how unsupportable that Wrath will be to the impenitent in the Day of his fierce Anger; when he shall have no kindness left for them, but the Omnipotence of Mercy will become Almighty Fury: Who shall be able to avoid or to endure the issues of it? shall I think to scape them when he spared not his own Son? or shall I venture upon bearing that to all Eternity which that Son was not able to support some hours? Thus as S. Paul expresses, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, a Sacrifice for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that is, he shown what did await iniquity, that men by so great an example of his Wrath, might be frighted from the practice. Et si quis morte Christi admonitus paeniteat, iste per mortem Christi peccato mortuus esse dicitur, saith Origen on Rom. vi. 1. He who seeing that Example of Christ Crucified for sin is warned by it into Repentance, he is crucified with Christ. God dealing with us as Men do with a young Prince, that must be disciplined by the correction of another for his faults; and in this sense also, our chastisement was upon Christ, and by his stripes we are cured.

And now though I propose not this as if I thought this Reason were sufficient of itself, which seems to give no good account how any could be ransomed e're Christ suffered: (which yet certainly they were, the virtue of his Death extending to all former Ages, as it proved most evidently Heb. ix. 25. a place which Crellius himself does give no satisfaction to) if the satisfaction, of his Death consisted only in its being an Example, it could no more satisfy for the sins of former Ages, than it could be an Example e're it was in being: If that Death were accepted in the stead of their death, who by that Example are frighted into Repentance, what was accepted for their sins, who had no such vision of it, as that it could not or did affright them, yet repented? Yet to them that have beheld it in its vigor, they that can control this check to Vice, and when to show us an Example it cost God the life of his own Son, after the prospect of whose Cross he hath not any Terror to propose, this being the contrivance of the Divine Mind, and the stress of all his most Almighty Attributes conjoin'd in one compounded Miracle, can yet make all this vain and fruitless and have no effect, are not feared nor warned by it; but as if it signified no peril to their sins, they can come once a year to entertain themselves with the Example and go from the Agonies unconcerned to the sins that inflicted them, and that show forth themselves in them: Who act as if those were the only soft and pleasant things that crushed his Blood and Soul out, as if those which did make the Son of God cry out as if he did almost despair, were the only fit things to make men jolly: And do thus as they did it in despite to this great method of Salvation, as if they did enjoy the indignation of the Wrath of God, as if those Agonies like the other difficulties of their sins did more provoke to them, or like the Paschal bitter herbs that typified them, were as sauce to the Riots of their Vices. These certainly are men of a most desperate appetite and courage. But 'tis much more to be lamented that the Law of God does not seem better guarded by this dire Example than it was of old among the Jews, when it showed the Sinner his deservings only by the dying of his Breast, and had no other sense nor satisfaction than the blood of Bulls and Goats: It is not very visible that it hath wrought upon consideration so as to make us more fear and beware; nay, we may question whether the example of my Bullock dying for my sin, would not restrain and terrify me more than that of Jesus crucified for it: If I were to expiate the Blood with which I word my Anger and my Oaths, with the blood of my own Flocks, if that Luxury which pluriders every Element and brings a little Universe at once upon my Table to treat itself withal, were but to kill one Heiser for the Temple, and I to expiate each surfeit by one such Beligious Riot: Were I to quench the fevers of an Intemperance with a drink-offering, 'tis possible I should not be so prone to sacrifice to my Genius, if I must sacrifice to God for doing so, and I should be more tender of my Beasts than I am of my Savior. Now how comes this to pass? It is impossible that we should be so apprehensive of our own demerits, should we see them represented in the suffering of a Beast, as when they are shown to us in those of the Son of God. What is it then? Should we account ourselves to suffer in our Beast? His Death were our own loss and punishment: And had we no communion in this Death of Christ? was not that our own? or account we our concern and share in that less valuable than in that of our Beast? Far be this from us, we are no further Christians than we can affirm with St. Paul (who challengeth a fellowship in all Christ's sufferings, and boasts it, saying) I am Crucified with Christ. Which brings me to the last sense of the words; I have a share and am a Partner in that Cross, and all the satisfactions that were wrought upon it.

This is that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Phil. iii. 10. a partaking in Christ's Passion, having his Sufferings communicated to us, made our own, as if we had been crucified with him: as much as he that offered a peace-offering was said to be 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 1 Cor. x. 18. to communicate with the Altar, and partake the Sacrifice which he really did. We read indeed there in the sixteenth verse, that in the Sacrament there is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the shedding of Christ's Blood is there communicated, reckoned to us, but it is communicated in a Cup of Blessing.

And is this to be a Partner in his Crucifixion, to partake only the Sacrament of Crucifixion? not to receive the Wounds and Torments, but the Benefits, the pledge of the satisfactions of the Cross, the Seal of the Remissions that he purchased on it? Blessed Jesu! we should have born thy pangs, and all the dire things thou didst suffer, ought to have been ours eternally; that Agony which an Angels comfort could not calm, that dreadful Terror which expressed itself in the cold Sweat of clotted Blood, that greater Terror which came so near Despair as to make thee cry out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? all should have been our portion to everlastingness, and spent their fury on our Souls: And wilt thou have us bear no more of this than the remembrance? All our Mount Olivet and Golgotha be only the Lord's Table and his Entertainment? dost thou communicate thy Agonies in Eucharistick wine? and is this to be Crucified with Christ? so he does account it seems. He that by virtue of the Cross of Christ hath crucified his body of Sin, Christ's satisfactions are accounted to him, he is esteemed to have a fellowship in all the sufferings, to have had an hand in all that was done for Man on the Cross, they are all reckoned his: And as Christ bore the guilt of all our doings on the Tree, so he will have us bear the name, and merit, and reward of his; for as S. Paul does express, Rom. vi. 5. We are planted together in the likeness of his death, by being made conformable to that in crucifying of our sins, we are inoculated as it were, and both together engraffed in into the Cross, and so there is derived to us the virtue of that Stem, that Root of Expiation and Atonement; and by this insertion being as the same S. Paul says, Phil. iii. 9. found in him, we have his Righteousness. That poor Soul that does throw himself down in the strict humiliations of Repentance at the footstool of the Cross, and there beholds his Savior dying for him, and that is himself by Penitence incorporated into him, graffed into his Death, and planted in his very Passion, as Origen and Thomas interpret. He may take confidence to say, Behold Lord, if the satisfactions of thy Eternal Justice be acceptable to thee, if the blood of God that is offered up without spot be a well-pleasing Sacrifice, look down at once on thy Messiah and on my poor Soul! turn not thy face from me, for whatever my guilts are, I have an equal Sacrifice, those are my satisfactions, and that blood my Offering, the Passion and propitiation of the Cross are 〈◊〉 . I am Crucified with Christ.

We have gone through all the Parts, all the Considerations of this Expression, and have no more now to take notice of but this, that all of them must go together, that they never are fulfilled asunder, but he only whom the efficacy of the Cross of Christ hath wrought on to the Crucifying of sin, he only hath the satisfactions of the Cross imputed to him, he is planted with, engraffed into Christ: For if any man be i • Christ, he is a new creature, old things are done away, 2 Cor. v. 17. Whosoever is not such he hath no interest in the Jesus of that day. He may perchance in someone of those easy Savior's which these times afford, wherein Opinions called holy, or a sanctified Faction give such interests, and to be in a party is to be in Christ; or else he may depend upon that Christ, that may be had with mere Dependance, that is ours if we persuade ourselves he is so. Now sure, he that is persuaded he is Christ's, is either truly so persuaded or else falsely; if but falsely, that will not advantage him, for God will never save a man for believing a lie; but that he should truly be persuaded so without this Duty is impossible, for he that is Christ's hath crucified the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts: therefore by good Logic he that hath not crucified them is not Christ's, and evidently whosoever is not crucified at all, he is not crucified with Christ.

And sure I need not put you in remembrance, that the man in whom sin reigns, and whensoever his Lusts and Passions bid him go he goeth, or come he cometh, or do this he doeth it, that the body of sin is not crucified in him; that which were nailed and fettered on the Cross and slain there could not command and rule him so.

Or if sins dominion be not so absolute but God hath got some footing, so as that his Law hath power in the man's mind so as to make him make resistances against his sin, and he dislikes it but alas commits it still, yet what he does allows not, but returns to do it at the next Temptation, afterwards would fain be good yet does not find how to perform, something governs in his members, leading that Law in his mind into captivity to the law of sin, this man although he hath the body of death, yet 'tis not crucified and slain; for it does live and exercise the greatest tyranny upon him, forces him to serve and to obey against his mind, it overcomes his own heart, and all inclinations to good, and conquers God within him: Till men have left off the custom of the works of sin, and all gross deeds of the flesh it were as vain to prove they are not crucified, as that he is alive that walks and eats. Those works they are the fruits of the flesh, the offspring of its lusts, and were that crucified, and we by likeness to Christ's death planted into the Cross, we could no more produce them, than that dead Tree the Cross could bear fruit, or than a Carcass could have heat to generate, the Grave become a Womb, or the dust bring forth.

Secondly, Yea more, they perform not the outward actions of life who have but the image of death on them; and a man asleep works not, yet is alive, his fancy and his inwards work; and if sin be only kept from breaking out, and men commit not gross deeds of the flesh, but yet indulge to these things in imagination and the heart, cherish them in fancy, and design, and wish, only restrain the practice, or indulge to spiritual wickednesses; you may as well say that a man is dead because he does not walk abroad, because he keeps within doors, and lives only in his Closet or his Bed Chamber, as say that sin is crucified, which while it stirs but in the heart, it is not dead.

Thirdly, Once more, we part from all acquaintance with the dead, the Corps of one that had the same Soul with us; howsoever we may have some throes of grief to leave it, yet we put it from us, we admit it to no more embraces; but if 'twere the loathsome Carcass of a Villain Traitor that was Executed, we turn from the sight as from a Fiend, it is a detestable and accursed spectacle. And so he that hath put his Body of sin to death would have great aversations to it, yea how dear soever it had been, he would no more endure the least acquaintance with it, than he would go seek for his old conversations in the Chambers of Death; he would shun the sight of any the most bosom custom, as he would the Ghost of his dead Friend, he would abandon it as a most ghastly dreadful spectacle; he would also bury these his dead out of his sight. Thus he must needs be disposed that hath crucified his Old man.

And they that are thus dead with Christ shall also live with him, yea those that are thus crucified with him, he hath already raised up together, and hath made them sit together in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus. There already in their cause, and in their right and pledge, and there hereafter in effect and full enjoyment.

The Tenth SERMON, Preached at CHRIST-CHURCH IN OXFORD, Novemb. 5. 1665.

THE state of that great Controversy which the words suppose between the Jews and the Samaritans as it then stood, seems briefly thus: Those that were planted in the Regions of Samaria by Shalmaneser, however great Idolaters at first; having admitted in a while the God of Israel among their God's, and after having an High Priest of Aaron 's Line, a Temple too built on that place where Abraham and the Fathers of the Hebrews, friends of God, did choose to offer Sacrifice; and on that very place where God himself enjoin'd the Law and all the Blessings of it to be published to the People, on Mount Gerizim; which therefore seem to have pretences to vie with Mount Zion, for there also the Lord commanded the Blessing. An Altar too, saith Benjamin in his Itinerary made of the same stones that God commanded to be taken out of Jordan and set up for a memorial of his Peoples passage through it: And besides all this having the Law of Moses too; when they had all these pretensions to the God of Israel, they clave to him alone, and wholly threw off their Idolatry. So Epiphanius does affirm expressly. And their Country being as Josephus says, the receptacle of all discontented fugitive Jews, a great part of it too planted with them by Alexander, they espoused the Worship of the Jews, and came to differ very little either in the Doctrine or the practice of Religion, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , having all things as it were the very same, the only distance seems to be betwixt their Temples, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , just as the Woman states it to our Savior, Joh. iv. Our Fathers Worshipped in this Mountain, but ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to Worship: So that if we audit the account of the Samaritan guilt, they separated from the place of Worship which God had appointed, and set up another; in a word, they were Schismatics.

Whether this be such a guilt as should make those terms equivalent He is a Samaritan and hath a Devil, I shall not say; but it is such as makes our Savior say somewhat exclusively, Salvation is of the Jews. All the Blessings and Salvations of the Law did indeed hover on Mount Gerizim, were given thence, that was the place of them; but they were cut away when Schism came: The Church is not a place of blessing when 'tis built against the Church; The Altar hath no Horns to lay hold on for refuge, but to push and gore only, when it is set up against the Altar; And Gerizim is Ebal when it stands in competition with Mount Zion. Well; this only thing does breed the greatest distances imaginable in the Nations, nothing more divides than Separation and Schism; and then these Samaritans as all Separatists do, grew such Opiniastres and so violent in their way, as to deny humanity to those that would not join with them; they would not grant the Civilities of Passage to one that intended for Jerusalem to Worship: They refuse it to our Savior here because his Face was thitherward, ver. 53. A Schismatic will reject a Christ if his Face be fromward their new Establishment, if he but look towards the Antient Worship: At this the Sons of Zebedee are offended, zealous for their Master, as being most particularly concerned in him, two of his nearest intimates; and their zeal would needs break out into flame. And why not? a rudeness to Elijah was revenged by him with Fire from Heaven, which consumed twice fifty Soldiers and their Captains, though they came to do the King's Command: And shall these hated Schismatics be rude to Thee? and reject the Messiah, and yet go unpunished? Lord, shall we command fire to come down from Heaven to consume them, even as Elias did? Which our Savior answers with this sharp rebuke, Ye know not what manner of Spirit ye are of.

Not to divide but to explain my Text, and so instead of parts present you with some Subjects of Discourse.

By Spirit here is meant that disposition and complexure of Christian Piety and Virtues, that course and Method of Religion which the Spirit does prescribe to Christ's Disciples, and does guide them in; or in a word, the temper of the Gospel is so called: And this in opposition to the Law, the difference of these being expressed by a diverse manner of Spirit; the one is called Spirit of Bondage, the other Spirit of Adoption; so here Ye know not of what Spirit ye are, ye do not judge aright, if you believe the temper of the Gospel is like that of the Law: The course that I prescribe to my Disciples differs much from that of Prophets under the Old Testament, you must be guided by another Spirit than Elijah 's was in calling for Fire, if my Spirit dwell in you, For I came not to destroy men's lives on any such account. In this sense it affords these Propositions.

First, To destroy Men's lives, or other temporal rights on this account merely, because they are Apostates, Schismatics, or otherwise reject the true Religion, or Christ himself, is inconsistent with the temper of the Gospel, This is that which Christ reproves here, telling them that would do so, Ye know not what manner of Spirit ye are of.

Secondly, Because the Spirit of Elias, which the Gospel Christian Spirit here is set in opposition to, opposed the Magistrate, destroyed those that came commissioned from the Prince, and Christ designedly does say ye must not do now what Elias did, therefore, to attempt upon or against the Magistrate, on the account of Christ, or of Religion, is inconsistent with the Spirit of the Gospel.

First, Of the first that to destroy men's lives, &c.

But here I must observe, that since these fiery Disciples that did give occasion for our Savior's rebuke, here were no Magistrates, nor did Christ himself that gave the rebuke assume, but renounce openly all such Authority; therefore no observation grounded on these words can control the Magistrates just Power in punishing Offences done against his Laws, although pretences of Religion and Conscience give color to those offenses; the Gospel does diminish no rights of the secular Powers: Now Supreme Magistrates, though as such they have no right to judge in Articles of Faith, to define what is true Religion, what not; for then the Pagan Princes who had never heard of Christ, and yet are as much Magistrates as any, would have right to judge what Doctrines Christ delivered down to be believed.

But certainly when Christ Commission'd his Faith to run through all the World not only independently from all the Powers of it but in perfect opposition to them, they can have no right to judge in that, which whatsoever they shall Judge we are alike bound to receive (the Faith of Christ) without any the least difference to their judgment. But though they have no right to judge of this, they have Authority to determine what Faith shall have the privileges of their State and what shall not; which shall be publicly professed, and which they will inhibit with Penalties: For sure the Privileges of the State and power of Penalties are the proper rights of the Supreme Power, and therefore none but that can judge and determine of them. In a word, since it is most evident that the tranquility of a State does depend upon nothing more than the profession and priviledging of Religion; it follows that those Powers to whose Judgment and Decrees the care and Tranquillity of the State is committed, must have the power to judge and to determine what Faith shall be publicly professed and privileged by the State: In which Judgment and administration if they err, and privilege a false Faith and inhibit the true; they use their Power ill, and are responsible to God for doing so, but they do not invade or usurp a Power that is not their own. Rather 'tis most certain if the Principles of any Sect, or else if not they, yet the pursuance of any Principles do tend directly towards, or are found to work Commotions and Treasonable enterprises, the Supreme Power hath as much right to restrain, yea and Punish them, although with Death according to their several merits, as he hath to punish those effects in any other instances wherein they do express themselves.

Nor must Religion secure those practices which it cannot sanctify, but does envenome. For by putting an everlasting concern into men's Opinions and actions their undertakings are made by it more desperate and unreclaimable. What Wounds and what Massacres must the State expect from them that stab and murder it with the same Zeal that the Priest kills a Sacrifice? that go to act their Villanies with Devotion, and go to their own Execution as to Martyrdom?

'Twere easy for me to deduce the practice of this Power from the best Magistrates in the best times, if that were my business; who had only this temptation to say thus much, that I might not seem to clash with the Magistrates Power of coercion in Religious causes when I did affirm, that to destroy men's Lives or other temporal Rights on this account merely because they are Apostates, Schismatics, or otherwise reject the true Religion, or Christ himself, is inconsistent with the temper of the Gospel.

If you would discover what the temper of the Gospel is, you may see it in its Prophecy and Picture in the Prophet Isaiah, The Wolf shall dwell with the Lamb, and the Leopard shall lie down with the Kid, the sucking Child shall play on the hole of the Asp, and the weaned Child shall put his hand on the Cockatrice den, and the Serpent shall eat the dust. Whatever mischief these have in themselves, there's nothing of devouring, or of hurt to one another in this state; 'tis like Paradise restored, the prospect of the Garden of the Lord. Rather whereas there these Creatures only met, here they lie down and dwell together: And the Asp and Serpent that could poison Paradise itself, have now no venomous tooth to bite, no not the heel, nor spiteful tongue to hiss.

But to speak out of Figure, the Gospel in itself requires not the Life of any for transgression against itself, it calls all into it, and waits their coming; those that sin against it, it useth methods to reform, hath its Spiritual Penalties indeed, whereby it would inflict amendment and Salvation on Offenders: But because final impenitence and unbelief are the only breaches of the Covenant of this Religion, therefore it does wait till life and possibilities of Repentance are run out; and then its Punishments indeed come home with interest, but not till then. The Law 'tis true was of another temper, it required the life of an Apostate to Idolatry, whether 'twere a single Person, or a City, Deut. xiii. To the Jew that was a Child, as S. Paul says, and so not to be kept in awe by threats of future abdication, things beyond the prospect of his care, but must have present punishments, the Rod still in his eye; and was a refractory Child that seemed to have the Amorite and Hivite derived into him, a tincture of Idolatry in his Constitution, that was as ready to run back into the superstitions as the Land of Egypt, as eager for their Deities as their Onions, and had the same appetite to the Calf and to the fleshpots, to make the one a God, the other a Meal; to such a People Death, that was the only probable restraint, was put into the Law by God who was himself Supreme Magistrate in that Theocraty, against whom 'twas exact Rebellion and Treason to take another God, and therefore was by him punished with Death. But the Spirit whom Christ sends breaths no such threats, for he can come on no Designs but such as Christ can join in, but saith Christ, I came not to destroy men's lives.

Secondly, The temper of the Gospel is discovered in its Precepts. I shall name but one, Matth. v. 43, 44. Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy Neighbor and hate thine Enemy: But I say unto you, love your Enemies, &c. Where if Enemy did not mean the man whom private quarrel had made such, and Him it could not mean, it being said to them that they must love that Enemy, Exod. xxiii. 4, 5. But, as the Jews neighbor was everyone of his Religion, and he lived near him that lived in the same Covenant with him, so enemy being opposed to that, must signify one not of his Religion: An Alien, an Idolater, with any of which they were indeed to have no exercise of love or friendship, no commerce: and to some Enemies, the Canaanites, no mercy, but they were to hate them to destruction, Deut. vii. If so, then our Savior's addition here, But I say unto you, love your Enemies, does say that we must love even these; the Christian hath no Canaanites, but the most prosligated adversaries of his Religion he must love, and pray for them although they persecute him: (Which makes appear it does at least include Enemies of Religion, for Persecutions seldom were on any other ground, and Religion which should have nothing else but Heaven in it, as if it had the malice and the Flames of Hell, breaths nothing else but Fire and Faggot to all those that differ in it.) But whether it be an addition and mean thus or no, since it is sure that both they and we are bound to love the Neighbor, and Christ hath proved, Luke x. that the Samaritan, he whom our two Disciples would consume, that Schismatic and rejecter of Christ is yet a Neighbor, therefore him also we must love and pray for. Now 'tis a strange way of affection to destroy them, to love them thus to the death, to get admission to their hearts with a Swords point, to pray for them by calling for Fire down from Heaven to consume them. S. Greg. Nazian. calls the founder of that Faction that began this practice in the Church, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and if so, we know well of what Spirit he is that does call for fire to devour those that differ from him in Religion; 'tis sure one of this Legion, or it rather is the leader of them, that did dwell in Tombs, and does in flames, things which he loves so to inflict; one that was the first Rebel too, which leads me to my second Observation: That

Secondly, To attempt upon, or against the Prince on the account of Christ, or of Religion, is most inconsistent with the Spirit of the Gospel. For it was the Spirit of Elias who destroyed those whom the Magistrate did send, that Christ opposes here the Spirit of the Gospel to, in this severe rebuke, ye know not what manner of Spirit ye are of.

The other warm Apostle meets a greater check in the like case, S. Peter 's zeal, that they say made him chief of the Apostles, as it made him promptest to confess the Lord, so it did heat him to be readiest to defend him; as fiery to use his Sword as his Tongue for his Master: But his Master will not let a Sword be drawn in his own cause; put up again thy Sword into his place: The God of our Religion will not be defended by Treason, and from Murder by the wounding of another, nor will his Religion suffer a Sword out of the sheath against the Power of the Magistrate, no not in behalf of Christ himself; but goes beyond its proper bounds to threaten things that are not Gospel punishments, even excision in this life, to them that do attempt it, They that take the Sword, shall perish with the Sword. Here the Gospel becomes Law, and turns zealot for the Magistrate though persecuting Christ himself. Our Savior does not think it sharp enough to tell S. Peter that he did not know what Spirit he was of, for when this Disciple would have kept these sufferings from his Master only by his counsel, he replies to him, get thee behind me Satan: He was then of that manner of Spirit; therefore now that he does so much worse, when he attempts to keep them from him with a Sword, and drawn against the Power, as if Christ did not know how to word what Spirit such attempts did savor of, he does not check and rebuke now, but threaten and denounce. And 'tis obvious to observe, that this same Peter who would needs be fighting for his Master, in few hours with most cursed imprecations forswears him: And so irregular illegal violences for Religion usually flame out into direct opposition to that they are so zealous for; fly in the face of that Religion they pretend to strive for; to let us see they do not rise from Divine Zeal, and from true Piety, but from Hypocrisy, Ambition, Revenge, or Interest; and that warm shine that kindles there pretended Angels of Light, is but a flash of Hell, a glory about a fiend. Therefore afterwards none was more forward than S. Peter was to press submission to the Magistrate, though most unjustly persecuting for Religion; talks of no Fire but the fiery trial then, in Epist. 1. Cap. iv. and If ye suffer for the Name of Christ the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you, he knows what manner of Spirit such are of: When they are in the place of Dragons, then the Holy Ghost and God is with them; when the darkness of the shadow of death is on their Souls, even then the Spirit of glory resteth on them. Accordingly the after-Fathers urge the same not only towards Heathen Emperors, but relapse'd Heretics and Apostates: As Julian, and Constantius, Valens, Valentinian; and upon the same account S. Ambrose says, Spiritus Sanctus id locutus est in vobis, Rogamus, Auguste, non Pugnamus: The Holy Spirit spake these words in you, we beg O Valentinian, we oppose not. And S. Greg. Nazianzen says, to do so was the Christian Law most excellently ordained by the Spirit of God, who knew best to temper his Law with the mixture of what is profitable to us, and honest in itself. They knew what manner of Spirit that of Christianity was: It does assume no power to inflict itself: 'It is not commissioned to plant itself with violence, or destroy those that refuse or oppose it. It wages War indeed with Vices, not with men: And in the Camp of our Religion as once in Israel, there is no Sword found but with Saul and Jonathan his Son, only the Princes Sword. Our Spirit is the Dove, no Bird of prey that, nor indeed of gall or passion: If Christian Religion be to be writ in Blood, 'tis in that of its own confessors only; if men's false Opinions make no parties nor mischiefs in the State, we are not to make them Martyrs to their false Opinions; and if they be not so happy as to be Orthodox, send them down to Hell directly: tear out one another's Souls to tear out that which we think an Error. Sure they must not root out smutted Corn that must not root out Poppy; we may let that which is a little blasted grow, if we must let the Tares and Darnel grow. The Soldiers would not crucify Christ's Coat, nor make a rent there where they could find no seam: But now men strive so for the Coat, that they do rent his Flesh to catch it, and to gain an inclosure of the name of Christians tear all other members from the Body of Christ; care not to sacrifice a Nation to a supposed Error; will attempt to purge away what they call dross in a Furnace of consuming flame: The Christian Spirit's fiery Tongues must kindle no such heats, but his effusions called Rivers, came to quench such fires: Effusions that were mistaken sor new wine indeed, but never looked like Blood. Nor are they that retain to this Spirit, those that have him called down on them in their Consecration, impowered for such uses. When Christ sent his Disciples to convert the World, Behold saith he, I send you forth as Lambs among Wolves: And sure that does not sound like giving a Commission to tear and worry those that would not come into the Flock: The Sheep were not by that impowered to devour the Wolves. Our Lord's directions to his Apostles when a City would not receive their Doctrine was shake off the dust of your feet; let nothing of theirs cleave to you, have no more to do with them; cast off the very dust that settled on your Sandals as you passed their Streets. And surely then we must be far from animating to give ruin to, and seize the Sword, the Scepter, and the Thrones of Kings, if they refuse to receive Christ or his Kingdom, or his Reformation, or his Vicar. If I must not have the dust of any such upon my feet, I must not have their Land in my possession, their Crowns on my head, their Wealth in my Coffers, their Blood upon my hands, nor their Souls upon my Sword. It will be ill appearing so when we come to give an account how we have executed our Commission; and shall be asked, did I send you to inflict the Cross, or preach it? to save men's Souls or to destroy their lives, yea and Souls too? And when in those Myriads of Souls that have perished in the desolations which such occasions have wrought their Blood shall cry from under the Altar, as being sacrificed to that Duty and Religion which was the utmost that they understood (if so be that there were no Treason to discolour it) and they that did inflict all this appear but Christian Dioclesians, and stand at that sad Day in the train of the Persecutions, on the same hand: O then those Fires which these Boutefeus called for and kindled shall blaze out into everlasting burnings!

And now it may seem strange that they who most of all pretend the Spirit of Christ, are yet of the most distant temper in the World from that of Gospel; always endeavoring to do that which our Savior here checks his Disciples for proposing, and did threaten Peter for attempting. There are among ourselves that seem to live by Inspiration, that look and speak as in the frame of the Gospel, as if every motion were impulse from Heaven: and yet as if Christ had fulfilled his promise to them without Metaphor, baptized them with the Holy Ghost and fire, only that they might kindle fire, and the unction of the Spirit did but add Oil to those flames; as if the cloven Tongues of fire in which the Spirit did descend, were made to be the Emblems of Division, and to call for fire; these men's life, their garb, their very piety is faction: they pray, rebel, and murder, and all by the Spirit. 'It is true indeed they plead now what we seem to say, that they should not be persecuted for not being satisfied in their Conscience; so they mince their breaking of the Laws for which they suffer. But do these know themselves what manner of Spirit they are of? or are we bound not to remember when they had the Power how they persecuted all that would not do at once against their King, their Conscience, and the Law? And we do thus far know what Spirit they are of, and if they have not yet repented of all that, then it is plain if they can get an opportunity they will do it again, nay they must by their Spirit think themselves obliged to do it.

But these are not all: those that above all the World pretend to the Infallible assistance of the Spirit, our Church is bold in her Offices of this day to say, do turn Religion into Rebellion; she said it more severely heretofore, and the attempts of this day warrant the saying, when not like our Disciples that would call for fire from Heaven on the Village that rejected Christ, these will raise up fire from Hell to consume their own Prince and his Progeny, the whole line of Royalty, the Church and Nation also in their Representative; and all this only for refusing him that calls himself Christ's Vicar. There are, I must confess, among them that renounce the practice, and say 'twas the device only of some few desperate male-contents, wicked Catholics, and designed by the Devil: And they will allow their Father Garnett to have had no other guilt, but that he did not discover it having received it in Confession. And this gives me occasion to propose a story to your patience and conjectures.

Not long before the time of this Attempt, a Priest of the Society of Jesus in a Book he published, does propose this case of Conscience, Whether a Priest may make use of what he hath learned in Confession to avert great impendent mischiefs to the Government? as for Example, One confesses that himself or some other had laid Gunpowder, and other things under such an House, and if they be not taken thence the House will be burnt, the Prince must perish, all that pass throughout the City will be either certainly destroyed or in great peril; and resolves it thus. 'It is the most probable and safe Opinion, and the more suitable to Religion, and to that reverence which is due to the Sacrament of Confession, that it is not lawful to make use of this his knowledge to that end. That his Holiness Clement the 8. had just before by a Bull sent to the Superiors of the Regulars commanded most studiously to beware they make not use of anything which they come to know by Confession to the benefit of the secular Government. He adds, that in cases of Confession the Priest must not reveal though death be threatened to him, but may say he knows it not, nor ever heard it, quia reverà non scit nec audivit ut homo, seu pars reipub. Yea he may swear all this if he but mentally reserve, so as to tell you. 'It is Del Rio in 6th. Book of his Mag. dis. 1. Cap. Sec. 2. It seems 'tis safer to break all the Obligations to Allegiance and to truth, his duty and his Oaths, the Princes and God's bonds, than the Seal of Confession.

But I did not mention this to let you see the kindness these men have to Princes and their Government: I shall avoid producing any the Opinions of particular persons howsoever horrid in my arguments this day; but I only ask whether it be not very probable this instance was the thing to be attempted on this day? Whether the resolution was not published, the Pope's Bull if not made yet produced at least to caution any Priest that should receive it in Confession, and should be so honest as to abhor the Fact, yet from betraying it and hindering the Execution of it. If it were the case, this was not then any rash attempt of some few desperate malecontents; but a long contrivance and of many heads, and its taking its effect was the great care of their Church.

Well they are even with us yet▪ and lay as horrid Projects to the charge of Protestants. Among our other Controversies this is one, whether are the worse Subjects? bloody sayings are produced from Authors on both sides; yea there is the Image of both Churches, Babel and Jerusalem, drawn by a Catholic Pen, and then you may be sure all Babel 's divisions and confusions make the draught of ours, and are said to be the issue of the Protestant Doctrines: Whereas such things are countenanc'd by some particular Authors of their Church, were never owned by any public Act, or Doctrine of a general Council to which they provoke us. I must confess our Calendar can show a thirtieth of January, as well as a fifth of November. There are indeed that say, the Romanists hatched that days guilt, and challenge any man to call them to account for saying so. But whether so or not; which Churches Doctrines such things are more suited to, I will now put to trial, that we may know what Spirit each is of: And I will try it by the public Acts and most established Doctrines of the Churches, and here undertake to show the Church of England most expressly does declare against all practices against the Prince for the cause of Religion. But the Romish in those acts wherein she hath most reason to expect infallibility of Spirit, also in the public Acts of the Church representative, in General Councils does abett the doing them, not only for Religion, but for the cause of Holy Church.

First, If the Church of Rome have reason to expect infallible assistance of the Spirit in any case, it is as much in Canonizing of a Saint as in any other, it being as unhappy to determine a false Object for Religious Worship to their Church as a false Article of Faith; there is as much need that there should be an infallible proposal of the one as other; for when she does Decree by the Authority of the Omnipotent God such a one is a Saint, received in Glory, and so renders him the Object of their Worship, if he should chance to be a Reprobate; to cause the People to fall prostrate to the Shrine of one that's damned, and call his flames to warm God's Altar and the Votaries breast, to make the whole Church worship one that is in Hell, is liable to greater aggravations of impiety than an erroneous Opinion in very many of their points of Faith can be.

But it is known their Church hath Canoniz'd one of this Nation, Becket, who though he was indeed illegally and barbarously Murthered, yet 'tis not the Suffering, but the Cause that makes the Martyr, now he did not fall a Sacrifice for his Religion, but was slain because he did disturb the State by suspending all the Bishops that upheld the Kings just cause against him, so that neither King nor State could live in peace for him; for opposing also those Laws which himself had sworn to, Laws that were not only truly Sovereign Rights, but are maintained even unto this day as Privileges by the Gallican Church, and they not branded for so doing: In a word, he was slain for those actions which his own Bishops condemned him for, as a perjured man and a Traitor: And for persisting in them to the death he was Sainted.

Now whatever the estate of this man be in the next World, (I meddle not with that;) Yet for Disobedience and Rebellion to place one in Heaven, whence for those things Lucifer did fall; does seem to show what Spirit they are of that Canonize such Saints: For the Church to pray to Christ that by the wounds of this Saint he would remit their sins, does express what rate their Church does set upon the merits of resisting Princes, and disturbing States in the behalf of Holy Church: When such actions make men fit to be joint purchasers with Christ in the Redemption of the World. But when the French Histories say 'twas disputed long after in Paris whether he were Damn'd or Sav'd, that the Church in her public Offices should pray to go thither where he is gone to have his Society; though it express their most infallible assurance of the condition of those men, who for their sakes resist the Secular Powers, yet O my Soul! enter not thou into their counsels in this world, neither say a Confederacy to whom they say a Confederacy: much less pray to be in their Society, who by resisting S. Paul says, do receive unto themselves Damnation.

Secondly, It is notorious that in their first General Council at Lions, Anno 1245. the Emperor Frederick the second, by the Sentence of the Pope and the whole Council after long deliberation and producing several Arguments which they say are not sleight, but effectual to prove the suspicion of Heresy, is deprived of his Empire, all his Subjects are absolved from their Oath of Allegiance, and by Apostolical Authority forbidden to obey him: Therefore that such things may be done in the cases of Religion hath the Authority of a General Council, 'twas that Council that Decreed Red Hats to Cardinals: Hats red it seems not only with the Royal Purple, but with the Blood of Kings and of Royalty itself.

Thirdly, I should have urged the well known Canon of the General Council of Lateran, (the greatest their Church ever boasted of) which says, That if the temporal Lord shall neglect to purge his Territories from such as the Church there declares Heretics, he shall be Excommunicated by the Metropolitan, and if he do not mend within a year complained of to the Pope, that so he may declare his Subjects absolved from their Allegiance, and expose his Lands to be seized by Catholics; who shall exterminate the Heretics, saving the right of the chief Lord: Provided he give no impediment to this. But the same law shall be observed to those that have no chief Lord's; that is, who are themselves Supreme.

This I should urge, but that some say that penal Statutes which are leges odiosae, tantum disponunt, quantum loquuntur: Therefore this Canon since it does not name Kings, it does not, they say, concern them, although 'tis plain it do sufficiently enough. But that there may be therefore no evasion,

Fourthly, In the General Council of Constance, that part of it I mean that is approved by their whole Church. The Pope and Council join together in commanding all Arch-Bishops, Bishops, and Inquisitors to pronounce all such Excommunicate as are declared Heretics in such and such Articles (and that of Transubstantiation, half-Communion, and the Pope's Supremacy are among them) or that favor ot defend them, or that Communicate with them in public or in private, whether in sacred Offices or otherwise; etiamsi Patriarchali, Archiepiscopali, Episcopali, Regali, Reginali, Ducali, aut aliâ quâvis Ecclesiasticâ, aut mundanâ proefulgeant dignitate: And Commands them also to proceed to Interdicts, and deprivation of Dignities, and Goods, and whatsoever other Penalties, vias & modos. Thus that Council though it took away the Peoples right to the Blood of Christ, denying them the Cup in the Sacrament, gave them in exchange the Blood of their own Kings, making them a right to that.

And that they extend the force of these Canons to the most absolute Princes, even to him that pleads exemption most, to the King of France is plain, because when Sixtus the fifth thundered out his Bulls against the then King of Navarre, afterwards King Henry the fourth of France, and the Prince of Condé, depriving them not only of their Lands and Dignities, but their Succession also to the Crown of France, absolving their Subjects from their Oaths, forbidding them to obey them, he declared he did it to them as to relapsed Heretics, favorers and defenders of them, and as such fallen under the Censures of the Canons of the Church. Now there are no other Canons that do take in Kings but these which can touch him, for that of Boniface the eighth which says the Pope hath power to judge all temporal Powers, is declared not to extend to France. Cap. meruit▪ de privilege. in extravag. communibus.

Thus by the public Acts of their Church, and by the Canons of their General Councils we have found in causes of Religion Deprivation of Princes, Wars and Bloodshed, and the other consequent Miseries are established; Rebellion encouraged by a Law: And if Rebellion be as the sin of Witchcraft then we know what manner of Spirit they are of that do encourage it; sure Witches have no spirit but the Devil for familiar.

But the Church of England on the other side, in her public Doctrine set down in the Book of Homilies, established in the 39. Articles of her Religion, says in express words, that it is not lawful for Inferiors and Subjects in any case to resist and stand against the Superior Powers: that we must indeed believe undoubtedly that we may not obey Kings, Magistrates, or any other, if they would command us to do anything contrary to God's Commands. In such a case we ought to say with the Apostle, we must rather obey God than Man. But nevertheless in that case we may not in any wise withstand violently, or Rebel against Rulers, or make any Insurrection, Sedition, or Tumults, either by force of Arms or otherwise, against the Anointed of the Lord, or any of his Officers, 1 Book of Hom. 2 part of the Serm. of Obed. Not for Reformation of Religion; for what a Religion 'tis that such men by such means would restore, may easily be judged even as good a Religion surely as Rebels be good men, and obedient Subjects. 2 Book of Hom. 4 part of the Serm. against willful Rebellion. The very same thing is defined in the first of the Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical of the year 1640. for Subjects to bear Arms against their King, offensive, or defensive, upon any pretence whatever, is at least to resist the Powers which are ordained of God: and though they do not invade but only resist, S. Paul tells them plainly, he that resists receives unto himself damnation. This was the Doctrine of the Church in those her Constitutions; and although there was no Parliament then sitting to enact these Canons into Laws, yet since that time the Law of England is declared to say the same; and we obliged by it to acknowledge, that it is not Lawful upon any pretence whatsoever, to take up Arms against the King, by this Parliament, whose memory shall be forever blessed.

And now it is not hard to know what manner of Spirit our Church is of, even that Spirit that anoints the Lord's Anointed, that is, which Commissions them, God's Spirit, as we find it phras'd in Scripture: And 'tis obvious to each eye that there is much more resemblance betwixt present Rome, and the Image of Babylon, as S. John hath drawn it in the Revelations, than there is of Babel and the Church of England, as to those Confusions which seditious Doctrines make, as the Romanists pourtrai'd her.

But far be it from me to conclude hence that all of their Communion do allow their Doctrines: Though they stand on the same bottom that their Faith of half-Communion, and Transubstantiation do; even Acts of the same Councils, yet I doubt not multitudes of loyal Souls of this our Nation do abhor the Tenants, by what Rule of theirs I know not I confess. Nor shall I inquire what Security a Prince can have of the Allegiance of those, who by the most infallible Rules of their Religion can be loyal only on Condition, by the leave of those who are his Enemies, on whose will and power all their Oaths and duty are depending. If the most essential interest of Princes will not move them to consider this, sure I am I shall not undertake it: But I shall take the confidence out of the premises to infer, that no Religion in the World does more provide for the security of Kings, than the Christian as it is professed in our Church does. And when we see the Interest of the Crown and Church were twisted by God in the preservations of this day, nor could be separated in the late dismal Confusions, but died and revived together in the Resurrection, they that hate the execrable mischiefs of those times, or love the Crown, or do not come to mock God when they come to give him thanks for his great glories of this day, cannot choose but have good will for our Zion, cannot have an unconcernedness for this Religion, a cold indifference to it or any other; which where-ere it is, alas I fear betrays too openly indifference and unconcernedness for Religion itself. For if I should appeal to our most Sceptic Statists, and not beg one Principle of a Religion, but take their own: Religion was contrived, they say, by pretending to engage a God to uphold his Vicegerent, and by putting after, everlasting punishments before men's fears, (for they saw present ones restrained not Treason) was contrived I say, to uphold States: Then that must be the best with them that best upholds, and then I have evinced the Christian is secure, as 'tis prosess'd by our Church. But then shame to those who to gratify their lusts merely, labor to persuade themselves and others there is no such thing in earnest as a Resurrection to punishments: who by public raillery in sacred things, and turning all to merriment, endeavor to take off the sense of all Religion, and have done it in great measure; and so thrown down the best-Basis on which Government subsists: which they themselves confess was necessary to be framed on purpose for it. For if there be no after fears, he that is stronger than to need to fear the present may rebel, kill Kings.

These Atheists are Fanatics, I am sure in Politicks; more traitorous than our mad Enthusiasts, or than the Canons of the Popish Councils: To these Sadducees in Christianity we may say, ye know not what spirit ye are of, who know not whether there be any Spirit. But it is indeed because they are all flesh themselves: But then if the works of the flesh be manifest, Adultery, Fornication, Seditions, Heresies, Murders, Drunkenness, &c. we know what manner of Spirit they are of; even the spirit that did enter into the Swine, the Legion indeed of Spirits, one Spirit is not Devil enough to animate the flesh into so many of those works. But the fruits of the Spirit that Gospel Spirit which we Christians are of, are love, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, joy in the Holy Ghost; and they that do bring forth such fruits are baptized indeed with the Holy Ghost; and if with fire, fire that came down from Heaven too, 'twas only to consume their dross that they may be pure metal, fit as for the King's Inscription, meek Christians, good Subjects, so for God's Image to be stamped upon, that is, renewed in Righteousness and true Holiness. Fire this that will sublime our very flesh into spiritual body, that we may begin here that incorruptible which our corruptible must put on, when our vile Bodies shall be made like to the glorious Body of our Savior: To which state that Spirit which raised up Jesus from the dead bring us, by quickening our mortal Bodies.

The Eleventh SERMON, Preached at CHRIST-CHURCH IN OXFORD, Novemb. 8. 1665. Being the Monthly Fast-day for the Plague.

THAT God who purchased for us the possibilities of Repentance with the Son of his Bosom, and requires nothing more in exchange of the Blood and Life of Christ, but some unfeigned tears and reformation of our lives, that He should be contriving methods to bring men to Repentance is nothing strange; for this is but to take care that all that ever he hath done for them be not in vain and lost: But that in Hell, a place which nothing but Repentance can destroy; there should be such designs seems stange, yet not if we consider the condition of the place, whose Torments are not only of so dire a nature, that he that is condemned to them wou •• be alone in them, but were made so dire on purpose that they mig •• be preservatives against themselves; nothing being judged more effectual to terrify men from those pains, than the exceeding greatness of those pains, which he that feels thinks the relation alone will do; for he said, Nay Father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the dead they will repent, &c.

The words do willingly suggest occasion for several Inquiries, and some of those of the nicer and more curious kind, but truly I shall not attend to those suggestions, but shall choose to handle some few of the most obvious and popular Considerations that the words break into, and they are three.

First, The Rich man's Charity to his Brethren, his unsatisfied desire and care that they may be brought to Repentance, expressed in these words, Nay Father Abraham, though they have Moses and Prophets, yet let them have one method more.

Secondly, We have here his choice of that method, that which he thought would do though nothing else would; in these words, If one went unto them from the dead they will repent. In the handling of which, we shall examine what the grounds were upon which this Rich man was so confident that that would work upon them; and here we find he chose with several advantages.

First, One from the dead;

Secondly, That one Lazarus; and he

First, One out of Abraham's Bosom:

Secondly, One that had seen him also in his Torments and could testify of them, v. 27.

Thirdly, We have here these fancied hopes all dashed in Abraham 's answer, And he said unto him, if they believe not Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.

First of the first, the Charitable, careful contrivances this Rich man in Hell had for his Brethren upon Earth: Nay Father Abraham, &c.

It is commonly reported of men who know themselves infected by the Plague, that they desire to infect as many others as they can; they contrive to spread the Contagion, and love society of Ruin; and we are sure it is so in that Plague of the Soul, Sin. This humor did not content itself to debauch Heaven, and unpeople Paradise, but all the Ages of the World make up its Triumph, and every sin that ever was, and misery that shall be, is its issue. Lucifer 's pride would have a train of Angels and Mankind to wait upon him in Destruction: And in such an attendance, though to his everlasting cost, he does still pride himself; he feeds upon that Envy that devours him, and cheers himself with adding fuel to his flames that do torment him; and upon this account enjoys his own Agonies and God's Indignation: And then it is no wonder if his Agents upon Earth enjoy the sport; and if the Devil does not more please himself to see his Dominions enlarged and the business of Hell go forward, than wicked men do in having others become like themselves; as if they did derive to themselves, and possess the pleasure, as they do the guilt of those whom they draw in; and the delight like the sin, were all in all, and all in every part of the whole Company that join in wickedness. But it should seem 'tis otherwise with the Sinners in Hell. Our Rich man here when he saw his own estate remediless, so vast a gulf betwixt him an • • e Bosom of Comfort, that not the least drop of refreshment, no 〈…〉 hopes nor wishes of it could pass thence to him; but Torment sealed upon him by an irreversible Decree; he begins then to contrive for his Brethren, how their falling into the like estate with him might be prevented, ver. 27, 28. Nor satisfied with this, when Abraham replies, they are provided well enough, they have Moses and the Prophets, the one Preaching the Law to them, whose Rules they have made as familiar to them as their dress, they put on daily God's Commandments, and their duty; make his Precepts their frontlets and their wristbands. And the other the Prophets, are Commissioned from God to lay before their eyes the issue of transgressions, give them a vision of the Judgments that await their sins, and come to them burdned with the foreknowledge of the Sinners expectations; so that except they will resolve to choose destruction willfully to assault their own perdition, there is no fear they should come thither; those tell them as much as any from the dead can do: Ah! but thinks he, all those methods I had, yet I am here; and then let them have one other; for as now after this little taste of Torments were I to live again, I should most certainly avoid this place, and lead another kind of life than that which does expire into this Tophet; So if one went to tell them how it is with me, sure then they would repent and not come hither; therefore I pray thee send; Nay Father Abraham, &c.

I cannot here assent to Cardinal Cajetan 's account that all this earnestness was only pride in our Rich man, and a desire to have the glory of his Family advanced; which as he labored to raise here by Wealth, so now finding by sad experience that was but a weak foundation to build a lasting House upon, and that all the shine of it was but false treacherous light, such as did end in flame with him; and having made discovery of other greater glories, that Abraham and Lazarus possessed, he would have his Family as high and bright as they; and this their Repentance, which he took such care for, was but in order to that exaltation.

If it were so, truly it is the first pride I ever read of that would content itself with no meaner a dress than the Robes of Immortality, and was ambitious of the Throne of Glory. I have heard I confess of a proud lowliness, where the humility is but the manage and the art of being lofty, is only assumed condesc • ntion whereby men but descend to be extolled, and stoop to take advantage for their mount: But never heard of any pride that aimed to raise itself by the humiliations of Repentance, that laid its groundwork in that dust and ashes, clothed itself in the sackcloth and neglected rudenesses of a pious penitent sorrow: The prides of this side Hell are of a different garb I am sure, if theirs be such; if they design by those just means to settle the inheritance of Heaven in their Families, sure the vices of Hell may be fit patterns for our Religious performances, and 'twere to be desired that all Christians had this man's ardencies and flames in their affections to their Houses.

Yet neither can I from this one particular instance draw any general proposition concerning the kindness of that place to Sinners upon Earth, although all those that make this History not Parable would give me color for it: But waving that, since Christ hath so framed the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , (which is a relation of such words as they would have spoke, had they spoke on this occasion) I shall take that as ground enough to apply it to the conviction of those who are so far from these Charitable designs to the Souls of others, that they contrive nothing more than how to have the company of their Friends in those ways that lead to this place of Torment; prevail with them to join in sinning, and show a Vice how to insinuate into them.

The kindnesses of our man here in the flames were divine God like Charities compared to these. Our Savior says, Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones, for I say unto you that in Heaven their Angels do always behold the Face of my Father which is in Heaven, Matth. xviii. 10. Which one expounds, if we neglect to do what is in our power to preserve the meanest Christians from Vice, and sleight their sinning, their Tutelary Angels that have continual recourse to God, and are high in his favor, will make complaints of us in their behalf, at least they will if we offend them, and any action of ours prove an occasion of their sins. And if a favourite of Heaven shall accuse us to the Lord for that, Then how will he complain of us when we tempt? when he shall have to say against us, that we have ensnared and drawn such a Soul into a Custom that will ruin it eternally; and when he shall bring against us an instance out of Hell here, and the kindnesses of one among the Devils shall come in Judgment against us; where we see the Rich Man thought not of his own condemnation so much he thought of the averting that of his Brethren. We might suppose a man in his condition could not consider anything but his own Tortures. O yes, to preserve others from them; yet, when the man in Hell does so, the men on Earth do think of nothing more than to entice others into them. And is it not a strange Age then, when to tempt is the only mode of kindness, and men do scarcely know how to express themselves civil to their Friends but by pressing them to sin and so be sick with them? as if this were the gentile use of Societies, to season Youth into good Company, and bring the Fashionable Vices into their acquaintance.

And 'tis well if they stay there; it happens so that Parts and Wit, Faculties and Acquisitions do ingratiate men into these treacherous kindnesses, and qualify them for the desires and friendships of such persons as entertain them by softening them into looseness and then into profaneness; debauch their manners, and then their Principles; teach them to sport themselves with Vice, and then with Holy things, and after with Religion itself; which is a greater Luxury than that their Riots treat their Appetites withal, the Luxury of Wit. And thus they educate them into Atheism, and these familiar Devils are called Acquaintances and Friends: And indeed the Companions in sin a man would think should be dear Friends, such as pour an heart into one another in their common Cups, shed Souls in their Lusts, are friends to one another even in ruin, and love to their own Condemnation, are kind beyond the Altar-flames, even to those everlasting fires; such communications certainly cement affections so that nothing can divide them: And let them do so, but Lord send me the kindness of Hell rather, one that will be a friend like this man in his Torments, that with unsatisfied cares minded the reformation of his Friends, Nay Father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the dead they will repent; which brings me to the Choice, the second thing.

If a Ghost should indeed appear to any of us in the midst of our Commissions, it would certainly hurry us from our Enjoyments; and there are no such ties & unions by which the advantages of sin do hold us fixed and jointed to them, but the shake and tremble we should then be in, would loosen and dissolve them all, and make us uncling from them, if we may believe discourses that tell us such a sight is able to startle a man however he be fixed by his most close Devotions; for what the Jews were wont to say, we shall die because we have seen an Angel of the Lord from Heaven, most men do fear if they should see the Spirit of a dead man from the Earth. Indeed the affrights which men do usually conceive at the mere apprehension of such an Apparition, do probably arise from a surprise, in being minded hastily of such a state for which they are not then prepared so as they would wish or hope to be, to which they think that is a Call, for we shall die said the Jews.

But not to ask the reason of this now, but find the reason why our Rich Man thinks when Moses and the Prophets cannot make a man repent, such a Ghost should: We have it in ver. 28, they do but discourse to us, but one from the dead could testify, he could bear witness that it is so as they say, speak his own sight and knowledge, and therefore though they hear not Moses and the Prophets, yet if one went unto them from the dead they will repent. For

First, One from the Dead could testify that when we die we do not cease to be; and he would make appear that our departing hence is not annihilation, and so would dash the hopes of Epicures; such as I was, and I may fear they are; who as they live like Beasts do think to die so too: and who are rational in this alone that they desire to be but Animal. And all the rest of men whether worldly or sensual, that enclose their desires and enjoyments within this life, and above all the Atheist that dares not look beyond it, all these would be convinced by such an evidence. Indeed this would take away the main encouragement of all ungodliness, which upon little reasonings how thin soever, that there's no life after this does quicken and secure itself, Wisd. 2. and therefore every Sect of men that did prescribe Morality did teach an after life, nothing was more believed among the Heathen; Their Tribunal below, where three most severe Judges were appointed, meant the same thing with our last Assize, and their Elizian fields were but Poetical Paradise, their Phlegethon, River of Fire, was set to express our stream of Brimstone flame: Thus Resurrection in fable made them virtuous; the guess at it made Socrates die cheerful, and though his hopes had faint weak Principles they had Heroic almost Martyr resolutions.

And on the other side, of those that among them denied an after life, though we are told that Epicurus was a virtuous man, yet his Sect did give name to Vice; and is still the expression for it, and all that did espouse the Tenants of it, did the Vices too; the Sadducees among the Jews are called Epicures, not only for Opinions sake, because they did make God a body, and totally denied his Providence, as Zakuth says, but Epicures also for their practice sake; For they used to scoff at the Pharisees for afflicting themselves by Fasting and Austerities in this life, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 when there is nothing at all of recompense for them in any life to come. Yea and Josephus says of them they were the worst of all Sects, living like savage Beasts towards one another, and uncourteous to their own Sect as to strangers; and this, says he, was but a natural effect of their Opinion, which wholly denied the Immortality of the Soul, and all Rewards and Punishments after this Life; which Principle one coming from the dead would rectify, and so contribute to Repentance. Especially if

Secondly, That one were Lazarus, if he that at the Supper of the Lamb sits next the Father of the faithful, and the friend of God, in one of the higher Seats of Paradise, in Abraham's Bosom; if he would go and speak his knowledge of the Pleasures of that Bosom which he tastes, and of the glories of that Place, and but compare them with the little gayeties of my Fathers House; show them the difference betwixt their Structures and that Foundation whose builder and maker God is, betwixt the entertainments of their riotous Palats, and the Festivals of the Blessed Trinity, then sure they would disrellish those, and catch at these, which do exceed them by a whole Infinity, and will out-live them an Eternity. And here should I attempt, what he would have had Lazarus perform, to dash out the blessedness of that place, making the first draught of them with notions of delight, not such as the Understanding cannot apprehend, but such as seize the heart with pleasure in this Life, and that give it the strongest agitations here; and sweetening that by those transcendencies which I could fill it up with, and should I raise it then with shadow, evince that reason, though it cannot fathom, can yet by sure Discourse conclude the greatness of those Glories, which I would leave for your expectations to loose themselves into; should I attempt all this I were an insolent undertaker. Yet were it very easy to describe them so as that viewing them with the things below, these would vanish in the comparison. And to do so much was the utmost that our Rich Man could design by sending Lazarus, who if he could have been believed might probably have done the work; for if Faith did but do what Lazarus did, look into Abraham's Bosom, were it but turned into a little Vision, and but as clear an evidence of things not seen as eye-sight hath of its temptations, had the spiritual Object but that advantage the carnal hath of being present, (now it is the work of Faith to give it that advantage) sure it would be impossible for the sensitive Objects, the pleasures or the Profits of this World, which ae so far inferior to the other in desireableness, and only make advantage of their being present, when the other is so far off, 'twould be impossible for them to gain our wills consent at any time; and therefore when those glories shall be present to the Soul, 'twill be impossible for any other Object to steal, or ravish, any way to engage one thought away from them: In Heaven they cannot wish to sin. Nay the flash alone of that glory fascinates the heart; Peter, and James, and John, saw but a glimpse of it, and that transfigur'd too, (only the other way that Moses and Elias were, for the glory suffered an exinanition ) and they but wak'd into the sight of it, so that 'twas but an apparition of Heaven; and yet they never would have left the place which it once lightened, Master it is good for us to be here, let us go down no more, never converse with anything beneath Mount Tabor, but let us build three Booths, such Tents would be like that which He hath spread, and such Booths be some of the many Mansions of his House, who spreadeth out the Heavens for a Tent for himself to dwell in. But the truth is while men do only hear of Joys above, and have but thin neglected notions of them, and on the other side a sense of present profits, pleasures, honors which the World affords, they will not be affected with the future dry hopes of those as with all these in present, will nor have as effectual a taste of the Supper of the Lamb, as of their own delicious daily fare, nor be as much wrought upon by the Promises of being Cloath'd upon with the white Robe of Immortality, and by the mentions of a Crown, although of Glory, as they are pleased with their own Royal Purples, they have much surer Conviction of the delights of present things, than of those far removed futurities; but now if Lazarus would go from Abraham's Bosom, he might Convince them from his own Experience, and then they would Repent. Especially

Thirdly, because Lazarus hath seen me in my Torments, and can give account of them, wherefore I pray thee Father Abraham send him, for if such an one went unto them from the Dead, one that could testify of this place, he would tell them such sad stories of my condition here, how in lieu of all my sumptuous fare I have nothing now but gnashing of teeth, streams indeed of Brimstone, and a lake of fire, but everlasting fever of thirst for my delicious intemperate Palate; my short-lived sins turned to eternal Agonies; sure this would prevail with them to cut off their sins by Repentance, before Death cut off their sin and them together; and so they might prevent the coming hither. And very probably it might have taken; for upon such Conviction 'tis hard not to resolve to change, for who is he that can resolve thus with himself, well I will now content myself with everlasting Condemnation and this sin, for I see they are consequent, now this I cannot leave therefore let the other come; they that were once affected with the apprehensions of the greatness and the certainty of that Damnation cannot resolve thus, and therefore we see fewer men adventure to transgress Man's Law, whose Punishment is near and most assured, than God's Commandments. And when their fears of the Lord's Judgments stare them in the face, they quickly tremble into the terrors and the agonies of Penitence. For who dares sin, and who does not repent upon his Death-bed? he sinks at the remembrance of his former draughts, when he does apprehend his next is like to be in the Infernal Lake, he hath the frost of the Grave on him when he but thinks of his lascivious heats, and does think too that his hot lustful Bed will turn him off straight into Tophet: And then if Lazarus could raise these apprehensions in them, sure they would repent. 'It is plain these were the grounds our Rich Man built this his request upon, I do not lay them as infallible, I make no question but that men are able to defy their knowledge, and charge through their own belief to sin and to destruction; but commonly men do not lay things deep enough to their heart to be thoroughly convinced in earnest, and thus he believed; for had Abraham granted his desire, and sent Lazarus to testify the Glories he had tasted in himself, and the Torments he had seen their Brother in, all he could hope from this was but to make them more believe the one and other; therefore he thought for want of this they would miscarry, and this alone would do it; so that w • may conclude, that in the judgment of one that died without Repentance, having resisted all God's Methods, and knew upon what score he did it, and suffered the deserved pains of so doing; the reason why men do not repent, is because they are not sufficiently convinced of the next Life, and of its two Eternities of Joy and Torment, they do not credit them, but notwithstanding all that God hath done his truths want witnessing, for if one went unto them from the Dead, one that could testify, they would Repent.

I should now make reflections on this and ourselves together, and truly all this would bespatter foully such as go on in a Vice, for it does conclude concerning them that they do not believe God's Truths, but in the midst of their professions of Religion are Infidels; 'tis plain they are so in the aknowledgments of one of their own Tribe, who in the anguish of his Torments does confess this of them from his own experience: But worse things will appear when we have seen that God hath done all this to us with more advantage than this man in Hell did think sufficient, or indeed desire; which was my next undertaking, and I shall manage it in the same order.

First, If one went unto them from the dead, says he, they will Repent. And now to answer that, Christ is come from the dead; an Article this is that made its way through all the Swords, and all the Racks, and torturing Engines that the powerful witty malice of a whole World could find out and execute: And shall it find its death among the softs and glories of its own victorious profession? when it was instant Ruin to ackowledg the belief of it, then Myriads ran into the flames, at once to own and to partake Christ's Resurrection: but now they that profess it are so well here in this Life, that in defiance of their own profession, they will not think there is another Life.

It is not out of Principle they doubt (as it were easy to demonstrate) but out of improbity; They have an aversion to severe Piety, and are uneasy under anything that does engage to it, and must therefore work themselves out; and here they storm; Unkind men to themselves! not only in imprudence, who adventure all upon such hazards; but in disparaging themselves, who being men of reason, and that set it up to such an height as to make it contend with God, and dispute out his Power of raising them again, yet can think such a reasoning Soul was given them for no other end but to procure for, and to animate the Organs of their sensuality. But this is dashed if Christ be risen, because His Resurrection did make Faith that he would Judge the World in Righteousness, on purpose to make them Repent; Acts xvii, 20, 21. So that this his first expectation is most fully answered to us.

But Secondly, if Lazarus would go, one out of Abraham's Bosom then they would Repent. And hath there not a greater than Lazarus been with us? one not out of Abraham 's but God's Bosom? even the Son of his Bosom, one that himself prepared those Joys for them that would believe him and obey him: one that from all Eternity enjoyed them in the Bosom of the Divinity. And who could better reveal them to us than the Author and the God of them? who knew them more than he that did create them and possess them? Yea when this Son of God would be Incarnate and take Flesh, and was to carry it through all the Miseries that Sin deserved and God's Wrath could inflict, he thought these Joys encouragement enough to do it willingly, these Pleasures were worth Agonies which none but a God could suffer, Heb. xii. 2. Now sure he that prepared these Joys did understand them, and he that is the Word of God knew best how to reveal them too. And now how poor a wish was that of our Rich Man? Let Lazarus go tell them: why a Person of the Trinity hath told us; indeed how could God do more than come himself to reveal the truth of them, and himself die for them to reveal the greatness of them? Good God! that nobody could serve thy turn to tell us of the pleasures of thy Bosom but the Son of thy Bosom! that thou shouldst think it worth an Incarnation to reveal them, and we not think it worth a little Reformation to have them; that he should part with Blood and give his Life for those Joys, and we not be content to forsake a Custom, to give away the pleasures of a Lust, the neither pleasures nor profits of an Oath, the sick delights of an Excess, nor the vexations of a Passion in exchange for them! what will Hell say to us when one there said, if Lazarus will go they will repent? If

Lazarus, Thirdly, one that saw me in Hell, and so can testify the Torments of this place, yet God hath out done this too. Our Creed will tell us who descended into Hell, and the Psalmish saying concerning him, God should not leave his Soul in Hell. S. Austin asks, Quis ergo nisi infidelis negaverit fuisse Christum apud inferos? 'Twere easy for me to produce enough besides that say so. Clem. Alex, Origen, Hier. Greg. Naz. Fulgent. Euseb. Emissenus. Caesarius. Anastas. Jobius. Dam • scenus. Oecumenius, &c. But because we are not agreed what he did there, I will take a surer medium. That no Lazarus can decipher the condition of a Sinner after the pleasures of his iniquity have left him to the recompenses of it, so well as Christ who not only did prepare the Plagues, and therefore can describe them, but also himself bore the pains, and found a few hours bearing them to be too heavy for him, is most evident. His Agonies will give you a relation beyond the skill of Lazarus that saw the Torments, or of all that suffer them. Look but into the Garden, and see if you do not behold there a more dismal Landshape than that which Lazarus had beyond the Gulf, and was desired to give account of? there you shall find Christ at the first approaches saying, my Soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death, Matth. xxvi. 38. As if the only apprehension of his sufferings had inflicted them, and he could not live under the thoughts of them: and then he went a little farther and fell upon his face and prays, saying, O my Father if it be possible let this Cup pass from me. And what was there in this Cup which so empoyson'd it as to make it dreadful to the Son of God? Oh 'tis the Sinners potion that he must swill to everlastingness, and when he was in this condition there appeared an Angel from Heaven strengthening him, Luke xxii. 43. yet v. the 44. we find him still in an Agony. Angels cannot comfort one that is sensible of the guilt of sin upon him; and he prays more earnestly in that same place, Abha Father all things are possible with thee, take away this Cup from me. He does not leave an Attribute unattempted, he does adore the Majesty, for he falls upon his Face and Prays: A Person of the Trinity prostrated in the dust to deprecate those pains; he woos him to it, Abba Father, canst thou deny thy well beloved, only begotten Son, thy Son that is thyself, when he comes to thee with such tender compellations of kindness? with words of so much bowels? Abba Father: he takes hold too of his Omnipotence, all things are possible with thee; and he does it with all the earnestness possible to such a Person: for saith St. Luke there, he does it more earnestly, and his sweat was as it were great drops of Blood falling to the ground, and what Agony is there in the Torment, when there is Agony in the deprecation of them? such a Passion could not be prayed against with earnestness enough, but that that very earnestness will prove a Passion: Yea and he goes again the third time and prays the same words, as if, if nothing else, importunity should prevail, and when we shall consider that the Person doing this is the Son of God, to whom nothing could be truly insupportable, yet that he should not be able to bear sin; the weight of that we see makes him cry out My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? as if God could forsake that Person in whom the Godhead was of his Person: Or indeed as if the condition did even separate between him and himself.

And now could any from the dead have given such a frighting account? is there not as much warning in this prospect, as if ourselves had tasted all of it? for is it not more that these Torments should be so terrible to him than that they should be insupportable to us? Blessed Savior! if the first apprehensions did assault thee with such killing fury, can we resolve to stand the storm? if we do not resolve that, then if all this will not scare us, but notwithstanding all these fears we will have our delightful, yea and our tormenting sins, what other method will be able to recl • im us? they that hear not Moses and the Prophets, nor yet Christ, neither will they be persuaded sure though any other come unto them from the dead. And so I fall on my last part in these words.

If they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead. Here the expression should be first taken notice of: For that is changed, it should go regularly thus, as in the proposal, Nay Father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the dead they will repent, so in his answer, if they repent not for Moses and the Prophets, neither will they repent though one rose from the dead. But here 'tis otherwise; as if to repent and be persuaded, yea and to hear Moses and the Prophets were the same things. And if it were our Age had got a fair pretence for bringing all Religion to the Ear; but sure Repentance costs the eyes and heart more than it does that part, and yet the Scripture useth oft the like expression: So in 1 Tim. iv. 16. it is said of Timothy, that by continuing in his Doctrine he should save them that hear him. So also 1 Cor. xv. 2. by which ye are saved if ye keep in memory the things which I have Preach'd unto you. 'It is pity when the Ear and Memory are so privileged, that the Tongue hath not the like advantage; but not everyone that saith Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; yet to know hath as great, for this is Life eternal to know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent, John xvii. 3. Which Life Eternal, and the being saved, or justified, we may not think are so attributed to these, as if to hear, or to remember, or to be persuaded, that is to believe or know, any or all of these alone, shall be rewarded so; or that these necessarily do produce all the rest that is necessary to attain those ends: But only that it is so reasonable that they should produce them, that the Scripture does presume they will; and therefore affirms, He that says he knows God and keeps not his Commandments is a Lyar. 1 John ii. 4. and he that sinneth hath not seen him neither known him, 1 Joh. iii. 6. Nor heard of him it seems by the Text here: For it is so irrational that they who have had notice of the advantages of serving God, and the sad issues of Iniquity, should not reform; that the Scripture does not suppose them guilty of it, but does choose to word it thus, they hear not: A sharp rebuke for them all whose Religion is much hearing without doing; the men whose Soul dwells in their Ear, and that dwells by the Pulpit, that these should be adjudged as men that never heard; and so they shall in every respect indeed, but in the innocence of not having heard, that they do hear so much shall aggravate their Sentence: and yet their Crime is that they hear not Moses and the Prophets, and then neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.

Where I note Secondly, that our Savior does not intend here to commit Prophecy and Miracles, and set them one against the other, to show which were most efficacious in begetting Faith: for Predictions being God's exerting of his Omniscience, as raising from dead is the exerting of his Omnipotence, the one a miracle of Knowledge, as the other is of Power, Prophecy therefore is not to be opposed to Miracle, because it works merely as one; indeed it is a miracle in Expectation, or at distance, and the other present: Nor are they to be made to vie, since both conspire, and both are best in different cases: Besides our Savior is not talking here of begetting Faith, but making men repent, and the whole meaning of the words is briefly this. Thy Brethren being Jews have Moses and the Prophets, those contain all the motives of Repentance, God's Commands, his Promises, and Threats; even Heaven and Hell as themselves confess, all these have been confirmed already by great Miracles, and as such have been long since received by the whole Jewish Church, with so immovable an Opinion of the truth of them, that there needs no new Miracle to give accession of credit to them. And then what can one coming from the dead persuade? new motives he can bring them none; Man's nature is not capable of any other kinds, for he can act but from his affections, or his Reason; all which are baited to the height by those motives they have; the Understanding and the Appetite whether it love, or hate, or hope, or fear, (which set on work whatever we perform) all these I say Heaven and Hell are Object for even to the utmost possibility of motion; If he can bring no new ones, those they have when they are once truly believed then they have all the vigor they can have; belief being the application of those active motives to their work, but all the strength to act being in those motives themselves; all I mean in opposition to the miracle. I know that there are other strengths of Grace, but those do help as well the Miracle as Motive; those have influence on the believing too, by their exciting and assisting: (But this strength which may be common to both is not to be considered when one vies with the other:) What therefore shall he go for who can give no new motives nor strength to those they have? If any should not be confirmed enough in that which Moses and the Prophets say, how shall they be convinced that this Ghost is of more credit than they were? but if he should be so far heeded, as to add new Confirmation to them, yet if improbity hath been able to dead the force of the activity of all that Moses says, although acknowledged, with that veneration which the Jews receive Moses with, whose credit they themselves do say no Miracle can be wrought so great as to be able to add to, or diminish from: why then that same improbity within a while will with more ease work off the force of this new Confirmation, so that it will be vain. Indeed 'tis possible that the surprise of such a Miracle just as any other sudden and amazing accident may make a man consider, what though he did afore believe, yet he did not mind nor lay to heart; yet when the astonishment of that is over, the motives then are left to their own strength, and can work only by their own activity, which we see hath been able to do nothing; so that a Miracle at most can be but a more awful remembrancer.

Now sure to bring this to ourselves, we want none such, nor do they prove much useful: Occasions of astonishment and such fatal remembrancers have come and taken up their habitation in our Land, and make approaches towards, hover over every place. Long Bills of mortality, and sad knells, and dreadful passing bells, these are all messengers from the dead, that come posting to us swift as God's Arrows: And one would think we should take notice of their message, hear them when they pass so near us, when they seem to call out to ourselves, when a thousand do fall besides us, and ten thousand at our right hand; wherefore should not an Army of such Carcasses become as moving as one Ghost? should Lazarus come forth with all his sores, they would not be so terrible as these carbuncles and ulcers of the Plague: And the destroying Angel out of Heaven with his Sword drawn, one would expect, should be as efficacious as a Preacher out of Abraham's Bosom. And yet men do not seem to hearken anymore to these than they do to us, when we either Preach, or which they think much less, when we read Scripture to them, that is, when they hear Moses and the Prophets. Men have the same security as to their sins which they had in the freest times, whatever fears possess them, they are not the fears of God, those that make men depart from evil, none of those that fright into Repentance; we have no Religious cares upon us now more than at other times, but Vice as if that also had a Sanctuary under the Lord's wings, and might retire under his feathers to be safe, dreads no Terrors of the Night, nor Arrows of the Day, but walks as open and as unconcerned as ever. And now should we behold a mad man on his deathbed spending his only one remaining minute in execrations; the paleness of a shroud upon his face, but Blood and crimson Sins upon his tongue; the frost of the Grave over all his parts, but a lascivious heat in his discourse; in fine, one that had nothing left alive of him but his Iniquity; would not an horror seize you at that sight? and the same frost possess you but to hear him? and yet his madness is his excuse, and his disease his Innocence. Should we see one that had no other madness, no other sickness but his sin do thus, would it not be more horrid? and is it not the same to see a Nation as it were upon its Death-bed, visited with all the treasures of God's Plagues, his tokens on it, and every place and man in fearful expectations, and yet no allay of Vice? Wickedness as outrageous as ever? while it is thus, with what face can we beg of God to keep from us this Plague and grievous sickness? when we do only mean to make this use of such indulgence, to cherish another Plague in our own hearts? What can we say to prove it would not be a mercy to us to be suddenly cut off, even in the midst of our iniquity? when by our going on in sin in the midst of Destruction, we make appear if he should let us live, yet we would only live to finish our iniquities: And longer time would have no other use but to fill up a greater measure of sin. What answer do we make to all these Messengers of Death that come so thick about us? what do we that may justify God's care in sending us so many warnings? But 'tis no Wonder if the only neighbourhood of Death have not been able to prevail upon us; have you not seen one whom his own iniquity, or God's immediate Hand, hath by a Sickness, or by some sad Accident cast to the very brink of Death, so as the Grave seemed to begin to take possession of him? and all his hopes sickned and died? so that recovery from that condition may be well, as 'tis in Scripture often called a Rising? have you not seen him in that state, when he supposed that sinning was now done with him, and the next thing was Judgment, when God's Tribunal seemed to be within his view, and Hell to gape for him as wide as the Grave, both opening to receive their parts of him at the same time, and himself ready to divide himself into those two sad Habitations? With what effectual Sermon will he then Preach to himself against his sins? and that you may be sure shall work upon him; he instantly resolves against his Vices, he will not carry them along with him out of this Life, but cast them off as too sad dangerous Company, nor yet if God shall lend him life will he retain them, but it shall be a New Life which he will lead: And yet when God hath raised him up, after a while he returns to his Vomit, his Sins recover with his Body▪ he owes his Innocence but to his Weakness, nor is it more long-lived; his holy purposes decay as his strength grows, and die as soon as settled health does come: And he who never would commit the Sin again when he was Dying, mends into it again: And then what hopes is there in this mistaken Method? when we see men come themselves from the Deadunto themselves, yet cannot make themselves Repent. But if we are not all concerned in this, take a more spreading and more visible experiment. If ever one came from the Dead, this Church and State came thence: And by as great a Miracle of Resurrection. But where is the Repentance such a Miracle may have flattered our Expectations with, as I am confident the resolutions of it did in that sad dying state? are not some men as violent in those wicked practices that merited our former Ruin? and others in those cursed Principles that did inflict it, as they ever were? 'tis said by many that have evil will at Zion (and it is our concern to take a care they speak not truth) that in the Church some that are risen up again have still the silence of the Grave upon them, and are as dumb, as if their mouth were yet full of their monument Earth: And yet as if it were not full of Earth, nor had been satisfied with it in the Sepulcher, they gape still like the Grave that never can be satisfied. And we see others who as if this Resurrection were but a start out of a sleep, or lucid interval of former madness, have their hands ready not only to tear off the hair, the unessential accessory beauties of the Body of the Church and State, but to scratch the Face, pull out the Eyes, and tear open those Wounds which their last fit of Fury did inflict, so to let life out again. And as for the Community of the Nation, 'tis true we are as it were risen from the Grave, but have we not brought up with us the Plague sores? are not the Spots upon us still? the Venom, Ulcer, and infection about us? Yea more contracted Stench and Putrefaction? such as Death and the Grave do add? and coming from the dead we will not yet part with these, but dress ourselves in those infected and defiled grave-clothes, and rise into corruption, and so confute God's Method of a Resurrection. 'Twere happier if we would so far confute the Text, that coming our selves from the dead, we would renounce communion with all Deaths adherencies; begin the incorruptible, which shall be consummated when we shall rise again a Church triumphant: when Death shall be swallowed up in Victory, and neither Sin nor Repentance shall be anymore, but Holiness, and Life, and Glory too shall be Immortal and unchangeable.

The Twelfth SERMON, Preached at CHRIST-CHURCH IN OXFORD, Decemb. 31. 1665.

AND Simeon Blessed them, and said, &c. A Benediction sure of a most strange importance: If to bring forth one that is to be a large Destruction, if to be delivered of a Child that must be for the Fall of many, and the killing of the Mothers self, be blessed; if Swords and Ruins be Comforts, then my Text is full of these: But if this be to Bless, what is it to forespeak and abode ill? Yet however ominous and fatal the words are, they give us the event and the design too of the Blessed Incarnation of the Son of God, the Child of this Text and of this Season: A short view of God's Counsel in it; and the Effects of it. The Effects in these Particulars.

1. This Child is for the Fall of many.

2. For the Rising again of many.

3. For a Sign: With the quality of that sign; he is for a sign that shall be spoken against.

2. The Counsel and Design of this is signified in the word here 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : he is set, and preordain'd to be all this.

First of the first Effect, This Child is for the Fall of many.

And here I shall but only name that way whereby many men set this Child for their own Fall, while they make his holy Time to be but a more solemn opportunity of •••• ing: We know many celebrate this great Festival with Surfeits and Excesses, the usual appendages of Feasting, Oath • and Curses the ingredients of Gaming; Dalliance and Lasciviousness the attendants of Sporting; of all which this seems as it were the Anniversary, a set time for their return. Thus indeed the Israelites did solemnize the Birth of their Idol-Calf, They sat down to Eat and Drink, and rose up to Play. And must we celebrate this Child too like that Calf, because he was born among Brutes? And must his Votaries also be of the Herd? And he live and be worshipped always in a Stable? Because God became Man, must Men therefore become Beasts? Is it fit to honor that Child with Iniquity and Looseness, that did come into the World upon designs of Holiness, to settle a most strict Religion? Nothing can be more incongruous than this; and certainly there is nothing of God's Counsel in it. But to you whose time seems nothing else but a constant Festival, always hath the Leisure, and the Plenties, and the Sports of one, who as to these things keep a Christmas all your life, this Season as it does not seem to challenge those things to itself peculiarly, so I shall not now insist on them; but proceed to those ways by which Simeon did Prophecy, This Child would be for the fall of many in Israel. And they are three,

1. This Child whom I but now declared God had prepared to be the Glory of his People Israel, yet his Birth was so inglorious, and his Life answerable to it shall be so mean and poor, and his Death so full of shame and curse, that these shall prove a scandal to his People, who shall be offended at them; and being prepossess'd with prejudices of a Pompous Royal Messiah, they will not believe in this, but reject a Savior that comes upon those disadvantages, which will therefore prove occasions of falling to them.

That is was so is expressly said, Behold, I lay in Zion a Chief Corner-stone, a stone of stumbling, and a Rock of offense. And that it was so upon this account is clear, the Great ones cry out of him, This fellow we know not whence he is: They that seemed to know whence did upbraid him with it, Is not this the Carpenter? And therefore with a deal of scorn they question, Do any of the Rulers or the Pharisees believe in him? Yea Christ himself knew this would be so great a Scandal, that in the 11. Chapter of S. Matthew, in the close of many Miracles which he wrought on purpose to demonstrate he was the Messiah, he adds verse. 6. and blessed is he that shall not be offended in me. As if he thought his mean condition would prove a greater argument against him than his mighty Works were for him: And it were a vaster Prodigy to see the Savior of the World, the promised Messiah, poor and abject; than to see one cure the Blind, and heal the Lame, and raise the Dead; and they might think they had a stranger Miracle to confirm their unbelief, than any he would work to make them believe in him.

And really, that the Kingdom of the Messiah, which the Prophets did express in terms as high as their own Extasies and Raptures, in transported words, as if it vied with God's Dominion, both for extent and for duration, should prove at last an Empire only over twelve poor Fishermen and Publicans, and one of them a Traitor too: And that He that was born this King, should be born in a Stable; while he lived that he should not have an hole to put his Head in, nor his Corps in when he died, but his Grave too must be Charity; this would startle any that did wait for the Redemption of Israel in those glorious expresses which the Prophets traced it out in. To you indeed that are Votaries to this Child, are confirmed Christians, these seeming disadvantages can give no prejudice: However mean and abject his condition were, that cannot make you to despise him, who from that must needs reflect how dear you were to God, when for your sakes merely he became so mean an abject. He became poor, saith S. Paul, that you through his poverty might be made rich: He was made the Child of Man, that you might be made Sons of God; it was to pay the price of your Redemption that he so emptied himself; thus he valued you; and men do not despise merely because, and by those measures that, they are esteemed, these are not the returns of love; its passionate, obliging, ravishing effects do not use to be thus requited; this his great descent cannot occasion your fall, who know he descended only to assume you up to glory. But 'tis worth inquiry, why, since it was certain that for this this Child should be the fall of Israel, that for this they would reject him; and the meanness of his condition would prove an unremovable obstruction to their belief, as it is to this day; Why yet he would choose to be born in a condition so in the utmost extreme to his own nature, so all contradiction to his Divinity, and so seemingly opposite to the very end of his coming.

The Jew indeed will find no excuse for his Infidelity from this condition: For whatever that were, yet those Miracles that made the Devils to confess him, brought conviction enough to make Jews inexcusable. And it was obvious to observe, that He who fed five thousand with five Loaves and two Fishes, till they left more than was set before them, needed not to be in a condition of want or meanness, if it were not otherwise more needful he should not abound. God, that when he brought this first begotten Son into the World, said, Let all the Angels of God worship him, might have put him into an estate which all Mankind most readily would have done homage to: As easily have dressed his Person with a blaze of Pomp and Splendor, as his Birthday with a Star; if there had not been necessity it should be otherwise. And such there was. For when the fullness both of Time and Iniquity was come, when Vice could grow no further, but did even cry for Reformation, and when the Doctrine that must come to give the Rules of this Reformation, was not only to wage War with Flesh and Blood, with those desires which Constitution gives, but which perpetual universal Custom had confirmed; and which their God's also, as well as Inclinations did contribute to; which their Original sin, and their Religion equally • omented; for Vice was then the Worship of the World, Sins had their Temples, Theft its Deity, and Drunkenness its God, Adultery had many, and to prostitute their bodies was most • acred, and their very Altar-fires did kindle these soul heats, whence Uncleanness' is so often called Idolatry in Scripture: And besides all this, when all the Philosophy, and all the power of the World were engaged in the belief and practice of this, and resolved with all their wit and force to keep it so. When it was thus, the Doctrine that must come to oppose, control, reform all this, must come either armed with Fire and Sword, design to settle itself by Conquest, or come in a way of Meekness and of suffering: The first of these Religion cannot possibly design, because it cannot aim to settle that by violence, which cannot be forced; and where 'tis force, is not Religion. One may as well invade, and hope to get a Conquest over thoughts, and put a Mind in Chains, and force a man to will against his will. All such motives are incompetent to demonstrate Doctrines, for however successful their force proves, yet it cannot prove the Doctrines true; for by that Argument is proves that Religion that it settles true, it proves that which it destroys was true before, while it prevailed and had the Power. Had this Child come so, he had only given such a testimony to the truth of Christianity, as Heathenism had before, and Turcism hath since: He might indeed, have drowned the wicked World again in another Deluge of their own Blood: But sure, never had reformed it thus. Therefore that Religion, that must oppose the Customs and the Powers of the World, upon Principles of Reason and Religion, must do it by Innocence and Patience, by doing good, (and which was necessary, then by consequence as the World stood,) by suffering evil: parting with all, not only the Advantages but the Necessaries of this life, and life itself too, where they stood in competition, and were inconsistent with men's duties, and their expectations: And by this means they must show the World that their Religion did bring in a better hope than that, which all the profits, pleasures, glories of this World can entertain and slatter.

Thus they did, and thus they did prevail. For the first Ages of the Church, were but so many Centuries of Men, that entertained Christianity with the Contempt of the World, and Life itself. They knew that to put themselves into Christ 's Service and Religion, was the same thing as to set themselves aside for spoil and Rapine, dedicate themselves to Poverty and Scorn, to Racks, and Tortutes, and to Butchery itself. Yet they entered into it; did not only renounce the Pomps and Vanities of the World in their Baptism, when they were new born to God; quench their affections to them in those waters; but renounced them even to the death; drowned their affections to them in their own heart blood: ran from the World into flames, and fled faster from the satisfactions and delights of Earth, than those flames mounted to their own Element and Sphere: In fine, they became Christians so, as if they had been Candidates of death, and only made themselves Apprentises of Martyrdom. Now if it were not possible it should be otherwise than thus, as the World stood, then it was necessary that the Captain of Salvation should lead on, go before this noble Army of Martyrs; if it were necessary that they must leave all who followed him; then it was not possible that he should be here in a state of Plenty, Splendor, and Magnificence; but of Poverty, and Meanness; giving an Example to his followers, whose condition could not but be such. To give which Example was, it seems, of more necessity, than by being born in Royal Purple, to prevent the fall of many in Israel, who for his condition despised him.

I am not so vain as to hope to persuade any from this great Example here to be in love with Poverty, and with a low condition, by telling them this Birth hath consecrated meanness, that we must not scorn those things in which our God did choose to be install'd; that Humility is, it seems, the proper dress for Divinity to show itself in. But when we consider, if this Child had been born in a condition of Wealth and Greatness, the whole Nation of the Jews would have received him; whereas that he chose proved an occasion of falling to them: Yet that God should think it much more necessary to give us an Example of Humility and Poverty below expression; then it was necessary that that whole Nation should believe on him. When of all the Virgins of that People, which God had to choose one out to overshadow, and impregnate with the Son of God, he chose one of the meanest, (for he hath regarded the low estate of his Handmaiden, said she,) and one of the poorest too, for she had not a Lamb to offer, but was purified, in formâ pauperis. When he would reveal this Birth also, that was to be the joy of the whole Earth, he did it to none of that Nation, but a few poor Shepherds, who were laboring with midnight-watches over their Flocks; none of all the great Ones, that were then at ease, and lay in softs, was thought worthy to have notice of it: Lastly, when the Angels make that poverty a sign to know the Savior by. This shall be a sign unto you, You shall • ind the Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a Manger: As if the Manger were sufficient testimony to the Christ, and this great meanness were an evidence 'twas the Messiah: From all these together, we may easily discover what the temper is of Christianity. You see here the Institution of your Order: the First born of the Sons of God, born but to such an Estate. And what is so original to the Religion, what was born and bred with it, cannot easily be divided from it. Generatio Christi generatio populi Christiani, natalis Capitis, natalis Corporis. The Body and the Head have the same kind of Birth, and to that which Christ is born to, Christianity itself is born. Neither can it ever otherwise be entertained in the heart of any man, but with poverty of spirit, with neglect of all the scorns and the Calamities, yea, and all the gaudy glories of this World, with that unconcernedness for it, that indifference and simple innocence that is in Children. He that receiveth not the Kingdom of Heaven as a little Child, cannot enter thereinto, saith Christ: True indeed, when the Son of God must become a little Child, that he may open the Kingdom of Heaven to Believers. Would you see what Humility and lowliness becomes a Christian? see the God of Christians on his Royal Birth-day. A Person of the Trinity, that he may take upon him our Religion, takes upon him the form of a Servant; and He that was equal with God, must make himself of no Reputation, if he mean to settle and be the Example of our Profession. And then, when will our high spirits, those that value an hu •• of Reputation more than their own Souls, and set it above God himself, when will these become Christian? Is there anymore uncouth or detestable thing in the whole World, than to see the great Lord of Heaven become a little one, and Man that's less than nothing magnify himself? to see Divinity empty itself, and him that is a Worm, swell and be puffed up? to see the Son of God descend from Heaven, and the Sons of Earth climbing on heaps of Wealth, which they pile up, as the old Giants did Hills upon Hills, as if they would invade that throne which he came down from? and as if they also were set for the fall of many, throwing everybody down that but stands near them, either in their way or prospect? Would you see how little value all those interests that recommend this World, are of to Christians? see the Founder of them choose the opposite extreme: Not only to discover to us that these are no accessions to felicity▪ This Child was the Son of God without them: But to let us see that we must make the same choice too, when ever any of those interests affront a Duty, or solicit a good Conscience; whensoever indeed they are not reconcilable with Innocence, Sincerity, and Ingenuity. It was the want of this disposition and temper that did make the Jews reject our Savior. They could not endure to think of a Religion that would not promise them to fill their basket, and to set them high above all Nations of the Earth, and whose appearance was not great and splendid, but looked thin and maigre, and whose Principles and Promises showed like the Curses of their Law, called for sufferings, and did promise persecution; therefore they rejected him that brought it, and so this Child was for the fall of many in Israel.

2. This Child is for the fall of many by the holiness of his Religion: while the strictness of the Doctrine which he brings, by reason of men's great propensions to wickedness, and their inability to resolve against their Vices, will make them set themselves against it, both by word and Deed: For they will contradict and speak ill of, yea, they will openly renounce, and fall away from it and him.

1. For that reason they will contradict, speak ill of him and of his Doctrines: This is said expressly in the last words of my Text, He is for a sign that shall be spoken against; that is, that very holiness both of his Life and Doctrine, that shall make him signal, it shall make him be derided and blasphemed. As if his being a 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 for an Ensign lifted up, a Standard for all Nations, were not for them to betake themselves to, but to level all their batteries against. Accordingly we find they called him Beelzebub, because he cast out Devils. And all this was foretold? For although he were fairer than the Children of men, Psalm xlv. Yet Isai. liii. It is said, He hath no form nor comeliness, when we shall see him, there is no beauty in him, that we should desire him, he is despised and rejected of men. Surely because his holiness did cloud and darken all his Graces. Devotion in a Countenance does writh and discompose it, prints Deformity upon it; and Eyes lifted up with ardency, look as bad as eyes distorted, set awry. Nay Majesty when it was most severe and pious, never yet could guard Religion from these scorns. David, that great and holy King, says of himself, I wept and chastened myself with fasting, and that was turned to my reproof; as if Repentance were among his Crimes, and he must be Corrected for his Discipline. I put on Sackcloth also, and they jested upon me, they that sat in the gate spake against me, and the Drunkards made songs upon me. Sure these jolly men are not companions to those Angels, in whose presence there is joy over one sinner that repenteth; that his Virtue should be a rejoicing, and a song to them too: Certainly the penitent man's tears do not fill their Chearful bowls, nor his groans make those Airs which they set their drunken Catches to. But that we may be sure it never will be otherwise, S. Peter tells us, That in the last days there shall come scoffers, walking after their own lusts. Now the men of our days have the luck to obey Scripture thus far as to make that Prophecy to come to pass; for those scoffers are come in power and great glory. The Psalmist tells us of a Chair of Scorners, as if these were the only men that speak ex cathedra: And sure scoffs and taunts at Religion are the only things that may be talked with confidence, aloud: They imprint an Authority on what is said, and conversations that are most insipid on all other scores, get account as they come up towards this practice: Hence they gain degrees; commence ingenious as they border on these Atheistical and irreligious Blasphemies; and when it is pure scorn, then it is in the Chair.

But it stays not there; For Secondly, Upon the same account of strictness of Religion, men will fall off from, and openly renounce both Christ and his Religion. This is that our Savior himself found, Light, saith he, is come into the World, and men loved Darkness rather than the Light, because their deeds were evil. And he said of the Pharisees, They repented not that they might believe, as knowing it impossible that they could venture to believe that Doctrine which condemned those courses that they would not repent of.

And if I should affirm, that it is nothing else but men's unwillingness to be obliged to those things, which if there be a God, and a Religion which this Child was set to institute, they must account themselves obliged to; nothing else I say but this, which makes them so unwilling to believe a God or Christ; yea, openly renounce them both, and their Religion; I should have for proof of this, not only the late instance of a Nation in the Indies; which, by institution of the Portugals, was easily persuaded to embrace the Christian Creed, and was Baptized into our Faith; but when they were required to lead their lives according to Christ's Precepts, and renounce their Heathen Licences, they chose rather to renounce their Creed and Savior, and returned instantly to their indulgent Heathenism. But to this experience, give me leave to add this Reason, that it is not the Difficulty of the Mysteries of Faith, and their being above our Comprehension, which makes them not to be received; because there are as great difficulties in things that we are certain of. For in the very Sphere of Reason, within the lines and measures of their own Infallibility, in things of which she does assure herself by Diagrams and sense, yet she is as much amazed, as at those Objects in the highest and remotest Regions of Faith; and Mathematics hath her Paradoxes that stand in as great danger of a contradiction as any of Religions Mysteries; while Reason cannot cape what she demonstrates, but is to seek how those things can be possible which she proves most certain; and they are incomprehensible to her, even when they are most evident: And then sure if we can think there is a God, we must needs think He can do things which we cannot comprehend, when it is plain our Reason cannot comprehend what she herself does find out and create. It is not therefore contradiction to Reason, but to Appetite, that makes things of Religion so incredible; which I thus demonstrate to the Atheist.

Those very difficulties, to avoid which he denies a God; to wit, Those of an Eternal Being that is of himself; those very things he must and does acknowledge in the being of the World, if that either be it self Eternal (as the Atheist of the Peripatetic Tribe will have it) or else if its atoms, out of which it was concreted, were: (as those of Epicurus herd assert.) In a word, if they say the World or its materials were made, they grant a God that made it; If they say they were not made, they assert then an Eternal Being of itself; that is, they allow those difficulties for which they pretend to deny a God.

There being therefore the same difficulties, (Greater I could prove them, from the diverse natures of corporeal and spiritual beings; for we are sure, in bodies that are still in motion, and so subject to succession, those things are impossible; but if there be a Being that is not in motion, and by consequence, not subject to the laws of our time, all these knots untie themselves, those difficulties vanish and have no place: But to say no more than I have shown, there being the same Difficulties in the Atheist's Hypothesis as in the other, 'tis apparent, not the difficulties of belief, but practice, make him fix upon his own against the common notions of the World. So that 'tis not his understanding, but his Appetite frames his hypothesis; and without figure, 'tis his Will that he believes with. And it is most evident, that because men do not love the Precepts of Religion, would not have them be their duty, therefore they would have the Doctrines of it not be truths; and in this they are the Disciples only of their Lusts, and because they cannot resolve to be otherwise, therefore they resolve not to be Christ's Disciples, but reject him for his holy Doctrines sake: And so this Child is for the fall of many.

But it were strange if upon this account, Christ should be for the fall of any of us; who have learned a trick to reconcile his severe Doctines and our Sins together. Where Vice most abounds, though it be willful, and men persevere in it, they are so far from finding any reason to fall off from him, or from his Gospel for this, that they therefore take the faster hold of it, rely upon Him with the bolder, stronger confidence. As if good old Simeon were mistaken, when he thought, because men would not leave those sins which Christ so threatened, therefore they would leave him: Because they could not bear those his hard sayings, to pull our the lust and the Eye too; cast away the treasures of unrighteousness, and the right hand that receives them also; therefore they would cast off him: For, for this reason they betake themselves to him more eagerly, devolve and cast themselves upon him with assurance. 'It is possible indeed that the new Christian'd Indians might believe themselves obliged to lead their lives according to the Vow that they had made in Baptism, knew not how to live a contradiction, to be Christian Pagans; therefore they thought it absolutely necessary to renounce the one; and to reject Christ and his strict Religion was easier they thought. Our Savior also might suppose, that when he brought Light into the World, men would not receive that Light, because their deeds were evil: But our modern wickednesses that are of the true Eagle kind, are educated, bred up to endure, and to defy the Light: Our deeds of Night have learned to face both Sun and Men, yea and face the Sun of Righteousness, and the light of those flames that are to receive them. Our Savior told the Pharisees indeed, that they repented not, that they might believe; for thinking it impossible they could assent to what he did affirm, except they would consent to what he did Command, He therefore thought they were not abel to believe, because they would not purpose to amend. But there is nothing difficult in this to us, who at the same time, are so perfectly resolved that every threat of Gospel is so Divine truth, as that we assure ourselves, that we could be content to die Martyrs to the truth of them, rather than enounce one little of them; yet even then are Martyrs to those Lusts and Passions which those Threats belong to: Who, at once, believe this Book of God, that says, except ye repent ye shall all perish; and believe also, that notwithstanding we do not Repent, yet by Believing we shall scape; not perish, but be saved. And is not this directly to believe ourselves into Damnation? the third and the geat fall, which this Child is set for.

3. This Child is for the fall of many, to wit, of all those who on these, or any other grounds do not believe in, or do not obey him; who shall not obey him: who shall therefore fall into Eternal Ruin.

this our Savior does affirm, S. John iii. 19. This is the Condemnation that Light came into the World, &c. This does aggravate the guilt, and Sentence. We were fallen before indeed in Adam: And I dare not undertake to be so learned to say whether; to determine with some men that was but a fall form Paradise into the Grave, and we were forfeit to Death only: But I may adventure to affirm, that in the second Adam, Sinners finally impenitent shall fall much farther than we did in the first Adam: Now their pit shall have no bottom, but this light that came to lighten them, shall be to them consuming fire and everlasting burnings. And all reason in the world. For, upon that fall of ours in Adam, help was offered us: an easy way not only to repair those ruins, but to better infinitely that estate which we were fallen from; and a way that cost God dear to purchase; cost him, not this Incarnation only, but the Death and Passion of his Son, and divers other blessed methods of Salvation: Now if we refuse the mercy of all this, and scorn these miracles of condescending goodness, and defy those methods, that he makes use of to raise us form our Fall, it is apparent we provoke and choose deeper ruin; this refusal hath in it such desperate malignity, as to poison this great mercy of the Incarnation, and all the rest. 'It is but a small thing to say, that they who Stumble at this Rock of their Salvation, spurning at it by their willful disobedience, that these make an infinite mass of loving-kindness to be lost upon them, so as that Salvation cannot save them; for alas Salvation ruins them the deeper, and this Child is for their fall. The condition they were forfeit to before by reason of their breach of the first Covenant was advantage, comfortable in comparison of that which Christ does put them in: This is the Condemnation, that he came into the World; And it had been infinitely better for them, that this Child too had never been born. The unreformed have the least reason in the world to solemnize this Festival, they do but cecebrate the birth of thie own Ruin: bow down, and do reverence to their Fall: Had it not been for this, they had not gone to so severe an Hell. So that they do but entertain the great occasion of their greater Condemnation. Such it proves to them, and that it might be so, He was fore-ordained for it: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ▪ This Child is set for the fall of many, which does lead me to God's Counsel in all this: My next Part.

This Child is set for the fall of many, even by God's direct appointment; for saith Grotius, Accedo its qui putant non nudum eventum sed & consilium Dei significari. I am of their opinion, who understand not the success alone, but the design of this Childs coming, and God's Counsel in it is intended here. And without disputing of God's antecedent Will, and consequent, this is safely said: God designed this Child should be such an one, that they who had no inclinations for Virtue, would not entertain the love of it, but counted it a mean pedantic thing, and all its Rules and Laws unreasonable servitude, these loose men would certainly reject Him and his Doctrines, which were so severe and strict, That those who did pretend friendship for Virtue, and a service for Religion, but withal must be allowed to maintain correspondence with the World, seek the Honors and advantages of Earth, and will trespass on Religion where it interferes with these, break with Virtue when their interest cannot consist with it, that these false hypocritical pretenders, should be offended with the mean condition of this Child, and of his followers in this World, and with the poor spirited Principles of his Religion. In sum, they that upon these, or any other grounds finally disbelieve, or disobey him, God designed this Child to be a means of bringing sorer Punishments, even to everlasting ruin upon such.

A black Decree this, one would think. He that had so much kindness for Mankind, to give away the only Son both of his Nature, his Affections, and his Bosom to them; could he then design that Gift to be the Ruin of the greatest part of men? This Child, Simeon said but just before my Text, is God's Salvation, which he had prepared before all people; and does he now say God hath set him for their fall? The Angels preached this was a Birth that brought glad tidings of great joy that should be to all people; and is there so much comfort in destruction, that most men should rejoice at that which is ordained to be the great occasion of it to them?

But we have no reason to complain: 'It is not unkind to deny Mercy to them that refuse the offers of it; that will not accept Salvation, when their God himself does come to bring it to them: tenders it upon condition of accepting and amending: Which if they despise, and prefer Hell before Repentance, choose sin rather than God's blessed retributions, 'tis but reason to deny them what they will not have, and let them take their chosen Ruin; to will their Judgment which they will themselves; set and ordain Him to be that to them, which themselves do ordain, and make him to be to themselves. So S. Peter says expressly: He is a Stone of stumbling and a Rock of offense to them who being disobedient stumble at the Word, whereunto they were appointed, Disobedience, where it is obdurate, alters so the temper of our God, that it makes Him who swears he would not have the Sinner die, yet set out his Son to make such sinners fall into eternal Death. Makes Judgment triumph over Mercy, even in the Great contrivances and executions of that Mercy; and while God was plotting an Incarnation for the everlasting Safety of Mankind, prevails with him to decree Ruins by the means of that Salvation; to Decree even in the midst of all those strivings of his Mercies, that that Issue of his kindness should be for the fall of such as they. Oh! let us consider, whether they are likely to escape that which is set and ordained for them by God? Whether they can hope for a Redemption, when the only great Redeemer is appointed for the Instrument of their Destruction; and God is so bent on their ruin, that to purchase it he gives this Child his Son. Yea, when he did look down upon this Son in Agonies, and on the Cross, in the midst of that sad prospect, yet the Ruin of such sinners, which he there beheld in his Sons Blood, was a delight to him, that also was a Sacrifice, and a sacrifice of a sweet smell to him. For S. Paul says, We are unto God a sweet savor of Christ in them that perish, because we are the savor of Death unto death to them: As if their Brimstone did ascend like Incense, shed a perfume up to God, and their evrlasting burnings were his Altar-fires, kindled his holocausts; and he may well be pleased with it, for he ordained it.

'It is true indeed, This Child riding as in Triumph, in the midst of his Hosannas, when he saw one City whose fall he was set for on this very account; He was so far from being pleased with it, that he wept over it in pity. But alas, that only more declares the most deplored and desperate condition of such sinners. Blessed Savior! hadst thou no Blood to shed for them? nothing but Tears? or didst thou weep to think they very Bloodshed does but make their guilt more crimson, who refuse the mercy of that Bloodshed all the time that is offered? Sad is their state that can find no pity in the Tears of God, and remediless their Condition for whom all that the Son of God could do, was to weep over them, all that he did do for them, was to be for their fall; too sad a part indeed for festival Solemnity, very improper for a Benedictus and Magnificat. To celebrate the greatest act of kindness the Almighty could design only by the miseries it did occasion: to magnify the vast descent of God from Heaven down to Earth, only by reason of the fall of Man into the lowest Hell of which that was the cause. My Text hath better things in view: The greatness of that fall does but add height to that Resurrection which He also is the cause of: Behold this Child is set for the rising again of many: My remaining Part.

Rising again, does not particularly and only refer to the foregoing fall here in the Text, which this Child did occasion, as I shown you; but to the state wherein all Mankind, both in its nature and its Customs, lay ingul • 'd, the state of Ignorance and sin: A state from which recovery is properly 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a resurrection and a reviving in this Life, and so called in Scripture often; as Ephes. v. 15. Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and arise from the dead. And Rom. vi. 13. Yield not your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive form the dead. Now to raise us from the death of sin into the life of Righteousness, by the amendment of our own lives, to recover us into a state of Virtue, is the thing this Child is said here to be set for. This was that which God thought worth an Incarnation: Neither was there any greater thing in the prospect of his everlasting Counsel, when he did decree his Son into the World, than that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , He is set for this. The Word was made Flesh; to teach, practice, and persuade to Virtue: To make men Reform their lives, was valued at the price of a Person of the Trinity. Piety and his Exinanition, yea his Blood and Life, were set at the same rates; All of him given for our recovery.

The time would fail me if I should attempt only to name the various methods he makes use of to effect this. How this Child that was the brightness of his Fathers Glory, came to lighten us; shining in his Doctrine and Example: How he sent more light, The fiery Tongues, Illuminations of the Holy Ghost to guide us in the ways of Piety: How he suffered Agonies and Death for sin to appale and fright us from it. How he Rose again to confirm Judgment to us, to demonstrate the rewards of Immortality to them that will repent and leave their sins, and everlasting Torments to those that refuse this Grace; Grace purchased with the Blood of God, to enable them to repent and leave. Besides all these, the Arts and Mesnage of his Providence, in preventing and following us by Mercies and by Judgments, importuning us, and timing all his blessed Methods of Salvation to our most advantage. Arts, God knows, too many, if they serve us only to resist, and turn to wantonness and aggravation; if we make no other use of Grace but this, to sin against, and overcome all Grace, and make it bolster Vice; by teaching it to be an encouragement to go on in it, from some hopes we entertain by reason of this Child, instead of doing that which he was set, Decreed to make us do.

And really I would be glad to see this everlasting Counsel of the Lord had had some good effects, some, though never so little, happy execution of this great Decree, and that that which God ordained from all Eternity, upon such glorious and magnificent terms, were come to pass in any kind, Now, certainly there are no evident signs of any great recovery this Child hath wrought among us, in the World that's now called Christian. After those Omnipotent inforcives to a virtuous life, which he did work out, if we take a prospect of both Worlds, it would be hard to know which were the Heathen; and there would appear scarce any other notice of a Christ among us, but that we blaspheme Him or deride Him. Sure I am, there are no Footsteps of him in the lives of the community of Men: And I am certain that you cannot show me any Heathen Age outgoing ours, either in looseness and foul Effeminacies, or in sordidness and base injustice, or in frauds and falness, or malignity, hypocrisy, or treachery, or to name no more, even in the lowest, most ignoble, disingenious sorts of Vice. In fine, men are now as Earthly, Sensual, yea and Devilish, as when Sins and Devils were their God's.

Yea, I must needs say, that those times of dark and Heathen Ignorance, were in many men times of shining Virtue; and the little spark of Light within them, brake out through all obstructions into a glory of Goodness, to the wonder and confusion of most Christians: 'It is true, we are pretty well revenged on them for setting us Examples so reproachful to us; calling their Heroic Actions, splendida peccata, only beauteous sins, and well-faced wickednesses; and we have a reason for it; because they never heard of Christ, whose Name and Merit 'tis most certain, is the only thing that can give value and acceptance to men's best performances: While on the other side, we Christians comfort and secure ourselves in our transgressions from this Child, and form his Name. But if this Child were set to raise us up from sin, and to establish stronger arguments for a good life than the Heathen ever heard of, more especial Divine engagements to Virtue; then if their Virtues were, because they never heard of these engagements to them, sins; what censure will be past upon their Actions that know all those engagements and despise them? a sharper certainly unless to defy knowledge, and provoke against all Divine Obligations, all that God could lay, shall prove more tolerable than to labor to obey without them, without knowing why. 'It is true, they had not heard it may be of the Name, than which there is no other Name under Heaven given unto men whereby they may be saved. Yet they endeavored in some measure to do that, which He that owns that Name, and wrought the Covenant of those Salvations, does require. We know that Name, and have it called upon us, and know too, that he that names that Name, (that calls himself a Christian, owns the being a retainer to the Holy Jesus) must depart from iniquity, otherwise it is no Name of Salvation to him, yet we neve mind the doing that; and then which hath the better Plea? the Heathen 's sure were better, though he were not virtuous.

And if so, give me leave to tell you, how not only this Child, but this Resurrection too is for our fall.

In the first Chapter to the Romans we shall find, those Heathens, when they did neglect to follow the direction of that Light within them, by which they were able to discover in some measure the invisible things of God; when they did no longer care to retain God in their knowledge; then they quickly left off to be Men: And when they ceased to hearken to their Reason, they soon fell into a reprobate sense. What was it else to change God into stocks and stones? and Worship into most abominable wickedness? to make the Vilest creatures Deities? and the foulest Actions Religion? to turn a disease into a God, and a sin into Devotion? a stupidity, which nothing else but God's desertion and reasons too, could have betrayed them to, and made them guilty of.

And then, if by how much greater Light and means we have resisted, we shall be proportionably more vile in the consequents of doing so; keep at equal rates of distance from those Heathens, that the aggravations of our guilt stand at from theirs; Whether, alas! are we like to fall?

'It is an amazing reflection, one would tremble to consider, how the Christian World does seem to hasten into that condition which S. Paul does there decipher: You would think that Chapter were our Character: But that we have reason to expect we shall fall lower, into much more vile affections than those Heathens did, as having fallen down from a greater height than they.

Consider whether men do not declare they like not to retain God in their thoughts, when they endeavor to dispute and to deride him too out of the World! 'It is true, they have not set up any sins or monsters in their Temples yet, as they did: But if they can empty them of God and Christ, and their Religion, and make room, we may imagine easily whose Votaries they will be, that live as if they thought themselves unhappy that they had not lived in those good Pagan days, when they might have sinned with devotion, been most wickedly Religious, and most God-like in unchastities and other Villanies; I dare say none of our fine Gentlemen, or our great Wits, would have been Atheists or irreligious then.

Think whether those are not already in that reprobate sense S. Paul does speak of, who have case off all discriminating notions of good or evil, who say in their hearts, and affirm openly, there are none such in truth and nature: It would appear they were if we should try by those effects, verse 29, 30, 31. or by that essential signature, verse. 32. they not only commit such things, but have pleasure in them that do them; which because they cannot have from those Commissions when they do not commit them, therefore their debauched minds must be satisfied there is no evil in those doings, and must reap the pleasure only of such satisfactions: That is, have the satisfactions and pleasures only of a Reprobate sense. In fine, (because I dare not prosecute the Character) Men sink so fast, as if they were resolved to fall as far below Humanity, as this Child did below his Divinity.

O do not you thus break Decrees, frustrate and overthrow the everlasting Counsel of God's Will for good to you. He set, ordained this Child for your rising again: Do not throw you selves down into Ruin in despite of his Predestinations. He hath carried up your nature into Heaven, placed Flesh in an union with Divinity, set it there at the Right hand of God in Glory: Do not you debase and drag it down again to Earth and Hell by Worldliness and Carnal sensuality. Make appear this Child hath raised you up, already made a Resurrection of your Souls and your affections; they converse, and trade in Heaven: And that you do not degenerate from that nature of yours that is there. Then this Child who is Himself the Resurrection and the Life, will raise up your Bodies too, and make them like his glorious Body, by the working of his mighty Power, by which he is able to subdue all things to himself. To whom with the Father, and the Holy Ghost be all Blessing, Power and Praise, Dominion and Glory for evermore.

The Thirteenth SERMON, Preached at WHITE-HALL. Novemb. 17. 1667.

THese Words are easily resolved into two parts: The first, a Duty; and the second, to encourage the performance, an assurance of an happy issue in the doing it.

The First, the Duty in these words, Resist the Devil; the happy issue in those other, he will flee from you.

For the more practical and useful handling of these parts, I shall endeavor to do these three things.

1. View the Enemy we are to resist, the Devil; see his Strengths, and what are his chief Engines, his main Instruments of Battery, whereby he shakes, and does endeavor to demolish the whole frame of Virtue in men's lives, shatters and throws down all Religious, holy Resolutions, and subjects men to himself and Sin.

2. See what we are to do in opposition to all this; and how and by what means we must resist.

3. Prove to them that do resist, the happy issue which the Text here promiseth.

First of the first.

Though no man can be tempted (so as to be foiled by the temptation) but he that is drawn away by his own Lust, an enticed, James i. 14. and all the blandishments of this World, all the wiles and artifices of the Prince and God of it, the Devil, are not able to betray one into sin, till his own Lust conceive that sin, and bring it forth; Man must be taken first in his own Nets, and fall into that pit himself hath digged, before he can become the Devil 's prey: Yet Satan hath so great an hand in this affair, that the Tempter is his Name and Office, Matth. iv. 3. And the War which is now before us is so purely his▪ that we are said to fight, not against flesh and blood (those nests and fortresses of our own Lusts) but against Principalities and Powers, against the Rulers of the darkness of this World, against spiritual wickednesses in high places; that is, against the Enemy here in the Text, the Devil.

Now to bring about his ends upon us he hath several means. The first that I shall name is

Infidelity. With this he began in Paradise, and succeeded by it: for he had no sooner told the Woman that she should non surely die, and so made her doubt of, not believe, and consequently nor fear, that which God had threatened, but she took of the forbidden fruit, and she did eat, and gave it to her Husband too, and he did eat Now if a Serpent siding with her inclination could so quickly stagger and quite overthrow her Faith; if she, because she sees and likes a pleasing Object, can, in mere defiance of her own assured Conviction, when the Revelation looked her in the face, and God himself was scarce gone out of sight, straight give credit to a Snake, that comes and confidently gives the lie to God▪ her Maker, offers her no proof at all of what he says, but only flatters her desires with promises and expectations of the knows not what Ye shall not die, but ye shall be as God's; if in spite of Knowledge she turn Infidel so soon and easily: 'It is no great wonder if that Serpent do, at this distance from Revelation, prevail on men, whose conversation being most with Sense (their satisfactions also consequently gratifying of their Sense) they do not willingly assent to anything but that which brings immediate evidence and attestation of the Senses, which the Objects of our Faith do not (especially if it give check to and restrain those satisfactions, as those do) on such men, I say, that do not care, no • use, in things that are against their mind, to apply the Understanding close and strongly to reflect on those considerations which should move assent, and work belief. Considerations which I dare affirm, if with sincerity adverted to (if there be no improbity within to trash their efficacy, no sensual inclination cherished that must hinder their admittance, as not being able to endure to lodge in the same breast with those persuasions) would make disbelief appear not only most imprudent, but a thing next to impossible. But in those that give themselves no leisure, have no will thus to advert, 'tis not strange if, through Satan's arts, in things of this remote kind they have only languid opinions, which sink quickly into doubts, and by degrees into flat Infidelity.

S. Paul does fetch the rise of unbelief of Charistianity from hence, 2 Cor. iv. 3, 4. If our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost; In whom the God of this World hath blinded their minds: That is, if the Christian Doctrine do not appear to be the truth of God to any, 'tis to obstinate persons only, whom the Devil hath besotted so with the advantages and pleasures of this World, that their affections to these will not let the other be admitted. For,

The Carnal prejudice can cast a mist before the mind, or that a bright an glittering Temptation of this World may dazzle it so as that it cannot see that which is most illustriously visible, we have this demonstration.

Those Works which Christ and his Apostles wrought, which made the whole World that was Heathen then, so many Millions of such distant Nations as could never meet together to conspire an universal change in their Religions, made them yet agree to lay aside their dear gods and their dearer vices, and do that to embrace a Crucified Deity, a God put to a vile ignominious death, as one worse than the worst of men; and a Religion that was as much hated, counted as accursed as that God of it, He and Doctrine crucified alike; and a Religion too that had as great severities in its Commands as in its Persecutions, that did itself enjoin as hard and cruel things to flesh and blood as they that hated it inflicted, the duties and the punishments equally seem executed on its followers; and a Religion whose performances had no retributions here but fatal ones, no otherwise rewarded but with fire and faggot, and whose after-promises were most incredible: Those works that could produce all this, had certainly Omnipotent conviction in them; sure we are there must be prodigy of Miracle either in the causes, or in the effect. And yet the Scribes and Pharisees are not wrought on by them. Their carnal Prejudices would not be removed, not by the Finger of God: The mean and despicable, and, as to all their worldly expectations and affections, the unsatisfying condition of our Savior, had so clouded all his Works, and their own pride so blinded them, that they could see no argument in Miracle.

Now 'tis the Devil, that God of the World, that hath the power of its Glories, and the managery of its temptations, who, by raising these affections, dazzles so and blinds the minds of men, that they should not believe. S. Paul affirms it: And 'tis plain that unbelief is no one's Interest but Satan's. For it is not Man's. Not the virtuous man's certainly: He's concerned as much as Happiness amounts to, to believe there is a God, whose cares and Providence watch over him, whose Ears and Arms are open to him, whose Bowels yearn for him, whose Blood did purchase him, whose everlasting Blessednesses do await him. 'It is his Interest to trust that Virtue, which the World so scorns or pities, was yet worthy God should be Incarnated to teach it, die to purify us into it, and will raise us up again to crown it. Neither is this Unbelief Man's real Interest, abstracting from these prejudices of Religion. For if it were Man's real Interest, then it were every man's wisest course to pursue that Interest. But if every man did so, and should persuade himself into Infidelity, and that Religion and a Deity were but dreams or artifices, and so arrive so far as to have no fear of God, nor sense of Honesty or Virtue, the whole World must needs return into the first confusions of its Chaos: Villany and Rapine would have right. When those Mounds are thrown down, there is nothing that can hinder but that every man may lawfully break in upon and invade everything. There is no fence to guard thy Coffers nor thy Bed, no not thy very Breast: Rather indeed there can be nothing thine. This is, 'tis true, Leviathan's state of Nature; and 'tis so indeed with the Leviathans of Sea and Land, the wild Beasts of the Deep and of the Desert. But to prevent the necessary and essential mischiefs of this state amongst us Men, he will have Nature to have taught us to make Pacts and Oaths: But if there's no such things as Virtue or Religion, then there is no Obligation to keep Pacts or Oaths. And why should he observe them that can safely break them? Here it is indeed that Doctrine ends; to this their Infidelity does tend. And therefore 'tis no Interest of States or Princes. This the Atheist will confess; God's and Religions, he says, were invented for the mere necessities of Governors, who could not be secure without those higher Obligations, and these after-fears. And are they not kind Subjects then who, by promoting Atheism, labor to break down that fence which themselves account necessary? Or are they not good rational Discoursers too, who labor to throw out a thing as false and vain, because 'tis necessary? So necessary sure, that they who weaken these bonds of Religion, quite dissolve those of Allegiance, all whose Sinews are made of those Sacred Ties, which if you untwist, the other Cords are burst as easily as threads of Cobweb. Nay these Doctrines lay Principles that justify Rebellion and King-killing. Nor if there's no such thing as Virtue or Religion, then those are no Crimes. And it is no wonder Treason hath been loved, when Blasphemy hath been so. They that hear men droll on God Almighty, raille their Maker, and buffoon with Him, will quickly learn to speak with little reverence of their Superiors. There's no Kingdom but the Devil's that can have support from Infidelity; 'tis the Interest of that indeed. His work goes more securely on, when there are no Religious apprehensions to check it: Allow'd Vice cannot be at ease if it but think those things are true. It is the infinite concern of wickedness, that the Laws of Virtue and Religion should be only Spiders webbs, Snares for innocent and lesser Flies, while venomous Spiders, can pass safely through them, and the Wasps can burst them; are Entanglements only for the Weak, the Phlegmatick, and Hypochondriack: and that there should be no God that can bring them to an afterreckoning. They that flatter and betray, that hug and then trip up, or that plot villainies and ruins under fair and godly vizards; must needs be unwilling to believe that there is one who tries the reins, and se • rches hearts, and that will render everyone according to his works. The Drunkard, who nor must nor can keep the remembrance of his Cups, cannot endure to apprehend he must be called to an account of them. The man whose Lust prevents the Grave, that putrefies alive, and drops by piecemeal into rotten dust ere he return to Earth, must needs be loath that there should be a Resurrection, to collect the scattered, the soul atoms of his Sin and his Disease, and show them at that dread Tribunal, before God, his holy Angels, and Mankind. Such as these are the only men that are concerned against Religion. Here we see whose Interest such promote who promote Infidelity. And truly 'tis so much the Devil's Interest, that by those very measures that he weakens Faith, he strengthens every sort of Wickedness: By the steps and degrees of Infidelity men ascend towards the heights of sin: And when they have surmounted all Religious apprehensions, then they are upon the Precipice of Vice. When the Flood-gates are removed, the Torrent must break in impetuously. For what is there that can hinder? nothing certainly, if present Interest be not able: But 'tis plain that Thieves, and Murderers, and Rebels, in fine, everyone whom we call Sinners, do pursue that which they account their present Interest: That therefore if there were no other, would not be sufficient, since the Devil does make use of that to work with under Infidelity. This indeed he batters, makes his spreading ruins with: Therefore S. Paul calls him 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the spirit that works in filiis diffidentiae, saith the Vulgar: In the Unbelievers, so it bears: in filiis insuasibilitatis, in the men that will not be persuaded to believe. In these 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 they are his 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Possess'd and agitated by him: 'tis he spirits what they do: their actions are his incitations and motions: In sum, as to wickedness, they are mere Demoniacks. This therefore is his chief and the first Engine.

The second Instrument by which he does demolish whatsoever hopes of Virtue we are built up to is Want of Employment: And in order to this, he hath so far prevailed on the Opinions of the World, that they believe some states of men not only have no Obligation to be busied, but to have no Calling is essential to their condition; which is made more eminent upon this account that they have no business. Wealth, how great soever, if with an employment or Profession, makes a man only a more gentile Mechanic: But Riches and nothing to do make a Person of quality. As if God had made that state of men, far the most generous part of the whole kind, and best appointed for the noblest uses of the World, to serve no other ends but what the Grashoppers and Locusts do, to sing and dance among the Plants and Branches, and devour the Fruits; and Providence had furnished them with all advantages of Plenty for no better purposes. Such persons think not only to reverse God's Curse, and In the sweat of others faces eat their bread, but reverse Nature too; for Job saith, Man is born to labor as the sparks fly upwards; in his making hath a Principle to which Activity is as essential as it is to fire to mount; from which nothing else but force can hinder it: As if man did do violence to his making when he did do nothing; and it were his hardest work and pressure, not to be employed; it were like making flame go downwards. I am sure it is one of the busiest ways of doing Satan 's work. Our Savior in a Parable in the 12. Chap. of S. Matth. from the 43. ver. saith, When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he goeth through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none: Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there. Where, under the similitude of a man cast out of his habitation, who, while he wanders through none but desert places seeking for a dwelling, he is sure to meet with none; but if he find an House that's empty, swept and garnished, he hath found out not a receptacle only, but an invitation, an house dressed on purpose to call in and to detain Inhabitants: He signifies, that when a Temptation of the Devil is repel'd, and himself, upon some working occasion, by a resolute act of holy courage thrown out of the heart, as he finds no rest in this condition, every place is desert to him but the heart of man, is indeed Hell to him, for he calls it Torment to be cast out thence; yea he accounts himself bound up in his eternal Chains of darkness; when he is restrained from working and engaging man to sin; so while he goeth to and fro, seeking an opportunity to put in somewhere, if he find that heart from which he was cast out, or any other heart, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , (so the word is) idling, not employ'd or busied (so it signifies) such an heart is empty, swept, and garnished for him, 'tis a dwelling that's dressed properly to tempt the Devil, fitted to receive him and his forces too, prepared for him to Garrison, and make a strong hold of, whence he cannot be removed; for he takes unto him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there. No doubt they are the Patron-Guardian spirits of the seven deadly Sins, their Tu • elary Devils. Some of those good qualities that are the attendants of Idleness you may find decipher'd in the Scripture. S. Paul says, when people learn to be idle, they grow tattlers, busy bodies, speaking things which they ought not. 'It is strange that Idleness should make men and women busy bodies, yet it does most certainly in other folks affairs. Faction, than which nothing in the world can be more restless, is nurs'd by it. Where are States so censured, so new model'd, as at certain of our Refectories, places that are made merely for men to spend their time in which they know not what to do with? At those Tables our Superiors are dissected; Calumny and Treason are the common, are indeed the more peculiar entertainments of the places. In fine, where persons have no other employment for their time but talking, and either have not so much Virtue as to find delight in talking good things, or not so much skill as to speak innocent recreation, there they talk of others, censure, and backbite, and scoff. This is indeed the only picquant conversation; Gall is sauce to all their Entertainments: And that you may know these things proceed from that old Serpent, they do nothing else but hiss and bite. 'It is the poison of Asps that is under their lips which gives relish to their Discourses; 'tis the sting that makes them grateful, venom that they are condited with.

More of the brood of this want of Employment you may find at Sodom; namely, Pride and Luxury: For saith Ezekiel, This was the Iniquity of Sodom; Pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of Idleness was in her and in her daughters. And indeed the Idle person could not possibly know how to pass his hours, if he had not Delicacies to sweeten some, Wine to lay some asleep, and the solicitous deckings of Pride to take up others: But the studious gorgings of the inside, and the elaborate trimmings of the outside, help him well away with them.

Good God! that for so many hours my morning eyes should be lift up to nothing but a Looking-glass! that that thin shadow of myself should be my Idol, be my God indeed, to which I pay all the devotions I perform! And when with so much care and time I have arrayed and marshall'd myself, that I should spend as much more too in the complacencies of viewing this! with eager eyes and appetite surveying every part, as if I had set out, exposed them to myself alone, and only dressed a prospect for my own sight! and since Nature, to my grief, hath given me no eyes behind; that I should fetch reliefs from Art, and get vicarious sight, and set my back parts too before my face, that so I may enjoy the whole Scene of myself! And why all this? for nothing but to serve vain Ostentation, or negotiate for Lust, to dress a Temptation, and start Concupiscence. And that the half of each Day should be spent thus! the best part of a reasonable Creatures and a Christians life, be laid out upon purposes so far from Christian or reasonable!