__________________________________________________________________ Title: Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions. Vol. II. Creator(s): South, Robert, (1634-1716) Print Basis: Oxford: Clarendon Press (1823) CCEL Subjects: All;Sermons; __________________________________________________________________ SERMONS PREACHED UPON SEVERAL OCCASIONS, BY ROBERT SOUTH, D.D. PREBENDARY OF WESTMINSTER, AND CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD, __________________________________________________________________ A NEW EDITION, IN SEVEN VOLUMES. __________________________________________________________________ VOL. II. __________________________________________________________________ OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. MDCCCXXIII. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ THE CHIEF HEADS OF THE SERMONS. __________________________________________________________________ VOL. II. __________________________________________________________________ SERMONS XVII. XVIII. OF THE HEINOUS GUILT OF TAKING PLEASURE IN OTHER MEN'S SINS. Romans i. 32. Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. Pp. 1. 28. The sin of taking pleasure in other men's sins is not only distinct from, but also much greater than all those others mentioned in the foregoing catalogue, 1. To arrive at which pitch of sinning there is a considerable difficulty, 6. because every man has naturally a distinguishing sense of good and evil, and an inward satisfaction or dissatisfaction after the doing of either, and cannot quickly or easily extinguish this principle, but by another inferior principle gratified with objects contrary to the former, 3. And consequently no man is quickly or easily brought to take pleasure in his own, much less in other men's sins, 5. Of which sin, I. The causes are, 1. The commission of the same sins in one's own person, 7. 2. The commission of them against the full conviction of conscience, 9. 3. The continuance in them, 12. 4. The inseparable poor-spiritedness of guilt, which is less uneasy in company, 14. 5. A peculiar unaccountable malignity of nature, 17. II. The reasons why the guilt of that sin is so great, are, 1. That there is naturally no motive to tempt men to it, 21 . 2. That the nature of this sin is boundless and unlimited, 24. 3. That this sin includes in it the guilt of many preceding ones, 26. III. The persons guilty of that sin are generally such as draw others to it, 29; particularly, 1. who teach doctrines, 29. which represent sinful actions either as not sinful, 30. or as less sinful than they really are, 32. Censure of some modern casuists, 34. 2. Who allure men to sin through formal persuasion or inflaming objects, 36. 3. Who affect the company of vicious persons, 38. 4. Who encourage others in their sins by commendation, 39. or preferment, 41. Lastly, the effects of this sin are, 1. Upon particular persons; that it quite depraves the natural frame of the heart, 42: it indisposes a man to repent of it, 44; it grows the more as a man lives longer, 45; it will damn more surely, because many are damned who never arrived to this pitch, 47. 2. Upon communities of men; that it propagates the practice of any sin till it becomes national, 48; especially where great sinners make their dependents their proselytes, 49. and the follies of the young carry with them the approbation of the old, 50. This the reason of the late increase of vice, 51 . SERMON XIX. NATURAL RELIGION WITHOUT REVELATION, SUFFICIENT TO RENDER A SINNER INEXCUSABLE. Romans i. 20. So that they are without excuse. P. 53. The apostle in this epistle addresses himself chiefly to the Jews; but in this first chapter he deals with the Greeks and Gentiles, 53. whom he charges with an inexcusable sinfulness, 53. And the charge contains in this, and in the precedent and subsequent verses, I. The sin; [that knowing God, they did not glorify him as God, ver. 21.] idolatry; not that kind of one which worships that for God which is not God; but the other, which worships the true God by the mediation of corporeal resemblances, 54. II. The persons guilty of this sin; [such as professed themselves wise, ver. 22.] not the gnostics, but the old heathen philosophers, 57. III. The cause of that sin, [holding the truth in unrighteousness, ver. 18.] 59. that the truths which they were accountable for, viz. 1. The being of a God, 60. 2. That he is the maker and governor of the world, 60. 3. That he is to be worshipped, 61. 4. That he is to be worshipped by pious practices, 61. 5. That every deviation from duty is to be repented of, 61. 6. That every guilty person is obnoxious to punishment, 62. Were by them held in unrighteousness, 1 . By not acting up to what they knew, 62. 2. By not improving those known principles into proper consequences, 64. 3. By concealing what they knew, 66. IV. The judgment passed upon them, [that they were without excuse, ver. 20,] 70. that they were unfit not only for a pardon, but even for a plea, 71. Because, 1. The freedom of the will, which they generally asserted, excluded them from the plea of unwillingness, 72. 2. The knowledge of their understanding excluded them from the plea of ignorance, 73. From all these we may consider, 1. The great mercy of God in the revelation of the gospel, 75. 2. The deplorable condition of obstinate sinners under it, 77. SERMON XX. OF SACRAMENTAL PREPARATION. Matthew xxii. 12. And he saith unto him, Friend, how earnest thou in hither, not having a wedding garment? P. 80. The design of this parable, under the circumstantial passages of a wedding's royal solemnity, is to set forth the free offer of the gospel to the Jews first, and upon their refusal, to the Gentiles, 80. But it may be more peculiarly applied to the holy eucharist; which not only by analogy, but with propriety of speech, and from the very ceremony of breaking bread, may very well be called a wedding supper, 82; to the worthy participation whereof there is indispensably required a suitable and sufficient preparation, 84. In which these conditions are required; I. That the preparation be habitual, 90. II. That it be also actual, 93; of which the principal ingredients are, 1. Self-examination, 96. 2. Repentance, 98. 3. Prayer, 100. 4. Fasting, 101. 5. Alms-giving, 103. 6. Charitable temper of mind, 104. 7. Reading and meditation, 106. The reverend author seemed to have designed another discourse upon this text, because in this sermon he only despatches the first part, viz. the necessity of preparation; but proceeds not to the second, viz. that God is a severe animadverter upon such as partake without such a preparation, 84. SERMON XXI. OF THE FATAL IMPOSTURE AND FORCE OF WORDS. Isaiah v. 20. Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil. P. 108. [Vol. iv. p. 203. 235. 265.] Here a woe is denounced against those, not only in particular, who judicially pronounce the guilty innocent, and the innocent guilty; but in general, who by abusing men's minds with false notions, make evil pass for good, and good for evil, 108. And in the examination of this vile practice it will be necessary, I. To examine the nature of good and evil, what they are, and upon what they are founded, viz. upon the conformity or unconformity to right reason, 111. Not upon the opinion, 113, or laws of men, 114; because then, 1. The same action under the same circumstances might be both morally good and morally evil, 117. 2. The laws could neither be morally good nor evil, 117. The same action might be in respect of the divine law commanding it, morally good; and of an human, forbidding it, morally evil, 118. But that the nature of good and evil is founded upon a jus naturale, antecedent to all jus positivum, may be exemplified in those two moral duties, towards God and towards one's neighbour, 118. II. To shew the way how good and evil operate upon men's minds, viz. by their respective names or appellations, 121. III. To shew the mischief arising from the misapplication of names, 122. For since, 1. the generality of men are absolutely governed by words and names, 122. and 2. chiefly in matters of good and evil, 128. which are commonly taken upon trust, by reason of the frequent affinity between vice and virtue, 129. and of most men's inability to judge exactly of things, 130. Thence may be inferred the comprehensive mischief of this misapplication, by which man is either, 1. deceived, 133. or 2. misrepresented, 135. Lastly, to assign several instances, wherein those mischievous effects do actually shew themselves. [Vol. iv. p. 203.] I. In religion and church, 205. such as calling, 1. The religion of the church of England, popery, 206. which calumny is confuted from the carriage of the church of Rome towards the church of England, 208. and from the church of England's denying the chief articles of the church of Rome, 209. 2. Schismatics, true protestants, 215. against whom it is proved, that they and the papists are not such irreconcileable enemies as they pretend to be, 215. 3. The last subversion of the church, reformation, 220. which mistaken word turned the monarchy into an anarchy, 220. 4. The execution of the laws, persecution, 222. by which sophistry the great disturbers of our church pass for innocent, and the laws are made the only malefactors, 223. 5. Base compliance and half-conformity, moderation, 224. both in church governors, 226. and civil magistrates, 227. A terrible instance of pulpit impostors seducing the minds of men, 232. II. In the civil government, 236, 241. (with an apology for a clergyman's treating upon this subject, 236.) such as calling, 1. Monarchy, arbitrary power, 243. 2. The prince's friends, evil counsellors, 247. 3. The enemies both of prince and people, public spirits, 251. Malicious and ambitious designs, liberty and property, and the rights of the subject, 255. Together with a discovery of the several fallacies couched under those words, 245. 250. 252. 257. The necessity of reflecting frequently upon the great long rebellion, 260. III. In private interests of particular persons, 268. such as calling, 1. Revenge, a sense of honour, 269. 2. Bodily abstinence, with a demure, affected countenance, piety and mortification, 273. 3. Unalterable malice, constancy, 274. 4. A temper of mind resolved not to cringe and fawn, pride, and morosity, and ill nature, 276. and, on the contrary, flattery and easy simplicity, and good-fellowship, good nature, 280. 5. Pragmatical meddling with other men's matters, fitness for business, 281. Add to these, the calling covetousness, good husbandry, 284. prodigality, liberality, 285. justice, cruelty; and cowardice, mercy, 285. A general survey and recollection of all that has been said on this immense subject, 285, SERMON XXII. PREVENTION OF SIN AN UNVALUABLE MERCY. 1 Samuel xxv. 32, 33. And David said to Abigail, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me: and blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou, which hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself with my own hand. P. 139. This is David's retractation of his revenge resolved upon an insolent wealthy rustic, who had most unthankfully rejected his request with railing at his person and messengers, 139. From which we may, I. Observe the greatness of sin-preventing mercy, 141. Which appears, 1. From the deplorable condition of the sinner, before that mercy prevents him, 142. 2. From the cause of that mercy, which is God's free grace, 147. 3. From the danger of sin unprevented, which will then be certainly committed; and in such deliberate commission, there is a greater probability that it will not, than that it will be pardoned, 148. because every commission hardens the soul in that sin, and disposes the soul to proceed further, and it is not in the sinner's power to repent, 149. 4. From the ad vantages of the prevention of sin above those of the pardon of it, 151. which are the clearness of a man's condition, 151. and the satisfaction of his mind, 154. II. Make several useful applications, 155. As, l. To learn how vastly greater the pleasure is upon the forbearance, than in the commission of sin, 155. 2. To find out the disposition of one's heart by this sure criterion, with what ecstasy he receives a spiritual blessing, 156. 3. To be content, and thankfully to acquiesce in any condition, and under the severest passages of Providence, 158. with relation to health, 158. reputation, 159. and wealth, 160. SERMONS XXIII. XXIV. OF THE NATURE AND MEASURES OF CONSCIENCE. 1 John iii. 21. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, we have confidence toward God. Pp. 163. 194. It is of great moment and difficulty to be rationally satisfied about the estate of one's soul, 163: in which weighty concern we ought not to rely upon such uncertain rules, 164. as these: 1. The general esteem of the world, 164. 2. The judgment of any casuist, 166. 3. The absolution of any priest, 168. 4. The external profession even of a true religion, 170. But a man's own heart and conscience, above all other things, is able to give him confidence towards God, 173. In order to which we must know, I. How the heart or conscience ought to be informed, 174. viz. by right reason and scripture, 175. and endeavouring to employ the utmost of our ability to get the clearest knowledge of our duty; and thus to come to that confidence, which, though it amounts not to an infallible demonstration, yet is a rational, well-grounded hope, 176. II. By what means we may get our heart thus informed, 179. viz. 1. By a careful attention to the dictates of reason and natural morality, 179. 2. By a tender regard to every pious motion of God's Spirit, 181. 3. By a study of the revealed word of God, 184. 4. By keeping a frequent and impartial account with our conscience, 187. With this caution, lest either, on the one side, every doubting may overthrow our confidence, 190. or, on the other, a bare silence of conscience raise it too much, 191. III. Whence the testimony of conscience is so authentic, 195. viz. 1. Because it is commissioned to this office by God himself, 197. And there is examined the absurdity and impertinence, 199. the impudence and impiety of false pretences of conscience, 206; such particularly as those of schismatical dissenters, 201, 209. who oppose the solemn usages of our church; the necessity of which is founded upon sound reason, 204. 2. Because it is quicksighted, 211. tender and sensible, 213. exactly and severely impartial, 215. IV. Some particular instances, wherein this confidence suggested by conscience exerts itself, 217. viz. 1. In our addresses to God by prayer, 217. 2. At the time of some notable sharp trial, 219. as poverty, 220. calumny and disgrace, 221. 3. Above all others at the time of death, 222. SERMON XXV. THE DOCTRINE OF MERIT STATED, AND THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF MAN'S MERITING OF GOD. Job xxii. 2. Can a man be profitable to God? P. 231. It is an impossible thing for man to merit of God, 231. And although, I. Men are naturally prone to persuade themselves they can merit, 234. because, 1. They naturally place too high a value upon themselves and performances, 235. 2. They measure their apprehensions of God by what they observe of worldly princes, 236. yet, II. Such a persuasion is false and absurd, 238. because the conditions required in merit are wanting; viz. 1. That the action be not due, 239. But man lies under an indispensable obligation of duty to God by the law of nature, as God's creature, 240. and servant, 241. and by God's positive law, 244. 2. That the action may add to the state of the person of whom it is to merit, 244. But God is a perfect being, wanting no supply, 245. and man is an inconsiderable creature, beholden for every thing to every part of the creation, 245. 3. That the action and reward may be of an equal value, 248. which cannot be in the best of our religious performances, 248. notwithstanding the popish distinction between merit of condignity and congruity, 249. 4. That the action be done by the man's sole power, with out the help of him of whom he is to merit, 252. But God worketh in us not only to do, but also to will, 252. And, III. This persuasion hath been the foundation of great corruptions in religion, 254. viz. Pelagianism, 256. and popery, 257. But though we are not able to merit, yet, IV. This ought not to discourage our obedience, 258. Since, 1. A beggar may ask an alms, which he cannot claim as his due, 259. 2. God's immutable veracity and promise will oblige him to reward our sincere obedience, 259. SERMON XXVI. OF THE LIGHT WITHIN US. Luke xi. 35. Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness. P. 261. The light within us, or right reason, is our conscience, whose duties are to inform and to oblige; which is capable of being turned into darkness; a very considerable evil, and a great danger of falling into it, 261. The cause of this light's being darkened, is, I. In general; every thing which either defiles the conscience, 268. or weakens it by putting a bias upon its judging faculty, 271. II. In particular; every kind and degree of sin, considered, 1. In the act, 273. And thus every commission of any great sin darkens the conscience, 273. 2. In the habit, 272. And thus the repeated practice of sin puts out its light, 275. 3. In the principle, 272. And thus every vicious affection perverts the judging, and darkens the discerning power of conscience, 277. Such as, 1. Sensuality, 279. by the false pleasures of lust, 281. of intemperance, 283. 2. Covetousness, 285. 3. Ambition or pride, 286. And many others besides, 289. Thence a man may learn what he is to avoid, that he may have a clear, impartial, and right-judging conscience, 290. SERMON XXVII. OF LOVING OUR ENEMIES. Matthew v. 44. But I say unto you. Love your enemies. P. 293. The duty here enjoined by Christ is not opposed to the Mosaic law, but to the doctrine of the scribes and pharisees, 293. For the matter of all the commandments, except the fourth, is of natural, moral right, 293. and there is no addition of any new precepts, but only of some particular instances of duty, 295. with an answer to some objections concerning the commands of loving God with all our heart, 298. and laying down our life for our brother, 299. Then it is proved, that Christ opposed not Moses's law as faulty or imperfect, but only the comments of the scribes and pharisees upon or rather against it, 300. Among the duties here enjoined by Christ, is to love our enemies, 302. by which, I. Negatively, 302. is not meant, 1. A fair deportment and amicable language, 302. 2. Fair promises, 305. 3. A few kind offices, 307. But, II. Positively, 309. is meant, 1. A discharging the mind of all the leaven of malice, 309. 2. The doing all real offices of kindness, that opportunity shall lay in the way, 310. 3. The praying for them, 312. All which are not inconsistent with a due care of defending and securing ourselves against them, 314. III. This love of enemies may be enforced by many arguments drawn from, 1. Their condition; as they are joined with us in the community of the same nature, 315. or (as it may happen) of the same religion, 316. or as they may be capable, if not of being made friends, yet of being shamed and rendered in excusable, 317. 2. The excellency of the duty itself, 318. 3. The great example of our Saviour, 319. and that of a king, upon the commemoration of whose nativity and return this sermon was preached, 320. Lastly, because this duty is so difficult, we ought to beg God's assistance against the opposition which flesh and blood will make to it, 321. SERMON XXVIII. FALSE FOUNDATIONS REMOVED, AND TRUE ONES LAID. Matth. vii. 26, 27. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it. P. 324. Our Saviour teaches us not to build upon a deceitful bottom, in the great business of our eternal happiness, 325. but only upon practice and obedience: because, I. That is the best and surest foundation, 326. being, 1. The only thing that can mend our corrupt nature, 326. 2. The highest perfection of our nature, 328. 3. The main end of religion, 329. as the designs of it in this world are the honour of God, 329. and the advantage of society, 330. II. All other foundations are false, 331. such as 1. A naked, unoperative faith, 332. 2. The goodness of the heart and honesty of intention, 3. Party and singularity, 335. because the piety of no party can sanctify its proselytes, 336. and such an adhesion to a party carries with it much of spiritual pride in men, who naturally have a desire of preeminence, and a spirit of opposition to such as are not of their own way, 337. III. Such false foundations, upon trial, will be sure to fall, 338. which is shewed from, 1. The Devil's force and opposition, 338. which is sudden and unexpected, 339. furious and impetuous, 340. restless and importunate, 341. 2. The impotence and non-resistance of the soul, 342. which is frequently unprepared, weak, and inconstant, 342. IV. The fall will be very great, 344. being scandalous and diffusive, 344. hardly and very rarely recoverable, 345. Therefore no man must venture to build his salvation upon false and sinking grounds, 346. but only upon such terms as God will deal with him, viz. a perfect obedience, 348. SERMON XXIX. A TRUE STATE AND ACCOUNT OF THE PLEA OF A TENDER CONSCIENCE. 1 Cor. viii. 12. But when ye sin so against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ. P. 350. The apostle treateth of a weak conscience in new converts from Judaism [in the 14th of Rom.] and from heathenism [here] 350. in these words; towards the understanding of which we must know, I. What a weak conscience is, 353. not that which is improperly called tender, 353. but the weakness here spoken of is opposed to faith, 354. and implies, 1. The ignorance of some action's lawfulness, 356. not wilful, but such a one as is excusable, and the object of pity, 367. arising from the natural weakness of the under standing, or from the want of opportunity or means of knowledge, 357. 2. The suspicion of some action's unlawfulness, 358. 3. A religious abstinence from the use of that thing, of the unlawfulness whereof it is ignorant or suspicious, 359. II. How such a weak conscience is wounded, 360. viz. 1. By being grieved and robbed of its peace, 360. 2. By being emboldened to act against its present persuasion, 361. either through example, 361. or through a command, with the conjunction of some reward or penalty, 362. descending from a private or a public person, 363. III. We may thence infer, 1. That none having been brought up and long continued in the communion of a true church, having withal the use of his reason, can justly plead weakness of conscience, 365. 2. That such a weakness can upon no sufficient ground be continued in, 369. 3. That the plea of it ought not to be admitted in prejudice of the laws, which are framed for the good, not of any particular persons, but of the community, 371. For the ill consequences would be, that there could be no limits as signed to this plea, 371. nor any evidence of its sincerity, 372. and this would absolutely bind the magistrate's hands, 373. Besides, such pleas are usually accompanied with partiality? 374. and hypocrisy, such as those of the dissenters, 375. which upon the foregoing reasons ought not to be al lowed, 376. SERMON XXX. CHRISTIANITY MYSTERIOUS, AND THE WISDOM OF GOD IN MAKING IT SO. 1 Cor. ii. 7. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery. P. 378. The apostle's design here is to set forth the transcendent worth of the gospel by two qualifications eminently be longing to it, 378. viz. I. That it is the wisdom of God, 379. a wisdom respecting speculation, and here principally relating to practice, 379. a wisdom as irresistibly powerful as it is infallible, 380. II. That this wisdom is in a mystery, 381. 1. In the nature of the things treated of in the Christian religion, 381. which are of difficult apprehension for their greatness, 382. spirituality, 384. strangeness, 385. as may be exemplified in two principal articles of it, regeneration, 387. and the resurrection, 387. 2. In the ends of it, 388. It is as much the design of religion to oblige men to believe the credenda as to practise the agenda; and there is as clear a reason for the belief of the one, as for the practice of the other, 389. But their mysteriousness, 1. Makes a greater impression of awe, 391. 2. Humbles the pride of men's reason, 394. 3. Engages us in a more diligent search, 396. 4. Will, when fully revealed, make part of our happiness hereafter, 399. Thence we may learn in such important points of religion, 1. To submit to the judgment of the whole church in general, and of our spiritual guides in particular, 401. 2. Not to conclude every thing impossible, which to our reason is unintelligible, 404. 3. Nor by a vain presumption to pretend to clear up all mysteries in religion, 405. SERMON XXXI. THE LINEAL DESCENT OF JESUS OF NAZARETH FROM DAVID BY HIS BLESSED MOTHER THE VIRGIN MARY. Rev. xxii. 16. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star. P. 410. In this book of mysteries, nothing is more mysterious than what is contained in these words, the union of the divinity and humanity in our Saviour's person, 410. He is, I. In his divinity, the root of David, having a being before him, 411. a being which had no beginning, equal to his Father: though his divinity is denied by the Arians: and his preexistence to his humanity by the Socinians, 411. II. In his humanity, the offspring of David, 417. being in St. Matthew's genealogy, naturally the son of David; and in that of St. Luke, legally the king of the Jews, 418. III. The bright and morning star, 428. with relation, 1. To the nature of its substance; he was pure, without the least imperfection, 428. 2. To the manner of its appearance; he appeared small in his humanity, though he was the great almighty God. 430. 3. To the quality of its operation, 431. open and visible by his light, chasing away the heathenish false worship, the imperfect one of the Jews, and all pretended Messiahs, 431. secret and invisible by his influence, illuminating our judgment, bending our will, and at last changing the whole man, 435. SERMON XXXII. JESUS OF NAZARETH PROVED THE TRUE AND ONLY PROMISED MESSIAH. John i. 11. He came to his own, and his own received him not. P. 437. No scripture has so directly and immoveably stood in the way of the several opposers of the divinity of our Saviour, as this chapter, 438. whereof this text is a part: in which we have, I. Christ's coming into the world, 439. who, 1. Was the second Person in the glorious Trinity, the ever blessed and eternal Son of God, 440. 2. Came from the bosom of his Father, and the incomprehensible glories of the Godhead, 444. 3. Came to the Jews, who were his own by right of consanguinity, 445. 4. When they were in their lowest estate, 448. national, 448. and ecclesiastical, 449. In which we may consider the invincible strength and the immoveable veracity of God's promise, 450. II. Christ rejected by his own, 452. For the Jews' 1. Exceptions were, 1. That he came not as a temporal prince, 453. 2. That he set himself against Moses's law, 454. 2. The unreasonableness of which exceptions appears from this: 1. That the Messiah's blessings were not to be temporal, 455. and he himself, according to all the prophecies of scripture, was to be of a low, despised estate, 457. 2. That Christ came not to destroy, but to fulfil and abrogate Moses's law, 459. 3. The Jews had great reasons to induce them to receive him. For, 1. All the marks of the Messiah did most eminently appear in him, 460. 2. His whole behaviour among them was a continued act of mercy and charity, 462. Lastly, the Jews are not the only persons concerned in this guilt, but also all vitious Christians, 463. SERMON XXXIII. THE MESSIAH'S SUFFERINGS FOR THE SINS OF THE PEOPLE. Isaiah liii. 8. For the transgression of my people was he stricken. P. 468. There are several opinions concerning the person here spoken of by the prophet, 469. But setting aside those of later interpreters, who differ even among themselves, 470. we may safely with all the ancients affirm him to be the Messiah, 474. and this Messiah to be no other than Jesus of Nazareth, 474. In these words we may consider, I. That he was stricken; his suffering, 474. in its latitude and extent, 475. in its intenseness and sharpness, 479. and in its author, which was God, 481. II. That he was stricken for transgression; the quality of his suffering was penal and expiatory; he was punished for sins past, not to prevent sins for the future, 484. He bore our sins, his soul was made an offering for sin, 486. He was qualified to pay an equivalent compensation to the divine justice, by the infinite dignity and the perfect innocence of his person, 487. III. That he was stricken for God's people; the cause of his suffering, 488. Man's redemption proceeds upon a twofold covenant; one of suretyship, the other of grace, 489. and, without any violation of the divine justice, Christ suffered for men; upon the account of his voluntary consent; and because of his relation to them, as he was their king and head, and their surety, 491. Thence we should learn also to suffer for Christ, 1. By self-denial and mortification, 492. 2. By cheerfully undergoing troubles and afflictions in this world, 493. SERMON XXXIV. UPON THE RESURRECTION. Acts ii. 24. Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death; because it was not possible that he should be holden of it. P. 496. The necessary belief of a future state has been confirmed by revelation and exemplification, 497. chiefly in that of the resurrection of Christ, 499. whom I. God hath raised up; such an action proclaiming an omnipotent cause, 500. And, II. The manner of his being raised was by having loosed the pains of death, 501. with an explication of the word pains, 501. And, III. The ground of his resurrection was the impossibility of his being holden of it, 505. which impossibility was founded upon, 1. The hypostatical union of Christ's human nature to his divine, 505. 2. The immutability of God, in respect of his eternal decree, 507. and of his promise, 509. 3. The justice of God, 511. 4. The necessity of Christ's being believed in as a Saviour, 512. 5. The nature of Christ's priesthood, 51 4. The belief of Christ's resurrection affords us, 1. The strongest dehortation from sin, 516. 2. The most sovereign consolation against death, 516. SERMON XXXV. THE CHRISTIAN PENTECOST, OR THE SOLEMN EFFUSION OF THE HOLY GHOST, IN THE SEVERAL MIRACULOUS GIFTS CONFERRED BY HIM UPON THE APOSTLES AND FIRST CHRISTIANS. 1 Cor. xii. 4. Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. P. 518. The Holy Ghost, the design of whose mission was to confirm Christianity, did it by an effusion of miraculous gifts upon the first messengers of it, 518. In which we consider, I. What those gifts were, 520. either, 1. Ordinary, conveyed to us by the mediation of our own endeavours, 520. or, 2. Extraordinary, immediately from God alone, 521. such as the gift of tongues, of healing the sick and raising the dead, of prophecy, 522. the continuation of which miraculous gifts in the church was but for a time, 523. II. The diversity of those gifts, 528. which consisted, 1. In variety, 528. 2. Not in contrariety, 536. III. The consequences of their emanation from one and the same Spirit, 537. which are, 1. That this Spirit is God, and hath a personal subsistence, 537. 2. That every one of us may learn humility under, and content with his own abilities, 539. 3. That it affords a touchstone for the trial of spirits, 541. as in the gift of prophecy, 541. of healing, 542. of discerning of spirits, 542. of divers tongues, 542. of interpreting, 543. By which trial we may discover some men's false pretences to gifts of the Spirit, 543. 4. That knowledge and learning are not opposite to grace, 545. SERMON XXXVI. THE PECULIAR CARE AND CONCERN OF PROVIDENCE FOR THE PROTECTION AND DEFENCE OF KINGS. Psalm cxliv. 10. It is he that giveth salvation unto kings. P. 547. The relation between prince and subject involves in it obedience and protection; and the same relation is between princes and God, who gives salvation unto kings, 547. whose providence over them, I. Is peculiar and extraordinary, 548. besides the usual operation of causes, 549. contrary to the design of expert persons, 550. beyond the power of the cause employed, 551. II. Making use of extraordinary means, 552. as, 1. By endowing them with a more than ordinary sagacity, 552. 2. By giving them a singular courage and resolution, 554. 3. By a strange disposition of events for their preservation, 556. 4. By inclining the hearts of their people towards them, 558. 5. By rescuing them from unseen and unknown mischiefs, 560. 6. By imprinting an awe of their authority on the minds of their subjects, 562. 7. By disposing their hearts to virtue and piety, 564. III. The reason of this particular providence is, 1. Because they are the greatest instruments to support government; to the ends of which monarchy is best adapted; and the greatness of which most depends upon their personal qualifications, 567. 2. Because they have the most powerful influence upon the concerns of religion, 571 . IV. Hence, 1. Princes may learn their duty towards God, 573. And, 2. Subjects may learn theirs towards their prince, 573. __________________________________________________________________ THE FIRST SERMON PREACHED UPON ROMANS I. 32. Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death , not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. FROM the beginning of the 18th verse to the end of the 31st, (the verse immediately going before the text,) we have a catalogue of the blackest sins that human nature, in its highest depravation, is capable of committing; and this so perfect, that there seems to be no sin imaginable but what may be reduced to, and comprised under, some of the sins here specified. In a word, we have an abridgment of the lives and practices of the whole heathen world; that is, of all the baseness and villainy that both the corruption of nature, and the instigation of the devil, could for so many ages, by all the arts and opportunities, all the motives and incentives of sinning, bring the sons of men to. And yet, as full and comprehensive as this catalogue of sin seems to be, it is but of sin under a limitation; an universality of sin under a certain kind; that is, of all sins of direct and personal commission. And you will say, is not this a sufficient comprehension of all? For is not a man's person the compass of his actions? Or, can he operate further than he does exist? Why yes, in some sense he may; he may not only commit such and such sins himself, but also take pleasure in others that do commit them; which expression implies these two things: first, That thus to take pleasure in other men's sins, is a distinct sin from all the former: and secondly, That it is much greater than the former. Forasmuch as these terms, not only do the same, but also take pleasure, &c. import aggravation, as well as distinction; and are properly an advance a minore ad majus, a progress to a further degree. And this indeed is the farthest that human pravity can reach, the highest point of villainy that the debauched powers of man's mind can ascend unto. For surely that sin that exceeds idolatry, monstrous unnatural lusts, covetousness, maliciousness, envy, murder, deceit, backbiting, hatred of God, spitefulness, pride, disobedience to parents, covenant-breaking, want of natural affection, implacableness, unmercifulness, and the like: I say, that sin, that is a pitch beyond all these, must needs be such an one as must nonplus the devil himself to proceed further: it is the very extremity, the fulness, and the concluding period of sin, the last line and finishing stroke of the devil's image drawn upon the soul of man. Now the sense of the words may be fully and naturally cast into this one proposition, which shall be the subject of the following discourse; viz. That the guilt arising from a man's delighting or taking pleasure in other men's sins, or (which is all one) in other men for their sins, is greater than he can possibly contract by a commission of the same sins in his own person. For the handling of which, I cannot but think it superfluous to offer at any explication of what it is, to take pleasure in other men's sins; it being impossible for any man to be so far unacquainted with the motions and operations of his own mind, as not to know how it is affected and disposed, when any thing pleases or delights him. And therefore I shall state the prosecution of the proposition upon these following things. I. I shall shew what it is that brings a man to such a disposition of mind, as to take pleasure in other men's sins. II. I shall shew the reasons why a man's being disposed to do so, comes to be attended with such an extraordinary guilt: and, III. and lastly, I shall declare what kind of persons are to be reckoned under this character. Of each of which in their order. And first, for the first of these, What it is that brings a man, &c. In order to which, I shall premise these four considerations. 1. That every man naturally has a distinguishing sense of turpe et honestum; of what is honest, and what is dishonest; of what is fit, and what is not fit to be done. There are those practical principles and rules of action, treasured up in that part of man's mind, called by the schools sunte'resis, that, like the candle of the Lord, set up by God himself in the heart of every man, discovers to him both what he is to do, and what to avoid: they are a light. lighting every man that cometh into the world. And in respect of which principally it is, that God is said not to have left himself without witness in the world; there being something fixed in the nature of man, that will be sure to testify and declare for him. 2. The second thing to be considered is, That there is consequently upon this distinguishing principle an inward satisfaction or dissatisfaction arising in the heart of every man, after he has done a good or an evil action; an action agreeable to, or deviating from, this great rule. And this, no doubt, proceeds not only from the real unsuitableness that every thing sinful or dishonest bears to the nature of man, but also from a secret, inward, foreboding fear, that some evil or other will follow the doing of that which a man's own conscience disallows him in. For no man naturally is or can be cheerful immediately upon the doing of a wicked action: there being something within him that presently gives sentence against him for it: which, no question, is the voice of God himself, speaking in the hearts of men, whether they understand it or no; and by secret intimations giving the sinner a foretaste of that direful cup, which he is like to drink more deeply of hereafter. 3. The third thing to be considered is, That this distinguishing sense of good and evil, and this satisfaction or dissatisfaction of mind consequent upon a man's acting suitably or unsuitably to it, is a principle neither presently nor easily to be worn out or extinguished. For besides that it is founded in nature, (which kind of things are always most durable and lasting,) the great important end that God designs it for, (which is no less than the government of the noblest part of the world, mankind,) sufficiently shews the necessity of its being rooted deep in the heart, and put beyond the danger of being torn up by any ordinary violence done to it. 4. The fourth and last thing to be considered is, That that which weakens, and directly tends to extinguish this principle, (so far as it is capable of being extinguished,) is an inferior, sensitive principle, which receives its gratifications from objects clean contrary to the former; and which affect a man in the state of this present life, much more warmly and vividly than those which affect only his nobler part, his mind. So that there being a contrariety between those things that conscience inclines to, and those that entertain the senses; and since the more quick and affecting pleasure still arises from these latter, it follows that the gratifications of these are more powerful to command the principles of action than the other, and consequently are, for the most part, too hard for, and victorious over, the dictates of right reason. Now from these four considerations, thus premised, we naturally infer these two things: First, That no man is quickly or easily brought to take a full pleasure and delight in his own sins. For though sin offers itself in never so pleasing and alluring a dress at first, yet the remorse, and inward regrets of the soul, upon the commission of it, infinitely overbalance those faint and transient gratifications it affords the senses. So that, upon the whole matter, the sinner, even at his highest pitch of enjoyment, is not pleased with it so much, but he is afflicted more. And, as long as these inward rejolts and recoilings of the mind continue, (which they will certainly do for a considerable part of a man's life,) the sinner will find his accounts of pleasure very poor and short, being so mixed and indeed overdone with the contrary impressions of trouble upon his mind, that it is but a bitter-sweet at best; and the fine colours of the serpent do by no means make amends for the smart and poison of his sting. Secondly, The other thing to be inferred is, that, as no man is quickly or easily brought to take a full pleasure or delight in his own sins, so much less easily can he be brought to take pleasure in those of other men. The reason is, because the chief motive, as we have observed, that induces a man to sin, which is the gratification of his sensitive part, by a sinful act, cannot be had from the sins of an other man; since naturally, and directly, they affect only the agent that commits them. For certainly another man's intemperance cannot affect my sensuality, any more than the meat and drink that I take into my mouth can please his palate: but of this more fully in some of the following particulars. In the mean time, it is evident from reason, that there is a considerable difficulty in a man's arriving to such a disposition of mind, as shall make him take pleasure in other men's sins; and yet it is also as evident from the text, and from experience too, that some men are brought to do so, And therefore, since there is no effect, of what kind soever, but is resolvable into some cause; we will inquire into the cause of this vile and preternatural temper of mind, that should make a man please himself with that which can no ways reach or affect those faculties and principles, which nature has made the proper seat and subject of pleasure. Now the causes (or at least some of the causes) that debauch and corrupt the mind of man to such a degree, as to take pleasure in other men's sins, are these five. 1. A commission of the same sins in a man's own person. This is imported in the very words of the text; where it is said of such persons, that they not only do the same things; which must therefore imply that they do them. It is conversation and acquaintance, that must give delight in things and actions, as well as in persons: and it is trial that must begin the acquaintance. It being hardly imaginable, that one should be delighted with a sin at second hand, till he has known it at the first. De light is the natural result of practice and experiment; and when it flows from any thing else, so far it recedes from nature. None look with so much pleasure upon the works of art, as those who are artists themselves. They are therefore their delight, because they were heretofore their employment; and they love to see such things, because they once loved to do them. In like manner, a man must sin himself into a love of other men's sins; for a bare notion or speculation of this black art will not carry him so far. No sober, temperate person in the world, (whatsoever other sins he may be inclinable to, and guilty of,) can look with any complacency upon the drunkenness and sottishness of his neighbour; nor can any chaste person (be his other failings what they will) reflect with any pleasure or delight upon the filthy, unclean conversation of another, though never so much in fashion, and vouched, not by common use only, but applause. No, he must be first an exercised, thorough-paced practitioner of these vices himself, and they must have endeared themselves to him by those personal gratifications he had received from them, before he can come to like them so far as to be pleased and enamoured with them wheresoever he sees them. It is possible indeed, that a sober or a chaste person, upon the stock of ill-will, envy, or spiritual pride, (which is all the religion that some have,) may be glad to see the intemperance and debauchery of some about them; but it is impossible that such persons should take any delight in the men themselves for being so. The truth is, in such a case, they do not properly delight in the vice itself, though they inwardly rejoice (and after a godly sort, no doubt) to see another guilty of it; but they delight in the mischief and disaster which they know it will assuredly bring upon him whom they hate and wish ill to: they rejoice not in it, as in a delightful object, but as in a cause and means of their neighbour's ruin. So grateful, nay, so delicious, are even the horridest villainies committed by others to the Pharisaical piety of some; who in the mean time can be wholly unconcerned for the reproach brought thereby upon the name of God and the honour of religion, so long as by the same their sanctified spleen is gratified in their brother's infamy and destruction. This therefore we may reckon upon, that scarce any man passes to a liking of sin in others, but by first practising it himself; and consequently may take it for a shrewd indication and sign, whereby to judge of the manners of those who have sinned with too much art and caution to suffer the eye of the world to charge some sins directly upon their conversation. For though such kind of men have lived never so much upon the reserve, as to their personal behaviour, yet, if they be observed to have a particular delight in, and fondness for, persons noted for any sort of sin, it is ten to one but there was a communication in the sin, before there was so in affection. The man has, by this, directed us to a copy of himself; and though we cannot always come to a sight of the original, yet by a true copy we may know all that is in it. 2dly, A second cause that brings a man to take pleasure in other men's sins is, not only a commission of those sins in his own person, but also a commission of them against the full light and conviction of his conscience. For this also is expressed in the text; where the persons charged with this wretched disposition of mind are said to have been such as knew the judgment of God, that they who committed such things were worthy of death. They knew that there was a righteous and a searching law, directly forbidding such practices; and they knew, that it carried with it the divine stamp, that it was the law of God; they knew also, that the sanction of it was under the greatest and dreadfullest of all penalties, death. And this surely, one would think, was knowledge enough to have opened both a man's eyes, and his heart too; his eyes to see, and his heart to consider, the intolerable mischief that the commission of the sin set before him must infallibly plunge him into. Nevertheless, the persons here mentioned were resolved to venture, and to commit the sin, even while conscience stood protesting against it. They were such as broke through all mounds of law, such as laughed at the sword of vengeance, which divine justice brandished in their faces. For we must know, that God has set a flaming sword, not only before paradise, but before hell itself also, to keep men out of this, as well as out of the other. And conscience is the angel, into whose hand this sword is put. But if now the sinner shall not only wrestle with this angel, but throw him too, and win so complete a victory over his conscience, that all these considerations shall be able to strike no terror into his mind, lay no restraint upon his lusts, no control upon his appetites; he is certainly too strong for the means of grace, and his heart lies open, like a broad and high road, for all the sin and villainy in the world freely to pass through. The truth is, if we impartially consider the nature of these sins against conscience, we shall find them such strange paradoxes, that a man must balk all common principles, and act contrary to the natural way and motive of all human actions, in the commission of them. For that which naturally moves a man to do any thing, must be the apprehension and expectation of some good from the thing which he is about to do: and that which naturally keeps a man from doing of a thing must be the apprehension and fear of some mischief likely to ensue from that thing or action that he is ready to engage in. But now, for a man to do a thing, while his conscience, the best light that he has to judge by, assures him that he shall be infinitely, unsupportably miserable, if he does it; this is certainly unnatural and, one would imagine, impossible. And therefore, so far as one may judge, while a man acts against his conscience, he acts by a principle of direct infidelity, and does not really believe that those things that God has thus threatened shall ever come to pass. For, though he may yield a general, faint assent to the truth of those propositions, as they stand recorded in scripture; yet, for a thorough, practical belief, that those general propositions shall be particularly made good upon his person, no doubt, for the time that he is sinning against conscience, such a belief has no place in his mind. Which being so, it is easy to conceive how ready and disposed this must needs leave the soul to admit of any, even the most horrid, unnatural proposals that the devil himself can suggest: for conscience being once extinct, and the Spirit of God with drawn, (which never stays with a man, when conscience has once left him,) the soul, like the first matter to all forms, has an universal propensity to all lewdness. For every violation of conscience proportionably wears off something of its native tenderness; which tenderness being the cause of that anguish and remorse that it feels upon the commission of sin, it follows, that when, by degrees, it comes to have worn off all this tenderness, the sinner will find no trouble of mind upon his doing the very wicked est and worst of actions; and consequently, that this is the most direct and effectual introduction to all sorts and degrees of sin. For which reason it was, that I alleged sinning against conscience for one of the causes of this vile temper and habit of mind, which we are now discoursing of: not that it has any special productive efficiency of this particular sort of sinning, more than of any other, but that it is a general cause of this, as of all other great vices; and that it is impossible but a man must have first passed this notable stage, and got his conscience throughly debauched and hardened, before he can arrive to the height of sin; which I account the delighting in other men's sins to be. 3dly, A third cause of this villainous disposition of mind, besides a man's personal commission of such and such sins, and his commission of them against conscience, must be also his continuance in them. For God forbid that every single commission of a sin, though great for its kind, and withal acted against conscience for its aggravation, should so far deprave the soul, and bring it to such a reprobate sense and condition, as to take pleasure in other men's sins. For we know what a foul sin David committed, and what a crime St. Peter himself fell into; both of them, no doubt, fully and clearly against the dictates of their conscience; yet we do not find, that either of them was thereby brought to such an impious frame of heart, as to delight in their own sins, and much less in other men's. And therefore it is not every sinful violation of conscience, that can quench the Spirit, to such a degree as we have been speaking of; but it must be a long, inveterate course and custom of sinning after this manner, that at length produces and ends in such a cursed effect. For this is so great a masterpiece in sin, that no man begins with it: he must have passed his tyrocinium, or novitiate, in sinning, before he can come to this, be he never so quick a proficient. No man can mount so fast, as to set his foot upon the highest step of the ladder at first. Before a man can come to be pleased with a sin, because he sees his neighbour commit it, he must have had such a long acquaintance with it himself, as to create a kind of intimacy or friendship between him and that; and then, we know, a man is naturally glad to see his old friend, not only at his own house, but wheresoever he meets him. It is generally the property of an old sinner, to find a delight in reviewing his own villainies in the practice of other men; to see his sin and himself, as it were, in reversion; and to find a greater satisfaction in beholding him who succeeds him in his vice, than him who is to succeed him in his estate. In the matter of sin, age makes a greater change upon the soul, than it does or can upon the body. And as in this, if we compare the picture of a man, drawn at the years of seventeen or eighteen, with a picture of the same person at threescore and ten, hardly the least trace or similitude of one face can be found in the other. So for the soul, the difference of the dispositions and qualities of the inner man will be found much greater. Compare the harmlessness, the credulity, the tenderness, the modesty, and the ingenuous pliableness to virtuous counsels, which is in youth, as it comes fresh and untainted out of the hands of nature, with the mischievousness, the slyness, the craft, the impudence, the falsehood, and the confirmed obstinacy in most sorts of sin, that is to be found in an aged, long-practised sinner, and you will confess the complexion and hue of his soul to be altered more than that of his face. Age has given him another body, and custom another mind. All those seeds of virtue and good morality, that were the natural endowments of our first years, are lost, and dead for ever. And in respect of the native innocence of childhood, no man, through old age, becomes twice a child. The vices of old age have in them the stiffness of it too. And as it is the unfittest time to learn in, so the unfitness of it to unlearn will be found much greater. Which considerations, joined with that of its imbecility, make it the proper season for a superannuated sinner to enjoy the delights of sin in the rebound; and to supply the impotence of practice by the airy, phantastic pleasure of memory and reflection. For all that can be allowed him now, is to refresh his decrepit effete sensuality with the transcript and history of his former life, recognised, and read over by him, in the vicious rants of the vigorous youthful debauches of the present time, whom (with an odd kind of passion, mixed of pleasure and envy too) he sees flourishing in all the bravery and prime of their age and vice. An old wrestler loves to look on, and to be near the lists, though feebleness will not let him offer at the prize. An old huntsman finds a music in the noise of hounds, though he cannot follow the chase. An old drunkard loves a tavern, though he cannot go to it, but as he is supported, and led by another, just as some are observed to come from thence. And an old wanton will be doating upon women, when he can scarce see them without spectacles. And to shew the true love and faithful allegiance that the old servants and subjects of vice ever after bear to it, nothing is more usual and frequent, than to hear that such as have been strumpets in their youth, turn procurers in their age. Their great concern is, that the vice may still go on. 4thly, A fourth cause of men's taking pleasure in the sins of others, is from that meanness and poor spiritedness that naturally and inseparably accompanies all guilt. Whosoever is conscious to himself of sin, feels in himself (whether he will own it or no) a proportionable shame, and a secret depression of spirit thereupon. And this is so irksome, and uneasy to man's mind, that he is restless to relieve and rid himself from it: for which, he finds no way so effectual, as to get company in the same sin. For company, in any action, gives both credit to that, and countenance to the agent; and so much as the sinner gets of this, so much he casts off of shame. Singularity in sin puts it out of fashion; since to be a] one in any practice, seems to make the judgment of the world against it; but the concurrence of others is a tacit approbation of that, in which they concur. Solitude is a kind of nakedness, and the result of that, we know, is shame. It is company only that can bear a man out in an ill thing; and he who is to encounter and fight the law, will be sure to need a second. No wonder therefore if some take delight in the immoralities and baseness of others; for nothing can support their minds drooping, and sneaking, and inwardly reproaching them, from a sense of their own guilt, but to see others as bad as themselves. To be vicious amongst the virtuous, is a double disgrace and misery; but where the whole company is vicious and debauched, they presently like, or at least easily pardon one another. And as it is observed by some, that there is none so homely, but loves a looking-glass; so it is certain, that there is no man so vicious, but delights to see the image of his vice reflected upon him, from one who exceeds, or at least equals him in the same. Sin in itself is not only shameful, but also weak; and it seeks a remedy for both in society: for it is this that must give it both colour and support. But on the contrary, how great and (as I may so speak) how self-sufficient a thing is virtue! It needs no credit from abroad, no countenance from the multitude. Were there but one virtuous man in the world, he would hold up his head with confidence and honour; he would shame the world, and not the world him. For, according to that excel lent and great saying, Prov. xiv. 14. A good man shall be satisfied from himself. He needs look no further. But if he desires to see the same virtue propagated and diffused to those about him, it is for their sakes, not his own. It is his charity that wishes, and not his necessity that requires it. For solitude and singularity can neither daunt nor disgrace him; unless we could suppose it a disgrace for a man to be singularly good. But a vicious person, like the basest sort of beasts, never enjoys himself but in the herd. Company, he thinks, lessens the shame of vice, by sharing it; and abates the torrent of a common odium, by deriving it into many channels; and therefore, if he cannot wholly avoid the eye of the observer, he hopes to distract it at least by a multiplicity of the object. These, I confess, are poor shifts, and miserable shelters, for a sick and a self-upbraiding conscience to fly to; and yet they are some of the best that the debauchee has to cheer up his spirits with in this world. For if, after all, he must needs be seen, and took notice of, with all his filth and noisomeness about him, he promises himself however, that it will be some allay to his reproach, to be but one of many, to march in a troop, and by a preposterous kind of ambition, to be seen in bad company. 5. The fifth and last cause, (that I shall mention,) inducing men to take pleasure in the sins of others, is a certain, peculiar, unaccountable malignity, that is in some natures and dispositions. I know no other name or word to express it by. But the thing itself is frequently seen in the temporal concerns of this world. For are there not some who find an inward, secret rejoicing in themselves, when they see or hear of the loss or calamity of their neighbour, though no imaginable interest or advantage of their own is or can be served thereby? But, it seems, there is a base, wolfish principle within, that is fed and gratified with another's misery; and no other account or reason in the world can be given of its being so, but that it is the nature of the beast to delight in such things. And as this occurs frequently in temporals, so there is no doubt, but that with some few persons it acts the same way also in spirituals. I say, with some few persons; for, thanks be to God, the common, known corruption of human nature, upon the bare stock of its original depravation, does not usually proceed so far. Such an one, for instance, was that wretch, who made a poor captive renounce his religion, in order to the saving of his life; and when he had so done, presently run him through, glorying that he had thereby destroyed his enemy, both body and soul. But more remarkably such, was that monster of diabolical baseness here in Eng land, who, some years since, in the reign of king Charles the first, suffered death for crimes scarce ever heard of before; having frequently boasted, that as several men had their several pleasures and recreations, so his peculiar pleasure and recreation was to destroy souls, and accordingly to put men upon such practices as he knew would assuredly do it. But above all, the late saying of some of the dissenting brotherhood ought to be proclaimed and celebrated to their eternal honour; who, while there was another new oath preparing, which they both supposed and hoped most of the clergy would not take, in a most insulting manner gave out there upon, that they were resolved either to have our livings, or to damn our souls. An expression, so fraught with all the spite and poison which the devil himself could infuse into words, that it ought to remain as a monument of the humanity, charity, and Christianity of this sort of men for ever. Now such a temper or principle as these and the like passages do import, I call a peculiar malignity of nature; since it is evident, that neither the inveterate love of vice, nor yet the long practice of it, and that even against the reluctancies and light of conscience, can of itself have this devilish effect upon the mind, but as it falls in with such a villainous preternatural disposition as I have mentioned. For to instance in the particular case of parents and children, let a father be never so vicious, yet, generally speaking, he would not have his child so. Nay, it is certain, that some, who have been as corrupt in their morals as vice could make them, have yet been infinitely solicitous to have their children soberly, virtuously, and piously brought up: so that, although they have begot sons after their own likeness, yet they are not willing to breed them so too. Which, by the way, is the most pregnant demonstration in the world, of that self-condemning sentence, that is perpetually sounding in every great sinner's breast; and of that inward, grating dislike of the very thing he practises, that he should abhor to see the same in any one, whose good he nearly tenders, and whose person he wishes well to. But if now, on the other side, we should chance to find a father corrupting his son, or a mother debauching her daughter, as (God knows such monsters have been seen within the four seas) we must not charge this barely upon an high predominance of vice in these persons, but much more upon a peculiar anomaly and baseness of nature: if the name of nature may be allowed to that which seems to be an utter cashiering of it; a deviation from, and a contradiction to, the common principles of humanity. For this is such a disposition, as strips the father of the man; as makes him sacrifice his children to Moloch; and as much outdo the cruelty of a cannibal or a Saturn, as it is more barbarous and unhuman to damn a child than to devour him. We sometimes read and hear of monstrous births, but we may often see a greater monstrosity in educations: thus when a father has begot a man, he trains him up into a beast, making even his own house a stews, a bordel, and a school of lewdness, to instill the rudiments of vice into the unwary, flexible years of his poor children, poisoning their tender minds with the irresistible, authentic venom of his base example; so that all the instruction they find within their father's walls shall be only to be disciplined to an earlier practice of sin, to be catechized into all the mysteries of iniquity, and, at length, confirmed in a mature, grown up, incorrigible state of debauchery. And this some parents call a teaching their children to know the world, and to study men: thus leading them, as it were, by the hand, through all the forms and classes, all the varieties and modes of villainy, till at length they make them ten times more the children of the devil, than of themselves. Now, I say, if the unparalleled wickedness of the age should at any time cast us upon such blemishes of mankind as these, who, while they thus treat their children, should abuse and usurp the name of parents, by assuming it to themselves; let us not call them by the low, diminutive term or title of sinful, wicked, or ungodly men; but let us look upon them as so many prodigious exceptions from our common nature, as so many portentous animals, like the strange unnatural productions of Africa, and fit to be publicly shewn, were they not unfit to be seen: for certainly where a child finds his own parents his perverters, he cannot be so properly said to be born, as to be damned into the world; and better were it for him by far to have been unborn, and unbegot, than to come to ask blessing of those whose conversation breathes nothing but contagion and a curse. So impossible, and so much a paradox is it, for any parent to impart to his child his blessing and his vice too. And thus I have despatched the first general thing proposed for the handling of the words, and shewn in five several particulars, what it is that brings a man to such a disposition of mind, as to take pleasure in other men's sins. I proceed now to the Second, which is, To shew the reasons why a man's being disposed to do so, comes to be attended with such an extraordinary guilt. And the first shall be taken from this, that naturally there is no motive to induce or tempt a man to this way of sinning. And this is a most certain truth, that the lesser the temptation is, the greater is the sin. For in every sin, by how much the more free the will is in its choice, by so much is the act the more sinful. And where there is nothing to importune, urge, or provoke it to any act, there is so much an higher and perfecter degree of freedom about that act. For albeit the will is not capable of being compelled to any of its actings, yet it is capable of being made to act with more or less difficulty, according to the different impressions it receives from motives or objects. If the object be extremely pleasing, and apt to gratify it; there, though the will has still a power of refusing it, yet it is not without some difficulty: upon which account it is, that men are so strongly carried out to, and so hardly took off from, the practice of vice; namely, because the sensual pleasure arising from it is still importuning and drawing them to it. But now, from whence springs this pleasure? Is it not from the gratification of some desire founded in nature? An irregular gratification it is indeed very often; yet still the foundation of it is, and must be, something natural: so that the sum of all is this, that the naturalness of a desire is the cause that the satisfaction of it is pleasure, and pleasure importunes the will; and that which importunes the will, puts a difficulty in the will's refusing or forbearing it. Thus drunkenness is an irregular satisfaction of the appetite of thirst; uncleanness an unlawful gratification of the appetite of procreation; and covetousness a boundless, unreasonable pursuit of the principle of self-preservation. So that all these are founded in some natural desire, and are therefore pleasurable, and upon that account tempt, solicit, and entice the will. In a word, there is hardly any one vice or sin of direct and personal commission, but what is the irregularity and abuse of one of those two grand natural principles; namely, either that which in clines a man to preserve himself, or that which in clines him to please himself. But now, what principle, faculty, or desire, by which nature projects either its own pleasure or preservation, is or can be gratified by another man's personal pursuit of his own vice? It is evident, that all the pleasure that naturally can be received from a vicious action, can immediately and personally affect none but him who does it; for it is an application of the pleasing object only to his own sense; and no man feels by another man's senses. And therefore the delight that a man takes from an other's sin, can be nothing else but a fantastical, preternatural complacency arising from that which he has really no sense or feeling of. It is properly a love of vice, as such; a delighting in sin for its own sake; and is a direct imitation, or rather an exemplification of the malice of the devil; who delights in seeing those sins committed, which the very condition of his nature renders him uncapable of committing himself. For the devil can neither drink, nor whore, nor play the epicure, though he enjoys the pleasures of all these at a second hand, and by malicious approbation. If a man plays the thief, says Solomon, and steals to satisfy his hunger, Prov. vi. 30. though it cannot wholly excuse the fact, yet it sometimes extenuates the guilt. And we know there are some corrupt affections in the soul of man, that urge and push him on to their satisfaction, with such an impetuous fury, that when we see a man overborne and run down by them, considering the frailty of human nature, we cannot but pity the person, while we abhor the crime. It being like one ready to drink poison, rather than to die with thirst. But when a man shall, with a sober, sedate, diabolical rancour, look upon and enjoy himself in the sight of his neighbour's sin and shame, and secretly hug himself upon the ruins of his brother's virtue, and the dishonours of his reason, can he plead the instigation of any appetite in nature inclining him to this; and that would otherwise render him uneasy to himself, should he not thus triumph in an other's folly and confusion? No, certainly; this can not be so much as pretended. For he may as well carry his eyes in another man's head, and run races with another man's feet, as directly and naturally taste the pleasures that spring from the gratification of another man's appetites. Nor can that person, whosoever he is, who accounts it his recreation and diversion to see one man wallowing in his filthy revels, and another made in famous and noisome by his sensuality, be so impudent as to allege for a reason of his so doing, that either all the enormous draughts of the one, do or can leave the least relish upon the tip of his tongue; or that all the fornications and whoredoms of the other, do or can quench or cool the boilings of his own lust. No, this is impossible. And if so, what can we then assign for the cause of this monstrous disposition? Why, all that can be said in this case is, that nature proceeds by quite another method; having given men such and such appetites, and allotted to each of them their respective pleasures; the appetite and the pleasure still cohabiting in the same subject: but the devil and long custom of sinning have superinduced upon the soul new, unnatural, and absurd desires; desires that have no real object; desires that relish things not at all desirable; but, like the sickness and distemper of the soul, feeding only upon filth and corruption, fire and brimstone, and giving a man the devil's nature and the devil's delight; who has no other joy or happiness, but to dishonour his Maker, and to destroy his fellow-creature; to corrupt him here, and to torment him hereafter. In fine, there is as much difference between the pleasure a man takes in his own sins, and that which he takes in other men's, as there is between the wickedness of a man, and the wickedness of a devil. 2. A second reason why a man's taking pleasure in the sins of others comes to be attended with such an extraordinary guilt, is, from the boundless, unlimited nature of this way of sinning. For by this a man contracts a kind of an universal guilt, and, as it were, sins over the sins of all other men; so that while the act is theirs, the guilt of it is equally his. Consider any man as to his personal powers and opportunities of sinning, and comparatively they are not great; for at greatest they must still be limited by the measure of a man's acting, and the term of his duration. And a man's active powers are but weak, and his continuance in the world but short. So that nature is not sufficient to keep pace with his corruptions, by answering desire with proportion able practice. For to instance in those two grand extravagances of lust and drunkenness: surely no man is of so general and diffusive a lust, as to prosecute his amours all the world over; and let it burn never so outrageously for the present, yet age will in time chill those heats; and the impure flame will either die of itself, or consume the body that harbours it. And so for intemperance in drinking; no man can be so much a swine, as to be always pouring in, but in the compass of some years he will drown his health and his strength in his own belly; and after all his drunken trophies, at length drink down himself too; and that certainly will and must put an end to the debauch. But now, for the way of sinning which we have been speaking of, it is neither confined by place, nor weakened by age; but the bed-rid, the gouty, and the lethargic, may, upon this account, equal the activity of the strongest and the most vegete sinner. Such an one may take his brother by the throat, and act the murderer, even while he can neither stir an hand nor a foot; and he may invade his neighbour's bed, while weakness has tied him down to his own. He may sin over all the adulteries and debauches, all the frauds and oppressions of the whole neighbourhood, and, as I may so speak, he may break every command of God's law by proxy, and it were well for him if he could be damned by proxy too. A man, by delight and fancy, may grasp in the sins of all countries and ages, and by an inward liking of them communicate in their guilt. He may take a range all the world over, and draw in all that wide circumference of sin and vice, and center it in his own breast. For whatsoever sin a man extremely loves, and would commit if he had opportunity, and, in the mean time, pleases himself with the speculation of the same, whether ever he commits it or no, it leaves a stain and a guilt upon his conscience; and, according to the spiritual and severe accounts of the law, is made, in a great respect, his own. So that by this means there is a kind of transmigration of sins, much like that which Pythagoras held of souls. Such an one to be sure it is, as makes a man not only (according to the apostle's phrase) a partaker of other men's sins, but also a deriver of the whole entire guilt of them to himself; and yet so as to leave the committer of them as full of guilt as he was before. From whence we see the infinitely fruitful and productive power of this way of sinning; how it can increase and multiply beyond all bounds and measures of actual commission, and how vastly it swells the sinner's account in an instant. So that a man shall, out of all the various, and even numberless kinds of villainy, acted by all the people and nations round about him, as it were, extract one mighty, comprehensive guilt, and adopt it to himself; and so become chargeable with, and accountable for, a world of sin without a figure. 3. The third and last reason that I shall assign, of the extraordinary guilt attending a man's being disposed to take pleasure in other men's sins, shall be taken from the soul's preparation and passage to such a disposition. For that it presupposes and includes in it the guilt of many preceding sins. For, as it has been shown, a man must have passed many periods of sin, before he can arrive to it; and have served a long apprenticeship to the devil, before he can come to such a perfection and maturity in vice, as this imports. It is a collection of the guilt of a long and numerous train of villainies, the compendium and sum total of several particular impieties, all united and cast up into one. It is, as it were, the very quintessence and sublimation of vice, by which, as in the spirit of liquors, the malignity of many actions is contracted into a little compass, but with a greater advantage of strength and force, by such a contraction. In a word, it is the wickedness of a whole life, discharging all its filth and foulness into this one quality, as into a great sink or common shore. So that nothing is or can be so properly and significantly called the very sinfulness of sin, as this. And therefore no wonder, if, containing so many years guilt in the bowels of it, it stands here stigmatized by the apostle, as a temper of mind, rendering men so detestably bad, that the great enemy of mankind, the devil himself, neither can nor desires to make them worse. I cannot, I need not say any more of it. It is indeed a condition, not to be thought of (by persons serious enough to think and consider) without the utmost horror. But such as truly fear God, shall both be kept from it, and from those sins that lead to it. To which God, infinitely wise, holt/, and just, be rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen. __________________________________________________________________ THE SECOND SERMON PREACHED UPON ROMANS I. 32. Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. THE sense of these words I shew, in the preceding discourse, fell naturally into this one proposition: viz. That the guilt arising from a man's delighting or taking pleasure in other men's sins, or (which is all one) in other men for their sins, is greater than he can possibly contract by a commission of the same sins in his own person. The prosecution of which I stated upon these three things. First, To shew what it is that brings a man to such a disposition of mind, as to take pleasure in other men's sins. Secondly, To shew the reasons why a man's being disposed to do so, comes to be attended with such an extraordinary guilt. Thirdly and lastly, To declare what kind of persons are to be reckoned under this character. The two first of which being despatched already, I proceed now to the third and last. Concerning which, I shall lay down this general assertion; That whosoever draws others to sin, ought to be looked upon as one delighting in those sins that he draws them to. Forasmuch as no man is brought to do any thing, especially if it be ill or wicked, but in order to the pleasing of himself by it: it being absurd and incredible, that any one should venture to damn himself hereafter, for that which does not some way or other gratify and please him here. But to draw forth this general into particulars. 1. First of all: Those are to be accounted to take pleasure in other men's sins, who teach doctrines directly tending to engage such as believe them in a sinful course. For there is none so compendious and efficacious a way to prepare a man for all sin, as this: this being properly to put out the eyes of that which is to be his guide, by perverting his judgment; and when that is once done, you may carry him whither you will. Chance must be his rule, and present appetite his director. A man's judgment or conscience is the great spring of all his actions; and consequently to corrupt or pervert this, is to derive a contagion upon all that he does. And therefore we see how high a guilt our Saviour charges upon this in Matt. v. 19. Whosoever shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: that is, in truth shall never come thither. And we find the great sin of the Pharisees was, that they promoted and abetted the sins of other men, taught the devil's doctrine out of Moses's chair, and by false descants upon the divine precepts, cut asunder the binding force of them: so that, according to their wretched comments, men might break the law, and yet never sin against it. For in Matt. xv. 5, 6. they had taught men how to dishonour their parents, without any violation of the fifth commandment. Thus they preached: and what design can any one imagine the authors of such doctrines could have, but the depravation of men's manners! For, if some men teach wicked things, it must be that others should practise them. And if one man sets another a copy, it is no doubt with a purpose that he should write after it. Now these doctrines are of two sorts. 1. Such as represent actions, that are in themselves really wicked and sinful, as not so. 2. Such as represent them much less sinful as to their kind or degrees, than indeed they are. For the first of which; to instance in one very gross one, instead of many, take the doctrine of those commonly called Antinomians, who assert positively, that believers, or persons regenerate, and within the covenant of grace, cannot sin. Upon which account, no wonder if some very liberally assume to themselves the condition and character of believers; for then they know that other mighty privilege belongs to them of course. But what? may not these believers cheat and lie, commit adultery, steal, murder, and rebel? Why, yes; they may, and nothing is more common than to see such believers do such things. But how then can they escape the charge of all that guilt that naturally follows from such enormities? Why, thus; you must in this case with great care and accuracy distinguish between the act of lying and the sin of lying, the act of stealing and the sin of stealing, and the act of rebellion and the sin of rebellion. Now, though all these acts are frequent and usual with such persons, yet they are sure (as they order the matter) never to be guilty of the sin. And the reason is, because it is not the quality of the action that derives a qualification upon the person, so as to render him such or such, good or bad; but it is the antecedent quality or condition of the person that denominates his actions, and stamps them good or evil. So that they are those only who are first wicked, that do wicked actions. But believers, and the godly, though they do the very same things, yet they so much outwit the devil in the doing of them, that they never commit the same sins. But you will say, how came they by such a great and strange privilege? Why, they will tell you, it is because they are not under the obliging power of the law. And if you ask further, how they come to get from under that common obligation that lies so hard and heavy upon all the rest of the world; they will tell you, it is from this, that believers, instead of the law, have the Spirit actually dwelling in them, and by an admirable kind of invisible clock-work moving them, just as a spring does a watch; and that immediately by himself alone, without the mediation of any written law or rule to guide, or direct, and much less to command or oblige them. So that the Spirit, we see, is to be their sole director, without, and very often contrary to, the written law. An excellent contrivance, doubtless, to authorize and sanctify the blackest and most flagitious actions that can proceed from man. For since the motions of the Spirit (which they so confidently suppose themselves to have) cannot so much as in things good and lawful, by any certain diagnostic, be distinguished from the motions of a man's own heart, they very easily make a step further, and even in things unlawful conclude the motions of their own hearts to be the impulse of the Spirit; and this presently alters the whole complexion of an action that would otherwise look but very scurvily; and makes it absolutely pure and unblameable, or rather perfect and meritorious. So that let a man have but impudence and wickedness enough to libel his Maker, and to entitle the Spirit of God to all that he does or desires, surnaming his own inclinations and appetites (though never so irregular and impure) the Holy Ghost; and you may, upon very sure grounds, turn him loose, and bid him sin if he can. And thus much for the first sort of doctrines, which once believed, like the flood-gates of hell pulled up, lets in a deluge and inundation of all sin and vice upon the lives of men. And if this be the natural effect of the doctrines themselves, we cannot in all reason but infer, that the interest of the teachers of them must needs be agreeable. 2. The other sort of doctrines tending to engage such as believe them in a sinful course, are such as represent many sins, much less, as to their kind or degree, than indeed they are. Of which number is that doctrine, that asserts all sins committed by believers, or persons in a state of grace, to be but infirmities. That there are such things as sins of infirmity, in contradistinction to those of presumption, is a truth not to be questioned; but in hypothesi, to state exactly which are sins of infirmity, and which are not, is not so easy a work. This is certain, that there is a vast difference between them; indeed, as vast as between inadvertency and deliberation, between surprise and set purpose: and that persons truly regenerate have sinned this latter way, and consequently may sin so again, is as evident as the story (already referred to by us) of David's murder and adultery: sins acted not only with deliberation, but with artifice, study, and deep contrivance. And can sins, that carry such dismal marks and black symptoms upon them, pass for infirmities? for sins of daily incursion, and such as human frailty, and the very condition of our nature in this world, is so unavoidably liable to, (for so are sins of infirmity,) that a righteous man may fall into them seven times in a day; and yet, according to the merciful tenor of the covenant of grace, stand accepted before God as a righteous man still? No, certainly, if such are infirmities, it will be hard to assign what are presumptions. And what a sin-encouraging doctrine that is, that avouches them for such, is sufficiently manifest from hence; that although every sin of infirmity, in its own nature, and according to the strict rigour of the law, merits eternal death; yet it is certain from the gospel, that no man shall actually suffer eternal death barely for sins of infirmity: which being so, persuade but a man that a regenerate person may cheat and lie, steal, murder, and rebel, by way of infirmity, and at the same time you persuade him also, that he may do all this without any danger of damnation. And then, since these are oftentimes such desirable privileges to flesh and blood; and since withal, every man by nature is so very prone to think the best of himself and of his own condition; it is odds but he will find a shrewd temptation to believe himself regenerate, rather than forbear a pleasurable or a profitable sin, by thinking that he shall go to hell for committing it. Now this being such a direct manuduction to all kind of sin, by abusing the conscience with undervaluing persuasions concerning the malignity and guilt even of the foulest; it is evident, that such as teach and promote the belief of such doctrines, are to be looked upon as the devil's prophets and apostles; and there is no doubt, but the guilt of every sin, that either from pulpit, or from press, they influence men to the commission of, does as certainly rest upon them, and will one day be as severely exacted of them, as if they had actually and personally committed it themselves. And thus I have instanced in two notable doctrines, that may justly be looked upon as the general inlets, or two great gates, through which all vice and villainy rush in upon the manners of men professing religion. But the particulars, into which these generals diffuse themselves, you may look for and find in those well-furnished magazines and store-houses of all immorality and baseness, the books and writings of some modern casuists; who, like the devil's amanuenses, and secretaries to the prince of darkness, have published to the world such notions and intrigues of sin out of his cabinet, as neither the wit or wickedness of man, upon the bare natural stock either of invention or corruption, could ever have found out. The writings, both of the Old and New Testament, make it very difficult for a man to be saved; but the writings of these men make it more difficult, if not impossible, for any one to be damned: for where there is no sin, there can be no damnation. And as these men have obscured and confounded the natures and properties of things by their false principles and wretched sophistry, though an act be never so sinful, they will be sure to strip it of its guilt; and to make the very law and rule of action so pliable and bending, that it shall be impossible to be broke. So that he who goes to hell must pass through a narrower gate than that which the gospel says leads to heaven. For that, we are told, is only strait, but this is absolutely shut; and so shut that sin cannot pass it, and therefore it is much if a sinner should. So insufferably have these impostors poisoned the fountains of morality, perverted and embased the very standard and distinguishing rule of good and evil. So that all their books and writings are but debauchery upon record, and impiety registered and consigned over to posterity. In every volume there is a nursery and plantation of vice, where it is sure to thrive, and from thence to be transplanted into men's practice. For here it is manured with art and argument, sheltered with fallacy and distinction, and thereby enabled both to annoy others and to defend itself. And to shew how far the malignity of this way of sinning reaches; he, who has vented a pernicious doctrine, or published an ill book, must know that his guilt and his life determine not together: no, such an one, as the apostle says, being dead, yet speaketh; he sins in his very grave, corrupts others while he is rotting himself, and has a growing account in the other world after he has paid nature's last debt in this; and, in a word, quits this life like a man carried off by the plague; who, though he dies himself, yet does execution upon others by a surviving infection. 2. Such also are to be reckoned to take pleasure in other men's sins, as endeavour by all means to allure men to sin; and that either by formal persuasion, importunity, or desire, as we find the harlot described, enticing the young man, in Prov. vii. from ver. 13 to 22; or else by administering objects and occasions fit to inflame and draw forth a man's corrupt affections; such as are the drinking of a choleric or revengeful person into a fit of rage and violence against the person of his neighbour; thus heating one man's blood, in order to the shedding of another's. Such also as the provoking of a lustful, incontinent person, by filthy discourse, wanton books and pictures, and, that which equals and exceeds them all, the incentives of the stage; till a man's vice and folly works over all bounds, and grows at length too mad and outrageous to be either governed or concealed. Now with great variety of such kind of traders for hell as these, has the nation of late years abound ed. Wretches who live upon the shark, and other men's sins, the common poisoners of youth, equally desperate in their fortunes and their manners, and getting their very bread by the damnation of souls. So that if any inexperienced young novice happens into the fatal neighbourhood of such pests, presently they are upon him, plying his full purse and his empty pate with addresses suitable to his vanity; telling him, what pity it is, that one so accomplished for parts and person should smother himself in the country, where he can learn nothing of gallantry or behaviour; as, how to make his court, to hector a drawer, to cog the die, or storm a whorehouse; but must of necessity live and die ignorant of what it is to trepan or be trepanned, to sup, or rather dine at midnight in a tavern, with the noise of oaths, blasphemies, and fiddlers about his ears, and to fight every watch and constable at his return from thence, and to be beaten by them: but must at length, poor man! die dully of old age at home; when here he might so fashionably and genteelly, long before that time, have been duelled or fluxed into another world. If this be not the guise and practice of the times, especially as to the principal cities of the kingdom, let any one judge; and whether for such a poor deluded wretch, instead of growing rusty in the country, (as some call it,) to be thus brought by a company of indigent, debauched, soul-and-body-destroying harpies, to lose his estate, family, and virtue, amongst them in the city, be not a much greater violation of the public weal and justice of any government, than most of those crimes that bring the committers of them to the gallows, we may at present easily see, and one day perhaps sadly feel. Nor is this trade of corrupting the gentry and nobility, and seasoning them with the vices of the great town, as soon as they set foot into it, carried on secretly, and in a corner, but openly, and in the face of the sun; by persons who have formed themselves into companies, or rather corporations. So that a man may as easily know where to find one to teach him to debauch, whore, game, and blaspheme, as to teach him to write or cast accompt: it is their support and business; nay, their very profession and livelihood; getting their living by those practices, for which they deserve to forfeit their lives. Now these are another sort of men, who are justly charged with the guilt and character of delighting in other men's sins: men, who are the devil's setters; who contrive, study, and beat their brains how to draw in some poor, innocent, unguarded heir into their hellish net, learning his humour, prying into his circumstances, and observing his weak side; and all this to plant the snare and apply the temptation effectually and successfully; and when by such insinuations they have once got within him, and are able to drill him on from one lewdness to another, by the same arts corrupting and squeezing him as they please; no wonder if they rejoice to see him guilty of all sorts of villainy, and take pleasure in those sins in which they find their profit too. 3. Such as affect the company of infamous and vicious persons, are also to be reckoned in the number of those who take pleasure in such men's vices. For otherwise, what is there in such men which they can pretend to be pleased with? For generally such sots have neither parts nor wit, ingenuity of discourse, nor fineness of conversation, to entertain or delight any one, that, coming into their company, brings but his reason along with him. But, on the contrary, their rude, impertinent loudness, their quarrels, their nastiness, their dull, obscene talk and ribaldry, (which from them you must take for wit, or go without it,) cannot but be very nauseous and offensive to any one who does not balk his own reason, out of love to their vice; and, for the sake of the sin itself, pardon the ugliness of its circumstances: as a father will hug and embrace his beloved son, for all the dirt and foulness of his clothes; the dearness of the person easily apologizing for the disagreeableness of the habit. One would think it should be no easy matter to bring any man of sense to love an alehouse; indeed of so much sense, as seeing and smelling amounts to; there being such strong encounters of both, as would quickly send him packing, did not the love of good fellowship reconcile him to these nuisances, and the deity he adored compound for the homelines of its shrine. It is clear therefore, that where a man can like and love the conversation of lewd, debauched persons, amidst all the natural grounds and motives of loathing and dislike; it can proceed from nothing but the inward affection he bears to their lewd, debauched humour. It is this that he enjoys, and, for the sake of this, the rest he endures. 4thly and lastly, Such as encourage, countenance, and support men in their sins, are to be reckoned in the number of those who take pleasure in other men's sins. Now this may be done two ways. First, By commendation. Concerning which, we may take this for granted; that no man commends another any further than he likes him: for indeed to commend any one, is to vouch him to the world, to undertake for his worth, and, in a word, to own the thing which he is chiefly remarkable for. He who writes an encomium Neronis, if he does it heartily is himself but a transcript of Nero in his mind; and would, no doubt, gladly enough see such pranks, as he was famous for, acted again, though he dares not be the actor of them himself. From whence we see the reason of some men's giving such honourable names and appellations to the worst of men and actions, and base, reproachful titles to the best: such as are calling faction, and a spitting in their prince's face, petitioning; fanaticism and schism, true protestantism; sacrilege and rapine, thorough reformation, and the like. As, on the contrary, branding conformity to the rules and rites of the best church in the world, with the false and odious name of formality; and traducing all religious, conscientious observers of them, as mungrel Protestants, and Papists in masquerade. And indeed many are and have been called Papists of late years, whom those very persons who call them so know to be far from being so. But what then do they mean by fixing such false characters upon men, even against their own consciences? Why, they mean and design this: they would set such a mark upon those whom they hate, as may cause their throats to be cut, and their estates to be seized upon, when the rabble shall be let loose upon the government once again; which such beggarly, malicious fellows impatiently hope and long for. Though I doubt not (how much soever knaves may abuse fools with words for a time) but there will come a day, in which the most active Papists will be found under the Puritan mask; in which it will appear, that the conventicle has been the Jesuits safest kennel, and the Papists themselves, as well as the fanatics, have been managers of all those monstrous outcries against popery, to the ruin of those Protestants whom they most hate, and whom alone they fear. It being no unheard-of trick for a thief, when he is closely pursued, to cry out, Stop the thief, and thereby diverting the suspicion from himself, to get clear away. It is also worth our while to consider with what terms of respect and commendation knaves and sots will speak of their own fraternity. As, What an honest, what a worthy man is such an one! And, What a good-natured person is another! According to which terms, such as are factious, by worthy men, mean only such as are of the same faction, and united in the same designs against the government with themselves. And such as are brothers of the pot, by a good-natured person, mean only a true, trusty debauchee, who never stands out at a merry-meeting, so long as he is able to stand at all; nor ever refuses an health, while he has enough of his own to pledge it with; and, in a word, is as honest as drunkenness and debauchery, want of sense and reason, virtue and sobriety, can possibly make him. 2dly, The other way by which some men encourage others in their sins is, by preferment. As, when men shall be advanced to places of trust and honour for those qualities that render them unworthy of so much as sober and civil company. When a lord or master shall cast his favours and rewards upon such beasts and blemishes of society, as live only to the dishonour of Him who made them, and the reproach of him who maintains them. None certainly can love to see vice in power, but such as love to see it also in practice. Place and honour do of all things most misbecome it; and a goat or a swine in a chair of state, cannot be more odious than ridiculous. It is reported of Caesar, that passing through a certain town, and seeing all the women of it standing at their doors with monkeys in their arms, he asked, whether the women of that country used to have any children or no? thereby wittily and sarcastically reproaching them for misplacing that affection upon brutes, which could only become a mother to her child. So, when we come into a great family or government, and see this place of honour allotted to a murderer, another filled with an atheist or blasphemer, and a third with a filthy parasite, may we not as appositely and properly ask the question, whether there be any such thing as virtue, sobriety, or religion amongst such a people, with whom vice wears those rewards, honours, and privileges, which in other nations the common judgment of reason awards only to the virtuous, the sober, and religious? And certainly it is too flagrant a demonstration, how much vice is the darling of any people, when many amongst them are preferred for those practices, for which, in other places, they can scarce be pardoned. And thus I have finished the third and last general thing proposed, for the handling of the words, which was, to shew the several sorts or kinds of men, which fall under the charge and character of taking pleasure in other men's sins. Now the inferences from the foregoing particulars shall be twofold. 1. Such as concern particular persons; and, 2. Such as concern communities, or bodies of men. And first for the malignity of such a disposition of mind, as induces a man to delight in other men's sins, with reference to the effects of it upon particular persons. As, 1. It quite alters and depraves the natural frame of a man's heart: for there is that naturally in the heart of man, which abhors sin, as sin; and consequently would make him detest it, both in himself and in others too. The first and most genuine principles of reason are certainly averse to it, and find a secret grief and remorse from every invasion that sin makes upon a man's innocence; and that must needs render the first entrance and admission of sin uneasy, because disagreeable. Yet time, we see, and custom of sinning, can bring a man to such a pass, that it shall be more difficult and grievous to him to part with his sin, than ever it was to him to admit it. It shall get so far into, and lodge itself so deep within, his heart, that it shall be his business and his recreation, his companion and his other self; and the very dividing between his flesh and his bones, or rather, between his body and his soul, shall be less terrible and afflictive to him, than to be took off from his vice. Nevertheless, as unnatural as this effect of sin is, there is one yet more so: for, that innate principle of self-love, that very easily and often blinds a man, as to any impartial reflection upon himself, yet, for the most part, leaves his eyes open enough to judge truly of the same thing in his neighbour, and to hate that in others, which he allows and cherishes in himself. And therefore, when it shall come to this, that he also approves, embraces, and delights in sin, as he observes it, even in the person and practice of other men; this shews that the man is wholly trans formed from the creature that God first made him; nay, that he has consumed those poor remainders of good that the sin of Adam left him; that he has worn off the very remote dispositions and possibilities to virtue; and, in a word, turned grace first, and afterwards nature itself, out of doors. No man knows, at his first entrance upon any sin, how far it may carry him, and where it will stop; the commission of sin being generally like the pouring out of water, which, when once poured out, knows no other bounds but to run as far as it can. 2dly, A second effect of this disposition of mind is, that it peculiarly indisposes a man to repent, and recover himself from it. For the first step to repentance is a man's dislike of his sin: and how can we expect that a man should conceive any through dislike of that, which has took such an absolute possession of his heart and affections, that he likes and loves it, not only in his own practice, but also in other men s? Nay, that he is pleased with it, though he is past the practice of it. Such a temper of mind is a downright contradiction to repentance; as being founded in the destruction of those qualities which are the only dispositions and preparatives to it. For that natural tenderness of conscience, which must first create in the soul a sense of sin, and from thence produce a sorrow for it, and at length cause a relinquishment of it; that, I say, (we have already shewn,) is took away by a customary, repeated course of sinning against conscience: so that the very first foundation of virtue, which is the natural power of distinguishing between the moral good and evil of any action, is, in effect, plucked up and destroyed; and the Spirit of God finds nothing in the heart of such an one to apply the means of grace to. All taste, relish, and discernment of the suitableness of virtue, and the unsuitableness of vice, being utterly gone from it. And as this is a direct bar to that part of repentance, which looks back with sorrow and indignation upon what is past; so is it equally such to that greater part of repentance, which is to look forward, and to prevent sin for the future. For this properly delivers a man up to sin; forasmuch as it leaves his heart destitute of all those principles which should resist it. So that such an one must be as bad as the devil will have him, and can be no better than the devil will let him. In both he must submit to his measures. And what is this but a kind of entrance into, or rather an anticipation of hell? What is it but judgment and damnation already begun? For a man in such a case is as sure of it, as if he were actually in the flames. 3dly, A third effect of this disposition of mind (which also naturally follows from the former) is, that the longer a man lives the wickeder he grows, and his last days are certainly his worst. It has been observed, that to delight in other men's sins was most properly the vice of old age; and we shall also find, that it may be as truly and properly called the old age of vice. For, as first, old age necessarily implies a man's having lived so many years before it comes upon him; and withal, this sort of viciousness supposes the precedent commission of many sins, by which a man arrives to it; so it has this further property of old age: that, as when a man comes once to be old, he never retreats, but still goes on, and grows every day older and older; so when a man comes once to such a degree of wickedness, as to delight in the wickedness of other men, it is more than ten thousand to one odds, if he ever returns to a better mind, but grows every day worse and worse. For he has nothing else to take up his thoughts, and nothing to entertain his desires with; which, by a long estrangement from better things, come at length perfectly to loathe and fly off from them. A notable instance of which we have in Tiberius Caesar, who was bad enough in his youth, but superlatively and monstrously so in his old age: and the reason of this was, because he took a particular pleasure in seeing other men do vile and odious things. So that all his diversion at his beloved Capreae, was to be a spectator of the devil's actors, representing the worst of vices upon that infamous stage. And therefore let not men flatter themselves, (as no doubt some do,) that though they find it difficult at present to combat and stand out against an ill practice, and upon that account give way to a continuance in it; yet that old age shall do that for them, which they in their youth could never find in their heart to do for themselves; I say, let not such persons mock and abuse themselves with such false and absurd presumptions. For they must know that an habit may continue, when it is no longer able to act; or rather the elicit, internal acts of it may be quick and vigorous, when the external, imperate acts of the same habit utterly cease: and let men but reflect upon their own observation, and consider impartially with themselves, how few in the world they have known made better by age. Generally they will see, that such leave not their vice, but their vice leaves them; or rather retreats from their practices, and retires into their fancy; and that, we know, is boundless and infinite: and when vice has once settled itself there, it finds a vaster and a wider compass to act in, than ever it had before. I scarce know any thing that calls for a more serious consideration from us than this: for still men are apt to persuade themselves, that they shall find it an easy matter to grow virtuous as they grow old. But it is a way of arguing highly irrational and fallacious. For this is a maxim of eternal truth; that nothing grows weak with age, but that which will at length die with age; which sin never does. The longer a blot continues, the deeper it sinks. And it will be found a work of no small difficulty to dispossess and throw out a vice from that heart, where long possession begins to plead prescription. It is naturally impossible for an old man to grow young again; and it is next to impossible for a decrepit aged sinner to become a new creature, and be born again. 4thly and lastly, We need no other argument of the malign effects of this disposition of mind, than this one consideration, that many perish eternally, who never arrived to such a pitch of wickedness as to take any pleasure in, or indeed to be at all concerned about, the sins of other men. But they perish in the pursuit of .their own lusts, and the obedience they personally yield to their own sinful appetites: and that, questionless, very often not without a considerable mixture of inward dislike of themselves for what they do: yet for all that, their sin, we see, proving too hard for them, the over powering stream carries them away, and down they sink into the bottomless pit, though under the weight of a guilt, by vast degrees inferior to that which we have been discoursing of. For doubtless many men are finally lost, who yet have no men's sins to answer for, but their own: who never enticed nor perverted others to sin, and much less applauded or encouraged them in their sin: but only being slaves to their own corrupt affections, have lived and died under the killing power of them, and so passed to a sad eternity. But that other devilish way of sinning, hitherto spoken of, is so far beyond this, that this is a kind of innocence, or rather a kind of charity, compared to it. For this is a solitary, single; that a complicated, multiplied guilt. And indeed, if we consider at what a rate some men sin nowadays; that man sins charitably, who damns nobody but himself. But the other sort of sinners, who may properly enough be said to people hell, and, in a very ill sense, to bear the sins of many; as they have a guilt made up of many guilts, so what can they reasonably expect, but a damnation equivalent to many damnations? And thus much for the first general inference, from the foregoing discourse, shewing the malignity of such a disposition of mind as induces a man to delight in other men's sins, with reference to particular persons. 2dly, The other inference shall be with reference to communities, or bodies of men; and so such a disposition has a most direct and efficacious influence to propagate, multiply, and spread the practice of any sin, till it becomes general and national. For this is most certain, that some men's taking pleasure in other men's sins, will cause many men to sin, to do them a pleasure; and this will appear upon these three accounts. 1. That it is seldom or never that any man comes to such a degree of impiety, as to take pleasure in other men's sins, but he also shews the world by his actions and behaviour that he does so. 2. That there are few men in the world so in considerable, but there are some or other who have an interest to serve by them. And, 3. That the natural course that one man takes to serve his interest by another is, by applying himself to him in such a way as may most gratify and delight him. Now from these three things put together, it is not only easy, but necessary to infer, that since the generality of men are wholly acted by their present interest, if they find those who can best serve them in this their interest, most likely also to be gained over so to do by the sinful and vile practices of those who address to them; no doubt such practices shall be pursued by such persons, in order to the compassing their desired ends. Where greatness takes no delight in goodness, we may be sure there shall be but little goodness seen in the lives of those who have an interest to serve by such an one's greatness. For take any illustrious, potent sinner, whose power is wholly employed to serve his pleasure, and whose chief pleasure is to see others as bad and wicked as himself; and there is no question but in a little time he will also make them so; and his dependants shall quickly become his proselytes. They shall sacrifice their virtue to his humour, spend their credit and good name, nay, and their very souls too, to serve him; and that by the worst and basest of services, which is, by making themselves like him. It is but too notorious how long vice has reigned, or rather raged amongst us; and with what a bare face and a brazen forehead it walks about the nation, as it were, elato capite, and looking down with scorn upon virtue as a contemptible and a mean thing. Vice could not come to this pitch by chance. But we have sinned apace, and at an higher strain of villainy than the fops our ancestors (as some are pleased to call them) could ever arrive to. So that we daily see maturity and age in vice joined with youth and greenness of years. A manifest argument, no doubt, of the great docility and pregnancy of parts, that is, in the present age, above all the former. For, in respect of vice, nothing is more usual nowadays, than for boys illico nasci senes. They see their betters delight in ill things; they observe reputation and countenance to attend the practice of them; and this carries them on furiously to that, which, of themselves, they are but too much inclined to; and which laws were purposely made by wise men to keep them from. They are glad, you may be sure, to please and prefer themselves at once, and to serve their interest and their sensuality together. And as they are come to this height and rampancy of vice, in a great measure, from the countenance of their betters and superiors; so they have took some steps higher in the same from this, That the follies and extravagances of the young too frequently carry with them the suffrage and approbation of the old. For age, which naturally and unavoidably is but one remove from death, and consequently should have nothing about it but what looks like a decent preparation for it, scarce ever appears of late days but in the high mode, the flaunting garb, and utmost gaudery of youth; with clothes as ridiculously, and as much in the fashion, as the person that wears them is usually grown out of it. The eldest equal the youngest in the vanity of their dress, and no other reason can be given of it, but that they equal, if not surpass them in the vanity of their desires. So that those who by the majesty and, as I may so say, the prerogative of their age, should even frown youth into sobriety and better manners, are now striving all they can to imitate and strike in with them, and to be really vicious, that they may be thought to be young. The sad and apparent truth of which makes it very superfluous to inquire after any further cause of that monstrous increase of vice, that like a torrent, or rather a breaking in of the sea upon us, has of late years overflowed and victoriously carried all before it. Both the honourable and the aged have contributed all they could to the promotion of it; and, so far as they are able, to give the best colour to the worst of things. This they have endeavoured, and thus much they have effected, that men now see that vice makes them acceptable to those who are able to make them considerable. It is the key that lets them into their very heart, and enables them to command all that is there. And if this be the price of favour, and the market of honour, no doubt where the trade is so quick, and withal so certain, multitudes will be sure to follow it. This is too manifestly our present case. All men see it; and wise and good men lament it: and where vice, pushed on with such mighty advantages, will stop its progress, it is hard to judge: it is certainly above all human remedies to control the prevailing course of it; unless the great Governor of the world, who quells the rage and swelling of the sea, and sets bars and doors to it, beyond which the proudest of its waves cannot pass, shall, in his infinite compassion to us, do the same to that ocean of vice, which now swells, and roars, and lifts up itself above all banks and bounds of human laws; and so, by his omnipotent word, reducing its power, and abasing its pride, shall at length say to it, Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further. Which God in his good time effect. To whom be rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen. __________________________________________________________________ Natural Religion, without Revelation, shewn only sufficient to render a Sinner inexcusable: IN A SERMON PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY, AT CHRIST-CHURCH, OXON, Nov. 2, 1690. ROM. i. 20. --So that they are without excuse. THIS excellent epistle, though in the front of it it bears a particular inscription, yet, in the drift and purpose of it, is universal; as designing to convince all mankind (whom it supposes in pursuit of true happiness) of the necessity of seeking for it in the Gospel, and the impossibility of finding it elsewhere. All without the church, at that time, were comprehended under the division of Jews and Gentiles, called here by the apostle, Greeks; the nobler and more noted part being used for the whole. Accordingly, from the second chapter, down along, he addresses himself to the Jews, shewing the insufficiency of their law to justify, or make them happy, how much soever they doated upon it. But here, in this first chapter, he deals with the Greeks, or Gentiles, who sought for and promised themselves the same happiness from the dictates of right reason, which the Jews did from the Mosaic law. Where, after he had took an account of what their bare reason had taught them in the things of God, and compared the superstructure with the foundation, their practice with their knowledge, he finds them so far from arriving at the happiness which they aspired to by this means, that upon a full survey of the whole matter, the result of all comes to this sad and deplorable issue, that they were sinful and miserable, and that without excuse. In the words, taken with the coherence of the precedent and subsequent verses, we have these four things consider able. I. The sin here followed upon a certain sort of men, with this so severe a judgment; namely, that knowing God, they did not glorify him as God, ver. 21. II. The persons guilty of this sin; they were such as professed themselves wise, ver. 22. III. The cause or reason of their falling into this sin; which was their holding the truth in unrighteousness, ver. 18. And, IV. and lastly, The judgment, or rather the state and condition, penally consequent upon these sinners; namely, that they were without excuse, ver. 20. Of each of which in their order: and first, for the first of them. The sin here followed with so severe a judgment, and so highly aggravated, and condemned by the apostle, is, by the united testimony of most divines upon this place, the sin of idolatry: which the apostle affirms to consist in this; That the Gentiles glorified not God, as God. Which general charge he also draws forth into particulars; as, that they changed his glory into the similitude and images of men, and beasts, and birds; where, by glory, he means God's worship, to wit, that by which men glorify him, and not the essential glory of his nature; it being such a glory, as was in men's power to change and to debase; and therefore must needs consist, either in those actions, or those means, which they performed the divine worship by. I know no place, from which we may more clearly gather what the scripture accounts idolatry, than from this chapter. From whence, that I may represent to you what idolatry is, and wherein one sort of it, at least, does consist, you may observe, that the persons who are here charged with it are positively affirmed to have known and acknowledged the true God. For it is said of them, that they knew his eternal power and godhead, in this twentieth verse; nay, and they worshipped him too. From whence this undeniably and invincibly follows, that they did not look upon those images, which they addressed to, as gods, nor as things in which the divine nature did or could inclose itself; nor, consequently, to which they gave, or ultimately designed their religious worship. This conclusion therefore I infer, and assert, that idolatry is not only an accounting or worshipping that for God which is not God, but it is also a worshipping the true God in a way wholly unsuitable to his nature; and particularly by the mediation of images and corporeal resemblances of him. This is idolatry: for the persons here spoken of, pretended to glorify the true God, but they did not glorify him as God, and upon that account stand arraigned for idolaters. Common sense and experience will and must evince the truth of this. For can any one imagine, that men of reason, who had their senses quick, and their wits and discourse entire, could take that image or statue, which they fell down before, to be a god? Could they think that to be infinite and immense, the ubiquity of which they could thrust into a corner of their closet? Or, could they conceive that to be eternal, which a few days before they had seen a log, or a rude trunk, and perhaps the other piece of it a joint-stool in the workman's shop? The ground and reason of all worship is, an opinion of power and will in the person worshipped to answer and supply our desires; which he cannot possibly do, unless he first apprehend them. But can any man, who is master of sense himself, believe the rational heathens so void of it, as to think that those images could fulfil the petitions which they could not hear, pity the wants they could not see, do all things when they could not stir an hand or a foot? It is impossible they should; but it is also certain, that they were idolaters. And therefore it is clear that their idolatry consisted in something else, and the history of it would demonstrate so much, were it proper to turn a sermon into an history. So that we see here, that the sin condemned in the text, was the worshipping of the true God by images. For the defence of which, there is no doubt but they might have pleaded, and did plead for those images, that they used them not as objects, but only as means and instruments of divine worship, not as what they worshipped, but as that, by which they directed their worship to God. Though still, methinks it is something hard to conceive, that none of the worship should fall upon the image by the way, or that the water can be conveyed into the sea, without so much as wet ting the channel through which it passes. But however, you see it requires a very distinguishing head, and an even hand, and no small skill in directing the intention, to carry a prayer quite through to its journey's end: though, after all, the mischief of it is, that the distinction, which looks so fine in the theory, generally miscarries in the practice; especially where the ignorant vulgar are the practisers, who are the worst in the world at distinguishing, but yet make far the greatest part of mankind, and are as much concerned and obliged to pray, as the wisest and the best; but withal, infinitely unhappy, if they cannot perform a necessary duty without school-distinctions, nor beg their daily bread without metaphysics. And thus much for the first thing proposed; namely, the sin here spoken against by the apostle in the text; which was idolatry. 2. The second is the persons charged with this sin. And they were not the Gnosticks, as some whimsically imagine, who can never meet with the words gino'skontes, gino'skein, gnosis, or gnosto`n, but presently the Gnosticks must be drawn .in by the head and shoulders; but the persons here meant were plainly and manifestly the old heathen philosophers; such as not only in the apostles, but also in their own phrase, professed themselves to be wise. Their great title was sophoi`, and the word of applause still given to their lectures was sophos. And Pythagoras was the first who abated of the invidiousness of the name, and from sopho`s brought it down to philo'sophos, from a master to a lover of wisdom, from a professor to a candidate. These were the men here intended by St. Paul; men famous in their respective ages; the great favourites of nature, and the top and masterpiece of art; men, whose aspiring intellectuals had raised them above the common level, and made them higher by the head than the world round about them. Men of a polite reason, and a notion refined and enlarged by meditation. Such, as with all these advantages of parts and study, had been toiling and plodding many years, to outwit and deceive themselves; sat up many nights, and spent many days to impose a fallacy upon their reason; and, in a word, ran the round of all the arts and sciences to arrive, at length, at a glorious and elaborate folly; even these, I say, these grandees and giants in knowledge, who thus looked down, as it were, upon the rest of mankind, and laughed at all besides themselves, as barbarous and insignificant, (as quick and sagacious as they were to look into the little intrigues of matter and motion, which a man might salva scientia, or at least, salva anima ignorare,) yet blundered and stumbled about their grand and principal concern, the knowledge of their duty to God, sinking into the meanest and most ridiculous instances of idolatry; even so far, as to worship the great God under the form of beasts and creeping things; to adore eternity and immensity in a brute or a plant, or some viler thing; bowing down, in their adoration, to such things as they would scarce otherwise have bowed down to take up. Nay, and to rear temples, and make altars to fear, lust, and revenge; there being scarce a corrupt passion of the mind, or a distemper of the body, but what they worshipped. So that it could not be expected, that they should ever repent of those sins which they thought fit to deify, nor mortify those corrupt affections to which they ascribed a kind of divinity and immortality. By all which, they fell into a greater absurdity in matter of practice, than ever any one of them did in point of opinion; (which yet certainly was very hard;) namely, that having confessed a God, and allowed him the perfections of a God, to wit, an infinite power, and an eternal godhead, they yet denied him the worship of God: thus reversing the great truths they had subscribed to in speculation, by a brutish, senseless devotion, managed with a greater prostration of reason than of body. Had the poor vulgar rout only, who were held under the prejudices and prepossessions of education, been abused into such idolatrous superstitions, as to adore a marble or a golden deity, it might have been detested indeed, or pitied, but not so much to be wondered at: but for the stoa, the academy, or the peripaton to own such a paradox; for an Aristotle or a Plato to think their Nous aidios, their eternal mind or universal spirit, to be found in, or served by, the images of fourfooted beasts; for the Stagirite to recognise his gods in his own book de Animalibus; this, as the apostle says, was without excuse: and how will these men answer for their sins, who stand thus condemned for their devotions? And thus, from the persons here charged by the apostle with the sin of idolatry, pass we now to the 3d thing proposed; namely, the cause or reason of their falling into this sin; and that was their holding of the truth in unrighteousness. For the making out of which, we must inquire into these two things. 1. What was the truth here spoken of. 2. How they held it in unrighteousness. For the first of them; there were these six great truths, the knowledge of which the Gentile philosophers stood accountable for: as, 1. That there was a God; a being distinct from this visible, material world; infinitely perfect, omniscient, omnipotent, eternal, transcendently good and holy. For all this is included in the very notion of a God. And this was a truth wrote with a sun beam, clear and legible to all mankind, and received by universal consent. 2. That this God was the maker and governor of this visible world. The first of which was evident from the very order of causes; the great argument, by which natural reason evinces a God. It being necessary, in such an order or chain of causes, to ascend to, and terminate in, some first: which should be the original of motion, and the cause of all other things, but itself be caused by none. And then, that God also governed the world, this followed from the other; for that a creature should not depend upon its Creator in all respects, in which it is capable of depending upon him, (amongst which, to be governed by him, is certainly one,) is contrary to the common order and nature of things, and those essential relations which (by virtue thereof) they bear to one another; and consequently absurd and impossible. So that upon a bare principle of reason, creation must needs infer providence; and God's making the world, irrefragably prove that he governs it too; or that a Being of a dependent nature remains nevertheless independent upon him in that respect. Besides all which, it is also certain that the heathens did actually acknowledge the world governed by a supreme mind; which knowledge, whether they had it from tradition, or the discourses of reason, they stood however equally accountable for upon either account. 3dly, That this God, or supreme Being, was to be worshipped. For this was founded upon his omni potence, and his providence. Since he, who could preserve or destroy as he pleased, and withal governed the world, ought surely to be depended upon by those who were thus obnoxious to his power, and subject to his government; which dependence could not manifest itself but by acts of worship, homage, and address to the person thus depended upon. 4thly, That this God was to be worshipped, or addressed to, by virtuous and pious practices. For so much his essential holiness required, and those innate notions of turpe et honestum, wrote in the consciences of all men, and joined with the apprehensions they had of the infinite purity of the divine nature, could not but suggest. 5thly, That upon any deviation from virtue and piety, it was the duty of every rational creature so deviating, to condemn, renounce, and be sorry for every such deviation: that is, in other words, to repent of it. What indeed the issue or effect of such a repentance might be, bare reason could not of itself discover, but that a peccant creature should disapprove, and repent of every violation of, and declination from, the rules of just and honest, this, right reason, discoursing upon the stock of its own principles, could not but infer. And the conscience of every man, before it is debauched and hardened by habitual sin, will recoil after the doing of an evil action, and acquit him after a good. 6thly and lastly, That every such deviation from duty rendered the person so deviating liable and obnoxious to punishment. I do not say, that it made punishment necessary, but that it made the person so transgressing worthy of it; so that it might justly be inflicted on him, and consequently ought rationally to be feared and expected by him. And upon this notion, universally fixed in the minds of men, were grounded all their sacrifices, and rites of expiation, and lustration. The use of which has been so general, both as to times and places, that there is no age or nation of the world in which they have not been used as principal parts of religious worship. Now these six grand truths were the talent en trusted, and deposited by God in the hands of the Gentiles for them to traffick with, to his honour, and their own happiness. But what little improvement they made of this noble talent, shall now be shewn in the next particular; namely, their holding of it in unrighteousness: which they did several ways. As, 1. By not acting up to what they knew. As in many things their knowledge was short of the truth, so, almost in all things, their practice fell short of their knowledge. The principles by which they walked, were as much below those by which they judged, as their feet were below their head. By the one they looked upwards, while they placed the other in the dirt. Their writings sufficiently shew what raised and sublime notions they had of the divine nature, while they employed their reason about that glorious object, and what excellent discourses of virtue and morality the same reason enabled them to furnish the world with. But when they came to transcribe these theories into practice, one seemed to be of no other use to them at all, but only to reproach them for the other. For they neither depended upon this God as if he were almighty, nor worshipped him as if they believed him holy; but in both prevaricated with their own principles to that degree, that their practice was a direct contradiction to their speculations. For the proof of which, go over all the heathen temples, and take a survey of the absurdities and impieties of their worship, their monstrous sacrifices, their ridiculous rites and ceremonies. In all which, common sense and reason could not but tell them, that the good and gracious God could not be pleased, nor consequently worshipped, with any thing barbarous or cruel; nor the most holy God with any thing filthy and unclean; nor a God infinitely wise with any thing sottish or ridiculous; and yet these were the worthy qualifications of the heathen worship, even amongst their greatest and most reputed philosophers. And then, for the duties of morality; surely they never wanted so much knowledge as to inform and convince them of the unlawfulness of a man's being a murderer, an hater of God, a covenant-breaker, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful. These were enormities branded and condemned by the first and most natural verdict of common humanity; and so very gross and foul, that no man could pretend ignorance that they ought to be avoided by him: and yet the apostle tells us, in the last verse of this chapter, that they practised so much short of their knowledge, even as to these particulars, That though they knew the judgment of God, that those who committed such things were worthy of death, yet not only did the same themselves, but also had pleasure in those that did them. Which certainly is the greatest demonstration of a mind wholly possessed and even besotted with the love of vice, that can possibly be imagined. So notoriously did these wretches balk the judgment of their consciences, even in the plainest and most undeniable duties relating to God, their neighbour, and themselves; as if they had owned neither God nor neighbour, but themselves. 2dly, These men held the truth in unrighteousness, by not improving those known principles into the proper consequences deducible from them. For surely had they discoursed rightly but upon this one principle, that God was a being infinitely perfect, they could never have been brought to assert or own a multiplicity of gods. For can one god include in him all perfection, and another god include in him all perfection too? Can there be any more than all? and if this all be in one, can it be also in another? Or, if they allot and parcel out several perfections to several deities, do they not, by this, assert contradictions, making a deity only to such a measure perfect; whereas a deity, as such, implies perfection beyond all measure or limitation? Nor could they, in the next place, have slid into those brutish immoralities of life, had they duly manured those first practical notions and dictates of right reason, which the nature of man is originally furnished with; there being not any one of them, but what is naturally productive of many more. But they quickly stifled and overlaid those infant principles, those seeds of piety and virtue sown by God and nature in their own hearts; so that they brought a voluntary darkness and stupidity upon their minds; and, by not exercising their senses to discern between good and evil, came at length to lose all sense and discernment of either: where upon, as the apostle says of them in the 21st verse of this chapter to the Romans, their foolish heart was darkened: and that, not only by the just judgment of God, but also by the very course of nature; nothing being more evident from experience, than that the not using or employing any faculty or power, either of body or soul, does insensibly weaken and impair that faculty; as a sword by long lying still will contract a rust, which shall not only deface its brightness, but by degrees also consume its very substance. Doing nothing, naturally ends in being nothing. It holds in all operative principles whatsoever, but especially in such as relate to morality; in which, not to proceed, is certainly to go backward; there being no third estate between not advancing and retreating in a virtuous course. Growth is of the very essence and nature of some things. To be, and to thrive, is all one with them; and they know no middle season between their spring and their fall. And therefore, as it is said in Matt. xiii. 12. that from him who hath not, shall be taken away even that which he hath: so he, who neglects the practice, shall, in the end also, lose the very power and faculty of doing well. That which stops a man's actual breathing very long, will, in the issue, take away his very power of breathing too. To hide one's talent in the ground is to bury it; and the burial of a thing either finds it dead, or will quickly make it so. 3dly, These men held the truth in unrighteousness, by concealing what they knew. For how rightly soever they might conceive of God and of virtue, yet the illiterate multitude, who, in such things, must see with better eyes than their own, or see not at all, were never the wiser for it. Whatsoever the inward sentiments of those sophisters were, they kept them wholly to themselves; hiding all those important truths, all those useful notions from the people, and teaching the world much otherwise from what they judged themselves. Though I think a greater truth than this cannot well be uttered; That never any thing or person was really good, which was good only to itself. But from hence it was, that, even in a literal sense, sin came to be established by a law. For amongst the Gentiles, the laws themselves were the greatest offenders. They made little or no provision for virtue, but very much for vice: for the early and universal practice of sin had turned it into a custom, and custom, especially in sin, quickly passed into common law. Socrates was the only martyr for the testimony of any truth that we read of amongst the heathens, who chose rather to be condemned, and to die, than either to renounce or conceal his judgment touching the unity of the Godhead. But as for the rest of them, even Zeno and Chrysippus, Plato and Aristotle, and generally all those heroes in philosophy, they swam with the stream, (as foul as it ran,) leaving the poor vulgar as ignorant and sottish, as vicious and idolatrous, as they first found them. But it has been always the practice of the governing cheats of all religions, to keep the people in as gross ignorance as possibly they could; for, we see, the heathen impostors used it before the Christian impostors took it up and improved it. Si populus decipi vult, decipiatur, was ever a gold and silver rule amongst them all; though the pope's legate first turned it into a benediction: and a very strange one it was, and enough, one would think, to have made all that heard it look about them, and begin to bless themselves. For as Demetrius, a great master in such arts, told his fellow-artists, Acts xix. 25. it was by this craft that they got their wealth: so long experience has found it true of the unthinking mobile; that the closer they shut their eyes, the wider they open their hands. But this base trade the church of England always abhorred; and for that cause, as to its temporal advantages, has fared accordingly; and, by this time, may be thought fit for another reformation. And thus I have shewn three notable ways, by which the philosophers and learned men amongst the Gentiles held the truth in unrighteousness: as first, That they did not practise up to it: 2dly, That they did not improve it: and 3dly and lastly, That they concealed and dissembled it. And this was that which prepared and disposed them to greater enormities: for, changing the truth of God into a Iie, they became like those, who, by often repeating a lie to others, came at length to believe it themselves. They owned the idolatrous worship of God so long, till, by degrees, even in spite of reason and nature, they thought that he ought so to be worshipped. But this stopped not here: for as one wickedness is naturally a step and introduction to another; so, from absurd and senseless devotions, they passed into vile affections, practising vices against nature, and that in such strange and abominable instances of sin, that nothing could equal the corruption of their manners, but the delusion of their judgments; both of them the true and proper causes of one an other. The consideration of which, one would think, should make men cautious, and fearful, how they suppress or debauch that spark of natural light, which God has set up in their souls. When nature is in the dark, it will venture to do any thing. And God knows how far the spirit of infatuation may prevail upon the heart, when it comes once to court and love a delusion. Some men hug an error, because it gratifies them in a freer enjoyment of their sensuality: and for that reason, God in judgment suffers them to be plunged into fouler and grosser errors; such as even unman, and strip them of the very principles of reason and sober discourse. For surely it could be no ordinary declension of nature, that could bring some men, after an ingenuous education in arts and philosophy, to place their summum bonum upon their trenchers, and their utmost felicity in wine and women, and those lusts and pleasures, which a swine or a goat has as full and quick a sense of, as the greatest statesman or the best philosopher in the world. Yet this was the custom, this the known voice of most of the Gentiles; Dum vivimus vivamus; Let us eat and drink to-day, for to-morrow we must die. That soul which God had given them comprehensive of both worlds, and capable of looking into the great mysteries of nature, of diving into the depths beneath, and of understanding the motions and influences of the stars above; even this glorious, active thing did they confine within the pitiful compass of the present fruition; forbidding it to take a prospect, so far as into the morrow; as if to think, to contemplate, or be serious, had been high treason against the empire and prerogative of sense, usurping the throne of their baffled and deposed reason. And how comes it to pass, that even nowadays there is often seen such a vast difference between the former and the latter part of some men's lives? that those who first stepped forth into the world with high and promising abilities, vigorous intellectuals, and clear morals, come at length to grow sots and epicures, mean in their discourses, and dirty in their practices; but that, as by degrees, they remitted of their industry, loathed their business, and gave way to their pleasures, they let fall those generous principles, which, in their youthful days, had borne them upon the wing, and raised them to worthy and great thoughts; which thoughts and principles not being kept up and cherished, but smothered in sensual delights, God, for that cause, suffered them to flag and sink into low and inglorious satisfactions, and to enjoy themselves more in a revel or a merry-meeting, a strumpet or a tavern, than in being useful to a church or a nation, in being a public good to society, and a benefit to mankind. The parts that God gave them, they held in unrighteousness, sloth, and sensuality; and this made God to desert and abandon them to themselves; so that they have had a doating and a decrepit reason, long before age had given them such a body. And therefore I could heartily wish, that such young persons as hear me now, would lodge this one observation deep in their minds; viz. that God and nature have joined wisdom and virtue by such a near cognation, or rather such an inseparable connection, that a wise, a prudent, and an honourable old age, is seldom or never found, but as the reward and effect of a sober, a virtuous, and a well-spent youth. 4. I descend now to the fourth and last thing proposed; namely, The judgment, or rather the state and condition penally consequent upon the persons here charged by the apostle with idolatry; which is, That they were without excuse. After the commission of sin, it is natural for the sinner to apprehend himself in danger, and, upon such apprehension, to provide for his safety and defence; and that must be one of these two ways: viz. either by pleading his innocence, or by using his power. But since it would be infinitely in vain for a finite power to contend with an infinite; innocence, if any thing, must be his plea; and that must be, either by an absolute denial, or, at least, by an extenuation or diminution of his sin. Though indeed this course will be found altogether as absurd as the other could be; it being every whit as irrational for a sinner to plead his innocence before omniscience, as it would be to oppose his power to omnipotence. However, the last refuge of a guilty person, is to take shelter under an excuse; and so to mitigate, if he cannot divert the blow. It was the method of the great pattern and parent of all sinners, Adam, first to hide, and then to excuse himself; to wrap the apple in the leaves, and to give his case a gloss at least, though not a defence. But now, when the sinner shall be stripped of this also, have all his excuses blown away, be stabbed with his own arguments, and, as it were, sacrificed upon that very altar which he fled to for succour, this surely is the height and crisis of a forlorn condition. Yet this was the case of the male factors who stand here arraigned in the text; this was the consummation of their doom, that they were persons, not only unfit for a pardon, but even for a plea. Now an excuse, in the nature of it, imports these two things. 1. The supposition of a sin. 2. The extenuation of its guilt. As for the sin itself, we have already heard what that was, and we will now see how able they are to acquit themselves in point of its extenuation. In which, according to the two grand principles of human actions which determine their morality, the understanding and the will, the excuse must derive either from ignorance or unwillingness. As for unwillingness, (to speak of this last first,) the heathen philosophers generally asserted the freedom of the will, and its inviolable dominion over its own actions; so that no force or coaction from without could entrench upon the absolute empire of this faculty. It must be confessed indeed, that it hath been something lamed in this its freedom by original sin; of which defect the heathens themselves were not wholly ignorant, though they were of its cause. So that hereupon, the will is not able to carry a man out to a choice so perfectly, and in all respects good, but that still there is some adherent circumstance of imperfection, which, in strictness of morality, renders every action of it evil; according to that known and most true rule, Malum ex quolibet defectu. Nevertheless, the will has still so much freedom left, as to enable it to choose any act in its kind good, whether it be an act of temperance, justice, or the like; as also to refuse any act in its kind evil, whether of intemperance, injustice, or the like; though yet it neither chooses one, nor refuses the other, with such a perfect concurrence of all due ingredients of action, but that still, in the sight of God, judging according to the rigid measures of the law, every such choice or refusal is indeed sinful and imperfect. This is most certain, whatsoever Pelagius and his brethren assert to the contrary. But however, that measure of freedom which the will still retains, of being able to choose any act materially, and in its kind good, and to refuse the contrary, was enough to cut off all excuse from the heathen, who never duly improved the utmost of such a power, but gave themselves up to all the filthiness and licentiousness of life imaginable. In all which it is certain, that they acted willingly, and without compulsion; or rather indeed greedily, and without control. The only persons amongst the heathens who sophisticated nature and philosophy in this particular, were the Stoicks; who affirmed a fatal, unchangeable concatenation of causes, reaching even to the elicit acts of man's will. So that according to them there was no act of volition exerted by it, but, all circumstances considered, it was impossible for the will not to exert that volition. But these were but one sect of philosophers; that is, but an handful in comparison of the rest of the Gentiles: ridiculous enough, for what they held and taught, and consequently not to be laid in the balance with the united judgment of all other learned men in the world, unanimously exploding this opinion. Questionless therefore, a thing so deeply engraven upon the first and most inward notions of man's mind, as a persuasion of the will's freedom, would never permit the heathens (who are here charged by the apostle) to patronize and excuse their sins upon this score, that they committed them against their will, and that they had no power to do otherwise. In which, every hour's experience, and reflection upon the method of their own actings, could not but give them the lie to their face. The only remaining plea therefore, which these men can take sanctuary in, must be that of ignorance; since there could be no pretence for unwillingness. But the apostle divests them even of this also: for he says expressly, in verse 19, that what might be known of God, that famous and so much disputed of to gnoston tou Theou, was manifested in them; and in verse 21, their unexcusableness is stated upon the supposition of this very thing, that they knew God, but, for all that, did not glorify him as God. This was the sum of their charge; and how it has been made good against them we have already shewn, in what we have spoken about their idolatry, very briefly, I confess, but enough to shew its absurdity, though not to account for its variety, when Vossius's very abridgment of it makes a thick volume in folio. The plea of ignorance therefore is also taken out of their hands; forasmuch as they knew that there was a God; and that this God made and governed the world; and upon that account was to be worshipped and addressed to; and that with such a worship as should be agreeable to his nature, both in respect of the piety and virtue of the worshipper, and also of the means of the worship itself. So that he was neither to be worshipped with impious and immoral practices, nor with corporeal resemblances, For how could an image help men in directing their thoughts to a Being which bore no similitude or cog nation to that image at all? And what resemblance could wood or stone bear to a spirit void of all sensible qualities and bodily dimensions? How could they put men in mind of infinite power, wisdom, and holiness, and such other attributes, of which they had not the least mark or character? But now, if these things could not possibly resemble any perfection of the Deity, what use could they be of to men in their addresses to God? For can a man's devotions be helped by that which brings an error upon his thoughts? And certain it is, that it is natural for a man, by directing his prayers to an image, to suppose the Being he prays to represented by that image. Which how injurious, how contumelious it must needs be to the glorious, incomprehensible nature of God, by begetting such false and low apprehensions of him in the minds of his creature, let common sense, not perverted by interest and design, be judge. From all which it follows, that the idolatrous heathens, and especially the most learned of them, not being able to charge their idolatry either upon ignorance or unwillingness, were wholly without excuse. So that it is to be feared, that Averroes had not the right way of blessing himself, when, in defiance of Christianity, he wished, Sit anima mea cum philosophis. And now, after all, I cannot but take notice, that all that I have said of the heathen idolatry is so exactly applicable to the idolatry of another sort of men in the world, that one would think this first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans were not so much an address to the ancient Romans, as a description of the modern. But to draw towards a close. The use and improvement of the foregoing discourse shall be briefly to inform us of these two things. 1st, The signally great and peculiar mercy of God to those to whom he has revealed the gospel, since there was nothing that could have obliged him to it upon the account of his justice: for if there had, the heathens, to whom he revealed it not, could not have been thus without excuse, but might very rationally have expostulated the case with their great Judge, and demurred to the equity of the sentence, had they been condemned by him. But it appears from hence, that what was sufficient to render men inexcusable, was not therefore sufficient to save them. It is not said by the apostle, nor can it be proved by any one else, that God vouchsafed to the heathens the means of salvation, if so be the gospel be the only means of it. And yet I will not, I dare not affirm, that God will save none of those to whom the sound of the gospel never reached: though this is evident, that if he does save any of them, it must not be by that ordinary, stated, appointed method, which the scripture has revealed to us, and which they were wholly ignorant of. For grant that the heathens knew that there was a God, who both made and governed the world, and who, upon that account, was to be worshipped, and that with such a worship as should be suitable to such a Being; yet what principle of mere reason could assure them, that this God would be a rewarder of such as diligently sought and served him? For certain it is, that there is nothing in the nature of God to oblige him to reward any service of his creature; forasmuch as all that the creature can do is but duty; and even now, at this time, God has no other obligation upon him, but his own free promise to reward the piety and obedience of his servants; which promise reason of itself could never have found out, till God made it known by revelation. And moreover, what principle of reason could assure a man, that God would pardon sinners upon any terms whatsoever? Possibly it might know, that God could do so; but this was no sufficient ground for men to depend upon. And then, last of all, as for the way of his pardoning sinners, that he should do it upon a satisfaction paid to his justice by such a Saviour as should be both God and man; this was utterly impossible for all the reason of mankind to find out. For that these things could be read in the book of nature, or the common works of God's providence, or be learned by the sun and moon's preaching the gospel, as some have fondly (not to say profanely) enough asserted, it is infinitely sottish to imagine, and can indeed he nothing else but the turning the grace of God into wanton and unreasonable propositions. It is clear therefore, that the heathens had no knowledge of that way by which alone we expect salvation. So that all the hope which we can have for them is, that the gospel may not be the utmost limit of the divine mercy; but that the merits of Christ may overflow, and run over the pale of the church, so as to reach even many of those who lived and died invincibly ignorant of him. But whether this shall be so, or no, God alone knows, who only is privy to the great counsels of his own will. It is a secret hid from us; and therefore, though we may hope compassionately, yet I am sure we can pronounce nothing certainly: it is enough for us, that God has asserted his justice, even in his dealing with those whom he treats not upon terms of evangelical mercy. So that such persons can neither excuse themselves, nor yet accuse him; who, in the severest sentence that he can pronounce upon the sinner, will (as the Psalmist tells us) be justified when he speaks, and clear when he is judged. 2dly, In the next place, we gather hence the unspeakably wretched and deplorable condition of obstinate sinners under the gospel. The sun of mercy has shined too long and too bright upon such, to leave them any shadow of excuse. For, let them argue over all the topics of divine goodness and human weakness, and whatsoever other pretences poor sinking sinners are apt to catch at, to support and save themselves by; yet how trifling must be their plea! how impertinent their defence! For admit an impenitent heathen to plead, that, albeit his conscience told him that he had sinned, yet it could not tell him that there was any provision of mercy for him upon his repentance. He knew not whether amendment of life would be accepted, after the law was once broke; or that there was any other righteousness to atone or merit for him, but his own. But no Christian, who has been taken into the arms of a better covenant, and grown up in the knowledge of a Saviour, and the doctrine of faith and repentance from dead works, can speak so much as one plausible word for his impenitence. And therefore it was said of him who came to the marriage-feast without a wedding-garment, that, being charged, and apprehended for it, ephimo'the, he was speechless, struck with shame and silence, the proper effects of an overpowering guilt, too manifest to be denied, and too gross to be defended. His reason deserted, and his voice failed him, finding himself arraigned, convicted, and condemned in the court of his own conscience. So that if, after all this, his great Judge had freely asked him, what he could allege or say for himself, why he should not have judgment to die eternally, and sentence to be awarded according to the utmost rigours of the law, he could not, in this forlorn case, have made use of the very last plea of a cast criminal: nor so much as have cried, Mercy, Lord, mercy. For still his conscience would have replied upon him, that mercy had been offered and abused; and that the time of mercy was now past. And so, under this overwhelming conviction, every gospel-sinner must pass to his eternal execution, taking the whole load of his own damnation solely and entirely upon himself, and acquitting the most just God, who is righteous in all his works, and holy in all his ways. To whom, therefore, be rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen. __________________________________________________________________ Sacramental Preparation: SET FORTH IN A SERMON PREACHED AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY, APRIL 8, 1688, BEING PALM SUNDAY. MATTHEW xxii. 12. And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither, not having a wedding-garment? THE whole scheme of these words is figurative, as being a parabolical description of God's vouchsafing to the world the invaluable blessing of the gospel, by the similitude of a king, with great magnificence, solemnizing his son's marriage, and with equal bounty bidding and inviting all about him to that royal solemnity; together with his severe animadversion, both upon those who would not come, and upon one who did come in a very unbeseeming manner. For the better understanding of which words, we must observe, that in all parables, two things are to be considered. First, The scope and design of the parable; and, Secondly, The circumstantial passages, serving only to complete and make up the narration. Accordingly, in our application of any parable to the thing designed and set forth by it, we must not look for an absolute and exact correspondence of all the circumstantial or subservient passages of the metaphorical part of it, with just so many of the same, or the like passages in the thing intended by it; but it is sufficient, that there be a certain analogy, or agreement between them, as to the principal scope and design of both. As for the design of this parable, it is, no doubt, to set forth the free offer of the gospel, with all its rich privileges, to the Jewish church and nation, in the first place; and upon their refusal of it, and God's rejection of them for that refusal, to declare the calling of the gentiles in their room, by a free, unlimited tender of the gospel to all nations whatsoever; adding withal a very dreadful and severe sentence upon those, who, being so freely invited, and so generously admitted, to such high and undeserved privileges, should nevertheless abuse and despise them by an unworthy, wicked, and ungrateful deportment under them. For men must not think that the gospel is all made up of privilege and promise, but that there is something of duty to be performed, as well as of privilege to be enjoyed. No welcome to a wedding supper without a wedding garment; and no coming by a wedding garment for nothing. In all the trans actions between God and the souls of men, some thing is expected on both sides; there being a fixed, indissoluble, and (in the language of the parable) a kind of marriage-tie between duty and privilege, which renders them inseparable. Now, though I question not but that this parable of the wedding supper comprehends in it the whole complex of all the blessings and privileges exhibited by the gospel; yet, I conceive, that there is one principal privilege amongst all the rest, that it seems more peculiarly to aim at, or at least may more appositely and emphatically be applied to, than to any other whatsoever: and that is the blessed sacrament of the eucharist, by which all the benefits of the gospel are in an higher, fuller, and more divine manner conveyed to the faithful, than by any other duty or privilege belonging to our excellent religion. And for this, I shall offer these three following reasons. 1 . Because the foundation of all parables is, as we have shewn, some analogy or similitude between the tropical or allusive part of the parable, and the thing couched under it, and intended by it. But now, of all the benefits, privileges, or ordinances of the gospel, which of them is there that carries so natural a resemblance to a wedding supper as that, which every one of a very ordinary, discerning faculty may observe in the sacrament of the eucharist? For, surely, neither the preaching of the word, nor yet the sacrament of baptism, bears any such resemblance or affinity to it. But, on the other side, this sacrament of the eucharist so lively resembles, and so happily falls in with it, that it is indeed itself a supper, and is called a supper, and that by a genuine, proper, as well as a common and received appellation. 2t. This sacrament is not only with great propriety of speech called a supper; but moreover, as it is the grand and prime means of the nearest and most intimate union and conjunction of the soul with Christ, it may, with a peculiar significancy, be called also a wedding supper. And, as Christ frequently in scripture owns himself related to the church, as an husband to a spouse; so, if these nuptial endearments, by which Christ gives himself to the soul, and the soul mutually gives itself to Christ, pass between Christ and believers in any ordinance of the gospel, doubtless it is most eminently and effectually in this: which is another pregnant instance of the notable resemblance between this divine sacrament and the wedding supper in the parable; and consequently, a further argument of the elegant and expressive signification of one by the other. 3dly and lastly, The very manner of celebrating this sacrament, which is by the breaking of bread, was the way and manner of transacting marriages in some of the eastern countries. Thus Q. Curtius reports, that when Alexander the Great married the Persian Roxana, the ceremony they used was no other but this; panem gladio divisum uterque libabat; he divided a piece of bread with his sword, of which each of them took a part, and so thereby the nuptial rites were performed. Besides, that this ceremony of feasting belongs most properly both to marriage and to the eucharist, as both of them have the nature of a covenant. And all covenants were, in old times, solemnized and accompanied with festival eating and drinking; the persons newly confederate always thereupon feasting together in token of their full and perfect accord, both as to interest and affection. And now these three considerations together, so exactly suiting the parable of the wedding supper to this spiritual, divine banquet of the gospel, if it does not primarily, and in its first design, intend it; yet, certainly it may with greater advantage of resemblance be applied to it, than to any other duty or privilege belonging to Christianity. Upon the warrant of which so very particular and extraordinary a cognation between them, I shall, at present, treat of the words wholly with reference to this sacred and divine solemnity, observing and gathering from them, as they lie in coherence with the foregoing and following parts of the parable, these two propositions. 1. That to a worthy participation of the holy mysteries and great privileges of the gospel, and particularly that of the Lord's supper, there is indispensably required a suitable preparation. 2. That God is a strict observer of, and a severe animadverter upon, such as presume to partake of those mysteries, without such a preparation. And first, for the first of these; viz. That to a worthy participation of the holy mysteries, &c. Now this proposition imports in it two things: 1. That to a right discharge of this duty, a preparation is necessary. 2. That every preparation is not sufficient. And first, for the First of these: That a preparation is necessary. And this, I confess, is a subject which I am heartily sorry that any preacher should find it needful to speak so much as one word upon. For would any man in his wits venture to die without preparation? And if not, let me tell you, that nothing less than that which will fit a man for death, can fit him for the sacrament. The truth is, there is nothing great or considerable in the world, which ought to be done, or ventured upon, without preparation: but, above all, how dangerous, sottish, and irrational is it, to engage in any thing or action extempore, where the concern is eternity! None but the careless and the confident (and few are confident, but what are first careless) would rush rudely into the presence of a great man: and shall we, in our applications to the great God, take that to be religion, which the common reason of mankind will not allow to be manners? The very rules of worldly civility might instruct men how to order their addresses to God. For who, that is to appear before his prince or patron, would not view and review himself over and over, with all imaginable care and solicitude, that there be nothing justly offensive in his habit, language, or behaviour? But especially, if he be vouchsafed the honour of his table, it would be infinitely more absurd and shameful to appear foul and sordid there; and in the dress of the kitchen, receive the entertainments of the parlour. What previous cleansings and consecrations, and what peculiar vestments were the priests, under the law, enjoined to use, when they were to appear before God in the sanctuary! And all this upon no less a penalty than death. This and this they were to do, lest they died, lest God should strike them dead upon the spot; as we read in Levit. viii. 35. and in many other places in the books of Moses. And so exact were the Jews in their preparations for the solemn times of God's worship, that every sa'bbaton had its prosa'bbaton or paraskene`, that is, a part of the sixth day, from the hour of six in the evening, to fit them for the duties of the seventh day: nor was this all; but they had also a proparaskene`, beginning about three in the afternoon, to prepare them for that: and indeed, the whole day was,, in a manner, but preparative to the next; several works being disallowed and forborne amongst them on that day, which were not so upon any of the foregoing five: so careful, even to scrupulosity, were they to keep their sabbath with due reverence and devotion, that they must not only have a time to prepare them for that, but a further time also to prepare them for their very preparations. Nay, and the heathens, (many of them at least,) when they were to sacrifice to their greatest and most revered deities, used, on the evening before, to have a certain preparative rite or ceremony, called by them coena pura; that is, a supper, consisting of some peculiar meats, in which they imagined a kind of holiness: and, by eating of which, they thought themselves sanctified, and fitted to officiate about the mysteries of the ensuing festival. And what were all their lustrations, but so many solemn purifyings, to render both themselves and their sacrifices acceptable to their gods? So that we see here a concurrence both of the Jews and heathens in this practice, before Christianity ever appeared: which to me is a kind of demonstration, that the necessity of men's preparing themselves for the sacred offices of religion was a lesson which the mere light and dictates of common reason, without the help of revelation, taught all the knowing and intelligent part of the world. I will wash my hands in innocency, says David, and so will I compass thine altar, Psalm xxvi. 6. And as the apostle told the Hebrews, Heb. xiii. 10. We also, we Christians, have an altar as well as they; an altar as sacred, an altar to be approached with as much awe and reverence; and though there be no fire upon it, yet there is a dreadful one that follows it. A fire, that does not indeed consume the offering, but such an one as will be sure to seize and prey upon the unworthy offerer. I will be sanctified, says God, in them that come nigh me, Levit. x. 3. And God then accounts himself sanctified in such persons, when they sanctify themselves. Nadab and Abihu were a dreadful exposition of this text. And for what concerns ourselves; he that shall throughly consider what the heart of man is, what sin and the world is, and what it is to approve one's self to an all-searching eye, in so sublime a duty as the sacrament, must acknowledge that a man may as well go about it without a soul, as without preparation. For the holiest man living, by conversing with the world, insensibly draws something of soil and taint from it: the very air and mien, the way and business of the world, still, as it were, rubbing some thing upon the soul, which must be fetched off again, before it can be able heartily to converse with God. Many secret indispositions, coldnesses, and aversions to duty, will undiscernibly steal upon it; and it will require both time and close application of mind, to recover it to such a frame as shall dispose and fit it for the spiritualities of religion. And such as have made trial, find it neither so easy nor so ready a passage from the noise, the din, and hurry of business, to the retirements of devotion, from the exchange to the closet, and from the freedoms of conversation, to the recollections and disciplines of the spirit. The Jews, as soon as they came from markets, or any other such promiscuous resorts, would be sure to use accurate, and more than ordinary washings. And had their washings soaked through the body into the soul, and had not their inside reproached their outside, I see nothing in this custom, but what was allowable enough, and (in a people which needed washing so much) very commendable. Nevertheless, whatsoever it might have in it peculiar to the genius of that nation, the spiritual use and improvement of it, I am sure, may very well reach the best of us. So that if the Jews thought this practice requisite before they sat down to their own tables, let us Christians think it absolutely necessary, when we come to God's table, not to eat till we have washed. And when I have said so, I suppose I need not add, that our washing is to be like our eating, both of them spiritual; that we are to carry it from the hand to the heart, to improve a ceremonial nicety into a substantial duty, and the modes of civility into the realities of religion. And thus much for the first thing, that a preparation in general is necessary. But then, 2dly, the other thing imported in the proposition is, That every preparation is not sufficient. It must be a suitable preparation; none but a wedding garment will serve the turn; a garment, as much fitted to the solemnity, as to the body itself that wears it. Now all fitness lies in a particular commensuration, or proportion of one thing to another; and that such an one as is founded in the very nature of things themselves, and not in the opinions of men concerning them. And for this cause it is, that the soul, no less than the body, must have its several distinct postures and dispositions, fitting it for several distinct offices and performances. And as no man comes with folded arms to fight or wrestle, nor prepares himself for the battle as he would compose himself to sleep; so, upon a true estimate of things, it will be found every whit as absurd and irrational, for a man to discharge the most extraordinary duty of his religion, at the rate of an ordinary devotion. For this is really a paradox in practice, and men may sometimes do, as well as speak, contradictions. There is a great festival now drawing on; a festival, designed chiefly for the acts of a joyful piety, but generally made only an occasion of bravery. I shall say no more of it at present, but this; that God expects from men something more than ordinary at such times, and that it were much to be wished, for the credit of their religion, as well as the satisfaction of their consciences, that their Easter devotions would, in some measure, come up to their Easter dress. Now that our preparation may answer the important work and duty which we are to engage in, these two conditions, or qualifications, are required in it. 1. That it be habitual. 2. That it be also actual. For it is certain, that there may both be acts which proceed not from any preexisting habits; and, on the other side, habits which lie for a time dormant, and do not at all exert themselves in action. But in the case now before us, there must be a conjunction of both; and one without the other can never be effectual for that purpose, for which both together are but sufficient. And, First, For habitual preparation. This consists in a standing, permanent habit, or principle of holiness, wrought chiefly by God's Spirit, and instrumentally by his word, in the heart or soul of man: such a principle as is called, both by our Saviour and his apostles, the new birth, the new man, the immortal seed, and the like; and by which a man is so universally changed and transformed in the whole frame and temper of his soul, as to have a new judgment and sense of things, new desires, new appetites and inclinations. And this is first produced in him by that mighty spiritual change which we call conversion: which, being so rarely and seldom found in the hearts of men, (even where it is most pretended to,) is but too full and sad a demonstration of the truth of that terrible saying; That few are chosen; and consequently, but few saved. For who almost is there, of whom we can with any rational assurance, or perhaps so much as likelihood, affirm. Here is a man, whose nature is renewed, whose heart is changed, and the stream of whose appetites is so turned, that he does with as high and quick a relish taste the ways of duty, holiness, and strict living, as others, or as he himself before this, grasped at the most enamouring proposals of sin; who almost, I say, is there, who can reach and verify the height of this character? and yet, without which, the scripture absolutely affirms, that a man cannot see the kingdom of God, John iii. 3. For, let preachers say and suggest what they will, men will do as they use to do; and custom generally is too hard for conscience, in spite of all its convictions. Possibly sometimes in hearing or reading the word, the conscience may be alarmed, the affections warmed, good desires begin to kindle, and to form themselves into some degrees of resolution; but the heart remaining all the time unchanged, as soon as men slide into the common course and converse of the world, all those resolutions and convictions quickly cool and languish, and after a few days are dismissed as troublesome companions. But assuredly no man was ever made a true convert, or a new creature, at so easy a rate; sin was never dispossessed, nor holiness introduced, by such feeble, vanishing impressions. Nothing under a total, through change will suffice; neither tears, nor trouble of mind, neither good desires nor intentions, nor yet the relinquishment of some sins, nor the performance of some good works will avail any thing, but a new creature: a word, that comprehends more in it than words can well express; and perhaps, after all that can be said of it, never throughly to be understood by what a man hears from others, but by what he must feel within himself. And now, that this is required as the ground work of all our preparations for the sacrament, is evident from hence; because this sacrament is not first designed to make us holy, but rather supposes us to be so; it is not a converting, but a confirming ordinance: it is properly our spiritual food. And, as all food presupposes a principle of life in him who receives it, which life is, by this means, to be continued and supported; so the sacrament of the Lord's supper is originally intended to preserve and maintain that spiritual life, which we do or should receive in baptism, or at least by a through conversion after it. Upon which account, according to the true nature and intent of this sacrament, men should not expect life, but growth from it: and see that there be something to be fed, before they seek out for provision. For the truth is, for any one who is not passed from death to life, and has not in him that new living principle, which we have been hitherto speaking of, to come to this spiritual repast, is upon the matter as absurd and preposterous, as if he who makes a feast should send to the graves and the churchyards for guests, or entertain and treat a corpse at a banquet. Let men therefore consider, before they come hither, whether they have any thing besides the name they received in baptism to prove their Christianity by. Let them consider, whether, as by their baptism, they formerly washed away their original guilt, so they have not since, by their actual sins, washed away their baptism. And, if so, whether the converting grace of God has set them upon their legs again, by forming in them a new nature. And that, such an one, as exerts and shews itself by the sure, infallible effects of a good life: such an one, as enables them to reject and trample upon all the al luring offers of the world, the flesh, and the devil, so as not to be conquered or enslaved by them; and to choose the hard and rugged paths of duty, rather than the easy and voluptuous ways of sin: which every Christian, by the very nature of his religion, as well as by his baptismal vow, is strictly obliged to do: and if, upon an impartial survey of themselves, men find that no such change has passed upon them, either let them prove that they may be Christians upon easier terms, or have a care how they intrude upon so great and holy an ordinance, in which God is so seldom mocked, but it is to the mocker's confusion. And thus much for habitual preparation. But, 2dly, Over and above this, there is required also an actual preparation; which is, as it were, the furbishing or rubbing up of the former habitual principle. We have both of them excellently described in Matt. xxv. in the parable of the ten virgins; of which, the five wise are said to have had oil in their lamps; yet, notwithstanding that, midnight and weariness was too hard for them, and they all slumbered and slept, and their lamps cast but a dim and a feeble light till the bridegroom's approach; but then, upon the first alarm of that, they quickly rose, and trimmed their lamps, and without either trimming or painting themselves, (being as much too wise, as some should be too old for such follies,) they presently put themselves into a readiness to receive their surprising guest. Where, by their having oil in their lamps, no doubt, must be understood a principle of grace infused into their hearts, or the new nature formed within them; and, by their trimming their lamps, must be meant their actual exercise and improvement of that standing principle, in the particular instances of duty, suitable and appropriate to the grand solemnity of the bridegroom's reception. In like manner, when a man comes to this sacrament, it is not enough that he has an habitual stock of grace, that he has the immortal seed of a living faith sown in his heart. This indeed is necessary, but not sufficient; his faith must be, not only living, but lively too; it must be brightened and stirred up, and, as it were, put into a posture by a particular exercise of those several virtues, that are specifically requisite to a due performance of this duty: habitual grace is the life, and actual grace the beauty and ornament of the soul; and therefore, let people in this high and great concern be but so just to their souls, as, in one much less, they never fail to be to their bodies; in which the greatest advantages of natural beauty make none think the further advantage of a decent dress superfluous. Nor is it at all strange, if we look into the reason of things, that a man habitually good and pious, should, at some certain turns and times of his life, be at a loss how to exert the highest acts of that habitual principle. For no creature is perfect and pure act; especially a creature so compounded of soul and body, that body seems much the stronger part in the composition. Common experience shews that the wisest of men are not always fit and disposed to act wisely, nor the most admired speakers to speak eloquently and exactly. They have indeed an acquired, standing ability of wisdom and eloquence within them, which gives them an habitual sufficiency for such performances. But, for all that, if the deepest statesman should presume to go to council immediately from his cups, or the ablest preacher think himself fitted to preach, only by stepping up to the pulpit; not withstanding the policy of the one, and the eloquence of the other, they may chance to get the just character of bold fools for venturing, whatsoever good for tune may bring them off. And therefore the most active powers and faculties of the mind require something besides themselves, to raise them to the full height of their natural activity; something to excite and quicken, and draw them forth into immediate action. And this holds proportionably in all things, animate or inanimate, in the world. The bare nature and essential form of fire will enable it to burn; but there must be an enlivening breath of air besides, to make it flame. A man has the same strength, sleeping and waking; but while he sleeps, it fits him no more for business than if he had none. Nor is it the having of wheels and springs, though never so curiously wrought and artificially set, but the winding of them up, that must give motion to the watch. And it would be endless to illustrate this subject by all the various instances that art and nature could supply us with. But the case is much the same in spirituals: for grace in the soul, while the soul is in the body, will always have the ill neighbourhood of some remainders of corruption; which, though they do not conquer and extinguish, yet will be sure to slacken and allay the vigour and briskness of the renewed principle; so that when this principle is to engage in any great duty, it will need the actual intention, the particular stress and application of the whole soul, to disencumber and set it free, to scour off its rust, and remove those hinderances which would otherwise clog and check the freedom of its operations. And thus having shewn, that to fit us for a due access to the holy sacrament, we must add actual preparation to habitual, I shall now endeavour to shew the several parts or ingredients, of which this actual preparation must consist. And here I shall not pretend to give an account of every particular duty that may be useful for this purpose, but shall only mention some of the principal, and such as may most peculiarly contribute towards it: as, First, Let a man apply himself to the great and difficult work of self-examination by a strict scrutiny into, and survey of, the whole estate of his soul, according to that known and excellent rule of the apostle, in the very case now before us; 1 Cor. xi. 28. Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, &c. If a man would have such a wedding garment as may fit him exactly, let self-examination take the measure. A duty of so mighty an influence upon all that concerns the soul, that it is indeed the very root and groundwork of all true repentance, and the necessary antecedent, if not also the direct cause of a sinner's return to God. For, as there are some sins which require a particular and distinct repentance by themselves, and cannot be accounted for in the general heap of sins known and unknown; so, how is it possible for a man to repent rightly of such sins, unless, by a thorough search into the nature, number, and distinguishing circumstances of them, he comes to see how, and in what degree, they are to be repented of? But the sovereign excellency and necessity of this duty needs no other nor greater proof of it, than this one consideration, That nothing in nature can be more grievous and offensive to a sinner, than to look into himself; and generally what grace requires, nature is most averse to. It is indeed as offensive as to rake into a dunghill; as grievous, as for one to read over his debts, when he is not able to pay them; or for a bankrupt to examine and look into his accounts, which at the same time that they acquaint, must needs also upbraid him with his condition. But as irksome as the work is, it is absolutely necessary. Nothing can well be imagined more painful, than to probe and search a purulent old sore to the bottom; but for all that, the pain must be endured, or no cure expected. And men certainly have sunk their reason to very gross, low, and absurd conceptions of God, when in the matter of sin they can make such false and short reckonings with him and their own hearts; for can they imagine, that God has therefore forgot their sins, because they are not willing to remember them? or will they measure his pardon by their own oblivion? What pitiful fig-leaves, what senseless and ridiculous shifts are these, not able to silence, and much less satisfy, an accusing conscience! But now for the better management of this examination of our past lives, we must throughly canvass them with these and the like questions. As for instance; let a man inquire what sins he has committed, and what breaches he has made upon those two great standing rules of duty, the decalogue, and our Saviour's divine sermon upon the mount. Let him inquire also what particular aggravations lie upon his sins; as, whether they have not been committed against strong reluctancy and light of conscience? after many winning calls of mercy to reclaim, and many terrible warnings of judgment to affright him? Whether resolutions, vows, and protestations have not been made against them? Whether they have not been repeated frequently, and persisted in obstinately? And lastly, whether the same appetites to sin have not remained as active and unmortified after sacraments, as ever they had been before? How important these considerations and heads of inquiry are, all who understand any thing will easily perceive. For this we must know, that the very same sin, as to the nature of it, stamped with any one of these aggravations, is, in effect, not the same. And he who has sinned the same great sin, after several times receiving the sacrament, must not think that God will accept him under ten times greater repentance and contrition for it, than he brought with him to that duty formerly. Whether God, by his grace, will enable him to rise up to such a pitch, or no, is uncertain; but most certain, that both his work is harder, and his danger greater, than it was or could be at the first. Secondly, When a man has, by such a close and rigorous examination of himself, found out the accursed thing, and discovered his sin; the next thing in order must be, to work up his heart to the utmost hatred of it, and the bitterest sorrow and remorse for it. For self-examination having first presented it to the thoughts, these naturally transmit and hand it over to the passions. And this introduces the next ingredient of our sacramental preparations, to wit, repentance. Which arduous work I will suppose not now to begin, but to be renewed; and that with special reference to sins not repented of before; and yet more especially to those new scores which we still run ourselves upon, since the last preceding sacrament. Which method, faithfully and constantly observed, must needs have an admirable and mighty effect upon the conscience, and keep a man from breaking, or running behindhand in his spiritual estate, which, without frequent accountings, he will hardly be able to prevent. But, because this is a duty of such high consequence, I would by all means warn men of one very common, and yet very dangerous mistake about it; and that is, the taking of mere sorrow for sin for repentance. It is indeed a good introduction to it; but the porch, though never so fair and spacious, is not the house itself. Nothing passes in the accounts of God for repentance, but change of life: ceasing to do evil, and doing good, are the two great integral parts that complete this duty. For not to do evil is much better than the sharpest sorrow for having done it; and to do good is better and more valuable than both. When a man has found out sin in his actions, let him resolutely arrest it there; but let him also pursue it home to his inclinations, and dislodge it thence; otherwise it will be all to little purpose; for the root being still left behind, it is odds but in time it will shoot out again. Men befool themselves infinitely, when, by venting a few sighs or groans, putting the finger in the eye, and whimpering out a few melancholy words; and lastly, concluding all with, "I wish I had never done so, and I am resolved never to do so more;" they will needs persuade themselves that they have repented; though perhaps in this very thing their heart all the while deceives them, and they neither really wish the one, nor resolve the other. But whether they do or no, all true penitential sorrow will and must proceed much further. It must force and make its way into the very inmost corners and recesses of the soul; it must shake all the powers of sin, producing in the heart strong and lasting aversions to evil, and equal dispositions to good, which, I must confess, are great things; but if the sorrow which we have been speaking of carry us not so far, let it express itself never so loudly and passionately, and discharge itself in never so many showers of tears and volleys of sighs, yet by all this it will no more purge a man's heart, than the washing of his hands can cleanse the rottenness of his bones. But, Thirdly, When self-examination has both shewn us our sin, and repentance has disowned and cast it out, the next thing naturally consequent upon this is, with the highest importunity to supplicate God's pardon for the guilt, and his grace against the power of it. And this brings in prayer as the third preparative for the sacrament: a duty, upon which all the blessings of both worlds are entailed; a duty, ap pointed by God himself as the great conduit and noble instrument of commerce between heaven and earth; a duty, founded on man's essential dependence upon God; and so, in the ground and reason of it, perpetual, and consequently, in the practice of it, indispensable. But I shall speak of it now only with reference to the sacrament. And so, whatsoever other graces may furnish us with a wedding garment, it is certain that prayer must put it on. Prayer is that by which a man engages all the auxiliaries of omnipotence it self against his sin; and is so utterly contrary to, and inconsistent with it, that the same heart cannot long hold them both, but one must soon quit possession of it to the other; and either praying make a man leave off sinning, or sinning force him to give over praying, Every real act of hatred of sin is, in the very nature of the thing, a partial mortification of it; and it is hardly possible for a man to pray heartily against his sin, but he must at the same time hate it too. I know a man may think that he hates his sin, when indeed he does not; but then it is also as true, that he does not sincerely pray against it, whatsoever he may imagine. Besides, since the very life and spirit of prayer consists in an ardent, vehement desire of the thing prayed for; and since the nature of the soul is such, that it strangely symbolizes with the thing it mightily desires, it is evident, that if a man would have a devout, humble, sin-abhorring, self-denying frame of spirit, he cannot take a more efficacious course to attain it, than by praying himself into it. And so close a connection has this duty with the sacrament, that whatsoever we receive in the sacrament is properly in answer to our prayers. And consequently we may with great assurance conclude, that he who is not frequently upon his knees before he comes to that holy table, kneels to very little purpose when he is there. But then, Fourthly, Because prayer is not only one of the highest and hardest duties in itself, but ought to be more than ordinarily fervent and vigorous before the sacrament; let the body be also called in as an assistant to the soul, and abstinence and fasting added to promote and heighten her devotions. Prayer is a kind of wrestling with God; and he who would win the prize at that exercise, must be severely dieted for that purpose. The truth is, fasting was ever acknowledged by the church, in all ages, as a singular instrument of religion, and a particular preparative to the sacrament. And hardly was there ever any thing great or heroic either done or attempted in religion without it. Thus, when Moses received the law from God, it was with fasting, Deut. ix. 9. When Christ entered upon the great office of his mediatorship, it was with fasting, Matt. iv. 2. And when Paul and Barnabas were separated to that high and difficult charge of preaching to the gentiles, Acts xiii. 2. still it was managed with fasting. And we know, the rubric of our own church always, almost, enjoins a fast to prepare us for a festival. Bodily abstinence is certainly a great help to the spirit; and the experience of all wise and good men has ever found it so. The ways of nature and the methods of grace are vastly different. Good men themselves are never so surprised, as in the midst of their jollities; nor so fatally overtaken and caught, as when their table is made the snare. Even our first parents ate themselves out of paradise; and Job's children junketed and feasted together often, but the reckoning cost them dear at last. The heart of the wise, says Solomon, is in the house of mourning; and the house of fasting adjoins to it. In a word, fasting is the diet of angels, the food and refection of souls, and the richest and highest aliment of grace. And he who fasts for the sake of religion, hungers and thirsts after righteousness, without a metaphor. Fifthly, Since every devout prayer is designed to ascend and fly up to heaven; as fasting (according to St. Austin's allusion) has given it one wing, so let almsgiving to the poor supply it with another. And both these together will not only carry it up triumphant to heaven, but, if need require, bring heaven itself down to the devout person who sends it thither; as, while Cornelius was fasting and praying, (to which he still joined giving alms,) an angel from heaven was despatched to him with this happy message, Acts x. 4. Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God. And nothing certainly can give a greater efficacy to prayer, and a more peculiar fitness for the sacrament, than an hearty and conscientious practice of this duty; without which all that has been mentioned hitherto is nothing but wind and air, pageantry and hypocrisy: for if there be any truer measure of a man, than by what he does, it must be by what he gives. He who is truly pious, will account it a wedding supper to feed the hungry, and a wedding garment to clothe the naked. And God and man will find it a very unfit garment for such a purpose, which has not in it a purse or pocket for the poor. But so far are some from considering the poor before the sacrament, that they have been observed to give nothing to the poor, even at the sacrament: and those such, that if rich clothes might pass for a wed ding garment, none could appear better fitted for such a solemnity than themselves; yet some such, I say, I myself have seen at a communion, drop nothing into the poor's bason. But, good God! what is the heart of such world lings made of, and what a mind do they bring with them to so holy an ordinance! an ordinance in which none can be qualified to receive, whose heart does not serve them also to give. From such indeed as have nothing, God expects nothing; but where God has given, as I may say, with both hands, and men return with none, such must know, that the poor have an action of debt against them, and that God himself will undertake and prosecute their suit for them: and if he does, since they could not find in their hearts to proportion their charity to their estates; nothing can be more just, than for God to proportion their estates to their charity; and by so doing, he cannot well give them a shrewder and a shorter cut. In the mean time, let such know further, that whosoever dares, upon so sacred and solemn an occasion, approach the altar with bowels so shut up, as to leave nothing behind him there for the poor, shall be sure to carry something away with him from thence, which will do him but little good. Sixthly, Since the charity of the hand signifies but little, unless it springs from the heart, and flows through the mouth, let the pious communicant, both in heart and tongue, thoughts and speech, put on a charitable, friendly, Christian temper of mind and carriage towards all. Wrath and envy, malice and backbiting, and the like, are direct contradictions to the very spirit of Christianity, and fit a man for the sacrament, just as much as a stomach overflowed with gall would help him to digest his meat. St. Paul often rebukes and schools such disturbers of the world very sharply, correcting a base humour by a very generous rule, Phil. ii. 3. Let each, says he, esteem others better than themselves. No man, doubtless, shall ever be condemned of God for not judging his brother: for, be thy brother or neighbour never so wicked and ungodly, satisfy thyself with this, that another's wickedness shall never damn thee; but thy own bitterness and rancour may, and, continued in, certainly will: rather let his want of grace give thee occasion to exercise thine, if thou hast any, in thinking and speaking better of him than he deserves: and, if thy charity proves mistaken, assure thyself that God will accept the charity, and overlook the mistake. But if in judging him whom thou hast nothing to do with, thou chancest to judge one way, and God and truth to judge another, take heed of that dreadful tribunal, where it will not be enough to say, that "I thought this," or "I heard that;" and, where no man's mistake will be able to warrant an unjust surmise, and much less justify a false censure. Such would find it much better for them to retreat inwards, and view themselves in the law of God and their own consciences; and that will tell them their own impartially, that will fetch off all their paint, and shew them a foul face in a true glass. Let them read over their catechism, and lay aside spite and virulence, gossipping and meddling, calumny and detraction; and let not all about them be villains and reprobates, because they themselves are envious and forlorn, idle and malicious: such vermin are to be looked upon by all sober Christians as the very cankers of society, and the shame of any religion; and so far from being fit to come to the sacrament, that really they are not fit to come to church; and would much better become the house of correction than the house of prayer. Nevertheless, as custom in sin makes people blind, and blindness makes them bold, none come more confidently to the sacrament than such wretches. But when I consider the pure and blessed body of our Saviour, passing through the open sepulchres of such throats, into the noisome receptacles of their boiling, fermenting breasts, it seems to me a lively, but sad representation of Christ's being first buried, and then descending into hell. Let this diabolical leaven therefore be purged out; and while such pretend to be so busy in cleansing their hearts, let them not forget to wash their mouths too. Seventhly and lastly; As it is to be supposed that the pious communicant has all along carried on, so let him likewise in the issue close his preparatory work with reading and meditation. Of which, since the time will not serve me to speak more now, I shall only remark this, that they are duties of so near an import to the well-being of the soul, that the proper office of reading is, to take in its spiritual food, and of meditation, to digest it. And now, I hope, that whosoever shall in the sincerity of his heart acquit himself as to all the foregoing duties, and thereby prepare and adorn himself to meet and converse with his Saviour at this divine feast, shall never be accosted with the thunder of that dreadful increpation from him, Friend, how camest thou in hither, not having a wedding garment? But because I am very sensible that all the particular instances of duty, which may one way or other contribute to the fitting of men for this great one, can hardly be assigned, and much less equally and universally applied, where the conditions of men are so very different, I shall gather them all into this one plain, full, and comprehensive rule; namely, That all those duties which common Christianity always obliges a Christian to, ought most eminently, and with an higher and more exalted pitch of devotion, to be performed by him before the sacrament; and convertibly, whatsoever duties divines prescribe to be observed by him with a peculiar fervour and application of mind upon this occasion, ought, in their proportion, to be practised by him through the whole course of his Christian conversation. And this is a solid and sure rule; a rule that will never deceive or lurch the sincere communicant; a rule, that by adding discretion to devotion, will both keep him from being humoursome, singular, and phantastic in his preparations before the sacrament, and (which is worse, and must fatally unravel all again) from being, as most are, loose and remiss after it; and thinking, that as soon as the sacrament is over, their great business is done, whereas indeed it is but begun. And now I fear, that as I have been too long upon the whole, so I have been but too brief upon so many, and those such weighty particulars. But I hope you will supply this defect, by enlarging upon them in your practice; and make up the omissions of the pulpit, by the meditations of the closet. And God direct and assist us all in so concerning a work. To whom be rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen. __________________________________________________________________ The fatal Imposture and Force of Words: SET FORTH IN A SERMON PREACHED ON ISAIAH V. 20. MAY 9, 1686. ISAIAH v. 20. Wo unto them that call evil good, and good evil, &c. THESE words contain in them two things: 1. A wo denounced; and, 2. The sin for which it is denounced; to wit, the calling evil good, and good evil: which expression may be taken two ways: First, In a judicial and more restrained sense; as it signifies the pronouncing of a guilty person innocent, and an innocent,, guilty, in the course of judgment. But this I take to be too particular to reach the design of the words here. Secondly, It may be taken in a general and more enlarged sense; as it imports a misrepresentation of the qualities of things and actions to the common apprehensions of men, abusing their minds with false notions, and so by this artifice making evil pass for good, and good for evil, in all the great concerns of life. Where, by good, I question not, but good morally so called, bonum honestum, ought, chiefly at least, to be understood; and that the good of profit, or pleasure, the bonum utile, or jucundum, hardly come into any account here, as things extremely below the principal design of the Spirit of God in this place. It is wonderful to consider, that, since good is the natural and proper object, which all human choice is carried out to; and evil, that which with all its might it shuns and flies from; and since withal there is that controlling worth and beauty in goodness, that, as such, the will cannot but like and desire it; and, on the other side, that odious deformity in vice, that it never so much as offers itself to the affections or practice of mankind, but under the disguise and colours of the other; and since all this is easily discernible by the ordinary discourses of the understanding; and lastly, since nothing passes into the choice of the will, but as it comes conveyed and warranted by the understanding, as worthy of its choice; I say, it is wonderful to consider, that, notwithstanding all this, the lives and practices of the generality of men (in which men certainly should be most in earnest) are almost wholly took up in a passionate pursuit of what is evil, and in an equal neglect, if not also an abhorrence, of what is good. This is certainly so; and experience, which is neither to be confuted nor denied, does every minute prove the sad truth of this assertion. But now, what should be the cause of all this? For so great, so constant, and so general a practice must needs have, not only a cause, but also a great, a constant, and a general cause; a cause every way commensurate to such an effect: and this cause must of necessity be from one of those two commanding powers of the soul, the understanding, or the will. As for the will; though its liberty be such, that a suitable or proper good being proposed to it, it has a power to refuse, or not to choose it; yet it has no power to choose evil, considered absolutely as evil; this being directly against the nature and natural method of its workings. Nevertheless it is but too manifest, that things evil, extremely evil, are both readily chosen, and eagerly pursued and practised by it. And therefore this must needs be from that other governing faculty of the soul, the understanding, which represents to the will things really evil, under the notion and character of good. And this, this is the true source and original of this great mischief. The will chooses, follows, and embraces things evil and destructive; but it is because the understanding first tells it that they are good and wholesome, and fit to be chosen by it. One man gives another a cup of poison, a thing as terrible as death; but at the same time he tells him that it is a cordial; and so he drinks it off, and dies. From the beginning of the world to this day, there was never any great villainy acted by men, but it was in the strength of some great fallacy put upon their minds by a false representation of evil for good, or good for evil. In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die, says God to Adam; and so long as Adam believed this, he did not eat. But,, says the devil, in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt be so far from surely dying, that thou shalt be immortal, and from a man grow into an angel; and upon this different account of the thing, he presently took the fruit, and ate mortality, misery, and destruction to himself and his whole posterity. And now, can there be a wo or curse in all the stores and magazines of vengeance, equal to the malignity of such a practice; of which one single in stance could involve all mankind, past, present, and to come, in one universal and irreparable confusion? God commanded and told man what was good, but the devil surnamed it evil, and thereby baffled the command, turned the world topsyturvy, and brought a new chaos upon the whole creation. But that I may give you a more full discussion of the sense and design of the words, I shall do it under these following particulars: as, First, I shall give you some general account of the nature of good and evil, and the reason upon which they are founded. Secondly, I shall shew that the way by which good and evil commonly operate upon the mind of man, is by those respective names or appellations by which they are notified and conveyed to the mind. And, Thirdly and lastly, I shall shew the mischief, directly, naturally, and unavoidably following from the misapplication and confusion of those names. And, I hope, by going over all these particulars, you may receive some tolerable satisfaction about this great subject which we have now before us. 1. And first for the nature of good and evil, what they are, and upon what they are founded. The knowledge of this I look upon as the foundation and groundwork of all those rules, that either moral philosophy or divinity can give for the direction of the lives and practices of men; and consequently ought to be reckoned as a first principle; and that such an one, that, for ought I see, the through speculation of good, will be found much more difficult than the practice. But when we shall have once given some account of the nature of good, that of evil will be known by consequence; as being only a privation, or absence of good, in a subject capable of it, and proper for it. Now good, in the general nature and notion of it, over and above the bare being of a thing, connotes also a certain suitableness or agreeableness of it to some other thing: according to which general notion of good, applied to the particular nature of moral goodness, (upon which only we now insist,) a thing or action is said to be morally good or evil, as it is agreeable or disagreeable to right reason, or to a rational nature; and as right reason is nothing else but the understanding or mind of man, discoursing and judging of things truly, and as they are in themselves; and as all truth is unchangeably the same; (that proposition which is true at any time being so for ever;) so it must follow, that the moral goodness or evil of men's actions, which consist in their conformity or unconformity to right reason, must be also eternal, necessary, and unchangeable. So that, as that which is right reason at any time, or in any case, is always right reason with relation to the same time and case; in like manner, that which is morally good or evil, at any time, or in any case, (since it takes its whole measure from right reason,) must be also eternally and unchangeably a moral good or evil, with relation to that time and to that case. For propositions concerning the goodness, as well as concerning the truth of things, are necessary and perpetual. But you will say, may not the same action, as for instance, the killing of a man, be sometimes morally good, and sometimes morally evil? to wit, good, when it is the execution of justice upon a malefactor; and evil, when it is the taking away the life of an innocent person? To this I answer, that this indeed is true of actions considered in their general nature or kind, but not considered in their particular individual in stances. For generally speaking, to take away the life of a -man, is neither morally good nor morally evil, but capable of being either, as the circumstances of things shall determine it; but every particular act of killing is of necessity accompanied with, and determined by, several circumstances , which actually and unavoidably constitute and denominate it either good or evil. And that which, being performed under such and such circumstances, is morally good, cannot possibly, under the same circumstances, ever be morally evil. And so on the contrary. From whence we infer the villainous falsehood of two assertions, held and maintained by some persons, and too much countenanced by some others in the world. As, First, That good and evil, honest and dishonest, are not qualities existing or inherent in things themselves; but only founded in the opinions of men concerning things. So that any thing or action, that has gained the general approbation of any people, or society of men, ought, in respect of those persons, to be esteemed morally good, or honest; and whatsoever falls under their general disapprobation, ought, upon the same account, to be reckoned morally evil, or dishonest; which also they would seem to prove from the very signification of the word honestus; which, originally and strictly, signifies no more than creditable, and is but a derivative from honor, which signifies credit or honour; and according to the opinion of some, we know, that is lodged only in the esteem and thoughts of those who pay it, and not in the thing or person whom it is paid to. Thus for example; thieving or robbing was accounted amongst the Spartans a gallant, worthy, and a creditable thing; and consequently, according to the principle which we have mentioned, thievery, amongst the Spartans, was a practice morally good and honest. Thus also, both with the Grecians and the Romans, it was held a magnanimous and highly laudable act, for a man, under any great or insuperable misery or distress, to put an end to his own life; and accordingly, with those who had such thoughts of it, that which we call self-murder was properly a good, an honest, and a virtuous action. And persons of the highest and most acknowledged probity and virtue amongst them, such as Marcus Cato, and Pomponius Atticus, actually did it, and stand celebrated both by their orators and historians for so doing. And I could also instance in other actions of a fouler and more unnatural hue, which yet, from the approbation and credit they have found in some countries and places, have passed for good morality in those places: but, out of respect to common humanity, as well as divinity, I shall pass them over. And thus much for the first assertion or opinion. Secondly, The second opinion, or position, is, that good and evil, honest and dishonest, are originally founded in the laws and constitutions of the sovereign civil power, enjoining some things or actions, and prohibiting others. So that when any thing is found conducing to the welfare of the public, and thereupon comes to be enacted by governors into a law, it is forthwith thereby rendered morally good and honest; and, on the contrary, evil and dishonest, when, upon its contrariety to the public welfare, it stands prohibited and condemned by the same public authority. This was the opinion heretofore of Epicurus, as it is represented by Gassendus; who understood his notions too well to misrepresent them. And lately of one amongst ourselves, a less philosopher, though the greater heathen of the two, the infamous author of the Leviathan. And the like lewd, scandalous, and immoral doctrine, or worse, if possible, may be found in some writers, of another kind of note and character; whom, one would have thought, not only religion, but shame of the world, might have taught better things. Such as, for instance, Bellarmine himself; who, in his 4th book and 5th chapter De Pontifice Romano, has this monstrous passage: "That if the pope should through error or mistake command vices, and prohibit virtues, the church would be bound in conscience to believe vice to be good, and virtue evil." I shall give you the whole pas sage in his own words to a tittle: "Fides catholica docet omnem virtutem esse bonam, omne vitium esse malum. Si autem erraret papa, praecipiendo vitia vel prohibendo virtutes, teneretur ecclesia credere vitia esse bona et virtutes malas, nisi vellet contra conscientiam peccare." Good God! that any thing that wears the name of a Christian, or but of a man, should venture to own such a villainous, impudent, and blasphemous assertion in the face of the world, as this! What! must murder, adultery, theft, fraud, extortion, perjury, drunkenness, rebellion, and the like, pass for good and commend able actions, and fit to be practised? And mercy, chastity, justice, truth, temperance, loyalty, and sincere dealing, be accounted things utterly evil, immoral, and not to be followed by men, in case the pope, who is generally weak, and almost always a wicked man, should, by his mistake and infallible ignorance, command the former, and forbid the latter? Did Christ himself ever assume such a power as to alter the morality of actions, and to transform vice into virtue, and virtue into vice, by his bare word? Certainly never did a grosser paradox, or a wickeder sentence, drop from the mouth or pen of any mortal man, since reason or religion had any being in the world. And, I must confess, I have often with great amazement wondered how it could possibly come from a person of so great a reputation, both for learning and virtue too, as the world allows Bellarmine to have been. But when men give themselves over to the defence of wicked interests and false propositions, it is just with God to smite the great est abilities with the greatest infatuations. But as for these two positions or assertions; That the moral good or evil, the honesty or dishonesty of human actions, should depend either upon the opinions or upon the laws of men; they are certainly false in themselves, because they are infinitely absurd in their consequences. Some of which are such as these. As, First, If the moral goodness or evil of men's actions were originally founded in, and so proceeded wholly from the opinions or laws of men, then it would follow, that they must change and vary according to the change and difference of the opinions and laws of men: and consequently, that the same action, under exactly the same circumstances, may be morally good one day, and morally evil an other; and morally good in one place, and morally evil in another: forasmuch as the same sovereign authority may enact or make a law, commanding such or such an action to-day, and a quite contrary law forbidding the same action to-morrow; and the very same action, under the same circumstances, may be commanded by law in one country, and prohibited by law in another. Which being so, the consequence is manifest, and the absurdity of the consequent intolerable. Secondly, If the moral goodness or evil of men's actions depended originally upon human laws, then those laws themselves could neither be morally good nor evil: the consequence is evident; because those laws are not commanded or prohibited by any antecedent human laws; and consequently, if the moral goodness or evil of any act were to be derived only from a precedent human law, laws themselves, not supposing a dependance upon other precedent human laws, could have no moral goodness or evil in them. Which to assert of any human act (such as all human laws essentially are and must be) is certainly a very gross absurdity. Thirdly, If the moral goodness or evil of men's actions were sufficiently derived from human laws or constitutions, then, upon supposal that a divine law should (as it often does) command what is prohibited by human laws, and prohibit what is commanded by them, it would follow, that either such commands and prohibitions of the divine law do not at all affect the actions of men in point of their morality, so as to render them either good or evil; or that the same action, at the same time, may, in respect of the divine law commanding it, be morally good; and, in respect of an human law forbidding it, be morally evil. Than which consequence, nothing can be more clear, nor withal more absurd. And many more of the like nature I could easily draw forth, and lay before you. Every false principle or proposition being sure to be attended with a numerous train of absurdities. But, as to the subject-matter now in hand; so far is the morality of human actions, as to the goodness or evil of them, from being founded in any human law, that in very many, and those the principal in stances of human action, it is not originally founded in, or derived from, so much as any positive divine law. There being a jus naturale certainly antecedent to all jus positivum, either human or divine; and that such as results from the very nature and being of things, as they stand in such a certain habitude or relation to one another: to which relation whatsoever is done agreeably is morally and essentially good; and whatsoever is done otherwise is, at the same rate, morally evil. And this I shall exemplify in those two grand, comprehensive, moral duties, which man is for ever obliged to, his duty towards God, and his duty towards his neighbour. And first, for his duty towards God; which is, to love and obey him with all his heart and all his soul. It is certain, that for a rational, intelligent creature to conform himself to the will of God in all things, carries in it a moral rectitude, or goodness; and to disobey or oppose his will in any thing, imports a moral obliquity, before God ever deals forth any particular law or command to such a creature; there being a general obligation upon man to obey all God's laws, whensoever they shall be declared, before any particular instance of law comes actually to be declared. But now whence is this? Why, from that essential suitableness which obedience has to the relation which is between a rational creature and his Creator. Nothing in nature being more irrational and irregular, and consequently more immoral, than for an intelligent being to op pose or disobey that sovereign, supreme will, which gave him that being, and has withal the sole and absolute disposal of him in all his concerns. So that there needs no positive law or sanction of God to stamp an obliquity upon such a disobedience; since it cleaves to it essentially, and by way of natural result from it, upon the account of that utter unsuitableness which disobedience has to the relation which man naturally and necessarily stands in towards his Maker. And then, in the next place, for his duty to his neighbour. The whole of which is comprised in that great rule, of doing as a man would be done by. We may truly affirm, that the morality of this rule does not originally derive itself from those words of our Saviour, Matt. vii. 12. Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them: no, nor yet from Moses or the prophets; but it is as old as Adam, and bears date with human nature itself; as springing from that primitive relation of equality, which all men, as fellow creatures, and fellow subjects to the same supreme Lord, bear to one another, in respect of that common right, which every man has equally to his life, and to the proper comforts of life; and consequently, to all things naturally necessary to the support of both. Now, whatsoever one man has a right to keep or possess, no other man can have a right to take from him. So that no man has a right to expect that from or to do that to another, which that other has not an equal right to expect from and to do to him. Which parity of right, as to all things purely natural, being undoubtedly the result of nature itself, can any thing be inferred from thence more conformable to reason, and consequently of a greater moral rectitude, than that such an equality of right should also cause an equality of behaviour, between man and man, as to all those mutual offices and intercourses in which life and the happiness of life are concerned? Nothing certainly can shine out and shew itself by the mere light of reason, as an higher and more unquestionable piece of morality than this, nor as a more confessed deviation from morality than the contrary practice. From all which discourse, I think we may with out presumption conclude, that the rationes boni et mali, the nature of good and evil, as to the principal instances of both, spring from that essential habitude, or relation, which the nature of one thing bears to another by virtue of that order which they stand placed in, here in the world, by the very law and condition of their creation; and for that reason do and must precede all positive laws, sanctions, or institutions whatsoever. Good and evil are in morality, as the east and west are in the frame of the world; founded in and divided by that fixed and unalterable situation, which they have respectively in the whole body of the universe: or, as the right hand is discriminated from the left, by a natural, necessary, and never to be confounded distinction. And thus I have done with the first thing proposed, and given you such an account of the nature of good and evil, as the measure of the present exercise and occasion would allow. Pass we now to the 2nd. Which is to shew, That the way by which good and evil generally operate upon the mind of man, is by those words or names by which they are notified and conveyed to the mind. Words are the signs and symbols of things; and as in accompts, ciphers and figures pass for real sums; so in the course of human affairs, words and names pass for things themselves. For things, or objects, cannot enter into the mind, as they subsist in themselves, and by their own natural bulk pass into the apprehension; but they are taken in by their ideas, their notions or resemblances; which imprinting themselves after a spiritual immaterial manner in the imagination, and from thence, under a further refinement, passing into the intellect, are by that expressed by certain words or names, found out and invented by the mind, for the communication of its conceptions, or thoughts, to others. So that as conceptions are the images or resemblances of things to the mind within itself; in like manner are words, or names, the marks, tokens, or resemblances of those conceptions to the minds of them whom we converse with: ta` en te phone ton en te psuche pathema'ton su'mbola, being the known maxim laid down by the philosopher, as the first and most fundamental rule of all discourse. This therefore is certain, that in human life, or conversation, words stand for things; the common business of the world not being capable of being managed otherwise. For by these, men come to know one another's minds. By these they covenant and confederate. By these they buy and sell, they deal and traffick. In short, words are the great instruments both of practice and design; which, for the most part, move wholly in the strength of them. Forasmuch as it is the nature of man both to will and to do, according to the persuasion he has of the good and evil of those things that come before him; and to take up his persuasions according to the representations made to him of those qualities, by their respective names or appellations. This is the true and natural account of this mat ter; and it is all that I shall remark upon this second head. I proceed now to the 3rd. Which is, to shew the mischief which directly, naturally, and unavoidably follows from the misapplication and confusion of those names. And in order to this, I shall premise these two considerations. 1. That the generality of mankind is wholly and absolutely governed by words or names; without, nay, for the most part, even against the knowledge men have of things. The multitude, or common rout, like a drove of sheep, or an herd of oxen, may be managed by any noise or cry, which their drivers shall accustom them to. And he who will set up for a skilful manager of the rabble, so long as they have but ears to hear, needs never inquire whether they have any under standing whereby to judge; but with two or three popular empty words, such as popery and superstition, right of the subject, liberty of conscience, Lord Jesus Christ, well tuned and humoured, may whistle them backwards and forwards, upwards and down wards, till he is weary; and get up upon their backs when he is so. As for the meaning of the word itself, that may shift for itself: and as for the sense and reason of it, that has little or nothing to do here; only let it sound full and round, and chime right to the humour, which is at present agog, (just as a big, long, rattling name is said to command even adoration from a Spaniard,) and no doubt, with this powerful sense less engine, the rabble-driver shall be able to carry all before him, or to draw all after him, as he pleases. For a plausible, insignificant word, in the mouth of an expert demagogue, is a dangerous and a dreadful weapon. You know, when Caesar's army mutinied, and grew troublesome, no argument from interest or reason could satisfy or appease them: but as soon as he gave them the appellation of Quirites, the tumult was immediately hushed; and all were quiet and content, and took that one word in good payment for all. Such is the trivial slightness and levity of most minds. And indeed, take any passion of the soul of man, while it is predominant and afloat, and, just in the critical height of it, nick it with some lucky or unlucky word, and you may as certainly overrule it to your own purpose, as a spark of fire, falling upon gunpowder, will infallibly blow it up. The truth is, he who shall duly consider these matters, will find that there is a certain bewitchery, or fascination in words, which makes them operate with a force beyond what we can naturally give an account of. For would not a man think ill deeds and shrewd turns should reach further and strike deeper than ill words? And yet many instances might be given, in which men have much more easily pardoned ill things done, than ill things said against them: such a peculiar rancour and venom do they leave behind them in men's minds, and so much more poisonously and incurably does the serpent bite with his tongue than with his teeth. Nor are men prevailed upon at this odd unaccountable rate, by bare words, only through a defect of knowledge; but sometimes also do they suffer themselves to be carried away with these puffs of wind, even contrary to knowledge and experience itself. For otherwise, how could men be brought to surrender up their reason, their interest, and their credit to flattery? gross, fulsome, abusive flattery; indeed more abusive and reproachful, upon a true estimate of things and persons, than the rudest scoffs and the sharpest invectives. Yet so it is, that though men know themselves utterly void of those qualities and perfections, which the impudent sycophant, at the same time, both ascribes to them, and in his sleeve laughs at them for believing; nay, though they know that the flatterer himself knows the false hood of his own flatteries; yet they swallow the fallacious morsel, love the impostor, and with both arms hug the abuse; and that to such a degree, that no offices of friendship, no real services, shall be able to lie in the balance against those luscious falsehoods, which flattery shall feed the mind of a fool in power with: the sweetness of the one infinitely overcomes the substance of the other. And therefore you shall seldom see, that such an one cares to have men of worth, honesty, and veracity about him; for such persons cannot fall down and worship stocks and stones, though they are placed never so high above them; but their yea is yea, and their nay, nay; and they cannot admire a fox for his sincerity, a wolf for his generosity, nor an ass for his wit and ingenuity; and therefore can never be acceptable to those whose whole credit, interest, and advantage lies in their not appearing to the world what they are really in themselves. None are or can be welcome to such, but those who speak paint and wash; for that is the thing they love; and no wonder, since it is the thing they need. There is hardly any rank, order, or degree of men, but, more or less, have been captivated and enslaved by words. It is a weakness, or rather a fate, which attends both high and low; the statesman who holds the helm, as well as the peasant who holds the plough. So that, if ever you find an ignoramus in place and power, and can have so little conscience, and so much confidence, as to tell him to his face, that he has a wit and an understanding above all the world besides; and "that what his own reason can" not suggest to him, neither can the united reason "of all mankind put together [1] ;" I dare undertake, that, as fulsome a dose as you give him, he shall readily take it down, and admit the commendation, though he cannot believe the thing: Blanditiae, etiam cum excluduntur, placent, says Seneca. Tell him, that no history or antiquity can match his policies and his conduct; and presently the sot (because he knows neither history nor antiquity) shall begin to measure himself by himself, (which is the only sure way for him not to fall short,) and so immediately, amongst his outward admirers and his inward despisers, vouched also by a teste meipso, he steps forth an exact politician, and, by a wonderful and new way of arguing, proves himself no fool, because, forsooth, the sycophant who tells him so is an egregious knave. But to give you yet a grosser instance of the force of words, and of the extreme vanity of man's nature in being influenced by them, hardly shall you meet with any person, man or woman, so aged or ill-favoured, but, if you will venture to commend them for their comeliness, nay, and for their youth too, though "time out of mind" is wrote upon every line of their face; yet they shall take it very well at your hands, and begin to think with themselves, that certainly they have some perfections which the generality of the world are not so happy as to be aware of. But now, are not these, think we, strange self-delusions, and yet attested by common experience almost every day? But whence, in the mean time, can all this proceed, but from that besotting intoxication which this verbal magic, as I may so call it, brings upon the mind of man? For can any thing in nature have a more certain, deep, and undeniable effect, than folly has upon man's mind, and age upon his body? And yet we see, that in both these, words are able to persuade men out of what they find and feel, to reverse the very impressions of sense, and to amuse men with fancies and paradoxes, even in spite of nature and experience. But since it would be endless to pursue all the particulars in which this humour shews itself; whosoever would have one full, lively, and complete view of an empty, shallow, self-opinioned grandee, surrounded by his flatterers, (like a choice dish of meat by a company of fellows commending and devouring it at the same time,) let him cast his eye upon Ahab in the midst of his false prophets, 1 Kings xxii. where we have them all with one voice for giving him a cast of their court-prophecy, and sending him, in a compliment, to be knocked on the head at Ramoth Gilead. But, says Jehoshaphat, (who smelt the parasite through the prophet,) in the seventh verse, Is there not a prophet of the Lord besides, that we may inquire of him? Why, yes, says Ahab, there is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the Lord; but I hate him, for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil. Ay! that was his crime; the poor man was so good a subject, and so bad a courtier, as to venture to serve and save his prince, whether he would or no; for, it seems, to give Ahab such warning as might infallibly have prevented his destruction, was esteemed by him evil; and to push him on headlong into it, because he was fond of it, was accounted good. These were his new measures of good and evil. And therefore those who knew how to make their court better, (as the word is,) tell him a bold lie in God's name, and therewith send him packing to his certain doom; thus calling evil good at the cost of their prince's crown and his life too. But what cared they? they knew that it would please, and that was enough for them; there being always a sort of men in the world, (whom others have an interest to serve by,) who had rather a great deal be pleased, than be safe. Strike them under the fifth rib, provided at the same time you kiss them too, as Joab served Abner, and you may both destroy and oblige them with the same blow. Accordingly, in the thirtieth of Isaiah, we find some arrived to that pitch of sottishness, and so much in love with their own ruin, as to own plainly and roundly what they would be at; in the tenth verse, Prophesy not unto us, say they, right things, but prophesy to us smooth things. As if they had said, "Do but oil the razor for us, and let us alone "to cut our own throats." Such an enchantment is there in words; and so fine a thing does it seem to some to be ruined plausibly, and to be ushered to their destruction with panegyric and acclamation: a shameful, though irrefragable argument, of the absurd empire and usurpation of words over things; and that the greatest affairs and most important interests of the world are carried on by things, not as they are, but as they are called. And thus much for the first thing which I thought necessary to premise to the prosecution of our third particular. 2. The other thing to be premised is this; That as the generality of men are wholly governed by names and words; so there is nothing, in which they are so remarkably and powerfully governed by them, as in matters of good and evil, so far as these qualities relate to, and affect the actions of, men: a thing certainly of a most fatal and pernicious import. For though, in matters of mere speculation, it is not much the concern of society, whether or no men proceed wholly upon trust, and take the bare word of others for what they assent to; since it is not much material to the welfare either of government or of themselves, whether they opine right or wrong, and whether they be philosophers or no. But it is vastly the concern both of government and of themselves too, whether they be morally good or bad, honest or dishonest. And surely it is hardly possible for men to make it their business to be virtuous or honest, while vices are called and pointed out to them by the names of virtues; and they all the while suppose the nature of things to be truly and faith fully signified by their names, and thereupon believe as they hear, and practise as they believe. And that this is the course of much the greatest part of the world, thus to take up their persuasions concerning good and evil by an implicit faith, and a full acquiescence in the word of those who shall represent things to them under these characters, I shall prove by two reasons; and those such as, I fear, will not only be found reasons to evince that men actually do so, but also sad demonstrations to conclude that they are never like to do otherwise. First, The first of which shall be taken from that similitude, neighbourhood, and affinity, which is between vice and virtue, good and evil, in several notable instances of each. For though the general natures and definitions of these qualities are sufficiently distant from one another, and so in no danger of a promiscuous confusion; yet when they come to subsist in particulars, and to be clothed and attended with several accidents and circumstances, the case is hereby much altered; for then the discernment is neither so easy, nor yet so certain. Thus it is not always so obvious to distinguish between an act of liberality and an act of prodigality; between an act of courage and an act of rashness; an act of pusillanimity, and an act of great modesty or humility: nay, and some have had the good luck to have their very dulness dignified with the name of gravity, and to be no small gainers by the mistake. And many more such actions of dubious quality might be instanced in, too numerous to be here recounted or insisted on. In all which, and the like, it requiring too great a sagacity for vulgar minds to draw the line nicely and exactly between vice and virtue, and to adjust the due limits of each; it is no wonder, if most men attempt not a laborious scrutiny into things themselves, but only take names and words as they first come, and so without any more ado rest in them; it being so much easier, in all disquisitions of truth, to suppose, than to prove; and to believe, than to distinguish. Secondly, The other reason of the same shall be taken from the great and natural inability of most men to judge exactly of things; which makes it very difficult for them to discern the real good and evil of what comes before them; to consider and weigh circumstances, to scatter and look through the mists of error, and so separate appearances from realities. For the greater part of mankind is but slow and dull of apprehension; and therefore, in many cases, under a necessity of seeing with other men's eyes, and judging with other men's understandings. Nature having manifestly contrived things so, that the vulgar and the many are fit only to be led or driven, but by no means fit to guide or direct themselves. To which their want of judging or discerning abilities, we may add also their want of leisure and opportunity to apply their minds to such a serious and attent consideration, as may let them into a full discovery of the true goodness and evil of things, which are qualities which seldom display themselves to the first view: for in most things good and evil lie shuffled and thrust up together in a confused heap; and it is study and intention of thought which must draw them forth, and range them under their distinct heads. But there can be no study without time; and the mind must abide and dwell upon things, or be always a stranger to the inside of them. Through desire, says Solomon, a man having separated himself, seeketh and intermeddleth with all wisdom, Prov. xviii. 1. There must be leisure and a retirement, solitude, and a sequestration of a man's self from the noise and toil of the world: for truth scorns to be seen by eyes too much fixed upon inferior objects. It lies too deep to be fetched up with the plough, and too close to be beaten out with the hammer. It dwells not in shops or work houses; nor till the late age was it ever known, that any one served seven years to a smith or a tailor, that he might at the end thereof proceed master of any other arts, but such as those trades taught him; and much less that he should commence doctor or divine from the shopboard or the anvil; or from whistling to a team, come to preach to a congregation. These were the peculiar, extraordinary privileges of the late blessed times of light and inspiration: otherwise nature will still hold on in its old course, never doing any thing which is considerable, with out the assistance of its two great helps, art and industry. But above all, the knowledge of what is good and what is evil, what ought and what ought not to be done, in the several offices and relations of life, is a thing too large to be compassed, and too hard to be mastered, without brains and study, parts and contemplation; which providence never thought fit to make much the greatest part of mankind possessors of. And consequently those who are not so, must, for the knowledge of most things, depend upon those who are, and receive their information concerning good and evil from such verbal or nominal representations of each, as shall be imparted to them by those, whose ability and integrity they have cause to rely upon, for a faithful account of these matters. And thus from these two great considerations premised; 1st, That the generality of the world are wholly governed by words and names; and 2dly, That the chief instance in which they are so, is in such words and names as import the good or evil of things; (which both the difficulty of things themselves, and the very condition of human nature, constrains much the greatest part of mankind to take wholly upon trust;) I say, from these two considerations must needs be inferred, what a fatal, devilish, and destructive effect the misapplication and confusion of those great governing names of good and evil, must inevitably have upon the societies of men. The comprehensive mischief of which will appear from this, that it takes in both those ways, by which the greatest evils and calamities, which are incident to man, do directly break in upon him. The first of which is by his being deceived, and the second by his being misrepresented. And first, for the first of these. I do not in the least doubt, but if a true and just computation could be made of all the miseries and misfortunes that befall men in this world, two thirds of them, at least, would be found resolvable into their being deceived by false appearances of good; first deluding their apprehensions, and then by natural consequence perverting their actions, from which are the great issues of life and death; since, according to the eternal sanction of God and nature, such as a man's actions are for good or evil, such ought also his condition to be for happiness or misery. Now all deception in the course of life is indeed nothing else but a lie reduced to practice, and false hood passing from words into things. For is a man impoverished and undone by the purchase of an estate? Why, it is because he bought an imposture, paid down his money for a lie, and by the help of the best and ablest counsel, forsooth, that could be had, took a bad title for a good. Is a man unfortunate in marriage? Still it is because he was deceived; and put his neck into the snare, before he put it into the yoke, and so took that for virtue and affection, which was nothing but vice in a disguise, and a devilish humour under a demure look. Is he again unhappy and calamitous in his friend ships? Why, in this also, it is because he built upon the air, and trod upon a quicksand, and took that for kindness and sincerity, which was only malice and design, seeking an opportunity to ruin him effectually, and to overturn him in all his interests by the sure but fatal handle of his own good nature and credulity. And lastly, is a man betrayed, lost, and blown by such agents and instruments as he employs in his greatest and nearest concerns? Why, still the cause of it is from this, that he misplaced his confidence, took hypocrisy for fidelity, and so relied upon the services of a pack of villains, who designed nothing but their own game, and to stake him, while they played for themselves. But not to mention any more particulars, there is no estate, office, or condition of life whatsoever, but groans and labours under the killing truth of what we have asserted. For it is this which supplants not only private persons, but kingdoms and governments, by keeping them ignorant of their own strengths and weaknesses; and it is evident that governments may be equally destroyed by an ignorance of either. For the weak, by thinking themselves strong, are induced to venture and proclaim war against that which ruins them: and the strong, by conceiting themselves weak, are thereby rendered as unactive, and consequently as useless, as if they really were so. In Luke xiv. 31, when a king with ten thousand is to meet a king coming against him with twenty thousand, our Saviour advises him, before he ventures the issue of a battle, to sit down and consider. But now a false glozing parasite would give him quite another kind of counsel, and bid him only reckon his ten thousand forty, call his fool-hardiness valour, and then he may go on boldly, because blindly, and by mistaking himself for a lion, come to perish like an ass. In short, it is this great plague of the world, deception, which takes wrong measures, and makes false musters almost in every thing; which sounds a retreat instead of a charge, and a charge instead of a retreat; which overthrows whole armies; and sometimes by one lying word treacherously cast out, turns the fate and fortune of states and empires, and lays the most flourishing monarchies in the dust. A blind guide is certainly a great mischief; but a guide that blinds those whom he should lead, is undoubtedly a much greater. Secondly, The other great and undoing mischief which befalls men upon the forementioned account is, by their being misrepresented. Now as by calling evil good, a man is misrepresented to himself in the way of flattery; so by calling good evil, he is misrepresented to others in the way of slander and detraction. I say detraction, that killing, poisoned arrow drawn out of the devil's quiver, which is always flying abroad, and doing execution in the dark; against which no virtue is a defence, no innocence a security. For as by flattery a man is usually brought to open his bosom to his mortal enemy; so by detraction, and a slanderous misreport of persons, he is often brought to shut the same even to his best and truest friends. In both cases he receives a fatal blow, since that which lays a man open to an enemy, and that which strips him of a friend, equally attacks him in all those interests, that are capable of being weakened by the one, and supported by the other. The most direct and efficacious way to ruin any man, is to misrepresent him; and it often so falls out, that it wounds on both sides, and not only mauls the person misrepresented, but him also to whom he is misrepresented: for if he be great and powerful, (as spies and pickthanks seldom apply to any others,) it generally provokes him through mistake to persecute and tyrannise over; nay, and some times even to dip his hands in the blood of the innocent and the just, and thereby involve himself in such a guilt, as shall arm heaven and earth against him, the vengeance of God, and the indignation of men; who will both espouse the quarrel of a bleeding innocence, and heartily join forces against an insulting baseness, especially when backed with greatness, and set on by misinformation. Histories are full of such examples. Besides that, it is rarely found, that men hold their greatness for term of life; though their baseness, for the most part, they do; and then, according to the common vicissitude and wheel of things, the proud and the insolent must take their turn too; and after long trampling upon others, come at length, plaudente et gaudente mundo, to be trampled upon themselves. For, as Tully has it in his oration for Milo, non semper viator a latrone, nonnunquam etiam latro a viatore occiditur. But to pass from particulars to communities, nothing can be imagined more destructive to society than this villainous practice. For it robs the public of all that benefit and advantage, that it may justly claim and ought to receive from the worth and virtue of particular persons, by rendering their virtue utterly insignificant. For good itself can do no good, while it passes for evil; and an honest man is, in effect, useless, while he is accounted a knave. Both things and persons subsist by their reputation. An unjust sentence from a tribunal may condemn an innocent person, but misrepresentation condemns innocence itself. For it is this which revives and imitates that unhuman barbarity of the old heathen persecutors, wrapping up Christians in the skins of wild beasts, that so they might be worried and torn in pieces by dogs. Do but paint an angel black, and that is enough to make him pass for a devil. "Let us blacken him, let us blacken him what we can," said that miscreant Harrison [2] of the blessed king, upon the wording and drawing up his charge against his approaching trial. And when any man is to be run down, and sacrificed to the lust of his enemies, as that royal martyr was, even his good (according to the apostle's phrase) shall be evil spoken of. He must first be undermined, and then undone. The practice is usual, and the method natural. But, to give you the whole malice of it in one word, it is a weapon forged in hell, and formed by the prime artificer and engineer of all mischief, the devil; and none but that God who knows all things, and can do all things, can protect the best of men against it. To which God, the fountain of all good, and the hater of all evil, be rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and do minion, both now and for evermore. Amen. __________________________________________________________________ [1] The words of a great self-opiniator, and a bitter reviler of the clergy. [2] A preaching colonel of the parliament-army, and a chief actor in the murder of king Charles the First; notable before for having killed several after quarter given them by others, and using these words in the doing it; Cursed be he who does the work of the Lord negligently. He was by extraction a butcher's son; and accordingly, in his practices all along, more a butcher than his father. __________________________________________________________________ Prevention of Sin an unvaluable Mercy: OR A SERMON PREACHED UPON THAT SUBJECT ON 1 SAM. XXV. 32, 33. AT CHRIST-CHURCH, OXON. NOVEMBER 10, 1678. __________________________________________________________________ 1 Sam. xxv. 32, 33. And David said to Abigail, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me: And blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou, which hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself with mine own hand. THESE words are David's retractation, or laying down of a bloody and revengeful resolution; which, for a while, his heart had swelled with, and carried him on with the highest transport of rage to prose cute. A resolution took up from the sense of a gross indignity and affront passed upon him, in recompence of a signal favour and kindness received from him. For during his exile and flight before Saul, in which he was frequently put to all the hardships which usually befall the weak flying before the strong; there happening a great and solemn festivity, such as the sheep-shearings used to be in those eastern countries, he condescends, by an honourable and kind message, to beg of a rich and great man some small repast and supply for himself and his poor harassed companions, at that notable time of joy and feasting: a time that might make any thing that looked like want or hunger, no less an absurdity than a misery to all that were round about him. And, as if the greatness of the asker, and the smallness of the thing asked, had not been sufficient to enforce his request, he adds a commemoration of his own generous and noble usage of the person whom he thus addressed to; shewing how that he had been a wall and a bulwark to all that belonged to him, a safeguard to his estate, and a keeper of his flocks; and that both from the violence of robbers, and the licence of his own soldiers; who could much more easily have carved themselves their own provisions, than so great a spirit stoop so low as to ask them. But in answer to this, (as nothing is so rude and insolent as a wealthy rustic,) all this his kindness is overlooked, his request rejected, and his person most unworthily railed at. Such being the nature of some base minds, that they can never do ill turns but they must double them with ill words too. And thus David's messengers are sent back to him like so many sharks and runagates, only for endeavouring to compliment an ill nature out of itself; and seeking that by petition, which they might have commanded by their sword. And now, who would not but think, that such ungrateful usage, heightened with such reproachful language, might warrant the justice of the sharpest revenge; even of such a revenge as now began to boil and burn in the breast of this great warrior? For surely, if any thing may justly call up the utmost of a man's rage, it should be bitter and contumelious words from an unprovoked inferior; and if any thing can legalize revenge, it should be injuries from an extremely obliged person. But for all this, revenge, we see, is so much the prerogative of the Almighty, so absolutely the peculiar of Heaven, that no consideration whatsoever can empower even the best men to assume the execution of it in their own case. And therefore David, by an happy and seasonable pacification, being took off from acting that bloody tragedy which he was just now entering upon, and so turning his eyes from the baseness of him who had stirred up his revenge, to the goodness of that God who had prevented it; he breaks forth into these triumphant praises and doxologies expressed in the text: Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who has kept me this day from shedding blood, and from avenging myself with my own hand. Which words, together with those going before in the same verse, naturally afford us this doctrinal proposition, which shall be the subject of the following discourse: namely, That prevention of sin is one of the greatest mercies that God can vouchsafe a man in this world. The prosecution of which shall lie in these two things: first, to prove the proposition; secondly, to apply it. And first, for the proof of it: the transcendent greatness of this sin-preventing mercy is demonstrable from these four following considerations. 1. Of the condition which the sinner is in, when this mercy is vouchsafed him. 2. Of the principle or fountain from whence this prevention of sin does proceed. 3. Of the hazard a man runs, if the commission of sin be not prevented, whether ever it will come to be pardoned: and, 4thly and lastly, Of the advantages accruing to the soul from the prevention of sin, above what can be had from the bare pardon of it, in case it comes to be pardoned. Of these in their order: and first, we are to take an estimate of the greatness of this mercy, from the condition it finds the sinner in, when God is pleased to vouchsafe it to him. It finds him in the direct way to death and destruction; and, which is worse, wholly unable to help himself. For he is actually under the power of a temptation, and the sway of an impetuous lust; both hurrying him on to satisfy the cravings of it by some wicked action. He is possessed and acted by a passion, which, for the present, absolutely overrules him; and so can no more recover himself, than a bowl rolling down a hill stop itself in the midst of its career. It is a maxim in the philosophy of some, that whatsoever is once in actual motion, will move for ever, if it be not hindered. So a man, being under the drift of any passion, will still follow the impulse of it, till something interpose, and by a stronger impulse turn him another way: but in this case we can find no principle within him strong enough to counteract that principle, and to relieve him. For if it be any, it must be either, first, the judgment of his reason; or, secondly, the free choice of his will. But from the first of these there can be no help for him in his present condition. For while a man is engaged in any sinful purpose, through the prevalence of any passion, during the continuance of that passion, he fully approves of whatsoever he is carried on to do in the strength of it; and judges it, under his present circumstances, the best and most rational course that he can take. Thus we see when Jonas was under the passion of anger, and God asked him, Whether he did well to be angry? He answered, I do well to be angry, even unto death, Jonas iv. 9. And when Saul was under his persecuting fit, what he did appeared to him good and necessary, Acts xxvi. 9. I verily thought with myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus. But to go no further than the text; do we not think, that while David's heart was full of his revengeful design, it had blinded and perverted his reason so far, that it struck in wholly with his passion, and told him, that the bloody purpose he was going to execute, was just, magnanimous, and most becoming such a person, and so dealt with, as he was? This being so, how is it possible for a man under a passion to receive any succour from his judgment or reason, which is made a party in the whole action, and influenced to a present approbation of all the ill things which his passion can suggest? This is most certain; and every man may find it by experience, (if he will but impartially reflect upon the method of his own actings, and the motions of his own mind,) that while he is under any passion, he thinks and judges quite otherwise of the proper objects of that passion, from what he does when he is out of it. Take a man under the transports of a vehement rage or revenge, and he passes a very different judgment upon murder and bloodshed, from what he does when his revenge is over, and the flame of his fury spent. Take a man possessed with a strong and immoderate desire of any thing, and you shall find, that the worth and excellency of that thing appears much greater and more dazzling to the eye of his mind, than it does when that desire, either by satisfaction or otherwise, is quite extinguished. So that while passion is upon the wing, and the man fully engaged in the prosecution of some unlawful object, no remedy or control is to be expected from his reason, which is wholly gained over to judge in favour of it. The fumes of his passion do as really intoxicate and confound his judging and discerning faculty, as the fumes of drink discompose and stupify the brain of a man overcharged with it. When his drink indeed is over, he sees the folly and the absurdity, the madness and the vileness of those things, which before he acted with full complacency and approbation. Passion is the drunkenness of the mind; and therefore, in its present workings, not controllable by reason; forasmuch as the proper effect of it is, for the time, to supersede the workings of reason. This principle therefore being able to do nothing to the stopping of a man in the eager pursuit of his sin; there remains no other, that can be supposed able to do any thing upon the soul, but that second mentioned, to wit, the choice of his will. But this also is as much disabled from recovering a man fully intent upon the prosecution of any of his lusts, as the former. For all the time that a man is so, he absolutely wills, and is fully pleased with what he is designing or going about. And whatsoever perfectly pleases the will, overpowers it; for it fixes and determines the inclination of it to that one thing which is before it; and so fills up all its possibilities of indifference, that there is actually no room for choice. He who is under the power of melancholy, is pleased with his being so. He who is angry, delights in nothing so much as in the venting of his rage. And he who is lustful, places his greatest satisfaction in a slavish following of the dictates of his lust. And so long as the will and the affections are pleased, and exceedingly gratified in any course of acting, it is impossible for a man, so far as he is at his own disposal, not to continue in it; or, by any principle within him, to be diverted or took off from it. From all which we see, that when a man has took up a full purpose of sinning, he is hurried on to it in the strength of all those principles which nature has given him to act by: for sin having depraved his judgment, and got possession of his will, there is no other principle left him naturally, by which he can make head against it. Nor is this all; but to these internal dispositions to sin, add the external opportunities and occasions concurring with them, and removing all lets and rubs out of the way, and, as it were, making the path of destruction plain before the sinner's face; so that he may run his course freely, and without interruption. Nay, when opportunities shall He so fair, as not only to permit, but even to invite, and further a progress in sin; so that the sinner shall set forth, like a ship launched into the wide sea; not only well built and rigged, but also carried on with full wind and tide, to the port or place it is bound for: surely, in this case, nothing under heaven can be imagined able to stop or countermand a sinner, amidst all these circumstances promoting and pushing on his sinful design. For all that can give force and fury to motion, both from within and from without, jointly meet to bear him forward in his present attempt. He presses on like an horse rushing into the battle, and all that should withstand him giving way before him. Now under this deplorable necessity of ruin and destruction does God's preventing grace find every sinner, when it snatches him like a brand out of the fire, and steps in between the purpose and the commission of his sin. It finds him going on resolutely in the high and broad way to perdition; which yet his perverted reason tells him is right, and his will, pleasant. And therefore he has no power of himself to leave, or turn out of it; but he is ruined jocundly and pleasantly, and damned according to his heart's desire. And can there be a more wretched and woful spectacle of misery, than a man in such a condition? a man pleasing and destroying himself together? a man, as it were, doing violence to damnation, and taking hell by force? So that when the preventing goodness of God reaches out its arm, and pulls him out of this fatal path, it does by main force even wrest him from himself, and save him, as it were, against his will. But neither is this his total inability to recover or relieve himself the worst of his condition; but, which is yet much worse, it puts him into a state of actual hostility against, and defiance of, that al mighty God, from whom alone, in this helpless and forlorn condition, he is capable of receiving help. For surely, while a man is going on in a full purpose of sin, he is trampling upon all law, spitting in the face of Heaven, and provoking his Maker in the highest manner; so that none is or can be so much concerned as God himself, to destroy and cut off such an one, and to vindicate the honour of his great name, by striking him dead in his rebellion. And this brings us to the Second thing proposed; which was to shew, What is the fountain or impulsive cause of this prevention of sin. It is perfectly free grace. A man at best, upon all principles of divinity and sound philosophy, is uncapable of meriting any thing from God. But surely, while he is under the dominion of sin, and engaged in full design and purpose to commit it, it is not imaginable what can be found in him to oblige the divine grace in his behalf. For he is in high and actual rebellion against the only giver of such grace. And therefore it must needs flow from a redundant, unaccountable fulness of compassion; shewing mercy, because it will shew mercy; from a compassion, which is and must be its own reason, and can have no argument for its exercise, but it self. No man in the strength of the first grace can merit the second, (as some fondly speak, for reason they do not,) unless a beggar, by receiving one alms, can be said to merit another. It is not from what a man is, or what he has done; from any virtue or excellency, any preceding worth or desert in him, that God is induced thus to interpose between him and ruin, and so stop him in his full career to damnation. No, says God, in Ezek. xvi. 6. When I passed by, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee, Live; yea, I said unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood, Live. The Spirit of God speaks this great truth to the hearts of men with emphasis and repetition, knowing what an aptness there is in them to oppose it. God sees a man wallowing in his native filth and impurity, delivered over as an absolute captive to sin, polluted with its guilt, and enslaved by its power; and in this most loathsome condition fixes upon him as an object of his distinguishing mercy. And to shew yet further, that the actings of this mercy in the work of prevention are entirely free,, do we not sometimes see, in persons of equal guilt and demerit, and of equal progress and advance in the ways of sin, some of them maturely diverted and took off, and others permitted to go on without check or control, till they finish a sinful course in final perdition? So true is it, that if things were cast upon this issue, that God should never prevent sin till something in man deserved it, the best of men would fall into sin, continue in sin, and sin on for ever. And thus much for the second thing proposed; which was to shew, What was the principle, or fountain, from whence this prevention of sin does proceed. Come we now to the Third demonstration or proof of the greatness of this preventing mercy, taken from the hazard a man runs, if the commission of sin be not prevented, whether ever it will come to be pardoned. In order to the clearing of which, I shall lay down these two considerations. 1. That if sin be not thus prevented, it will certainly be committed; and the reason is, because on the sinner's part there will be always a strong inclination to sin. So that, if other things concur, and Providence cuts not off the opportunity, the act of sin must needs follow. For an active principle, seconded with the opportunities of action, will infallibly exert itself. 2dly, The other consideration is, That in every sin deliberately committed, there are (generally speaking) many more degrees of probability, that that sin will never come to be pardoned, than that it will. And this shall be made appear upon these three following accounts. 1. Because every commission of sin introduces into the soul a certain degree of hardness, and an aptness to continue in that sin. It is a known maxim, that it is much more difficult to throw out, than not to let in. Every degree of entrance is a degree of possession. Sin taken into the soul is like a liquor poured into a vessel; so much of it as it fills, it also seasons. The touch and tincture go together. So that although the body of the liquor should be poured out again, yet still it leaves that tang behind it, which makes the vessel fitter for that, than for any other. In like manner, every act of sin strangely transforms and works over the soul to its own likeness. Sin in this being to the soul like fire to combustible matter; it assimilates, before it destroys it. 2dly, A second reason is, because every commission of sin imprints upon the soul a further disposition and proneness to sin. As the second, third, and fourth degrees of heat are more easily introduced, than the first. Every one is both a preparative and a step to the next. Drinking both quenches the present thirst, and provokes it for the future. When the soul is beaten from its first station, and the mounds and outworks of virtue are once broken down, it becomes quite another thing from what it was before. In one single eating of the forbidden fruit, when the act is over, yet the relish remains; and the remembrance of the first repast is an easy allurement to the second. One visit is enough to begin an acquaintance; and this point is gained by it, that when the visitant comes again, he is no more a stranger. 3dly, The third and grand reason is, because the only thing that can entitle the sinner to pardon, which is repentance, is not in the sinner's power: and he who goes about the work will find it so. It is the gift of God: and though God has certainly promised forgiveness of sin to every one who repents, yet he has not promised to any one to give him grace to repent. This is the sinner's hard lot, that the same thing which makes him need repentance, makes him also in danger of not obtaining it. For it provokes and offends that holy Spirit which alone can bestow this grace: as the same treason which puts a traitor in need of his prince's mercy, is a great and a just provocation to his prince to deny it him. Now, let these three things be put together: First, That every commission of sin, in some degree, hardens the soul in that sin. Secondly, That every commission of sin disposes the soul to proceed further in sin. And, thirdly, That to repent, and turn from sin, (without which all pardon is impossible,) is not in the sinner's power; and then, I suppose, there can not but appear a greater likelihood, that a sin once committed will in the issue not be pardoned, than that it will. To all which, add the confirmation of general experience, and the real event of things, that where one man ever comes to repent, an hundred, I might say a thousand at least, end their days in final impenitence. All which considered, surely there cannot need a more pregnant argument of the greatness of this preventing mercy, if it did no more for a man than this; that his grand, immortal concern, more valuable to him than ten thousand worlds, is not thrown upon a critical point; that he is not brought to his last stake; that he is rescued from the first descents into hell, and the high probabilities of damnation. For whatsoever the issue proves, it is certainly a miserable thing to be forced to cast lots for one's life; yet in every sin, a man does the same for eternity. And therefore let the boldest sinner take this one consideration along with him, when he is going to sin, that, whether the sin he is about to act ever comes to be pardoned or no, yet, as soon as it is acted, it quite turns the balance, puts his salvation upon the venture, leaves him but one cast for all; and, which is yet much more dreadful, makes it ten to one odds against him. But let us now alter the state of the matter, so as to leave no doubt in the case: but suppose, that the sin, which, upon non-prevention, comes to be committed, comes also to be repented of, and consequently to be pardoned. Yet, in the Fourth and last place, The greatness of this preventing mercy is eminently proved from those ad vantages accruing to the soul from the prevention of sin, above what can be had from the bare pardon of it: and that, in these two great respects. 1. Of the clearness of a man's condition. 2. Of the satisfaction of his mind. And, First, For the clearness of his condition. If innocence be preferable to repentance, and to be clean be more desirable than to be cleansed; then surely prevention of sin ought to have the precedence of its pardon. For so much of prevention, so much of innocence. There are indeed various degrees of it; and God, in his infinite wisdom, does not deal forth the same measure of his preventing grace to all. Some times he may suffer the soul but just to begin the sinful production, in reflecting upon a sin, suggested by the imagination, with some complacency and delight; which, in the apostle's phrase, is to conceive sin; and then, in these early, imperfect beginnings, God perhaps may presently dash and extinguish it. Or possibly he may permit the sinful conception to receive life and form, by passing into a purpose of committing it; and then he may make it prove abortive, by stifling it before ever it comes to the birth. Or perhaps God may think fit to let it come even to the birth, by some strong endeavours to commit it, and yet then deny it strength to bring forth; so that it never comes into actual commission. Or, lastly, God may suffer it to be born, and see the world, by permitting the endeavour of sin to pass into the commission of it. And this is the last fatal step but one; which is, by frequent repetition of the sinful act, to continue and persist in it, till at length it settles into a fixed, confirmed habit of sin; which, being properly that which the apostle calls the finishing of sin, ends certainly in death; death, not only as to merit, but also as to actual infliction. Now peradventure in this whole progress, preventing grace may sometimes come in to the poor sinner's help, but at the last hour of the day; and having suffered him to run all the former risk and maze of sin, and to descend so many steps down wards to the black regions of death: as first, from the bare thought and imagination of sin, to look up on it with some beginnings of appetite and delight; from thence, to purpose and intend it; and from in tending, to endeavour it; and from endeavouring, actually to commit it; and, having committed it, perhaps for some time to continue in it: and then, I say, after all this, God may turn the fatal stream, and by a mighty grace interrupt its course, and keep it from passing into a settled habit, and so hinder the absolute completion of sin in final obduracy. Certain it is, that wheresoever it pleases God to stop the sinner on this side hell, how far soever he has been advanced in his way towards it, it is a vast, ineffable mercy; a mercy as great as life from the dead, and salvation to a man tottering with horror upon the very edge and brink of destruction. But if, more than all this, God shall be pleased by an early grace to prevent sin so soon, as to keep the soul in the virginity of its first innocence, not tainted with the desires, and much less defloured with the formed purpose of any thing vile and sinful; what an infinite goodness is this! It is not a converting, but a crowning grace; such an one as irradiates, and puts a circle of glory about the head of him upon whom it descends; it is the Holy Ghost coming down upon him in the form of a dove, and setting him triumphant above the necessity of tears and sorrow, mourning and repentance, the sad after-games of a lost innocence. And this brings in the consideration of that other great advantage accruing to the soul from the prevention of sin, above what can be had from the bare pardon of it; namely, 2. The satisfaction of a man's mind. There is that true joy, that solid and substantial comfort, conveyed to the heart by preventing grace, which pardoning grace, at the best, very seldom, and, for the most part, never gives. For since all joy passes into the heart through the understanding, the object of it must be known by one, before it can affect the other. Now, when grace keeps a man so within his bounds, that sin is prevented, he certainly knows it to be so; and so rejoices upon the firm, infallible ground of sense and assurance. But, on the other side, though grace may have reversed the condemning sentence, and sealed the sinner's pardon before God, yet it may have left no transcript of that pardon in the sinner's breast. The hand-writing against him may be cancelled in the court of heaven, and yet the indictment run on in the court of conscience. So that a man may be safe as to his condition, but in the mean time dark and doubtful as to his apprehensions; secure in his pardon, but miserable in the ignorance of it; and so, passing all his days in the disconsolate, uneasy vicissitudes of hopes and fears, at length go out of the world, not knowing whither he goes. And what is this, but a black cloud drawn over all a man's comforts? a cloud, which, though it cannot hinder the supporting influence of heaven, yet will be sure to intercept the refreshing light of it. The pardoned person must not think to stand upon the same vantage ground with the innocent. It is enough that they are both equally safe; but it cannot be thought, that, without a rare privilege, both can be equally cheerful. And thus much for the advantageous effects of preventing, above those of pardoning grace; which was the fourth and last argument brought for the proof of the proposition. Pass we now to the next general thing proposed for the prosecution of it; namely, 2. Its application. Which, from the foregoing discourse, may afford us several useful deductions; but chiefly by way of information, in these three following particulars. As, First, This may inform and convince us how vastly greater a pleasure is consequent upon the forbearance of sin, than can possibly accompany the commission of it; and how much higher a satisfaction is to be found from a conquered, than from a conquering passion. For the proof of which, we need look no further than the great example here before us. Revenge is certainly the most luscious morsel that the devil can put into the sinner's mouth. But do we think that David could have found half that pleasure in the execution of his revenge, that he expresses here upon the disappointment of it? Possibly it might have pleased him in the present heat and hurry of his rage, but must have displeased him infinitely more in the cool, sedate reflections of his mind. For sin can please no longer, than for that pitiful space of time while it is committing; and surely the present pleasure of a sinful act is a poor countervail for the bitterness of the review, which begins where the action ends, and lasts for ever. There is no ill thing which a man does in his passion, but his memory will be revenged on him for it afterwards. All pleasure springing from a gratified passion (as most of the pleasure of sin does) must needs determine with that passion. It is short, violent, and fallacious; and as soon as the imagination is disabused, will certainly be at an end. And therefore Des Cartes prescribes excellently well for the regulation of the passions; viz. That a man should fix and fore-arm his mind with this settled persuasion, that, during that commotion of his blood and spirits, in which passion properly consists, whatsoever is offered to his imagination in favour of it, tends only to deceive his reason. It is indeed a real trepan upon it; feeding it with colours and appearances, instead of arguments; and driving the very same bargain, which Jacob did with Esau, a mess of pottage for a birthright, a present repast for a perpetuity. Secondly, We have here a sure, unfailing criterion, by which every man may discover and find out the gracious or ungracious disposition of his own heart. The temper of every man is to be judged of from the thing he most esteems; and the object of his esteem may be measured by the prime object of his thanks. What is it that opens thy mouth in praises, that fills thy heart, and lifts up thy hands in grateful acknowledgments to thy great Creator and Preserver? Is it that thy bags and thy barns are full, that thou hast escaped this sickness, or that danger? Alas, God may have done all this for thee in anger! All this fair sunshine may have been only to harden thee in thy sins. He may have given thee riches and honour, health and power with a curse; and if so, it will be found but a poor comfort, to have had never so great a share of God's bounty without his blessing. But has he at any time kept thee from thy sin? stopped thee in the prosecution of thy lust? defeated the malicious arts and stratagems of thy mortal enemy the tempter? And does not the sense of this move and affect thy heart more than all the former instances of temporal prosperity, which are but, as it were, the promiscuous scatterings of his common providence, while these are the distinguishing kindnesses of his special grace? A truly pious mind has certainly another kind of relish and taste of these things; and if it receives a temporal blessing with gratitude, it receives a spiritual one with ecstasy and transport. David, an heroic instance of such a temper, overlooks the rich and seasonable present of Abigail, though pressed with hunger and travel; but her advice, which disarmed his rage, and calmed his revenge, draws forth those high and affectionate gratulations from him: Blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou, who hast kept me this day from shedding blood, and avenging myself with mine own hand. These were his joyful and glorious trophies; not that he triumphed over his enemy, but that he insulted over his revenge; that he escaped from himself, and was delivered from his own fury. And whosoever has any thing of David's piety, will be perpetually plying the throne of grace with such like acknowledgments; as, "Blessed be that Providence, which delivered me from such a lewd company, and such a vicious acquaintance, which was the bane of such and such a person. And, Blessed be that God who cast rubs, and stops, and hinderances in my way, when I was attempting the commission of such or such a sin; who took me out of such a course of life, such a place, or such an employment, which was a continual snare and temptation to "me. And, Blessed be such a preacher, and such a friend, whom God made use of to speak a word in season to my wicked heart, and so turned me out of the paths of death and destruction, and saved me in spite of the world, the devil, and myself." These are such things as a man shall remember with joy upon his deathbed; such as shall cheer and warm his heart even in that last and bitter agony, when many, from the very bottom of their souls, shall wish that they had never been rich, or great, or powerful; and reflect with anguish and remorse upon those splendid occasions of sin, which served them for little but to heighten their guilt, and at best to inflame their accounts, at that great tribunal which they are going to appear before. In the third and last place. We learn from hence the great reasonableness of, not only a contented, but also a thankful acquiescence in any condition, and under the Grossest and severest passages of Providence which can possibly befall us: since there is none of all these but may be the instrument of preventing grace in the hands of a merciful God, to keep us from those courses which would otherwise assuredly end in our confusion. This is most certain, that there is no enjoyment which the nature of man is either desirous or capable of? but may be to him a direct inducement to sin, and consequently is big with mischief, and carries death in the bowels of it. But to make the assertion more particular, and thereby more convincing, let us take an account of it with reference to the three greatest and deservedly most valued enjoyments of this life. 1. Health; 2dly, Reputation; and 3dly, Wealth. First, And first for health. Has God made a breach upon that? Perhaps he is building up thy soul upon the ruins of thy body. Has he bereaved thee of the use and vigour of thy limbs? Possibly he saw that otherwise they would have been the instruments of thy lusts, and the active ministers of thy debaucheries. Perhaps thy languishing upon thy bed has kept thee from rotting in a gaol, or in a worse place. God saw it necessary by such mortifications to quench the boilings of a furious, overflowing appetite, and the boundless rage of an insatiable intemperance; to make the weakness of the flesh, the physic and restaurative of the spirit; and in a word, rather to save thee diseased, sickly, and deformed, than to let strength, health, and beauty, drive thee headlong (as they have done many thousands) into eternal destruction. Secondly, Has God in his providence thought fit to drop a blot upon thy name, and to blast thy reputation? He saw perhaps that the breath of popular air was grown infectious, and would have derived a contagion upon thy better part. Pride and vain glory had mounted thee too high, and therefore it was necessary for mercy to take thee down, to prevent a greater fall. A good name is, indeed, better than life; but a sound mind is better than both. Praise and applause had swelled thee to a proportion ready to burst; it had vitiated all thy spiritual ap petites, and brought thee to feed upon the air, and to surfeit upon the wind, and, in a word, to starve thy soul, only to pamper thy imagination. And now if God makes use of some poignant disgrace to prick this enormous bladder, and to let out the poisonous vapour, is not the mercy greater than the severity of the cure? Cover them with shame, says the psalmist, that they may seek thy name. Fame and glory transports a man out of himself; and, like a violent wind, though it may bear him up for a while, yet it will be sure to let him fall at last. It makes the mind loose and garish, scatters the spirits, and leaves a kind of dissolution upon all the faculties. Whereas shame, on the contrary, as all grief does, naturally contracts and unites, and thereby fortifies the spirits, fixes the ramblings of fancy, and so reduces and gathers the man into himself. This is the sovereign effect of a bitter potion, administered by a wise and merciful hand: and what hurt can there be in all the slanders, obloquies, and disgraces of this world, if they are but the arts and methods of Providence to shame us into the glories of the next. But then, Thirdly and lastly, Has God thought fit to cast thy lot amongst the poor of this world, and that either by denying thee any share of the plenties of this life, which is something grievous; or by taking them away, which is much more so? Yet still all this may be but the effect of preventing mercy. For so much mischief as riches have done and may do to the souls of men, so much mercy may there be in taking them away. For does not the wisest of men, next our Saviour, tell us of riches kept to the hurt of the owners of them? Eccles. v. 13. And does not our Saviour himself speak of the intolerable difficulty which they cause in men's passage to heaven? Do they not make the narrow way much narrower, and contract the gate which leads to life to the straitness of a needle's eye? And now, if God will fit thee for this passage, by taking off thy load, and emptying thy bags, and so suit the narrowness of thy fortune to the narrowness of the way thou art to pass, is there any thing but mercy in all this? Nay, are not the riches of his mercy conspicuous in the poverty of thy condition? Thou who repinest at the plenty and splendour of thy neighbour, at the greatness of his incomes, and the magnificence of his retinue; consider what are frequently the dismal, wretched consequences of all this, and thou wilt have little cause to envy this gaudy great one, or to wish thyself in his room. For do we not often hear of this or that young heir newly come to his father's vast estate? An happy man, no doubt! But does not the town presently ring of his debaucheries, his blasphemies, and his murders? Are not his riches and his lewdnesses talked of together? and the odiousness of one heightened and set off by the greatness of the other? Are not his oaths, his riots, and other villainies reckoned by as many thousands as his estate? Now consider, had this grand debauchee, this glistering monster, been born to thy poverty and mean circumstances, he could not have contracted such a clamorous guilt, he could not have been so bad: nor, perhaps, had thy birth instated thee in the same wealth and greatness, wouldest thou have been at all better. This God foresaw and knew, in the ordering both of his and thy condition: and which of the two now, can we think, is the greater debtor to his preventing mercy? Lordly sins require lordly estates to support them: and where Providence denies the latter, it cuts off all temptation to the former. And thus I have shewn by particular instances, what cause men have to acquiesce in and submit to the harshest dispensations that Providence can mea sure out to them in this life; and with what satisfaction, or rather gratitude, that ought to be endured, by which the greatest of mischiefs is prevented. The great physician of souls sometimes cannot cure without cutting us. Sin has festered inwardly, and he must lance the imposthume, to let out death with the suppuration. He who ties a madman's hands, or takes away his sword, loves his person, while he disarms his phrensy. And whether by health or sickness, honour or disgrace, wealth or poverty, life or death, mercy is still contriving, acting, and carrying on the spiritual good of all those who love God, and are loved by him. To whom, therefore, be rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen. __________________________________________________________________ An Account of the Nature and Measures of Conscience: IN TWO SERMONS ON 1 JOHN III. 21. PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY, AT CHRIST-CHURCH, OXON. The first preached on the 1st of Nov. 1691. __________________________________________________________________ 1 John iii. 21. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, we have confidence toward God. AS nothing can be of more moment, so few things, doubtless, are of more difficulty, than for men to be rationally satisfied about the estate of their souls, with reference to God and the great concerns of eternity. In their judgment about which, if they err finally, it is like a man's missing his cast when he throws dice for his life; his being, his happiness, and all that he does or can enjoy in the world, is involved in the error of one throw. And therefore it may very well deserve our best skill and care, to inquire into those rules, by which we may guide our judgment in so weighty an affair, both with safety and success. And this, I think, cannot be better done, than by separating the false and fallacious from the true and certain. For if the rule we judge by be uncertain, it is odds but we shall judge wrong; and if we should judge right, yet it is not properly skill, but chance; not a true judgment, but a lucky hit: which, certainly, the eternal interests of an immortal soul are of much too high a value to be left at the mercy of. First of all then: he who would pass such a judgment upon his condition, as shall be ratified in heaven, and confirmed at that great tribunal from which there lies no appeal, will find himself wofully deceived, if he judges of his spiritual estate by any of these four following measures: as, 1. The general esteem of the world concerning him. He who owes his piety to fame and hearsay, and the evidences of his salvation to popular voice and opinion, builds his house not only upon the sand, but, which is worse, upon the wind; and writes the deeds, by which he holds his estate, upon the face of a river. He makes a bodily eye the judge of things impossible to be seen; and humour and ignorance (which the generality of men both think and speak by) the great proofs of his justification. But surely no man has the estate of his soul drawn upon his face, nor the decree of his election wrote upon his forehead. He who would know a man throughly, must follow him into the closet of his heart, the door of which is kept shut to all the world besides, and the inspection of which is only the prerogative of omniscience. The favourable opinion and good word of men, (to some persons especially,) comes oftentimes at a very easy rate: and by a few demure looks and affected whines, set off with some odd, devotional postures and grimaces, and such other little arts of dissimulation, cunning men will do wonders, and commence presently heroes for sanctity, self-denial, and sincerity, while within perhaps they are as proud as Lucifer, as covetous as Demas, as false as Judas; and, in the whole course of their conversation, act and are acted, not by devotion, but design. So that, for ought I see, though the Mosaical part of Judaism be abolished amongst Christians, the Pharisaical part of it never will. A grave, staunch, skilfully managed face, set upon a grasping, aspiring mind, having got many a sly formalist the reputation of a primitive and severe piety, forsooth, and made many such mountebanks pass admired, even for saints upon earth, (as the word is,) who are like to be so nowhere else. But a man who had never seen the stately outside of a tomb, or painted sepulchre, before, may very well be excused, if he takes it rather for the repository of some rich treasure, than of a noisome corpse; but should he but once open and rake into it, though he could not see, he would quickly smell out his mistake. The greatest part of the world is nothing but appearance, nothing but shew and surface; and many make it their business, their study, and concern, that it should be so; who, having for many years together deceived all about them, are at last willing to deceive themselves too; and by a long, immemorial practice, and, as it were, prescription of an aged, thoroughpaced hypocrisy, come at length to believe that for a reality, which, at the first practice of it, they themselves knew to be a cheat. But if men love to be deceived and fooled about so great an interest as that of their spiritual estate, it must be confessed that they cannot take a surer and more effectual course to be so, than by taking their neighbour's word for that which can be known to them only from their own hearts. For certainly it is not more absurd to undertake to tell the name of an unknown person by his looks, than to vouch a man's saintship from the vogue of the world, founded upon his external behaviour. 2. The judgment of any casuist, or learned divine, concerning the estate of a man's soul, is not sufficient to give him confidence towards God. And the reason is, because no learning whatsoever can give a man the knowledge of another's heart. Besides, that it is more than possible that the most profound and experienced casuist in the world may mistake in his judgment of a man's spiritual condition; and if he does judge right, yet the man cannot be sure that he will declare that judgment sincerely and impartially, (the greatest clerks being not always the honestest, any more than the wisest men,) but may purposely sooth a man up for hope or fear, or the service of some sinister interest; and so shew him the face of a foul soul in a flattering glass: considering how much the raising in some men a false hope of another world, may, with others, serve a real interest in this. There is a generation of men, who have framed their casuistical divinity to a perfect compliance with all the corrupt affections of a man's nature; and by that new-invented engine of the doctrine of probability, will undertake to warrant and quiet the sinner's conscience in the commission of any sin whatsoever, provided there be but the opinion of one learned man to vouch it. For this, they say, is a sufficient ground for the conscience of any unlearned person to rely and to act upon. So that if but one doctor asserts that I may lawfully kill a man to prevent a box on the ear, or a calumny, by which he would otherwise asperse my good name, I may with a good conscience do it; nay, I may safely rest upon this one casuist's judgment, though thousands, as learned as himself, yea, and the express law of God besides, affirm the quite contrary. But these spiritual engineers know well enough how to deal with any commandment, either by taking or expounding it away, at their pleasure. Such an ascendant have these Romish casuists over scripture, reason, and morality; much like what is said of the stupid, modern Jews, that they have subdued their sense and reason to such a sottish servitude to their rabbies, as to hold, that in case two rabbies should happen to contradict one another, they were yet bound to believe the contradictory assertions of both to be equally certain, and equally the word of God: such an iron-digesting faith have they, and such pity it is, that there should be no such thing in Judaism as transubstantiation to employ it upon. But as for these casuists whom I have been speaking of; if the judgment of one doctor may authorize the practice of any action, I believe it will be hard to find any sort or degree of villainy which the corruption of man's nature is capable of committing, which shall not meet with a defence. And of this I could give such an instance from something wrote by a certain prelate of theirs, cardinal and archbishop of Beneventum, as were enough, not only to astonish all pious ears, but almost to unconsecrate the very church I speak in. But the truth is, the way by which these Romish casuists speak peace to the consciences of men, is either by teaching them that many actions are not sins, which yet really are so; or by suggesting some thing to them, which shall satisfy their minds, not withstanding a known, actual, avowed continuance in their sins: such as are their pardons and indulgences, and giving men a share in the saints merits, out of the common bank and treasury of the church, which the pope has the sole custody and disposal of, and is never kept shut to such as come with an open hand. So that according to these new evangelists, well may we pronounce, Blessed are the rich, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. But God deliver the world from such guides, or rather such hucksters of souls, the very shame of religion, and the shame less subverters of morality. And it is really matter both of wonder and indignation, that such impostors should at all concern themselves about rules or directions of conscience, who seem to have no consciences to apply them to. 3. The absolution pronounced by a priest, whether Papist or Protestant, is not a certain, infallible ground, to give the person so absolved confidence towards God; and the reason is, because, if absolution, as such, could of itself secure a man, as to the estate of his soul, then it would follow, that every person so absolved should, by virtue thereof, be ipso facto put into such a condition of safety, which is not imaginable. For the absolution pronounced must be either conditional, as running upon the conditions of faith and repentance; and then, if those conditions are not found in the person so absolved, it is but a seal to a blank, and so a mere nullity to him. Or, the absolution must be pronounced in terms absolute and unconditional: and if so, then the said absolution becomes valid and effectual, either by virtue of the state of the person to whom it was pronounced, as being a true penitent, or by virtue of the opus operatum, or bare action itself of the priest absolving him. If it receives its validity from the former; then it is clear, that although it runs in forms absolute, yet it is indeed conditional, as depending upon the qualification of the person to whom it is pronounced; who therefore owes the remission of his sins, not properly to the priest's absolution, but to his own repentance, which made that absolution effectual, and would undoubtedly have saved him, though the priest had never absolved him. But if it be asserted, that the very action of the priest absolving him has of itself this virtue; then we must grant also, that it is in the priest's power to save a man who never repented, nor did one good work in all his life; forasmuch as it is in his power to perform this action upon him in full form, and with full intention to absolve him. But the horrible absurdity, blasphemy, and impiety of this assertion, sufficiently proclaims its falsity without any further confutation. In a word, if a man be a penitent, his repentance stamps his absolution effectual. If not, let the priest repeat the same absolution to him ten thousand times, yet for all his being absolved in this world, God will condemn him in the other. And consequently, he who places his salvation upon this ground, will find himself like an imprisoned and condemned malefactor, who in the night dreams that he is released, but in the morning finds himself led to the gallows. 4thly and lastly, No advantages from external church-membership, or profession of the true religion, can themselves give a man confidence towards God. And yet perhaps, there is hardly any one thing in the world, which men, in all ages, have generally more cheated themselves with. The Jews were an eminent instance of this: who, because they were the sons of Abraham, as it is readily acknowledged by our Saviour, John viii. 37. and because they were entrusted with the oracles of God, Rom. iii. 2. together with the covenants, and the promises, Rom. ix. 4. that is, in other words, because they were the true church, and professors of the true religion, (while all the world about them lay wallowing in ignorance, heathenism, and idolatry,) they concluded from hence, that God was so fond of them, that, notwithstanding all their villainies and immoralities, they were still the darlings of heaven, and the only heirs apparent of salvation. They thought, it seems, God and themselves linked together in so fast, but withal so strange a covenant, that, although they never performed their part of it, God was yet bound to make good every tittle of his. And this made John the Baptist set himself with so much acrimony and indignation to baffle this senseless, arrogant conceit of theirs, which made them huff at the doctrine of repentance, as a thing below them, and not at all belonging to them, in Matt. iii. 9. Think not, says he, to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father. This, he knew, lay deep in their hearts, and was still in their mouths, and kept them insolent and impenitent under sins of the highest and most clamorous guilt; though our Saviour himself also, not long after this, assured them, that they were of a very different stock and parentage from that which they boasted of; and that whosoever was their father upon the natural account, the devil was certainly so upon a moral. In like manner, how vainly do the Romanists pride and value themselves upon the name of Catholics, of the catholic religion, and of the catholic church! though a title no more applicable to the church of Rome, than a man's finger, when it is swelled and putrefied, can be called his whole body: a church which allows salvation to none without it, nor awards damnation to almost any within it. And therefore, as the former empty plea served the sottish Jews; so, no wonder, if this equally serves these, to put them into a fool's paradise, by feeding their hopes without changing their lives; and, as an excellent expedient, first to assure them of heaven, and then to bring them easily to it; and so, in a word, to save both their souls and their sins too. And to shew how the same cheat runs through all professions, though not in the same dress; none are more powerfully and grossly under it than an other sort of men, who, on the contrary, place their whole acceptance with God, and indeed their whole religion, upon a mighty zeal, or rather outcry, against popery and superstition; verbally, indeed, uttered against the church of Rome, but really against the church of England. To which sort of persons I shall say no more but this, and that in the spirit of truth and meekness; namely, that zeal and noise against popery, and real services for it, are no such inconsistent things as some may imagine; indeed no more than invectives against Papists, and solemn addresses of thanks to them, for that very thing, by which they would have brought in popery upon us. And if those of the separation do not yet know so much, thanks to them for it, we of the church of England do; and so may they themselves too, in due time. I speak not this by way of sarcasm, to reproach them, (I leave that to their own consciences, which will do it more effectually,) but by way of charity, to warn them: for let them be assured, that this whole scene and practice of theirs is as really superstition, and as false a bottom to rest their souls upon, as either the Jews alleging Abraham for their father, while the devil claimed them for his children; or the Papists relying upon their indulgences, their saints merits and supererogations, and such other fopperies, as can never settle, nor indeed so much as reach, the conscience; and much less recommend it to that Judge, who is not to be flammed off with words, and phrases, and names, though taken out of the scripture itself. Nay, and I shall proceed yet further. It is not a man's being of the church of England itself, (though undoubtedly the purest and best reformed church in the world; indeed so well reformed, that it will be found a much easier work to alter than to better its constitution;) I say, it is not a man's being even of this excellent church, which can of itself clear accounts between God and his conscience. Since bare communion with a good church can never alone make a good man: for if it could, I am sure we should have no bad ones in ours; and much less such as would betray it. So that we see here, that it is but too manifest, that men of all churches and persuasions are strangely apt to flatter and deceive themselves with what they believe, and what they profess; and if we throughly consider the matter, we shall find the fallacy to lie in this: that those religious institutions, which God designed only for means, helps, and advantages, to promote and further men in the practice of holiness, they look upon rather as a privilege to serve them instead of it, and really to commute for it. This is the very case, and a fatal self-imposture it is certainly, and such an one as defeats the design and destroys the force of all religion. And thus I have shewn four several uncertain and deceitful rules, which men are prone to judge of their spiritual estate by. But now, have we any better or more certain, to substitute and recommend in the room of them? Why, yes; if we believe the apostle, a man's own heart or conscience is that which, above all other things, is able to give him confidence towards God. And the reason is, because the heart knows that by itself, which nothing in the world besides can give it any knowledge of; and without the knowledge of which, it can have no foundation to build any true confidence upon. Conscience, under God, is the only competent judge of what the soul has done, and what it has not done; what guilt it has contracted, and what it has not; as it is in 1 Cor. ii. 11. What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Conscience is its own counsellor, the sole master of its own secrets: and it is the privilege of our nature, that every man should keep the key of his own breast. Now for the further prosecution of the words, I shall do these four things. 1. I shall shew, how the heart or conscience ought to be informed, in order to its founding in us a rational confidence towards God. 2. I shall shew, how and by what means we may get it thus informed, and afterwards preserve and keep it so. 3. I shall shew, whence it is that the testimony of conscience thus informed, comes to be so authentic, and so much to be relied upon: and, 4thly and lastly, I shall assign some particular cases or instances, in which the confidence suggested by it does most eminently shew and exert itself. 1. And first for the first of these, how the heart or conscience, &c. It is certain, that no man can have any such confidence towards God, only because his heart tells him a lie; and that it may do so, is altogether as certain. For there is the erroneous, as well as the rightly informed conscience; and if the conscience happens to be deluded, and there upon to give false directions to the will, so that by virtue of those directions it is betrayed into a course of sin: sin does not therefore cease to be sin, because a man committed it conscientiously. If conscience comes to be perverted so far, as to bring a man under a persuasion, that it is either lawful, or his duty, to resist the magistrate, to seize upon his neighbour's just rights or estate, to worship stocks and stones, or to lie, equivocate, and the like, this will not absolve him before God; since error, which is in itself evil, can never make another thing good. He who does an unwarrantable action through a false information, which information he ought not to have believed, cannot in reason make the guilt of one sin the excuse of another. Conscience therefore must be rightly informed, before the testimony of it can be authentic in what it pronounces concerning the estate of the soul. It must proceed by the two grand rules of right reason and scripture; these are the compass which it must steer by. For conscience comes formally to oblige, only as it is the messenger of the mind of God to the soul of man; which he has revealed to him, partly by the impression of certain notions and maxims upon the practical understanding, and partly by the declared oracles of his word. So far therefore as conscience reports any thing agreeable to, or deducible from these, it is to be hearkened to as the great conveyer of truth to the soul; but when it reports any thing dissonant to these, it obliges no more than the falsehood reported by it. But since there is none who follows an erroneous conscience, but does so because he thinks it true; and moreover thinks it true, because he is persuaded that it proceeds according to the two forementioned rules of scripture and right reason; how shall a man be able to satisfy himself, when his conscience is rightly informed, and when possessed with an error? For to affirm, that the sentence passed by a rightly informed conscience gives a man a rational confidence towards God; but, in the mean time, not to assign any means possible by which he may know when his conscience is thus rightly informed, and when not, it must equally bereave him of such a confidence, as placing the condition upon which it depends wholly out of his knowledge. Here therefore is the knot, here the difficulty, how to state some rule of certainty, by which infallibly to distinguish when the conscience is right, and to be relied upon; when erroneous, and to be distrusted, in the testimony it gives about the sincerity and safety of a man's spiritual condition. For the resolution of which, I answer, that it is not necessary for a man to be assured of the rightness of his conscience, by such an infallible certainty of persuasion, as amounts to the clearness of a demonstration; but it is sufficient, if he knows it upon grounds of such a convincing probability, as shall exclude all rational grounds of doubting of it. For I cannot think, that the confidence here spoken of rises so high as to assurance. And the reason is, because it is manifestly such a confidence as is common to all sincere Christians; which yet, assurance, we all know, is not. The truth is, the word in the original, which is parresi'a, signifies properly freedom or boldness of speech; though the Latin translation renders it by fiducia, and so corresponds with the English, which renders it confidence. But whether fiducia or confidence reaches the full sense of parresi'a, may very well be disputed. However it is certain, that neither the word in the original, nor yet in the translation, imports assurance. For freedom or boldness of speech, I am sure, does not; and fiducia, or confidence, signifies only a man's being actually persuaded of a thing, upon better arguments for it, than any that he can see against it; which he may very well be, and yet not be assured of it. From all which, I conclude; that the confidence here mentioned in the text amounts to no more than a rational well-grounded hope. Such an one as the apostle tells us, in Rom. v. 5. maketh not ashamed. And upon these terms, I affirm, that such a conscience, as has employed the utmost of its ability to give itself the best information and clearest knowledge of its duty that it can, is a rational ground for a man to build such an hope upon; and, consequently, for him to confide in. There is an innate light in every man, discovering to him the first lines of duty, in the common notions of good and evil, which, by cultivation and improvement, may be advanced to higher and brighter discoveries. And from hence it is, that the schoolmen and moralists admit not of any ignorantia juris, speaking of natural moral right, to give excuse to sin. Since all such ignorance is voluntary, and therefore culpable, forasmuch as it was in every man's power to have prevented it, by a due improvement of the light of nature, and the seeds of moral honesty sown in his heart. If it be here demanded, whether a man may not remain ignorant of his duty, after he has used the utmost means to inform himself of it; I answer, that so much of duty as is absolutely necessary to save him, he shall upon the use of such a course come to know; and that which he continues ignorant of, having done the utmost lying in his power that he might not be ignorant of it, shall never damn him. Which assertion is proved thus: The gospel damns nobody for being ignorant of that which he is not obliged to know; but that which upon the improvement of a man's utmost power he cannot know, he is not obliged to know; for that otherwise he would be obliged to an impossibility; since that which is out of the compass of any man's power, is to that man impossible. He therefore who exerts all the powers and faculties of his soul, and plies all means and opportunities in the search of truth, which God has vouchsafed him, may rest upon the judgment of his conscience so informed, as a warrantable guide of those actions, which he must account to God for. And if by following such a guide, he falls into the ditch, the ditch shall never drown him, or if it should, the man perishes not by his sin, but by his misfortune. In a word, he who endeavours to know the utmost of his duty that he can, and practises the utmost that he knows, has the equity and goodness of the great God to stand as a mighty wall or rampart between him and damnation, for any errors or infirmities, which the frailty of his condition has invincibly, and therefore inculpably, exposed him to. And if a conscience thus qualified and informed, be not the measure by which a man may take a true estimate of his absolution before the tribunal of God, all the understanding of human nature cannot find out any ground for the sinner to pitch the sole of his foot upon, or rest his conscience with any assurance, but is left in the plunge of infinite doubts and uncertainties, suspicions and misgivings, both as to the measures of his present duty, and the final issues of his future reward. Let this conclusion therefore stand as the firm result of the foregoing discourse, and the foundation of what is to follow; that such a conscience as has not been wanting to itself, in endeavouring to get the utmost and clearest information about the will of God, that its power, advantages, and opportunities could afford it, is that internal judge, whose absolution is a rational and sure ground of confidence towards God: and so I pass to the second thing proposed. Which is to shew, How, and by what means, we may get our heart or conscience thus informed, and afterwards preserve and keep it so. In order to which, amongst many things that might be alleged as highly useful, and conducing to this great work, I shall insist upon these four: as, 1. Let a man carefully attend to the voice of his reason, and all the dictates of natural morality, so as by no means to do any thing contrary to them. For though reason is not to be relied upon, as a guide universally sufficient to direct us what to do, yet it is generally to be relied upon and obeyed, where it tells us what we are not to do. It is indeed but a weak and diminutive light, compared to revelation; but it ought to be no disparagement to a star, that it is not a sun. Nevertheless, as weak and as small as it is, it is a light always at hand, and though enclosed, as it were, in a dark lantern, may yet be of singular use to prevent many a foul step, and to keep us from many a dangerous fall. And every man brings such a degree of this light into the world with him, that though it cannot bring him to heaven, yet, if he be true to it, it will carry him a great way; indeed so far, that if he follows it faithfully, I doubt not but he shall meet with another light, which shall carry him quite through. How far it may be improved, is evident from that high and refined morality which shined forth both in the lives and writings of some of the ancient heathens, who yet had no other light but this, both to live and to write by. For how great a man in virtue was Cato, of whom the historian gives this glorious character; Esse quam videri bonus malebat! And of what an impregnable integrity was Fabricius, of whom it was said, that a man might as well attempt to turn the sun out of his course, as to bring Fabricius to do a base or a dishonest action! And then for their writings; what admirable things occur in the remains of Pythagoras, and the books of Plato, and of several other philosophers! short, I confess, of the rules of Christianity, but generally above the lives of Christians. Which being so, ought not the light of reason to be looked upon by us as a rich and a noble talent, and such an one as we must account to God for? for it is certainly from him. It is a ray of divinity darted into the soul. It is the candle of the Lord, as Solomon calls it, and God never lights us up a candle either to put out or to sleep by. If it be made conscious to a work of darkness, it will not fail to discover and reprove it; and therefore the checks of it are to be revered, as the echo of a voice from heaven; for, whatsoever conscience binds here on earth, will be certainly bound there too; and it were a great vanity to hope or imagine, that either law or gospel will absolve what natural conscience condemns. No man ever yet offended his own conscience, but first or last it was revenged upon him for it. So that it will concern a man to treat this great principle awfully and warily, by still observing what it commands, but especially what it forbids: and if he would have it always a faithful and sincere monitor to him, let him be sure never to turn a deaf ear to it; for not to hear it is the way to silence it. Let him strictly observe the first stirrings and intimations; the first hints and whispers of good and evil, that pass in his heart; and this will keep conscience so quick and vigilant, and ready to give a man true alarms upon the least approach of his spiritual enemy, that he shall be hardly capable of a great surprise. On the contrary, if a man accustoms himself to slight or pass over these first motions to good, or shrinkings of his conscience from evil, which originally are as natural to the heart of man, as the appetites of hunger and thirst are to the stomach, conscience will by degrees grow dull and unconcerned, and, from not spying out motes, come at length to overlook beams; from carelessness it shall fall into a slumber, and from a slumber it shall settle into a deep and long sleep; till at last perhaps it sleeps itself into a lethargy, and that such an one, that nothing but hell and judgment shall be able to awaken it. For long disuse of any thing made for action will in time take away the very use of it. As I have read of one, who having for a disguise kept one of his eyes a long time covered, when he took off the covering, found his eye indeed where it was, but his sight was gone. He who would keep his conscience awake, must be careful to keep it stirring. 2. Let a man be very tender and regardful of every pious motion and suggestion made by the Spirit of God to his heart. I do not hereby go about to establish enthusiasm, or such fantastic pretences of intercourse with God, as Papists and fanatics (who in most things copy from one another, as well as rail at one another) do usually boast of. But certainly, if the evil spirit may, and often does suggest wicked and vile thoughts to the minds of men, as all do and must grant, and is sufficiently proved from the devil's putting it into the heart of Judas to betray Christ, John xiii. 2. and his filling the heart of Ananias to lie to the Holy Ghost, Acts v. 3. it cannot after this, with any colour of reason, be doubted, but that the holy Spirit of God, whose power and influence to good is much greater than that of the wicked spirit to evil, does frequently inject into, and imprint upon the soul many blessed motions and impulses to duty, and many powerful avocations from sin. So that a man shall not only, as the prophet says, hear a voice behind him, but also a voice within him, telling him which way he ought to go. For doubtless, there is something more in those expressions of being led by the Spirit, and being taught by the Spirit, and the like, than mere tropes and metaphors; and nothing less is or can be imported by them, than that God sometimes speaks to, and converses with, the hearts of men, immediately by himself; and happy those, who by thus hearing him speak in a still voice, shall prevent his speaking to them in thunder. But you will here ask, perhaps, how we shall distinguish in such motions, which of them proceed immediately from the Spirit of God, and which from the conscience? In answer to which, I must confess, that I know no certain mark of discrimination to distinguish them by; save only in general, that such as proceed immediately from God, use to strike the mind suddenly, and very powerfully. But then I add also, that as the knowledge of this, in point of speculation, is so nice and difficult, so, thanks be to God, in point of practice it is not necessary. But let a man universally observe and obey every good motion rising in his heart, knowing that every such motion proceeds from God, either mediately or immediately; and that whether God speaks immediately by himself to the conscience, or mediately by the conscience to the soul, the authority is the same in both, and the contempt of either is rebellion. Now the thing which I drive at, under this head of discourse, is to shew, that as God is sometimes pleased to address himself in this manner to the hearts of men; so, if the heart will receive and answer such motions, by a ready and obsequious compliance with them, there is no doubt but they will both return more frequently, and still more and more powerfully, till at length they produce such a degree of light in the conscience, as shall give a man both a clear sight of his duty, and a certain judgment of his condition. On the contrary, as all resistance whatsoever of the dictates of conscience, even in the way of natural efficiency, brings a kind of hardness and stupefaction upon it; so the resistance of these peculiar suggestions of the Spirit will cause in it also a judicial hardness, which is yet worse than the other. So that God shall withdraw from such an heart, and the Spirit being grieved shall depart, and these blessed motions shall cease, and affect and visit it no more. The consequence of which is very terrible, as rendering a man past feeling: and then the less he feels in this world, the more he shall be sure to feel in the next. But, 3. Because the light of natural conscience is in many things defective and dim, and the internal voice of God's Spirit not always distinguishable, above all, let a man attend to the mind of God, uttered in his revealed word. I say, his revealed word. By which I do not mean that mysterious, extraordinary (and of late so much studied) book called the Revelation, and which perhaps the more it is studied the less it is understood, as generally either finding a man cracked, or making him so: but I mean those other writings of the prophets and apostles, which exhibit to us a plain, sure, perfect, and intelligible rule; a rule that will neither fail nor distract such as make use of it. A rule to judge of the two former rules by: for nothing that contradicts the revealed word of God, is either the voice of right reason or of the Spirit of God: nor is it possible that it should be so, without God's contradicting himself. And therefore we see what high elogies are given to the written word by the inspired penmen of both Testaments. It giveth understanding to the simple, says David, in Psalm cxix. 130. And that, you will say, is no such easy matter to do. It is able to make the man of God perfect, says St. Paul, 2 Tim. iii. 17. It is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit; and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, Heb. iv. 12. Now what a force and fulness, what a vigour and emphasis is there in all these expressions! Enough, one would think, to recommend and endear the scriptures, even to the Papists themselves. For if, as the text says, they give understanding to the simple; I know none more concerned to read and study them than their popes. Wherefore since the light and energy of the writ ten word is so mighty, let a man bring and hold his conscience to this steady rule; the unalterable rectitude of which, will infallibly discover the rectitude or obliquity of whatsoever it is applied to. We shall find it a rule, both to instruct us what to do, and to assure us in what we have done. For though natural conscience ought to be listened to, yet it is revelation alone that is to be relied upon: as we may observe in the works of art, a judicious artist will indeed use his eye, but he will trust only to his rule. There is not any one action whatsoever which a man ought to do or to forbear, but the scripture will give him a clear precept or prohibition for it. So that if a man will commit such rules to his memory, and stock his mind with portions of scripture answerable to all the heads of duty and practice, his conscience can never be at a loss, either for a direction of his actions, or an answer to a temptation: it was the very course which our Saviour himself took, when the devil plied him with temptation upon temptation. Still he had a suitable scripture ready to repel and baffle them all, one after another: every pertinent text urged home, being a direct stab to a temptation. Let a man therefore consider and recount with himself the several duties and virtues of a Christian. Such as temperance, meekness, charity, purity of heart, pardoning of enemies, patience. (I had almost said passive obedience too, but that such old-fashioned Christianity seems as much out of date with some, as Christ's divinity and satisfaction.) I say, let a man consider these and the like virtues, together with the contrary sins and vices that do oppose them; and then, as out of a full armory or magazine, let him furnish his conscience with texts of scripture, particularly enjoining the one, and for bidding or threatening the other. And yet I do not say that he should stuff his mind like the margent of some authors, with chapter and verse heaped together, at all adventures; but only that he should fortify it with some few texts, which are home, and apposite to his case. And a conscience thus supplied will be like a man armed at all points; and always ready either to receive or to attack his enemy. Otherwise it is not a man's having arms in his house; no, nor yet his having courage and skill to use them; but it is his having them still about him, which must both secure him from being set upon, and defend him when he is. Accordingly, men must know, that without taking the forementioned course, all that they do in this matter is but lost labour; and that they read the scriptures to as little purpose as some use to quote them; much reading being like much eating, wholly useless without digestion; and it is impossible for a man to digest his meat, without also retaining it. Till men get what they read into their minds, and fix it in their memories, they keep their religion as they use to do their Bibles, only in their closet, or carry it in their pocket; and that, you may imagine, must improve and affect the soul, just as much as a man's having plenty of provision only in his stores, will nourish and support his body. When men forget the word heard or read by them, the devil is said to steal it out of their hearts, Luke viii. 12. And for this cause we do with as much reason, as propriety of speech, call the committing of a thing to memory, the getting it by heart. For it is the memory that must transmit it to the heart; and it is in vain to expect, that the heart should keep its hold of any truth, when the memory has let it go. 4. The fourth and last way that I shall mention for the getting of the conscience rightly informed, and afterwards keeping it so, is frequently and impartially to account with it. It is with a man and his conscience, as with one man and another; amongst whom we use to say, that even reckoning makes lasting friends; and the way to make reckonings even, I am sure, is to make them often. Delays in accounts are always suspicious; and bad enough in themselves, but commonly much worse in their cause. For to defer an account, is the ready way to perplex it; and when it comes to be perplexed and intricate, no man, either as to his temporal or spiritual estate, can know of himself what he is, or what he has, or upon what bottom he stands. But the amazing difficulty and greatness of his account will rather terrify than inform him; and keep him from setting heartily about such a task as he despairs ever to go through with. For no man willingly begins what he has no hope to finish. But let a man apply to this work by frequent returns and short intervals, while the heap is small, and the particulars few, and he will find it easy and conquerable; and his conscience, like a faithful steward, shall give him in a plain, open, and entire account of himself, and hide nothing from him. Whereas we know, if a steward or cashier be suffered to run on from year to year without bringing him to a reckoning, it is odds but such a sottish forbearance will in time teach him to shuffle; and strongly tempt him to be a cheat, if not also to make him so: for as the account runs on, generally the account ant goes backward. And for this cause some judge it advisable for a man to account with his heart every day; and this, no doubt, is the best and surest course; for still the oftener the better. And some prescribe accounting once a week; longer than which it is by no means safe to delay it: for a man shall find his heart deceitful, and his memory weak, and nature extremely averse from seeking narrowly after that which it is unwilling to find; and being found, will assuredly disturb it. So that upon the whole matter it is infinitely absurd to think, that conscience can be kept in order without frequent examination. If a man would have his conscience deal clearly with him, he must deal severely with that. Often scouring and cleansing it will make it bright; and when it is so, he may see himself in it: and if he sees any thing amiss, let this satisfy him, that no man is or can be the worse for knowing the very worst of himself. On the contrary, if conscience, by a long neglect of, and disacquaintance with itself, comes to contract an inveterate rust or soil, a man may as well expect to see his face in a mud-wall, as that such a conscience should give him a true report of his condition; no, it leaves him wholly in the dark, as to the greatest concern he has in both worlds. He can neither tell whether God be his friend or his enemy, or rather he has shrewd cause to suspect him his enemy, and cannot possibly know him to be his friend. And this being his case, he must live in ignorance and die in ignorance; and it will be hard for a man to die in it, without dying for it too. And now, what a wretched condition must that man needs be in, whose heart is in such a confusion, such darkness, and such a settled blindness, that it shall not be able to tell him so much as one true word of himself! Flatter him it may, I confess, (as those are generally good at flattering, who are good for nothing else,) but, in the mean time, the poor man is left under the fatal necessity of a remediless delusion: for in judging of a man's self, if conscience either cannot or will not inform him, there is a certain thing called self-love that will be sure to deceive him. And thus I have shewn, in four several particulars, what is to be done, both for the getting and keeping of the conscience so informed, as that it may be able to give us a rational confidence towards God. As, 1. That the voice of reason, in all the dictates of natural morality, ought carefully to be attended to by a strict observance of what it commands, but especially of what it forbids. 2. That every pious motion from the Spirit of God ought tenderly to be cherished, and by no means checked or quenched either by resistance or neglect. 3. That conscience is to be kept close to the rule of the written word. 4thly and lastly, That it is frequently to be examined, and severely accounted with. And I doubt not but a conscience thus disciplined, shall give a man such a faithful account of himself, as shall never shame nor lurch the confidence which he shall take up from it. Nevertheless, to prevent all mistakes in so critical a case, and so high a concern, I shall close up the foregoing particulars with this twofold caution. First, Let no man think that every doubting or misgiving about the safety of his spiritual estate, overthrows the confidence hitherto spoken of. For, as I shewed before, the confidence mentioned in the text, is not properly assurance, but only a rational, well-grounded hope; and therefore may very well consist with some returns of doubting. For we know, in that pious and excellent confession and prayer, made by the poor man to our Saviour, in Mark ix. 24, how in the very same breath in which he says, Lord, I believe; he says also, Lord, help my unbelief. So that we see here, that the sincerity of our faith or confidence will not secure us against all vicissitudes of wavering or distrust; indeed no more than a strong athletic constitution of body will secure a man always against heats, and colds, and rheums, and such like indispositions. And one great reason of this is, because such a faith or confidence as we have been treating of, resides in the soul or conscience as an habit. And habits, we know, are by no means either inconsistent with, or destroyed by, every contrary act. But especially in the case now before us, where the truth and strength of our confidence towards God does not consist so much in the present act, by which it exerts itself, no, nor yet in the habit producing this act, as it does in the ground or reason which this confidence is built upon; which being the standing sincerity of a man's heart, though the present act be interrupted, (as, no doubt, through infirmity or temptation it may be very often,) yet, so long as that sincerity, upon which this confidence was first founded, does continue, as soon as the temptation is removed and gone, the forementioned faith, or affiance, will, by renewed, vigorous, and fresh acts, recover and exert itself, and with great comfort and satisfaction of mind give a man confidence towards God. Which, though it be indeed a lower and a lesser thing than assurance, yet, as to all the purposes of a pious life, may, for ought I see, prove much more useful; as both affording a man due comfort, and yet leaving room for due caution too; which are two of the principal uses that religion serves for in this world. 2. The other caution, with reference to the fore going discourse, is this; Let no man, from what has been said, reckon a bare silence of conscience in not accusing or disturbing him, a sufficient argument for confidence towards God. For such a silence is so far from being always so, that it is usually worse than the fiercest and loudest accusations; since it may, and for the most part does, proceed from a kind of numbness or stupidity of conscience, and an absolute dominion obtained by sin over the soul; so that it shall not so much as dare to complain or make a stir. For, as our Saviour says, Luke xi. 21. While the strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace. So, while sin rules and governs with a strong hand, and has wholly subdued the conscience to a slavish subjection to its tyrannical yoke; the soul shall be at peace, such a false peace as it is; but for that very cause worse a great deal, and more destructive, than when, by continual alarms and assaults, it gives a man neither peace nor truce, quiet nor intermission. And therefore it is very remarkable, that the text expresses the sound estate of the heart or the conscience here spoken of, not barely by its not accusing, but by its not condemning us, which word imports properly an acquitment or discharge of a man upon some precedent accusation, and a full trial and cognizance of his cause had thereupon. For as condemnation, being a law term, and so relating to the judicial proceedings of law courts, must still presuppose an hearing of the cause, before any sentence can pass; so likewise in the court of conscience, there must be a strict and impartial inquiry into all a man's actions, and a thorough hearing of all that can be pleaded for and against him, before conscience can rationally either condemn or discharge him: and if indeed upon such a fair and full trial he can come off, he is then rectus in curia, clear and innocent, and consequently may reap all that satisfaction from himself, which it is natural for innocence to afford the person who has it. I do not here speak of a legal innocence, (none but sots and Quakers dream of such things,) for, as St. Paul says, Galat. ii. 16. by the works of the law shall no flesh living be justified: but I speak of an evangelical innocence; such an one as the economy of the gospel accepts, what soever the law enjoins; and though mingled with several infirmities and defects, yet amounts to such a pitch of righteousness, as we call sincerity. And whosoever has this, shall never be damned for want of the other. And now, how vastly does it concern all those who shall think it worth their while to be in earnest with their immortal souls, not to abuse and delude themselves with a false confidence? a thing so easily taken up, and so hardly laid down. Let no man conclude, because his conscience says nothing to him, that therefore it has nothing to say. Possibly some never so much as doubted of the safety of their spiritual estate in all their lives; and if so, let them not flatter themselves, but rest assured that they have so much the more reason a great deal to doubt of it now. For the causes of such a profound stillness are generally gross ignorance, or long custom of sinning, or both; and these are very dreadful symptoms indeed to such as are not hell and damnation proof. When a man's wounds cease to smart, only because he has lost his feeling, they are nevertheless mortal for his not seeing his need of a chirurgeon. It is not mere, actual, present ease, but ease after pain, which brings the most durable and solid comfort. Acquitment before trial can be no security. Great and strong calms usually portend and go before the most violent storms. And therefore, since storms and calms (especially with reference to the state of the soul) do always follow one another; certainly of the two it is much more eligible to have the storm first and the calm afterwards: since a calm before a storm is commonly a peace of a man's own making; but a calm after a storm, a peace of God's. To which God, who only can speak such peace to us, as neither the world nor the devil shall be able to take from us, be rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for ever more. Amen. __________________________________________________________________ A further Account of the Nature and Measures of Conscience: IN A SERMON ON 1 JOHN III. 21. PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY, AT CHRIST-CHURCH, OXON, OCTOBER 30, 1692. __________________________________________________________________ 1 John iii. 21. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, we have confidence toward God. I HAVE discoursed once already upon these words in this place. In which discourse, after I had set down four several false grounds upon which men, in judging of the safety of their spiritual estate, were apt to found a wrong confidence towards God, and shewn the falsity of them all; and that there was nothing but a man's own heart or conscience, which, in this great concern, he could with any safety rely upon; I did, in the next place, cast the further prosecution of the words under these four following particulars. 1. To shew, How the heart or conscience ought to be informed, in order to its founding in us a rational confidence towards God. 2. To shew, How, and by what means, we may get our conscience thus informed, and afterwards preserve and keep it so. 3. To shew, Whence it is, that the testimony of conscience, thus informed, comes to be so authentic, and so much to be relied upon. And, 4thly and lastly, To assign some particular cases or instances, in which the confidence suggested by it, does most eminently shew and exert itself. Upon the first of which heads, to wit, How the heart or conscience ought to be informed, in order to its founding in us a rational confidence towards God, after I had premised something about an erroneous conscience, and shewn both what influence that ought to have upon us, and what regard we ought to have to that in this matter, I gathered the result of all into this one conclusion; namely, That such a conscience as has not been wanting to itself, in endeavouring the utmost knowledge of its duty, and the clearest information about the will of God, that its power, advantages, and opportunities could afford it, is that great internal judge, whose absolution is a rational and sure ground of confidence towards God. This I then insisted upon at large, and from thence proceeded to the Second particular, which was to shew, How, and by what means, we might get our conscience thus informed, and afterwards preserve and keep it so. Where, amongst those many ways and methods which might, no doubt, have been assigned as highly conducing to this purpose, I singled out and insisted upon only these four. As, 1st, That the voice of reason, in all the dictates of natural morality a was still carefully to be attended to by a strict observance of what it commanded, but especially of what it forbad. 2dly, That every pious motion from the Spirit of God was tenderly to be cherished, and by no means quenched or checked, either by resistance or neglect. 3dly, That conscience was still to be kept close to the rule of God's written word; and, 4thly and lastly, That it was frequently to be examined, and severely accounted with. These things also I then more fully enlarged upon; and so closed up all with a double caution, and that of no small importance as to the case then before us: as, First, That no man should reckon every doubting or misgiving of his heart, about the safety of his spiritual estate, inconsistent with that confidence towards God which is here spoken of in the text: and secondly, That no man should account a bare silence of conscience in not accusing or disturbing him, a sufficient ground for such a confidence. Of both which I then shew the fatal consequence. And so, not to trouble you with any more repetitions than these, which were just and necessary to lay before you the coherence of one thing with another, I shall now proceed to the third of those four particulars first proposed; which was to shew, Whence it is that the testimony of conscience (concerning a man's spiritual estate) comes to be so authentic, and so much to be relied upon. Now the force and credit of its testimony stands upon this double ground. 1st, The high office which it holds immediately from God himself, in the soul of man; and, 2dly, Those properties or qualities which peculiarly fit it for the discharge of this high office, in all things relating to the soul. 1. And first, for its office. It is no less than God's vicegerent or deputy, doing all things by immediate commission from him. It commands and dictates every thing in God's name, and stamps every word with an almighty authority. So that it is, as it were, a kind of copy or transcript of the divine sentence, and an interpreter of the sense of Heaven. And from hence it is, that sins against conscience (as all sins against light and conviction are, by way of eminence, so called) are of so peculiar and transcendent a guilt. For that every such sin is a daring and direct defiance of the divine authority, as it is signified and reported to a man by his conscience, and thereby ultimately terminates in God himself. Nay, and this vicegerent of God has one prerogative above all God's other earthly vicegerents; to wit, that it can never be deposed. Such a strange, sacred, and inviolable majesty has God imprinted upon this faculty; not indeed as upon an absolute, independent sovereign, but yet with so great a communication of something next to sovereignty, that while it keeps within its proper compass, it is controllable by no mortal power upon earth. For not the great est monarch in the world can countermand conscience so far, as to make it condemn where it would otherwise acquit, or acquit where it would otherwise condemn; no, neither sword nor sceptre can come at it; but it is above and beyond the reach of both. And if it were not for this awful and majestic character which it bears, whence could it be, that the stoutest and bravest hearts droop and sneak when conscience frowns: and the most abject and afflicted wretch feels an unspeakable, and even triumphant joy, when the judge within absolves and applauds him. When a man has done any villainous act, though under countenance of the highest place and power, and under covert of the closest secrecy, his conscience, for all that, strikes him like a clap of thunder, and depresses him to a perpetual trepidation, horror, and poorness of spirit; so that, like Nero, though surrounded with his Roman legions and Pretorian bands, he yet sculks, and hides him self, and is ready to fly to every thing for refuge, though he sees nothing to fly from. And all this, because he has heard a condemning sentence from within, which the secret forebodings of his mind tell him will be ratified by a sad and certain execution from above: on the other side, what makes a man so cheerful, so bright and confident in his comforts, but because he finds himself acquitted by God's high commissioner and deputy? Which is as much as a pardon under God's own hand, under the broad seal of Heaven, (as I may so express it.) For a king never condemns any whom his judges have absolved, nor absolves whom his judges have condemned, whatsoever the people and republicans may. Now from this principle, that the authority of conscience stands founded upon its vicegerency and deputation under God, several very important inferences may, or rather indeed unavoidably must, ensue. Two of which I shall single out and speak of; as, First, We collect from hence the absurdity and impertinence; and, Secondly, The impudence and impiety of most of those pretences of conscience, which have borne such a mighty sway all the world over, and in these poor nations especially. 1. And first, for the absurdity and impertinence of them. What a rattle and a noise has this word conscience made! How many battles has it fought! How many churches has it robbed, ruined, and reformed to ashes! How many laws has it trampled upon, dispensed with, and addressed against! And, in a word, how many governments has it over turned! Such is the mischievous force of a plausible word, applied to a detestable thing. The allegation or plea of conscience ought never to be admitted barely for itself: for when a thing obliges only by a borrowed authority, it is ridiculous to allege it for its own. Take a lieutenant, a commissioner, or ambassador of any prince; and, so far as he represents his prince, all that he does or declares under that capacity has the same force and validity, as if actually done or declared by the prince himself in person. But then how far does this reach? Why, just so far as he keeps close to his instructions: but when he once balks them, though what he does may be indeed a public crime or a national mischief, yet it is but a private act; and the doer of it may chance to pay his head for the presumption. For still, as great as the authority of such kind of persons is, it is not founded upon their own will, nor upon their own judgment, but upon their commission. In like manner, every dictate of this vicegerent of God, where it has a divine word or precept to back it, carries a divine authority with it. But if no such word can be produced, it may indeed be a strong opinion or persuasion, but it is not conscience: and no one thing in the world has done more mischief, and caused more delusions amongst men, than their not distinguishing between conscience, and mere opinion or persuasion. Conscience is a Latin word, (though with an English termination,) and, according to the very notation of it, imports a double or joint knowledge; to wit, one of a divine law or rule, and the other of a man's own action: and so is properly the application of a general law to a particular instance of practice. The law of God, for example, says, Thou shall not steal; and the mind of man tells him, that the taking of such or such a thing from a person lawfully possessed of it is stealing. Whereupon the conscience, joining the knowledge of both these together, pronounces in the name of God, that such a particular action ought not to be done. And this is the true procedure of conscience, always supposing a law from God, before it pretends to lay any obligation upon man: for still I aver, that conscience neither is nor ought to be its own rule. I question not, I confess, but mere opinion or persuasion may be every whit as strong, and have as forcible an influence upon a man's actions as conscience itself. But then, we know, strength or force is one thing, and authority quite another. As a rogue upon the highway may have as strong an arm, and take off a man's head as cleverly as the executioner. But then there is a vast disparity in the two actions, when one of them is murder, and the other justice: nay, and our Saviour himself told his disciples, that men should both kill them, and think that in so doing they did God service. So that here, we see, was a full opinion and persuasion, and a very zealous one too, of the high meritoriousness of what they did; but still there was no law, no word or command of God to ground it upon, and consequently it was not conscience. Now the notion of conscience thus stated, if firmly kept to, and thoroughly driven home, would effectually baffle and confound all those senseless, though clamorous pretences of the schismatical opposers of the constitutions of our church. In defence of which, I shall not speak so much as one syllable against the indulgence and toleration granted to these men. No, since they have it, let them, in God's name, enjoy it, and the government make the best of it. But since I cannot find that the law which tolerates them in their way of worship (and it does no more) does at all forbid us to defend ours, it were earnestly to be wished, that all hearty lovers of the church of Eng land would assert its excellent constitution more vigorously now than ever: and especially in such congregations as this; in which there are so many young persons, upon the well or ill principling of whom, next under God, depends the happiness or misery of this church and state. For if such should be generally prevailed upon by hopes or fears, by base examples, by trimming and time-serving (which are but two words for the same thing) to abandon and betray the church of England, by nauseating her pious, prudent, and wholesome orders, (of which I have seen some scurvy instances,) we may rest assured, that this will certainly produce confusion, and that confusion will as certainly end in popery. And therefore, since the Liturgy, rites, and ceremonies of our church have been, and still are so much cavilled and struck at, and all upon a plea of conscience, it will concern us, as becomes men of sense, seriously to examine the force of this plea, which our adversaries are still setting up against us as the grand pillar and buttress of the good old cause of nonconformity. For come to any dissenting brother, and ask him, Why cannot you communicate with the church of England? "Oh," says he, "it is against my conscience; my conscience will not suffer me to pray by a set form, to kneel at the sacrament, to hear divine service read by one in a surplice, or to use the cross in baptism," or the like. Very well; and is this the case then, that it is all pure conscience that keeps you from complying with the rule and order of the church in these matters? If so, then produce me some word or law of God for bidding these things. For conscience never commands or forbids any thing authentically, but there is some law of God which commands or forbids it first. Conscience (as might be easily shewn) being no distinct power or faculty from the mind of man, but the mind of man itself applying the general rule of God's law to particular cases and actions. This is truly and properly conscience. And therefore shew me such a law; and that, either as a necessary dictate of right reason, or a positive injunction in God's revealed word: (for these two are all the ways by which God speaks to men nowadays:) I say, shew me something from hence, which countermands or condemns all or any of the forementioned ceremonies of our church, and then I will yield the cause. But if no such reason, no such scripture can be brought to appear in their behalf against us, but that with screwed face and doleful whine they only ply you with senseless harangues of conscience against carnal ordinances, the dead letter, and human inventions on the one hand, and loud outcries for a further reformation on the other; then rest you assured that they have a design upon your pocket, and that the word conscience is used only as an instrument to pick it; and more particularly as it calls it a further reformation, signifies no more, with reference to the church, than as if one man should come to another and say, "Sir, I have already taken away your cloak, and do fully intend, if I can, to take away your coat also." This is the true meaning of this word further reformation; and so long as you understand it in this sense, you cannot be imposed upon by it. Well, but if these mighty men at chapter and verse can produce you no scripture to overthrow our church ceremonies, I will undertake to produce scripture enough to warrant them; even all those places which absolutely enjoin obedience and submission to lawful governors in all not unlawful things: particularly that in 1 Pet. ii. 13. and that in Heb. xiii. 17. (of which two places more again presently,) together with the other in 1 Cor. xiv. last verse, enjoining order and decency in God's worship, and in all things relating to it. And consequently, till these men can prove the forementioned things, ordered by our church, to be either intrinsically unlawful or undecent, I do here affirm by the authority of the foregoing scriptures, that the use of them, as they stand established amongst us, is necessary; and that all pretences or pleas of conscience to the contrary, are nothing but cant and cheat, flam and delusion. In a word, the ceremonies of the church of England are as necessary as the injunctions of an undoubtedly lawful authority, the practice of the primitive church, and the general rules of decency, determined to particulars of the greatest decency, can make them necessary. And I would not for all the world be arraigned at the last and great day for disturbing the church, and disobeying government, and have no better plea for so doing, than what those of the separation were ever yet able to defend themselves by. But some will here say perhaps, If this be all that you require of us, we both can and do bring you scripture against your church ceremonies; even that which condemns all will worship, Col. ii. 23. and such other like places. To which I answer, first, that the will worship, forbidden in that scripture, is so termed, not from the circumstance, but from the object of religious worship; and we readily own, that it is by no means in the church's power to appoint or choose, whom or what it will worship. But that does not infer, that it is not therefore in the church's power to appoint how and in what manner it will worship the true object of religious worship; provided that in so doing it observes such rules of decency as are proper and conducing to that purpose. So that this scripture is wholly irrelative to the case before us; and as impertinently applied to it, as any poor text in the Revelation was ever applied to the grave and profound whimsies of some modern interpreters. But secondly, to this objection about will worship, I answer yet further; that the forementioned ceremonies of the church of England are no worship, nor part of God's worship at all, nor were ever pretended so to be; and, if they are not so much as worship, I am sure they cannot be will worship. But we own them only for circumstances, modes, and solemn usages, by which God's worship is orderly and decently performed: I say, we pretend them not to be parts of divine worship; but, for all that, to be such things as the divine worship, in some instance or other, cannot be without: for that which neither does nor can give vital heat, may yet be necessary to preserve it: and he who should strip himself of all that is no part of himself, would quickly find, or rather feel the inconvenience of such a practice; and have cause to wish for a body as void of sense as such an argument. Now the consequence in both these cases is perfectly parallel: and if so, you may rest satisfied, that what is nonsense upon a principle of reason, will never be sense upon a principle of religion. But as touching the necessity of the aforesaid usages in the church of England, I shall lay down these four propositions. 1. That circumstantials in the worship of God (as well as in all other human actions) are so necessary to it, that it cannot possibly be performed with out them. 2. That decency in the circumstantials of God's worship is absolutely necessary. 3. That the general rule and precept of decency is not capable of being reduced to practice, but as it is exemplified in, and determined to, particular instances. And, 4thly and lastly, That there is more of the general nature of decency in those particular usages and ceremonies which the church of England has pitched upon, than is or can be shewn in any other whatsoever. These things I affirm; and when you have put them all together, let any one give me a solid and sufficient reason for the giving up those few ceremonies of our church, if he can. All the reason that I could ever yet hear alleged by the chief factors for a general intromission of all sorts, sects, and persuasions into our communion is, that those who separate from us are stiff and obstinate, and will not submit to the rules and orders of our church, and that therefore they ought to be taken away. Which is a goodly reason indeed, and every way worthy of the wisdom and integrity of those who allege it. And to shew that it is so, let it be but transferred from the ecclesiastical to the civil government, from church to state; and let all laws be abrogated, which any great or sturdy multitude of men have no mind to submit to. That is, in other words, let laws be made to obey, and not to be obeyed; and, upon these terms, I doubt not but you will find that kingdom (or rather that common wealth) finely governed in a short time. And thus I have shewn the absurdity, folly, and impertinence of alleging the obligation of conscience, where there is no law or command of God mediate or immediate to found that obligation upon. And yet, as bad as this is, it were well if the bare absurdity of these pretences were the worst thing which we had to charge them with. But it is not so. For our second and next inference from the foregoing principle of the vicegerency of conscience under God, will shew us also the daring impudence and downright impiety of many of those fulsome pleas of conscience, which the world has been too often and too scandalously abused by. For a man to sin against his conscience, is doubtless a great wickedness. But to make God himself a party in the sin, is a much greater. For this is to plead God's authority against God's very law; which doubles the sin, and adds blasphemy to rebellion. And yet such things we have seen done amongst us. An horrid, unnatural, civil war raised and carried on; the purest and most primitively reformed church in the world laid in the dust; and one of the best and most innocent princes that ever sat upon a throne, by a barbarous unheard of violence, hurried to his grave in a bloody sheet, and not so much as suffered to rest there to this day; and all this by men acting under the most solemn pretences of conscience, that hypocrisy perhaps ever yet presumed to outface the world with. And are not the principles of those wretches still owned, and their persons sainted by a race of men of the same stamp, risen up in their stead, the sworn mortal enemies of our church? And yet, for whose sake some projectors amongst us have been turning every stone to transform, mangle, and degrade its noble constitution to the homely, mechanic model of those republican, imperfect churches abroad; which, instead of being any rule or pattern to us, ought in all reason to receive one from us. Nay, and so short sighted are some in their politics, as not to discern all this while, that it is not the service but the revenue of our church which is struck at; and not any passages of our Liturgy, but the property of our lands which these reformers would have altered. For I am sure no other alteration will satisfy dissenting consciences; no, nor this neither very long, without an utter abolition of all that looks like order or government in the church. And this we may be sure of, if we do but consider both the inveterate malice of the Romish party, which sets these silly, unthinking tools a-work, and withal that monstrous principle or maxim, which those who divide from us (at least most of them) roundly profess, avow, and govern their consciences by; namely, That in all matters that concern religion or the church, though a thing or action be never so indifferent or lawful in itself; yet if it be commanded or enjoined by the government, either civil or ecclesiastical, it becomes ipso facto, by being so commanded, utterly unlawful, and such as they can, by no means, with good conscience comply with. Which one detestable tenet or proposition, carrying in it the very quintessence and vital spirit of all nonconformity, absolutely cashiers and cuts off all church government at one stroke; and is withal such an insolent, audacious defiance of Almighty God, under the mask of conscience, as perhaps none in former ages, who so much as wore the name of Christians, ever arrived to or made profession of. For to resume the scriptures afore quoted by us; and particularly that in 1 Pet. ii. 13. Submit your selves to every ordinance of man, says the Spirit of God, speaking by that apostle. But say these men, If the ordinance of man enjoins you the practice of any thing with reference to religion or the church, though never so lawful in itself, you cannot with a good conscience submit to the ordinance of man in that case: that is, in other words, God says, they must submit; and they say, they must not. Again, in the forementioned Heb. xiii. 17. The apostle bids them (and in them all Christians what soever) to obey those who have the rule over them; speaking there of church rulers; for he tells them, that they were such as watched for their souls. But, says the Separatist, If those who have the rule over you, should command you any thing about church affairs, you cannot, you ought not in conscience to obey them; forasmuch as, according to that grand principle of theirs, newly specified by us, every such command makes obedience to a thing otherwise lawful, to become unlawful; and consequently, upon the same principle, rulers must not, cannot be obeyed: unless we could imagine, that there may be such a thing as obedience on the one side, when there must be no such thing as a command on the other; which would make pleasant sense of it indeed, and fit for none but a dissenting reason, as well as conscience, to assert. For though these men have given the world too many terrible proofs of their own example, that there may be commands, and no obedience; yet, I believe, it will put their little logic hard to it, to prove, that there can be any obedience where there is no command. And therefore it unanswerably follows, that the abetters of the forementioned principles plead conscience in a direct and barefaced contradiction to God's express command. And now, I beseech you, consider with yourselves; (for it is no slight matter that I am treating of;) I say, consider what you ought to judge of those insolent, unaccountable boasts of conscience, which, like so many fireballs or mouth-granadoes, as I may so term them, are every day thrown at our church. The apostle bids us prove all things. And will you then take conscience at every turn, upon its own word? upon the forlorn credit of every bold imposter who pleads it? Will you sell your reason, your church, and your religion, and both of them the best in the world, for a name? and that a wrested, abused, misapplied name? Knaves, when they design some more than ordinary villainy, never fail to make use of this plea; and it is because they always find fools ready to believe it. But you will say then, What course must be taken to fence against this imposture? Why truly, the best that I know of, I have told you before; namely, that whensoever you hear any of these sly, sanctified sycophants, with turned up eye and shrug of shoulder, pleading conscience for or against any thing or practice, you would forthwith ask them, what word of God they have to bottom that judgment of their conscience upon? Forasmuch as conscience, being God's vicegerent, was never commissioned by him to govern us in its own name; but must still have some divine word or law to support and warrant it. And therefore call for such a word; and that, either from scripture or from manifest universal reason, and insist upon it, so as not to be put off without it. And if they can produce you no such thing from either of them, (as they never can,) then rest assured that they are errant cheats and hypocrites; and that, for all their big words, the conscience of such men is so far from being able to give them any true confidence towards God, that it cannot so much as give them confidence towards a wise and good man, no, nor yet towards themselves, who are far from being either. And thus I have shewn you the first ground upon which the testimony of conscience (concerning a man's spiritual estate) comes to be so authentic, and so much to be relied upon; to wit, the high office which it holds, as the vicegerent of God himself in the soul of man: together with the two grand inferences drawn from thence. The first of them shewing the absurdity, folly, and impertinence of pretending conscience against any thing, when there is no law of God mediate or immediate against it: and the other, setting forth the intolerable blasphemy and impiety of pretending conscience for any thing, which the known law of God is directly against, and stands in open defiance of. Proceed we now to the second ground, from which conscience derives the credit of its testimony in judging of our spiritual estate; and that consists in those properties and qualities which so peculiarly fit it for the discharge of its forementioned office, in all things relating to the soul. And these are three. First, The quickness of its sight. Secondly, The tenderness of its sense; and, Thirdly and lastly, Its rigorous and impartial way of giving sentence. Of each of which in their order. And first for the extraordinary quickness and sagacity of its sight, in spying out every thing which can any way concern the estate of the soul. As the voice of it, I shew, was as loud as thunder; so the sight of it is as piercing and quick as lightning. It presently sees the guilt, and looks through all the flaws and blemishes of a sinful action; and on the other side, observes the candidness of a man's very principles, the sincerity of his intentions, and the whole carriage of every circumstance in a virtuous performance. So strict and accurate is this spiritual inquisition. Upon which account it is, that there is no such thing as perfect secrecy, to encourage a rational mind to the perpetration of any base action. For a man must first extinguish and put out the great light within him, his conscience, he must get away from himself, and shake off the thousand witnesses, which he always carries about him, before he can be alone. And where there is no solitude, I am sure there can be no secrecy. It is confessed indeed, that a long and a bold course of sinning may (as we have shewn elsewhere) very much dim and darken the discerning faculty of conscience. For so the apostle assures us it did with those in Rom. i. 21. and the same, no doubt, it does every day; but still so, as to leave such persons, both then and now, many notable lucid intervals; sufficient to convince them of their deviations from reason and natural religion; and thereby to render them inexcusable; and so, in a word, to stop their mouths, though not save their souls. In short, their conscience was not stark dead, but under a kind of spiritual apoplexy or deliquium. The operation was hindered, but the faculty not destroyed. And now, if conscience be naturally thus apprehensive and sagacious; certainly this ought to be another great ground, over and above its bare authority, why we should trust and rely upon the reports of it. For knowledge is still the ground and reason of trust; and so much as any one has of discernment, so far he is secured from error and deception, and for that cause fit to be confided in. No witness so much to be credited as an eyewitness. And conscience is like the great eye of the world, the sun, always open, always making discoveries. Justly therefore may we by the light of it take a view of our condition. 2dly, Another property or quality of conscience, enabling it to judge so truly of our spiritual estate, is the tenderness of its sense. For as, by the quickness of its sight, it directs us what to do, or not to do; so, by this tenderness of its sense, it excuses or accuses us, as we have done or not done according to those directions. And it is altogether as nice, delicate, and tender in feeling, as it can be perspicacious and quick in seeing. For conscience, you know, is still called and accounted the eye of the soul: and how troublesome is the least mote or dust falling into the eye! and how quickly does it weep and water, upon the least grievance that afflicts it! And no less exact is the sense which conscience, preserved in its native purity, has of the least sin. For as great sins waste, so small ones are enough to wound it; and every wound, you know, is painful, till it festers beyond recovery. As soon as ever sin gives the blow, conscience is the first thing that feels the smart. No sooner does the poisoned arrow enter, but that begins to bleed inwardly; sin and sorrow, the venom of one and the anguish of the other, being things inseparable. Conscience, if truly tender, never complains with out a cause; though, I confess, there is a new-fashioned sort of tenderness of conscience, which always does so: but that is like the tenderness of a bog or quagmire; and it is very dangerous coming near it, for fear of being swallowed up by it. For when conscience has once acquired this artificial tenderness, it will strangely enlarge or contract its swallow, as it pleases; so that sometimes a camel shall slide down with ease, where, at other times, even a gnat may chance to stick by the way. It is indeed such a kind of tenderness, as makes the person who has it generally very tender of obeying the laws, but never so of breaking them. And therefore, since it is commonly at such variance with the law, I think the law is the fittest thing to deal with it. In the mean time, let no man deceive himself, or think, that true tenderness of conscience is any thing else but an awful and exact sense of the rule which should direct, and of the law which should govern it. And while it steers by this compass, and is sensible of every declination from it, so long it is truly and properly tender, and fit to be relied upon, whether it checks or approves a man for what he does. For from hence alone springs its excusing or accusing power: all accusation, in the very nature of the thing, still supposing, and being founded upon, some law: for where there is no law, there can be no transgression: and where there can be no transgression, I am sure there ought to be no accusation. And here, when I speak of law, I mean both the law of God, and of man too. For where the matter of a law is a thing not evil, every law of man is virtually, and at a second hand, the law of God also: forasmuch as it binds in the strength of the divine law, commanding obedience to every ordinance of man, as we have already shewn. And therefore all tenderness of conscience against such laws is hypocrisy, and patronized by none but men of design, who look upon it as the fittest engine to get into power by; which, by the way, when they are once possessed of, they generally manage with as little tenderness as they do with conscience: of which we have had but too much experience already, and it would be but ill venturing upon more. In a word, conscience, not acting by and under a law, is a boundless, daring, and presumptuous thing: and for any one, by virtue thereof, to challenge to himself a privilege of doing what he will, and of being unaccountable for what he does, is in all reason too much either for man or angel to pretend to. 3dly, The third and last property of conscience which I shall mention, and which makes the verdict of it so authentic, is its great and rigorous impartiality. For as its wonderful apprehensiveness made that it could not easily be deceived, so this makes that it will by no means deceive. A judge, you know, may be skilful in understanding a cause, and yet partial in giving sentence. But it is much otherwise with conscience; no artifice can induce it to accuse the innocent, or to absolve the guilty. No; we may as well bribe the light and the day to represent white things black, or black white. What pitiful things are power, rhetoric, or riches, when they would terrify, dissuade, or buy off conscience from pronouncing sentence according to the merit of a man's actions! For still, as we have shewn, conscience is a copy of the divine law; and though judges may be bribed or frightened, yet laws cannot. The law is impartial and inflexible; it has no passions or affections, and consequently never accepts persons, nor dispenses with itself. For let the most potent sinner upon earth speak out, and tell us, whether he can command down the clamours and revilings of a guilty conscience, and impose silence upon that bold reprover. He may perhaps for a while put on an high and a big look; but can he, for all that, look conscience out of countenance? And he may also dissemble a little forced jollity; that is, he may court his mistress, and quaff his cups, and perhaps sprinkle them now and then with a few Dammees; but who, in the mean time, besides his own wretched, miserable self, knows of those secret, bitter infusions which that terrible thing, called conscience, makes into all his draughts? Believe it, most of the appearing mirth in the world is not mirth, but art. The wounded spirit is not seen, but walks under a disguise; and still the less you see of it, the better it looks. On the contrary, if we consider the virtuous person, let him declare freely, whether ever his conscience checked him for his innocence, or upbraided him for an action of duty; did it ever bestow any of its hidden lashes or concealed bites on a mind severely pure, chaste, and religious? But when conscience shall complain, cry out, and recoil, let a man descend into himself with too just a suspicion that all is not right within. For surely that hue and cry was not raised upon him for nothing. The spoils of a rifled innocence are borne away, and the man has stolen something from his own soul, for which he ought to be pursued, and will at last certainly be overtook. Let every one therefore attend the sentence of his conscience: for he may be sure it will not daub nor flatter. It is as severe as law, as impartial as truth. It will neither conceal nor pervert what it knows. And thus I have done with the third of those four particulars at first proposed, and shewn whence, and upon what account it is, that the testimony of conscience, concerning our spiritual estate, comes to be so authentic, and so much to be relied upon: namely, for that it is fully empowered and commissioned to this great office by God himself; and withal, that it is extremely quicksighted to apprehend and discern; and moreover very tender and sensible of every thing that concerns the soul. And lastly, that it is most exactly and severely impartial in judging of whatsoever comes before it. Every one of which qualifications justly contributes to the credit and authority of the sentence which shall be passed by it. And so we are at length arrived at the fourth and last thing proposed from the words; which was to assign some particular cases or in stances, in which this confidence towards God, suggested by a rightly informed conscience, does most eminently shew and exert itself. I shall mention three. 1. In our addresses to God by prayer. When a man shall presume to come and place himself in the presence of the great searcher of hearts, and to ask something of him, while his conscience is all the while smiting him on the face, and telling him what a rebel and a traitor he is to the majesty which he supplicates; surely such an one should think with himself, that the God whom he prays to is greater than his conscience, and pierces into all the filth and baseness of his heart with a much clearer and more severe inspection. And if so, will he not likewise resent the provocation more deeply, and revenge it upon him more terribly, if repentance does not divert the blow? Every such prayer is big with impiety and contradiction, and makes as odious a noise in the ears of God, as the harangues of one of those rebel fasts, or humiliations in the year forty-one; invoking the blessings of Heaven upon such actions and designs as nothing but hell could reward. One of the most peculiar qualifications of an heart rightly disposed for prayer is, a well grounded confidence of a man's fitness for that duty. In Heb. x. 22. Let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, says the apostle. But whence must this assurance spring? Why, we are told in the very next words of the same verse: having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience: otherwise the voice of an impure conscience will cry much louder than our prayers, and speak more effectually against us than these can intercede for us. And now, if prayer be the great conduit of mercy, by which the blessings of heaven are derived upon the creature, and the noble instrument of converse between God and the soul, then surely that which renders it ineffectual and loathsome to God, must needs be of the most mischievous and destructive consequence to mankind imaginable; and consequently to be removed with all that earnestness and concern, with which a man would rid himself of a plague or a mortal infection. For it taints and pollutes every prayer; it turns an oblation into an affront; and the odours of a sacrifice into the exhalations of a carcass. And, in a word, makes the heavens over us brass, denying all passage, either to descending mercies or ascending petitions. But on the other side, when a man's breast is clear, and the same heart which indites does also encourage his prayer, when his innocence pushes on the attempt, and vouches the success; such an one goes boldly to the throne of grace, and his boldness is not greater than his welcome. God recognises the voice of his own Spirit interceding within him; and his prayers are not only followed, but even prevented with an answer. 2dly, A second instance, in which this confidence towards God does so remarkably shew itself, is at the time of some notable trial or sharp affliction. When a man's friends shall desert him, his relations disown him, and all dependencies fail him, and, in a word, the whole world frown upon him; certainly it will then be of some moment to have a friend in the court of conscience, which shall, as it were, buoy up his sinking spirits, and speak greater things for him than all these together can declaim against him. For as it is most certain, that no height of honour, nor affluence of fortune, can keep a man from being miserable, nor indeed contemptible, when an enraged conscience shall fly at him, and take him by the throat; so it is also as certain, that no temporal adversities can cut off those inward, secret, invincible supplies of comfort, which conscience shall pour in upon distressed innocence, in spite and in defiance of all worldly calamities. Naturalists observe, that when the frost seizes upon wine, they are only the slighter and more waterish parts of it that are subject to be congealed; but still there is a mighty spirit, which can retreat into itself, and there within its own compass lie secure from the freezing impression of the element round about it. And just so it is with the spirit of a man, while a good conscience makes it firm and impenetrable. An outward affliction can no more benumb or quell it, than a blast of wind can freeze up the blood in a man's veins, or a little shower of rain soak into his heart, and there quench the principle of life itself. Take the two greatest instances of misery, which, I think, are incident to human nature; to wit, poverty and shame, and I dare oppose conscience to them both. And first for poverty. Suppose a man stripped of all, driven out of house and home, and perhaps out of his country too, (which having, within our memory, happened to so many, may too easily, God knows, be supposed again,) yet if his conscience shall tell him, that it was not for any failure in his own duty, but from the success of another's villainy, that all this befell him; why then, his banishment becomes his preferment, his rags his trophies, his nakedness his ornament; and so long as his innocence is his repast, he feasts and banquets upon bread and water. He has disarmed his afflictions, unstung his miseries; and though he has not the proper happiness of the world, yet he has the greatest that is to be enjoyed in it. And for this, we might appeal to the experience of those great and good men, who, in the late times of rebellion and confusion, were forced into foreign countries, for their unshaken firmness and fidelity to the oppressed cause of majesty and religion, whether their conscience did not, like a fidus Achates, still bear them company, stick close to them, and suggest comfort, even when the causes of comfort were invisible; and, in a word, verify that great saying of the apostle in their mouths; We have nothing, and yet we possess all things. For it is not barely a man's abridgment in his external accommodations which makes him miserable; but when his conscience shall hit him in the teeth, and tell him, that it was his sin and his folly which brought him under these abridgments. That his present scanty meals are but the natural effects of his former over-full ones. That it was his tailor, and his cook, his fine fashions, and his French ragouts, which sequestered him; and, in a word, that he came by his poverty as sinfully as some usually do by their riches; and consequently, that Providence treats him with all these severities, not by way of trial, but by way of punishment and revenge. The mind surely, of itself, can feel none of the burnings of a fever; but if my fever be occasioned by a surfeit, and that surfeit caused by my sin, it is that which adds fuel to the fiery disease, and rage to the distemper. 2dly, Let us consider also the case of calumny and disgrace; doubtless, the sting of every reproachful speech is the truth of it; and to be conscious, is that which gives an edge and keenness to the invective. Otherwise, when conscience shall plead not guilty to the charge, a man entertains it not as an indictment, but as a libel. He hears all such calumnies with a generous unconcernment; and receiving them at one ear, gives them a free and easy passage through the other: they fall upon him like rain or hail upon an oiled garment; they may make a noise indeed, but can find no entrance. The very whispers of an acquitting conscience will drown the voice of the loudest slander. What a long charge of hypocrisy, and many other base things, did Job's friends draw up against him! but he regarded it no more than the dunghill which he sat upon, while his conscience enabled him to appeal even to God himself; and, in spite of calumny, to assert and hold fast his integrity. And did not Joseph lie under as black an infamy, as the charge of the highest ingratitude and the lewdest villainy could fasten upon him? Yet his conscience raised him so much above it, that he scorned so much as to clear himself, or to recriminate the strumpet by a true narrative of the matter. For we read nothing of that in the whole story: such confidence, such greatness of spirit, does a clear conscience give a man; always making him more solicitous to preserve his innocence, than concerned to prove it. And so we come now to the Third, and last instance, in which, above all others, this confidence towards God does most eminently shew and exert itself; and that is at the time of death. Which surely gives the grand opportunity of trying both the strength and worth of every principle. When a man shall be just about to quit the stage of this world, to put off his mortality, and to deliver up his last accounts to God; at which sad time, his memory shall serve him for little else, but to terrify him with a sprightful review of his past life, and his former extravagances stripped of all their pleasure, but retaining their guilt. What is it then, that can promise him a fair passage into the other world, or a comfortable appearance before his dreadful Judge, when he is there? Not all the friends and interests, all the riches and honours under heaven, can speak so much as a word for him, or one word of comfort to him in that condition; they may possibly reproach, but they cannot relieve him. No, at this disconsolate time, when the busy tempter shall be more than usually apt to vex and trouble him, and the pains of a dying body to hinder and discompose him, and the settlement of worldly affairs to disturb and confound him; and, in a word, all things conspire to make his sick bed grievous and uneasy: nothing can then stand up against all these ruins, and speak life in the midst of death, but a clear conscience. And the testimony of that shall make the comforts of heaven descend upon his weary head, like a refreshing dew or shower upon a parched ground. It shall give him some lively earnests and secret anticipations of his approaching joy. It shall bid his soul go out of the body undauntedly, and lift up its head with confidence before saints and angels. Surely the comfort, which it conveys at this season, is something bigger than the capacities of mortality; mighty and unspeakable, and not to be understood, till it comes to be felt. And now, who would not quit all the pleasures, and trash, and trifles, which are apt to captivate the heart of man, and pursue the greatest rigours of piety and austerities of a good life, to purchase to himself such a conscience, as, at the hour of death, when all the friendships of the world shall bid him adieu, and the whole creation turn its back upon him, shall dismiss his soul, and close his eyes with that blessed sentence, Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord! For he, whose conscience enables him to look God in the face with confidence here, shall be sure to see his face also with comfort hereafter. Which God of his mercy grant to us all; to whom be rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen. __________________________________________________________________ TO THE MOST REVEREND FATHER IN GOD NARCISSUS, LORD ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN, HIS GRACE. [3] My Lord, THE particular acquaintance and friendship which your Grace was pleased to honour me with while you lived at Oxford, have emboldened me to address myself to your Lordship at this great distance of place, and greater of condition; in hopes that by your Grace's advancement to so high a station in the church, that, which before was only friendship, may now improve into patronage and protection. And yet, as ambitious as I am of so ennobling a patronage, and as singular a value as I have for your Grace's favour, I must needs own, that the design of my present application to your Grace, is not so much to crave a favour, as to pay a debt; and, in answer to the many obligations I lie under, to congratulate your Grace on that height of dignity and greatness to which Providence has so happily raised you, and your own worth so justly entitled you; and so, without your seeking (and much less sneaking) for it, made you, to your great honour, to be sought for by it: there being (as from my heart I believe) few examples in the world of so much merit and so much modesty in conjunction. It is indeed no small infelicity to the church of England, to have parted with so extraordinary a member; but none at all, I conceive, to your Grace, that you are placed where you are; especially, if your Grace shall consider the present estate of our church here, as through the arts of her enemies she stands divided against herself: and that only by two or three odd new terms of distinction maliciously invented, and studiously made use of for that base purpose; such a sovereign, or at least such a peculiar method, have some found out for preserving our church, if the best way to preserve a body be by cutting it asunder. For those of the ancienter members of her communion, who have all along owned and contended for a strict conformity to her rules and sanctions, as the surest course to establish her, have been of late represented, or rather reprobated, under the inodiating character of high churchmen, and thereby stand marked out for all the discouragement that spite and power together can pass upon them; while those of the contrary way and principle are distinguished, or rather sanctified, by the fashionable endearing name of low churchmen, not from their affecting, we may be sure, a lower condition in the church than others, (since none lie so low but they can look as high,) but from the low condition which the authors of this distinction would fain bring the church itself into, a work in which they have made no small progress al ready. And thus by these ungenerous, as well as unconscionable practices, a fatal rent and division is made amongst us: and, being so, I think those of the concision who made it, would do well to consider, whether that, which our Saviour assures us will destroy a kingdom, be the likeliest way to settle and support a church. But I question not but these dividers will very shortly receive thanks from the Papists for the good services they have done them; and in the mean time they may be sure of their scoffs. Never certainly were the fundamental articles of our faith so boldly impugned, nor the honour of our church so foully blemished, as they have been of late years; while the Socinians have had their full uncontrolled fling at both; and the Tritheists have injured and exposed them more by pretending to defend them against the Socinians, than the Socinians themselves did or could do by opposing them. For surely it would be thought a very odd way of ridding a man of the plague by running him through with a sword; or of curing him of a lethargy by casting him into a calenture; a disease of a contrary nature indeed, but no less fatal to the patient; who equally dies, whether his sickness or his physic, the malignity of his distemper or the method of his cure, despatches him. And in like manner must it fare with a church, which, feeling itself struck with the poison of Socinianism, flies to Tritheism for an antidote. But at length happily steps in the royal authority to the churches relief, with several healing injunctions in its hands, for the composing and ending the disputes about the Trinity then on foot; and those indeed so wisely framed, so seasonably timed, and (by the king, at least,) so graciously intended, that they must, in all likelihood, (without any other Irenicon,) have restored peace to the church, had it not been for the importunity and partiality of some, who having by the awe of these injunctions endeavoured to silence the opposite party, (which by their arguments they could not do,) and withal looking upon themselves as privileged persons, and so above those ordinances which others were to be subject to, resolved not to be silent themselves; but renewing the contest, partly by throwing Muggleton and Rigaltius, with some other foul stuff, in their adversaries 1 faces; and partly by a shameless reprinting (without the least reinforcing) the same exploded tritheistic notions again and again, they quite broke through the royal prohibitions, and soon after began to take as great a liberty in venting their innovations and invectives, as ever they had done before; . so that he, who shall impartially consider the course taken by these men with reference to those engaged on the other side of this controversy about the Trinity, will find that their whole proceeding in it resembles nothing so much, as a thief's binding the hands of an honest man with a cord, much fitter for his own neck. But, blessed be God, matters stand not so with you in Ireland; the climate there being not more impatient of poisonous animals, than the church of poisonous opinions: an universal concurrent orthodoxy shining all over it, from the superior clergy who preside, to the inferior placed under them: so that we never hear from thence of any presbyter, and much less of any dean, who dares innovate upon the faith received: and least of all (should such a wretch chance to start up among you) can I hear of any bishop likely to debase his style and character so low, as either to defend the man, or colour over his opinions. Nor, lastly, do we find that in the judgment of the clergy there, a man's having wrote against one sort of heresy or heterodoxy, ought to justify or excuse him in writing for another, and much less for a worse. The truth is, such things as these make the case with us here in England come too near that of Poland about a hundred and twenty or a hundred and thirty years ago, [4] where the doctrine of three distinct infinite spirits began and led the dance, and was quickly followed (as the design was laid) by Socinianism, whereupon their old popery got a firmer establishment and more rigorous imposition than before, (the government preferring a less pure and perfect Christianity before the most refined Turcism.) This was the method taken there, and I wish it may not have the like issue here. But on the contrary, amongst you, when a certain Mahometan Christian, (no new thing of late,) notorious for his blasphemous denial of the mysteries of our religion, and his insufferable virulence against the whole Christian priest hood, thought to have found shelter amongst you, the parliament, to their immortal honour, presently sent him packing, and without the help of a fagot soon made the kingdom too hot for him: a sufficient argument, doubtless, how far we are from needing those savage executions used by the Papists to rid the church of heretics and blasphemers, where authority, animated with due zeal, will attempt that worthy work, by other more humane, but not less effectual means. Nothing certainly but power, as the world now goes, can keep the church in peace. And now, my Lord, may that God by whom princes and prelates govern, and churches stand, long preserve your Grace, and that excellent church which you are so eminent a pillar of, and ornament to; and which, by her incomparable courage and faithfulness lately shewn in preserving that great depositum, the holy religion committed to her trust, has gotten herself a name which will never die; and such a solid well-founded reputation, as no bending this way or that way, no trimming or tricking it, ever could or can give so ample and so considerable a body: for it is lead only that bends to almost every thing, which the nobler metals cannot do, and the nobler sort of minds will not. But I fear I trespass too far upon your Grace's time and business; and therefore humbly imploring your Grace's blessing, I lay these poor papers at your feet, infinitely unworthy, I confess, of the acceptance of so great a person, and the perusal of so judicious an eye; but yet at present the best pledges I can give your Grace of those sincere respects and services, which your Grace ought always to claim, and shall never fail to receive from, My Lord, Your Grace's ever faithful and most obedient servant, ROBERT SOUTH. Westminster, April 30, 1698. __________________________________________________________________ [3] This dedication refers to the twelve sermons next following. [4] See a learned tract in 8vo. entitled, The Growth of Error, &c. sect. 8. printed in the year 1697. __________________________________________________________________ The Doctrine of Merit stated, and the Impossibility of Man's meriting of God asserted, in A DISCOURSE ON JOB XXII. 2. PREACHED AT WESTMINSTER-ABBEY, DECEMBER 5, 1697. __________________________________________________________________ Job xxii. 2. Can a man be profitable to God? IT is a matter of no small moment certainly for a man to be rightly informed upon what terms and conditions he is to transact with God, and God with him, in the great business of his salvation. For by knowing upon what terms he must obtain eternal happiness hereafter, he will know also upon what grounds he is to hope for and expect it here; and so be able to govern both his actions and expectations according to the nature of the thing he is in pursuit of; lest otherwise he should chance to fail of the prize he runs for, by mistaking the way he should run in. St. Paul, as plainly as words can express a thing, tells us, that eternal life is the gift of God; and consequently to be expected by us only as such: nay, he asserts it to be a gift in the very same verse in which he affirms death to be as due to a sinner, as wages are to a workman, Romans vi. 23. Than which words nothing certainly can be more full and conclusive, that salvation proceeds wholly upon free-gift, though damnation upon strict desert. Nevertheless, such is the extreme folly, or rather sottishness of man's corrupt nature, that this does by no means satisfy him. For though indeed he would fain be happy, yet fain would he also thank none for it but himself. And though he finds, that not only his duty, but his necessity brings him every day upon his knees to Almighty God for the very bread he eats; yet when he comes to deal with him about spirituals, (things of infinitely greater value,) he ap pears and acts, not as a suppliant, but as a merchant; not as one who comes to be relieved, but to traffick. For something he would receive of God, and some thing he would give him; and nothing will content this insolent, yet impotent creature, unless he may seem to buy the very thing he begs. Such being the pride and baseness of some spirits, that where they receive a benefit too big for them to requite, they will even deny the kindness, and disown the obligation. Now this great self-delusion, so prevalent upon most minds, is the thing here encountered in the text. The words of which (by an usual way of speech) under an interrogation couching a positive assertion, are a declaration of the impossibility of man's being profitable to God, or (which is all one) of his meriting of God; according to the true, proper, and strict sense of merit. Nor does this interrogative way of expression import only a bare negation of the thing, as in itself impossible, but also a manifest, undeniable evidence of the said impossibility; as if it had been said, that nothing can be more plainly impossible, than for a man to be profitable to God; for God to receive any advantage by man's righteousness; or to gain any thing by his making his ways perfect: and consequently, that nothing can be more absurd, and contrary to all sense and reason, than for a man to entertain and cherish so irrational a conceit, or to affirm so gross a paradox. And that no other thing is here meant by a man's being profitable to God, but his meriting of God, will appear from a true state and account of the nature of merit; which we may not improperly define, a right to receive some good upon the score of some good done, together with an equivalence or parity of worth between the good to be received and the good done. So that although according to the common division of justice into commutative and distributive, that which is called commutative be employed only about the strict value of things, according to an arithmetical proportion, (as the schools speak,) which admits of no degrees; and the other species of justice, called distributive, (as consisting in the distribution of rewards and punishments,) admits of some latitude and degrees in the dispensation of it; yet, in truth, even this distribution itself must so far follow the rules of commutation, that the good to be dispensed by way of reward, ought in justice to be equivalent to the work or action which it is designed as a compensation of; so as by no means to sink below it, or fall short of the full value of it. From all which (upon a just estimate of the matter) it follows, that, in true philosophy, merit is nothing else but an instance or exemplification of that noted saying or maxim, that one benefaction or good turn requires another; and imports neither more nor less than a man's claim or title to receive as much good from another as he had done for him. Thus much therefore being premised, as an explication of the drift or design of the words, (the words themselves being too plain and easy to need any further exposition,) we shall observe and draw from them these four particulars. First, Something supposed or implied in them, viz. That men are naturally very prone to entertain an opinion or persuasion, that they are able to merit of God, or be profitable to him. Secondly, Something expressed, namely, That such an opinion or persuasion is utterly false and absurd; and that it is impossible for man to merit of God, or to be profitable to him. Thirdly, Something inferred from both the former, to wit, That the forementioned opinion or persuasion is the very source or foundation of two of the great est corruptions that have infested the Christian church and religion. And, Fourthly and lastly, Something objected against the particulars discoursed of, which I shall endeavour to answer and remove; and so conclude this discourse. Of each of which in their order: and, First, for the first of them. The thing supposed or implied in the words, namely, That men are naturally very prone to entertain an opinion or persuasion, that they are able to merit of God, or be profitable to him. The truth of which will appear from these two considerations. First, That it is natural for them to place too high a value both upon themselves and their own performances. And that this is so, is evident from that universal experience, which proves it no less natural to them to bear a more than ordinary love to themselves; and all love, we know, is founded in, and results from, a proportionable esteem of the object loved: so that, look in what degree any man loves himself, in the same degree it will follow, that he must esteem himself too. Upon which account it is, that every man will be sure to set his own price upon what he is, and what he does, whether the world will come up to it or no; as it seldom does. That speech of St. Peter to our Saviour is very remarkable, in Matt. xix. 27. Master, says he, we have forsook all, and followed thee; what shall we have therefore? In which words he seems to be upon equal terms with his Lord, and to expect no more of him, as he thought, but what he strictly had deserved from him; and all this from a conceit that he had done an act so exceedingly meritorious, that it must even nonplus his Master's bounty to quit scores with him by a just requital. Nay, so far had the same proud ferment got into the minds of all the disciples, that neither could their own low condition, nor the constant sermons of that great example of self-denial and humility, whom they daily conversed with, nor, lastly, the correctives of a peculiar grace, totally clear and cure them of it. And therefore no wonder if a principle so deeply rooted in nature works with the whole power of nature; and, considering also the corruption of nature, as little wonder is it, if it runs out with an extravagance equal to its power, making the minds of men even drunk with a false intoxicating conceit of their own worth and abilities. From whence it is, that as man is, of all creatures in the world, both the most desirous and the most unable to advance himself; so, through pride and indigence, (qualities which usually concur in beggars,) none is so unwilling to own the benefactions he lives by, and has no claim to, as this weak and worthless self-admirer, who has nothing to be admired in him, but that he can, upon such terms, admire himself. For, Naked came I into the world, and naked shall I go out again, ought to be the motto of every man when born, the history of his life, and his epitaph when dead: his emptiness and self-consciousness together, cannot but make him feel in himself (which is the surest way of knowing) that he has indeed nothing, and yet he bears himself as if he could command all things; at the same time low in condition, and yet lofty in opinion; boasting and yet depending; nay, boasting against Him, whom he depends upon. Which certainly is the foulest solecism in behaviour, and two of the worst qualities that can be in conjunction. But, Secondly, A second consideration, from whence we infer this proneness in men to think themselves able to merit of God, or to be profitable to him, is their natural aptness to form and measure their apprehensions of the supreme Lord of all things, by what they apprehend and observe of the princes and potentates of this world, with reference to such as are under their dominion. And this is certainly a very prevailing fallacy, and steals too easily upon men's minds, as being founded in the unhappy predominance of sense over reason; which, in the present condition of man's nature, does but too frequently and fatally take place. For men naturally have but faint notions of things spiritual, and such as incur not into their senses; but their eyes, their ears, and their hands are too often made by them the rule of their faith, but almost always the reason of their practice. And therefore no marvel, if they blunder in their notions about God; a being so vastly above the apprehensions of sense; while they conceive no otherwise of him at best, but as some great king or prince, ruling with a worldly majesty and grandeur over such puny mortals as themselves: whereupon, as they frame to themselves no other idea of him, but such as they borrow from the royal estate of an earthly sovereign, so they conceive also of their own relation to him, and dependance upon him, just as they do of that which passes between such a sovereign and his subjects; and consequently, since they find that there is no prince upon earth so absolute, but that he stands in as much need of his subjects for many things, as they do or can stand in need of him for his government and protection; (by reason whereof there must needs follow a reciprocal exchange of offices, and a mutual supply of wants between them, rendering both parties equally necessary to one another:) I say, from these misapplied premises, the low, gross, undistinguishing reason of the generality of mankind presently infers, that the creature also may, on some accounts, be as beneficial to his Creator, as such a subject is to his prince; and that there may be the like circulation of good turns between them; they being, as they think, within their compass, as really useful to God, as God for his part is beneficial to them; which is the true notion of merit, or of being profitable to God. A conceit that sticks so close to human nature, that neither philosophy nor religion can wholly remove it: and yet if we consider the limited right which the greatest prince upon earth has over his meanest slave, and that absolute, boundless, paramount right, which God has over the very same things and persons, which such princes avow a claim to, and by virtue of which transcendent right something is God's which can never be theirs; and even what is theirs is still by a much higher title his: I say, if we consider this, the absurdity and inconsequence of all such discourses about the relation between God and man, as are taken from what we see and observe between man and man, as governing and governed, is hereby more than sufficiently proved; and yet as absurd, as fallacious, and inconsequent as this way of discoursing is, it is one of the chief foundations of the doctrine of merit, and consequently of the religion of too great a part of the world: a religion tending only to defraud men of their true Saviour, by persuading them that they may be their own. And thus much for the first particular, the thing supposed in the words, to wit, That men are naturally very prone to persuade themselves, that they are able to merit of God, or be profitable to him. I proceed now to the Second particular, in which we have something expressed, namely, That such a persuasion is utterly false and absurd, and that it is impossible for men to merit of God, or be profitable to him. And this I shall evince by shewing the several ingredients of merit, and the conditions necessary to render an action meritorious. Such as are these four that follow; as, First, That an action be not due; that is to say, it must not be such as a man stands obliged to the doing of, but such as he is free either to do, or not to do, without being chargeable with the guilt of any sinful omission in case he does it not. It being no ill account given of merit by Spanhemius, [5] the elder, that it is opus bonum indebitum fuciens praemium, debitum ex indebito. For otherwise, if that which is due may also merit, then, by paying what I owe, I may make my creditors my debtors; and every payment would not only clear, but also transfer the debt. Besides, that in all the benefactions passing from Almighty God upon such as serve him the best they can, there could be no such thing as liberality; which can never take place but where something is given, which the receiver cannot challenge: nay, very hardly could there be any such thing as gift. For if there be first a claim, then, in strictness of speech, it is not so properly gift as payment. Yea, so vast would be the comprehension of justice, that it would scarce leave any object for favour. But God's grace and bounty being so prevented by merit, would be spectators rather than actors in the whole work of man's salvation. Nor would our obedience to God's positive precepts only, but also to his negative, sometimes strike in for their share of merit and claim to a reward. And any one who could plead such a negative righteousness, might come and demand a recompence of God for not drinking or whoring, swearing or blaspheming; just as the Pharisee did, for not being as the very dregs of sinners; and so vouch himself meritorious, forsooth, for being a degree or two short of scandalous. Moreover, amongst men, it would pass for an obligation between neighbours, that one of them did not rob or murder the other; and a sufficient plea for preferment before kings and governors, not to have deserved the gibbet and the halter; which is a poor plea indeed, when to have deserved them proves oftentimes a better. In short, upon these terms, he, who is not the very worst of villains, must commence presently a person of a peculiar worth; and bare indemnity will be too low a privilege for the merit of not being a clamorous, overgrown malefactor. But now, that all that any man alive is capable of doing, is but an indispensable homage to God, and not a free oblation; and that also such an homage, as makes his obligation to what he does much earlier than his doing of it, will appear both from the law of nature, and that of God's positive command: of each of which a word or two, and First, for the law of nature. There is nothing that nature proclaims with a louder and more intelligible voice, than that he who gives a being, and afterwards preserves and supports it, has an indefeasible claim to whatsoever the said being, so given and supported by him, either is, or has, or can possibly do. But this is a point which I must be more particular upon, and thereby lay a foundation for what I shall argue, a fortiori, concerning God him self, from what is to be observed amongst men. Now the right which one man has to the actions of another, is generally derived from one or both of these two great originals, production or possession. The first of which gives a parent right over the actions of his child; and the other gives a master a title to whatsoever can be done by his servant: which two are certainly the principal and most undoubted rights that take place in the world. And both of them are eminently and transcendently in God, as he stands related to men: and, First, for production. By the purest and most en tire communication of being, God did not only produce, but create man. He gave him an existence out of nothing, and while he was yet but a mere idea or possibility in the mind of his eternal Maker. That one expression of the Psalmist, It is he who hath made us, and not we ourselves, being both a full account, and an irrefragable demonstration of his absolute sovereignty over our persons, and in contestable claim to all our services: nor is this the utmost measure of our obligation to him, but as he first drew us out of nothing and non-existence, so he ever since keeps us from relapsing into it; his power brought us forth, and his providence maintains us. And thus has this poor impotent creature been perpetually hanging upon the bounty of his great Creator, and by a daily preservation of his precarious being, stands obliged to him under the growing renewed title of a continual creation. But this is not all. There is yet, Secondly, another title; whereby one person obtains a right to all that another can do; and that is possession. A title, every whit as transcendently in God as the former; as being founded in, and resulting from, his forementioned prerogative of a Creator. Nothing being more unquestionable, than that the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof; as the Psalmist declares, Psalm xxiv. 1. He is the sole proprietor and grand landlord of the universe. And moreover, as all things were made by him, so they were made for him also; He made all things for himself, says the wisest of men, Prov. xvi. 4. He is the original efficient by which, and the great and last end for which, they are; for by him they begun, and in him they terminate: after which two essential relations borne by God to man on the one side, and obliging man to God on the other, can there be any thing that is good, either in the being or actions of the latter, which can be called perfectly his own? any thing which is not entirely due to God, and that by a complication of the most binding and indispensable titles? And if so, how and where can there be any room for such a thing as merit? The civil law tells us, that servants have not properly a jus, a right or title, to any thing, by virtue whereof they can implead or bring an action against their lord, upon any account whatsoever; every such servant, as the law here speaks of, being not only his master's vassal, but also part of his possessions. And this right our Saviour himself owns, and sets forth to us by an elegant parable, couching under it as strong an argument, Luke xvii. 7, 8, 9. Which of you, saith he, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat? And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink? Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not. Where we see upon what terms of right even the most diligent and faithful servant stands with his master; who, after he had been toiling all day in his master's business, dressing and manuring his grounds, and watering them with the drops of his brow, comes home at length hungry and tired, (where, if he could find no reward for his hard service, yet one would think, that he might at least expect a discharge from any further work, and receive the present refreshments of his natural food,) yet even then his master renews his employment, delays his repast, and commands him to serve and attend him at his table, and with weary limbs and an empty stomach to expect a dismission at his pleasure; and all this, without so much as any thanks for his pains. In which neither is the master unjust, nor the servant injured: for he did no more than what his condition obliged him to; he did but his duty; and duty certainly neither is nor can be meritorious. Thus, I say, stands the case amongst men according to the difference of their respective conditions in this world. And if so, must not the same obligation, as it passes between God and man, rise as much higher, as the condition of a creature founds an obligation incomparably greater than that of a bare servant possibly can? And therefore, since man stands bound to God under both these titles, to wit, of production and possession, how can there be a greater paradox, than for such a contemptible, forlorn piece of living dirt to claim any thing upon the stock of merit from him, who is both his master and his maker too? No, the very best of men, upon the very best of their services, have no other plea before God but prayer; they may indeed beg an alms, but must not think to stand upon their terms. But, Secondly, Not only the law of nature, and the reason of the thing itself, (as we have sufficiently shewn,) excludes a man from all plea of merit; but also that further obligation lying upon him and all his services from the positive law and command of God, equally cuts him off from the same: the known voice of that law being, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve, Matt. iv. 10. And then for the measure and extent of that service, it is to be with all the heart, and all the strength, and all the soul, Mark xii. 30. Which one comprehensive injunction, grasping in it all that human nature is able to do, and by consequence bringing all that can be done by man within the compass and verge of duty, has left no vacancy or possibility for merit to take place, till it be proved, that a man may actually do more than with all his heart, and all his strength, and all his soul, he is able to do: than which it is impossible even for common sense to conceive any thing more senseless and contradictious. And so I proceed to the Second condition required to render an action meritorious; and that is, That it should really add to, and better the state of the person of whom it is to merit. The reason of which is, because all merit (as we have shewn before) consists properly in a right to receive some benefit, on the account of some benefit first done: the natural order of things requiring, that where a considerable advantage has been received, something of the like nature should be returned. For that otherwise, if one part of the world should be always upon the receiving hand, and never upon the restoring, that part would be a kind of monstrous dead weight upon the other, and all that was good and useful to mankind would, by an enormous disparity, lean wholly on one side. But, to bring the forementioned condition of merit home to our present purpose, and thereby to shew how far God is capable of receiving from man, and man of giving to God, it may not be amiss briefly to represent to ourselves what God is, and what man is; and, by consequence, how the case of giving and receiving must stand on God's part, and how on man's. And here, in the 1st place, God offers himself to our consideration as a being infinitely perfect, infinitely happy, and self-sufficient; depending upon no supply or revenue from abroad, but (as I may so express it) retreating wholly into himself, and there living for ever upon the inexhaustible stock of his own essential fulness; and as a fountain owes not its streams to any poor, adventitious infusions from without, but to the internal, unfailing plenties of its own springs; so this mighty, all-comprehending being, which we call God, needs no other happiness, but to contemplate upon that which he actually is, and ever was, and shall be possessed of. From all which it follows, that the divine nature and beatitude can no more admit of any addition to it, than we can add degrees to infinity, new measures to immensity, and further improvements to a boundless, absolute, unimprovable perfection: for such a being is the great God, who is one of the parties whom we are now discoursing of. Nevertheless, to carry the case a little further; supposing for the present, that the divine nature and felicity were capable of some further addition and increase, let us, in the 2nd place, cast our eye upon the other party concerned, and consider, whether man be a being fit and able to make this addition; man, I say, that poor, slight, inconsiderable nothing; or at best a pitiful something, beholden to every one of the elements, as well as compounded of them, and living as an eleemosynary upon a perpetual contribution from all and every part of the creation; this creature clothing him, another feeding him, a third curing him when sick, and a fourth comforting and refreshing him when well. In a word, he subsists by the joint alms of heaven and earth, and stands at the mercy of every thing in nature, which is able either to help or hurt him. And is this now the person who is to oblige his Maker? to indent and drive bargains with the Almighty? Those, I am sure, who in their several ages have been reputed most eminent for their knowledge of God and of themselves too, used to speak at much another rate concerning both. My goodness, says David, extendeth not to thee, Psalm xvi. 2. And again, If thou be righteous, says Elihu to Job, what givest thou him? or what does he receive at thy hands? Job xxxv. 7. So that St. Paul might well make that challenge, without expecting ever to see it answered, in Rom. xi. 35. Who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed to him again? For let man but first prove the debt, and the Almighty will be sure to pay it. But most fully of all does our Saviour himself determine this point in that remarkable conclusion of the forecited parable in Luke xvii. 10. where he instructs his disciples, after they had done all that was commanded them, to acknowledge themselves unprofitable servants; that is to say, such as God, upon no account whatsoever, was or could be at all the better for. And a clearer text certainly, and more direct and home against all pretence of merit, neither law nor gospel can afford. Nevertheless it must be confessed, that some have found out such an exposition of it, as, if admitted, renders it of no force at all against this doctrine of merit. For first, they absolutely cashier the literal, express sense of the words, and in the room of it introduce a figure called by the Greeks mei'osis, which, to diminish or degrade a thing, expresses it in terms representing it much less than indeed it is; as when we say a thing is smaller than an atom, less than nothing, and the like; such words are not to be under stood literally, but import only, that the thing spoken of is very inconsiderable. Accordingly, when Christ bids his disciples, after their best and most exact performances, acknowledge themselves unprofitable servants, we are not, say these expositors, to conclude from hence, that really they were so, but that Christ only read them a lecture of humility and self-abasement towards God, in speaking but meanly and lowly of their own piety, how differently soever it might deserve to be valued, according to the strict estimate of the thing itself. So that by all this, it seems, our Saviour was only teaching those about him how to pass compliments upon Almighty God. Their professing of themselves unprofitable servants amounting to no more than if they had told him, they were his humble servants; the meaning of which words, (if they have any meaning at all,) the fashion able custom of genteel lying will much better account for, than the language of scripture (the word of truth) is able to do. But in the mean time, what an insufferable perversion of the written word is it, to affix such a sense to any text of it, as this forced exposition here does! which manifestly turns a most devout confession to Almighty God into a piece of courtship; a principal truth into a mere trope or figure; and, in a word, one of the highest duties of a Christian into a false, fulsome, and, at best, an empty expression. And so I pass to the Third condition required to render an action meritorious; and that is, That there be an equal proportion of value between the action and the reward. This being evident from the foundation already laid by us; to wit, That the nature of merit consists properly in exchange; and that, we know, must proceed according to a parity of worth on both sides; commutation being most properly between things equivalent. But now the prize we run for in all our religious performances, is no less a thing than life eternal, and a beatific enjoyment of God himself for ever; and can any man, not quite abandoned by his reason, imagine a few, weak, broken actions, a competent price for heaven and immortality? and fit to be laid in the balance with an exceeding and eternal weight of glory? Is there any thing in dust and ashes that can deserve to dwell with God, and to converse with angels? Or can we, who live by sense and act by sense do any thing worthy of those joys which not only exceed our senses, but also transcend our intellectuals? Can we do beyond what we can think, and deserve beyond what we can do? For let us rate our best and most exact services according to the strict rules of morality, and what man is able to carry so steady an hand in any religious performance, as to observe all those conditions that are absolutely necessary to answer the full measures of the law? No, this is such a pitch of acting as the present strength of nature must not pretend to. And if not, how can an action, short of complete morality, set up for meritorious? The Papists, we know, in their disputes upon this subject, distinguish merit into that which is de condigno, which merits a reward upon terms of justice, and by reason of the inherent worth and value of the work done; and that on the other side to be de congruo, which, though it cannot claim a reward upon those terms, and from the precise worth and value of the work itself, yet is such, that God would not act suitably and congruously to the equity and goodness of his nature, if he should not reward it. These two sorts of merit, I say, they hold, but are not yet agreed which of the two they should state the merit of their good works upon. For some boldly assert, that they merit the, former way; to wit, by their own inherent worth and value; and some, that they merit only the latter way, that is, by being such as the equity and goodness of God cannot but reward; and lastly, others (as particularly Bellarmine) hold, that they merit both ways; to wit, partly by condignity, and partly by congruity. In answer to which, without disputing any thing against their merit of condignity, (since it more than sufficiently confutes itself,) I utterly deny the whole foundation of their merit de congruo, as to any obligation on God's part to reward our religious services upon the score of equity; since upon that account God can be under no obligation to do any thing: forasmuch as there is no such thing as equity in God, distinct from his justice and mercy; and the exercise of his mercy must on all hands needs be granted to be free; how much soever that of his justice may, by some, be thought otherwise. Amongst men, I confess, there is such an obligation as that of equity; and the reason is, because men stand obliged by a superior law to exercise mercy as well as justice; which God does not: and therefore, though there may be such a thing as a meritum de congruo between man and man, yet between God and man (since God is under no obligation to shew mercy, where his own word has not first obliged him) no such merit can take place. But, besides, this is not the point, whether or no it be congruous to the goodness of God, for him to reward such or such actions: for there be many thousands of things and actions very congruous for God to do, which yet by his nature he is not obliged to do, nor ever will do; so that the bare congruity of any thing or action to the divine nature lays no obligation upon God to do it at all. But the point lies here; to wit, whether it be so congruous to God to reward the obedience and good actions of men, that it is incongruous to his nature not to do it; and this I utterly deny. For if it were incongruous to his nature not to reward them, it would be necessary for him to reward them; and then indeed merit must upon equal necessity take place. But if God be not bound to reward every act, which it may be suitable or congruous for him to reward, (as we have shewn that he is not,) then meritum de congruo is but merit equivocally so called; and the forementioned division of merit is not a division of a genus into two several species, but only a distribution of an equivocal term into its several significations; and consequently to give the name of merit with respect to God, to that which is so only de congruo, is a mere trifling about words, without any regard had to the sense of them. Nor let any one here object the frequent use of the terms mereri and meritum by the fathers and other ancient church-writers; for they use them not in a sense importing claim upon the score of strict justice, but only as they signify the actual obtainment of any thing from God upon the stock of free promise, by coming up to the conditions of it: which by no means reaches that sense of the word which we have been hitherto disputing against. In short therefore the question stands thus: Does this meritum de congruo, from the nature of the thing itself, oblige God to reward it, or does it not? If it does, then I am sure that merit of condignity does the same, and can do no more; and so the distinction between them is but verbal, and superfluous. But if, on the other hand, it does not oblige God, then I affirm that it is not so much as merit; for where there is no obligation on one side, there can be no merit on the other. To which we may add this further consideration, that the asserting of such a merit of congruity is altogether as arrogant, as to assert that of condignity; forasmuch as it equally binds God, and brings him under as great a necessity of rewarding, as the other can; and that, not by reason of his own free word and promise obliging him to it, (of which more anon,) but because of a certain worth and value inherent in the work itself; which makes it incongruous, and consequently impossible, for God not to reward it; since it must needs be impossible for him to do any thing incongruous to himself or to any of his attributes. From all which it follows, that the third condition required to make an action meritorious, is here failing also. Which is, That the excellency of the work be commensurate to the value of the reward. And so I am come at length to the Fourth and last condition or ingredient of merit. And that is, That he who does a work whereby he would merit of another, does it solely by his own strength, and not by the strength or power of him from whom he is to merit. The reason of which is, because otherwise the work would not be entirely a man's own. And where there is no property, there can be no exchange; all exchange being the alienation of one property or title for another. And I have all along shewn, that the nature of merit is founded in commutation. But now, how great an hand, or rather what a total influence, God has in all our actions, that known maxim, jointly received both by heathens and Christians, sufficiently demonstrates; namely, that in him we live, and move, and have our being. And so intimately and inseparably does this influence join itself with all the motions of the creature, that it puzzles the deepest and most acute philosophers to distinguish between the actions of second causes and the concurrence of the first, so as to rescue them from a downright identity. Accordingly, in Philip. ii. 13. the apostle tells us, that it is God who worketh in us not only to do, but also to will, according to his good pleasure. And if, in every good inclination, as well as action, God be the worker, we must needs be the recipient subjects of what is wrought: and to be recipient certainly is not meritorious. In all the actions of men, though we naturally fix our eye only upon some visible agent, yet still there is a secret, invisible spring, which is the first mover of, and conveys an activity to, every power and faculty both of soul and body, though it be discerned by neither. Upon which account it is, that St. Austin says, "that in all that God does for us, he only crowns his own works in us;" the same hand still enabling us to do, which shall hereafter reward us for what we have done. And if, according to these terms, and those words also of the spouse to the same purpose, Cantic. i. 4. Draw me, and I will follow thee; our coming to God be from nothing else but from his drawing us to himself, how can we merit of him by our following him, or coming to him? For can any one oblige me by a present bought with my own money? or by giving me that which I first gave him? And yet the case here is much the same. For as apt as we are to flatter our selves, and to think and speak big upon this subject, yet in truth, by all that we do or can do, we do but return God something of his own. Much like the rivers, which come rolling with a mighty noise, and pour themselves into the sea: and yet as high as they swell, and as loud as they roar, they only restore the sea her own waters; that which flows into her in one place, having been first drawn from her in another. In a word, can the earth repay the heavens for their influences, and the clouds for that verdure and fertility which they bestow upon it? or can dirt and dunghills requite the sun and the light for shining upon them? No certainly; and yet what poor shadows and faint representations are these of that infinitely greater inability even of the noblest of God's creatures to present him with any thing which they were not first beholden to him for! It is clear therefore, that since man, in all his duties and services, never had any thing of his own to set up with, but has trafficked all along upon a borrowed stock, the fourth and last condition required to make his performances meritorious utterly fails him. And thus I have distinctly gone over the several conditions of merit. As first, That the meritorious act be not due. Secondly, That it really add to, and better the condition of, him from whom it merits. Thirdly, That there be a parity of value between the work and the reward. And fourthly and lastly, That it be done by the sole strength of him who merits, and not by the help and strength of him from whom he merits. These four, I say, are the essential ingredients and indispensable conditions of merit. And yet not one of them all agrees to the very best of man's actions with reference to Almighty God. Nevertheless, in despite of all these deplorable impotences, we see what a towering principle of pride works in the hearts of men, and how mightily it makes them affect to be their own saviours, and even while they live upon God, to depend upon themselves: to be poor and proud being the truest character of man ever since the pride of our first parents threw us into this forlorn condition. And thus I have finished the second and main particular proposed from these words, and expressed in them; namely, That it is impossible for men, by their best services, to merit of God, or be profitable to him. I proceed now to the Third particular, which exhibits to us something by way of inference from the two former; to wit, That this persuasion of man's being able to merit of God, is the source and foundation of two of the greatest corruptions of religion that have infested the Christian church; and those are Pelagianism and Popery. And, First for Pelagianism. It chiefly springs from, and is resolvable into, this one point, namely, that a man contributes something of his own, which he had not from God, towards his own salvation: and that, not a bare something only, but such a something also, as is the principal and most effectual cause of his salvation. Forasmuch as that which he receives from God (according to Pelagius) is only a power to will and to do; which a man may very well have, and carry to hell with him, as those who go to hell no doubt do. But that which obtains heaven, and actually saves a man, is the right use of that power, and the free determination of his will; which (as the same Pelagius teaches) a man has wholly from him self, and accordingly may wholly thank himself for. So that in answer to that question of the apostle, 1 Cor. iv. 7. Quis te discrevit? Who made made to differ from another? and that, as to the grand discrimination of saint and reprobate? the Pelagian must reply, if he will speak pertinently and consistently with himself, "Why, I made myself to differ, by using the powers which God gave me, as I should do; which my neighbour did not: and for that reason I go to heaven, and he to hell; and as he can blame none but himself for the one, so I am beholden to none but myself for the other." This, I say, is the main of the Pelagian divinity, though much more compendiously delivered in that known but lewd aphorism of theirs, A Deo habemus quod sumus homines, a nobis autem ipsis quod sumus justi. To which we may add another of their principles, to wit, that if a man does all that naturally he can do, (still understanding hereby the present state of nature,) God is bound in justice to supply whatsoever more shall be necessary to salvation. Which premises, if they do not directly and unavoidably infer in man a power of meriting of God, the world is yet to seek, what the nature and notion of merit is. Accordingly, both Gelasius and St. Austin, in setting down the points wherein the Catholic church differed from the Pelagians, assign this for one of the chief, that the Pelagians held gratiam Dei secundum hominum merita conferri. And the truth is, upon their principles a man may even merit the incarnation of Christ: for if there be no saving grace without it, and a man may do that which shall oblige God in justice to vouchsafe him such grace, (as with no small self-contradiction these men use to speak,) then, let them qualify and soften the matter with what words they please, I affirm, that, upon these terms, a man really merits his salvation, and, by consequence, all that is or can be necessary thereunto. In the mean time, throughout all this Pelagian scheme, we have not so much as one word of man's natural impotency to spiritual things, (though inculcated and wrote in both Testaments with a sun beam,) nor consequently of the necessity of some powerful divine energy to bend, incline, and effectually draw man's will to such objects as it naturally resists and is averse to: not a word, I say, of this, or any thing like it; (for those men used to explode and deny it all, as their modern offspring amongst us also do;) and yet this passed for sound and good divinity in the church in St. Austin's time; and within less than an hundred years since, in our church too, till Pelagianism and Socinianism, deism, tritheism, atheism, and a spirit of innovation, the root of all, and worse than all, broke in upon us, and by false schemes and models countenanced and encouraged, have given quite a new face to things; though a new face is certainly the worst and most unbecoming that can be set upon an old religion But, Secondly, To proceed to another sort of men famous for corrupting Christianity more ways than one; to wit, those of the church of Rome. We shall find, that this doctrine of man's being able to merit of God is one of the chief foundations of Popery also: even the great Diana, which some of the most experienced craftsmen in the world do with so much zeal sacrifice to and make shrines for; and by so doing get their living, and that a very plentiful and splendid one too; as knowing full well, that without it the grandeur of their church (which is all their religion) would quickly fall to the ground. For if there be no merit of good works, then no supererogation; and if no supererogation, no indulgences; and if no indulgences, then it is to be feared that the silver smith's trade will run low, and the credit of the pontifical bank begin to fail. So that the very marrow, the life and spirit of Popery lies in a stiff adherence to this doctrine: the grand question still insisted upon by these merchants being, Quid dabitis? and the great commodity set to sale by them being merit. For can any one think, that the Pope and his cardinals, and the rest of their ecclesiastical grandees, care a rush whether the will of man be free, or no, (as the Jesuits state the freedom of it on the one side, and Dominicans and Jansenists on the other,) or that they at all concern themselves about justification and free grace, but only as the artificial stating of such points may sometimes serve them in their spiritual traffick, and now and then help them to turn the penny. No; they value not their schools any further than they furnish their markets; nor regard any gospel but that of cardinal Palavicini; which professedly owns it for the main design of Christianity, to make men as rich, as great, and as happy as they can be in this world. And the grand instrument to compass all this by is the doctrine of merit. For how else could it be, that so many in that communion should be able to satisfy themselves in doing so much less than they know they are required to do for the saving of their souls, but that they are taught to believe, that there are some again in the world who do a great deal more than they are bound to do, and so may very well keep their neighbour's lamp from going out, by having oil enough both to supply their own, and a comfortable overplus besides, to lend, or (which is much better) to sell, in such a case. In a word, take away the foundation, and the house must fall; and, in like manner, beat down merit, and down goes Popery too. And so at length (that I may not trespass upon your patience too much) I descend to the Fourth and last particular, proposed at first from the words; which was, to remove an objection naturally apt to issue from the foregoing particulars. The objection is obvious, and the answer to it needs not be long. It proceeds thus. If the doctrine hitherto advanced be true, can there be a greater discouragement to men in their Christian course, than to consider, that all their obedience, all their duties and choicest performances, are nothing worth in the sight of God? and that they themselves, after they have done their best, their utmost, and their very all in his service, are still, for all that, useless and unprofitable, and such as can plead no recompence at all at his hands? This, you will say, is very hard; but to it I answer, First, That it neither ought nor uses to be any discouragement to a beggar (as we all are in respect of Almighty God) to continue asking an alms, and doing all that he can to obtain it, though he knows he can do nothing to claim it. But, Secondly, I deny, that our disavowing this doctrine of merit cuts us off from all plea to a recompence for our Christian obedience at the hands of God. It cuts us off indeed from all plea to it upon the score of condignity and strict justice: but then should we not, on the other side, consider, whether God's justice be the only thing that can oblige him in his transactings with men? For does not his, veracity and his promise oblige him as much as his justice can? And has he not positively promised to reward our sincere obedience? Which promise, though his mere grace and goodness induced him to make, yet his essential truth stands obliged to see performed. For though some have ventured so far as to declare God under no obligation to inflict the eternal torments of hell (how peremptorily soever threatened by him) upon men dying in their sins; yet I suppose none will be so hardy, or rather shameless, as to affirm it free for God to perform or not perform his promise; the obligation of which being so absolute and unalterable, I do here further affirm, that, upon the truest and most assured principles of practical reason, there is as strong and as enforcing a motive from the immutable truth of God's promise, to raise men to the highest and most heroic acts of a Christian life, as if every such single act could by its own intrinsic worth merit a glorious eternity. For, to speak the real truth and nature of things, that which excites endeavour, and sets obedience on work, is not properly a belief or persuasion of the merit of our works, but the assurance of our reward. And can we have a greater assurance of this, than that truth itself, which cannot break its word, has promised it? For the most high and holy One (as we have shewn, and may with reverence speak) has pawned his word, his name, and his honour, to reward the stead fast, finally persevering obedience of every one within the covenant of grace, notwithstanding its legal imperfection. And therefore, though we have all the reason in the world to blush at the worthless emptiness of our best duties, and to be ashamed of the poorness and shortness of our most complete actions, and, in a word, to think as meanly of them, and of ourselves for them, as God himself does, yet still let us build both our practice and our comfort upon this one conclusion, as upon a rock; that though, after we have done all, we are still unprofitable servants, yet because we have done all, God has engaged himself to be a gracious master. To whom therefore be rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen. __________________________________________________________________ [5] Dub. Evang. parte iii. pag. 782. __________________________________________________________________ A SERMON PREACHED AT CHRIST-CHURCH IN OXFORD, BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY, OCTOBER 29, 1693. __________________________________________________________________ Luke xi. 35. Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness. As light is certainly one of the most glorious and useful creatures that ever issued from the wisdom and power of the great Creator of the world; so, were the eye of the soul as little weakened by the fall as the eye of the body, no doubt the light within us would appear as much more glorious than the light without us, as the spiritual, intellectual part of the creation exceeds the glories of the sensible and corporeal. As to the nature of which light, to give some account of it before I proceed further, and that without entering into those various notions of it which some have amused the world with; it is, in short, that which philosophers in their discourses about the mind of man, and the first origins of knowledge, do so much magnify by the name of recta ratio; that great source and principle (as they would have it) both of their philosophy and religion. For the better explication of which, I must, according to a common but necessary distinction, (and elsewhere made use of by me,) observe, that this recta ratio may be taken in a double sense. First, For those maxims or general truths, which, being collected by the observations of reason, and formed thereby into certain propositions, are the grounds and principles by which men govern both their discourse and practice, according to the nature of the objects that come before them: or, Secondly, It may be taken for that faculty or power of the soul, by which it forms these maxims or propositions, and afterwards discourses upon them. And so no doubt it is to be taken here. For propositions themselves, as to the truth of them, are neither capable of increase or decrease, improvement or diminution; but the powers and faculties of the soul are capable of both; that is, of becoming stronger or weaker, according as men shall use or abuse, cultivate or neglect them. Upon which account this recta ratio can be nothing else but that intellectual power or faculty of the soul which every one is naturally endowed with. To which faculty, as there belong two grand and principal offices; to wit, one to inform or direct, and the other to command or oblige; so the said faculty sustains a different sche'sis or denomination, according to each of them. For as it serves to inform the soul, by discovering things to it, so it is called the light of nature; but as it obliges the soul to do this, or forbear that, (which it does, as it is actuated or in formed with those forementioned general truths or maxims,) so it is called the law of nature: which two offices, though belonging to one and the same faculty, are very different. For the former of them, to wit, its enlightening or informing quality, extends much further than its obliging virtue does; even to all things knowable in the mind of man; but the latter only to such things as are matter of practice, and so fall under a moral consideration. Besides, that this obliging quality must needs also presuppose the enlightening quality as essentially going before it. For as no law can bind till it be notified or promulged, so neither can this faculty of the soul oblige a man till it has first informed him. By which we see, that the light of nature, according to the essential order of things, precedes the law of nature, and consequently, in strictness of speech, ought to be distinguished from it, how much soever some have thought fit to confound them. And I doubt not but it is this which the text here principally intends by the light within us. Nevertheless, since the word conscience takes in both, and signifies as well a light to inform, as it imports and carries with it also a law to oblige us, I shall indifferently express this light by the name of conscience (as a term equivalent to it) in all the following particulars; but still this shall be with respect to its informing, rather than to its obliging office. Forasmuch as it is the former of these only which is the proper effect of light, and not the latter. For though conscience be both a light and (as it commands under God) a law too; yet as it is a light, it is not formally a law. For if it were, then whatsoever it discovered to us, it would also oblige us to. But this is not so; since it both may and does discover to us the indifferent nature of many things and actions without obliging us either to the practice or forbearance of them; which one consideration alone is sufficient to set the difference between the enlightening and the obliging office of conscience clear beyond all objection. And thus much I thought fit to premise concerning the nature of the light here spoken of by our Saviour, and intended for the subject of the present discourse. Which light, as it is certainly the great and sovereign gift of God to mankind, for the guidance and government of their actions, in all that concerns them with reference to this life or a bet ter; so it is also as certain, that it is capable of being turned into darkness, and thereby made wholly useless for so noble a purpose. For so much the words of the text import; nor do they import only a bare possibility that it may be so, but also a very high probability that, without an extraordinary prevention, it will be so. Forasmuch as all warning, in the very reason of the thing, and according to the natural force of such expressions, implies in it these two things. First, some very considerable evil or mischief warned against; and secondly, an equal danger of falling into it: without which all warning would be not only superfluous, but ridiculous. Now both these, in the present case, are very great; as will appear by a distinct consideration of each of them. And First, For the evil which we are warned or cautioned against; to wit, the turning of this light within us into darkness. An evil so unconceivably great and comprehensive, that to give an account of the utmost extent of it, would pose our thoughts, as well as nonplus our expressions. But yet to help our apprehensions of it the best we can, let us but consider with ourselves those intolerable evils which bodily blindness, deafness, stupefaction, and an utter deprivation of all sense must unavoidably subject the outward man to. For what is one in such a condition able to do? And what is he not liable to suffer? And yet doing and suffering, upon the mat ter, comprehend all that concerns a man in this world. If such an one's enemy seeks his life (as he may be sure that some or other will, and possibly such an one as he takes for his truest friend) in this forlorn case, he can neither see nor hear, nor perceive his approach, till he finds himself actually in his murdering hands. He can neither encounter nor escape him, neither in his own defence give nor ward off a blow: for whatsoever blinds a man, ipso facto disarms him; so that being thus bereft, both of his sight and of all his senses besides, what such an one can be fit for, unless it be to set up for prophecy, or believe transubstantiation, I cannot imagine. These, I say, are some of those fatal mischiefs, which corporal blindness and insensibility expose the body to: and are not those of a spiritual blindness unexpressibly greater? For must not a man labouring under this be utterly at a loss, how to distinguish between the two grand governing concerns of life, good and evil? And may not the ignorance of these cost us as dear as the knowledge of them did our first parents? Life and death, vice and virtue, come alike to such an one; as all things are of the same colour to him who cannot see. His whole soul is nothing but night and confusion, darkness and indistinction. He can neither see the way to happiness; and how then should he choose it? nor yet to destruction, and how then should he avoid it? For where there is no sense of things, there can be no distinction; and where there is no distinction, there can be no choice. A man destitute of this directing and distinguishing light within him, is and must be at the mercy of every thing in nature, that would impose or serve a turn upon him. So that whatsoever the devil will have him do, that he must do. Whithersoever any exorbitant desire or design hurries him, thither he must go. Whatsoever any base interest shall prescribe, that he must set his hand to, whether his heart goes along with it, or no. If he be a states man, he must be as willing to sell, as the enemy of his country can be to buy. If a churchman, he must be ready to surrender and give up the church, and make a sacrifice of the altar itself, though he lives by it; and, in a word, take that for a full discharge from all his subscriptions and obligations to it, to do as he is bid. Which being the case of such as steer by a false light, certainly no slave in the galleys is or can be in such a wretched condition of slavery, as a man thus abandoned by conscience, and bereft of all inward principles that should either guide or control him in the course of his conversation. So that we see here the transcendent greatness of the evil which we stand cautioned against. But then, Secondly, If it were an evil that seldom happened, that very hardly and rarely befell a man, this might in a great measure supersede the strictness of the caution; but, on the contrary, we shall find, that as great as the evil is which we are to fence against, (and that is as great as the capacities of an immortal soul,) the greatness of the danger is still commensurate: for it is a case that usually happens; it is a mischief as frequent in the event, as it is or can be fatal in the effect. It is as in a common plague, in which the infection is as hard to be escaped, as the distemper to be cured: for that which brings this darkness upon the soul is sin. And as the state of nature now is, the soul is not so close united to the body, as sin is to the soul; indeed so close is the union between them, that one would even think the soul itself (as much a spirit as it is) were the matter, and sin the form, in our present constitution. In a word, there is a set combination of all without a man and all within him, of all above ground and all under it, (if hell be so,) first to put out his eyes, and then to draw or drive him headlong into perdition. From all which, I suppose, we must needs see reason more than sufficient for this admonition of our Saviour, Take heed that the light which is in thee be not darkness. An admonition founded upon no less a concern, than all that a man can save, and all that he can lose to eternity. And thus having shewn both the vastness of the evil itself, and the extreme danger we are in of it; since no man can be at all the wiser or the safer barely for knowing his danger, without a vigorous application to prevent it; and since the surest and most rational preventive of it is to know by what arts and methods our enemy will encounter us, and by which he is most likely to prevail over us, we will inquire into and consider those ways and means by which he commonly attempts, and too frequently effects this so dismal a change upon us, as to strip us even of the poor remains of our fallen nature, by turning the last surviving spark of it, this light within us, into darkness. For this must be acknowledged, that no man living, in respect of conscience, is born blind, but makes himself so. None can strike out the eye of his conscience but himself: for nothing can put it out, but that which sins it out. And upon this account it must be confessed, that a man may love his sin so enormously much, as, by a very ill application of the apostle's expression, even to pluck out his own eyes, and give them to it; as indeed every obstinate sinner in the world does. Our present business therefore shall be (and that as a completion of what I discoursed formerly upon conscience in this place) to shew how and by what courses this divine light, this candle of the Lord, comes first to burn faint and dim, and so by a gradual decay fainter and fainter, till at length by a total extinction it quite sinks to nothing, and so dies away. And this I shall do, first, in general, and secondly, in particular. And first in general, I shall lay down these two observations. First, that whatsoever defiles the conscience, in the same degree also darkens it. As to the philosophy of which, how and by what way this is done, it is hard to conceive, and much harder to explain. Our great unacquaintance with the nature of spiritual, immaterial beings leaving us wholly in the dark as to any explicit knowledge, cither how they work, or how they are worked upon. So that in discoursing of these things we are forced to take up with analogy and allusion, instead of evidence and demonstration. Nevertheless, the thing itself is certain, be the manner of effecting it never so unaccountable. Yet thus much we find, that there is something in sin analogous to blackness, as innocence is frequently in scripture expressed and set forth to us by whiteness. All guilt blackens (or does something equivalent to the blackening of) the soul; as where pitch cleaves to any thing, it is sure to leave upon it both its foulness and its blackness together: and then we know, that blackness and darkness are inseparable. Some of the ablest of the Peripatetic school (not without countenance from Aristotle himself, in the fifth chapter of his third book, peri` psuches) hold, that besides the native, inherent light of the intellect, (which is essential to it, as it is a faculty made to apprehend, and take in its object after a spiritual way,) there is also another light, in the nature of a medium, beaming in upon it by a continual efflux and emanation from the great fountain of light, and irradiating this intellectual faculty, together with the species or representations of things imprinted thereupon. According to which doctrine it seems with great reason to follow, that whatsoever interposes between the mind and those irradiations from God, (as all sin more or less certainly does,) must needs hinder the entrance and admission of them into the mind; and then darkness must by necessary consequence ensue, as being nothing else but the absence or privation of light. For the further illustration of which notion, we may observe, that the understanding, the mind, or conscience of man, (which we shall here take for the same thing,) seem to bear much the same respect to God, which glass or crystal does to the light or sun: which appears indeed to the eye a bright and a shining thing; nevertheless this shining is not so much from any essential light or brightness existing in the glass itself, (supposing that there be any such in it,) as it is from the porousness of its body, rendering it diaphanous, and thereby fit to receive and transmit those rays of light, which, falling upon it, and passing through it, represent it to common view as a luminous body. But now let any thing of dirt or foulness sully this glass, and so much of the shine or brightness of it is presently gone, because so much of the light is thereby hindered from entering into it, and making its way through it. But if, besides all this, you should also draw some black colour or deep die upon it, either by paint, or otherwise; why then no brightness could be seen in it at all, but the light being hereby utterly shut out, the glass or crystal would shine or glister no more than a piece of wood or a clod of earth. In like manner every act of sin, every degree of guilt, does in its proportion cast a kind of soil or foulness upon the intellectual part of the soul, and thereby intercepts those blessed irradiations which the divine nature is continually darting in upon it. Nor is this all, but there are also some certain sorts and degrees of guilt, so very black and foul, that they fall like an huge thick blot upon this faculty; and so sinking into it, and settling within it, utterly exclude all those illuminations which would otherwise flow into it, and rest upon it from the great Father of lights; and this not from any failure or defect in the illumination itself, but from the indisposition of the object, which, being thus blackened, can neither let in nor transmit the beams that are cast upon it. I will not affirm this to be a perfect exemplification of the case before us, but I am sure it is a lively illustration of it, and may be of no small use to such as shall throughly consider it. But however (as I shewed before) the thing itself is certain and unquestionable, guilt and darkness being always so united, that you shall never find darkness mentioned in scripture in a moral sense, but you shall also find it derived from sin, as its direct cause, and joined with it as its constant companion: for, by a mutual production, sin both causes darkness, and is caused by it. Let this therefore be our first general observation; That whatsoever pollutes or fouls the conscience, in the same degree also darkens it. Secondly, Our other general observation shall be this; That whatsoever puts a bias upon the judging faculty of conscience, weakens, and, by consequence, darkens the light of it. A clear and a right judging conscience must be always impartial; and that it may be so, it must be perfectly indifferent: that is to say, it must be free and disencumbered from every thing which may in the least sway or incline it one way rather than another, beyond what the sole and mere evidence of things would naturally lead it to. In a word, it must judge all by evidence, and nothing by inclination. And this our blessed Saviour, with admirable emphasis and significance of expression, calls the singleness of the eye, in the verse immediately before the text. If thine eye, says he, be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. That is, nothing extraneous must cleave to or join with the eye in the act of seeing, but it must be left solely and entirely to itself, and its bare object; as naked as truth, as pure, simple, and unmixed as sincerity. Otherwise the whole operation of it unavoidably passes into cheat, fallacy, and delusion. As, to make the case yet more particular, if you put a muffler before the eye, it cannot see; if any mote or dust falls into it, it can hardly see; and if there be any soreness or pain in it, it shuns the light, and will not see. And all this by a very easy, but yet certain and true analogy, is applicable to the eye of the soul, the conscience; and the instance is verifiable upon it, in every one of the alleged particulars. In short, whatsoever bends or puts a bias upon the judging faculty of conscience, represents things to it by a false light; and whatsoever does so, causes in it a false and erroneous judgment of things. And all error or falsehood is, in the very nature of it, a real, intellectual darkness; and consequently must diffuse a darkness upon the mind, so far as it is affected and possessed with it. And thus much for our second general observation. From whence we shall now pass to particulars. In the assigning and stating of which, as I shewed before, that sin in general was the general cause of this darkness, so the particular causes of it must be fetched from the particular kinds and degrees of sin. Now sin may be considered three ways. First, In the act. Secondly, In the habit or custom. Thirdly, In the affection, or productive principle of it. In all which we shall shew what a darkening and malign influence sin has upon the conscience or mind of man; and consequently with what extreme care and severe vigilance the conscience ought to be guarded and watched over in all these respects. And, First, For sin considered in the single act. Every particular commission of any great sin, such as are, for instance, the sins of perjury, of murder, of uncleanness, of drunkenness, of theft, and, above all, of undutifulness to parents, (which being a thing so much against nature, nothing in nature can be said for it;) these, I say, and the like capital, soul-wasting sins, even in any one single act or commission of them, have a strangely efficacious power to cloud and darken the conscience. Some of the schoolmen are of opinion, that one single act, if great and extraordinary, has in it the force of many ordinary and lesser acts, and so may produce a habit: which opinion, how true soever it may be of an act of demonstration producing a habit of science in the intellect, yet I cannot think it true of any moral habits what soever. For it is not to be thought that St. Peter's denying and forswearing his Lord left behind it a ha bit of unbelief; nor that David's murder and adultery rendered him habitually murderous and adulterous. For no doubt it was not so. But this I say, that every single gross act of sin is much the same thing to the conscience, that a great blow or fall is to the head; it stuns and bereaves it of all use of its senses for a time. Thus in the two forementioned sins of David, they so mazed and even stupified his conscience, that it lay as it were in a swoon, and void of all spiritual sense for almost a whole year. For we do not find that he came to himself, or to any true sight or sense of his horrid guilt, till Nathan the prophet came and roused him up with a message from God; nor did Nathan come to him till after the child, begotten in that adultery, was born. Such a terrible deadness and stupefaction did those two sins bring upon his soul for so many months together, during which time, whatsoever notion of murder and adultery David might have in general, yet no doubt he had but very slight and superficial thoughts of the heinousness of his own in particular. And what was the reason of this? Why, his conscience was cast into a dead sleep, and could not so much as open its eyes, so as to be able to look either upwards or inwards. This was his sad and forlorn estate, notwithstanding that long course of piety and converse with God, which he was now grown old in. For he had been an early practiser, and an eminent proficient in the ways of God, and was now past the fiftieth year of his age; and yet we see that one or two such gross sins dulled and deadened the spiritual principle within him to such a degree, that they left him for a long time, as it were, dozed and benumbed, blind and insensible; and, no doubt, had not a peculiar grace from God raised him up and recovered him, he had continued so to his life's end. For this is most certain, and worth our best observation; that whatsoever carries a man off from God, will, in the natural course and tendency of it, carry him still further and further, till at length it leaves him neither will nor power to return. For repentance is neither the design nor work of mere nature, which, immediately after the commission of sin, never puts a man upon disowning or bewailing it, but upon studying and casting about him how to palliate and extenuate, and, rather than fail, how to plead for and defend it. This was the course, which Adam took upon the first sin that ever man committed: and the same course in the same case will be taken by all the sons of Adam (if left to themselves) as long as the world stands. Secondly, The frequent and repeated practice of sin has also a mighty power in it to obscure and darken the natural light of conscience. Nothing being more certainly true, nor more universally acknowledged, than that custom of sinning takes away the sense of sin; and we may add, the sight of it too. For though the darkness consequent upon any one gross act of sin be, as we have shewed, very great, yet that which is caused by custom of sinning is much greater, and more hardly curable. Particular acts of sin do, as it were, cast a mist before the eye of conscience, but customary sinning brings a kind of film upon it, and it is not an ordinary skill which can take off that. The former only closes the eye, but this latter puts it out; as leaving upon the soul a wretched impotence, either to judge or to do well; much like the spots of the leopard, not to be changed, or the blackness of an Ethiopian, not to be washed off. For by these very things the Spirit of God, in Jer. xiii. 23, expresses the iron invincible force of a wicked custom. Now the reason, I conceive, that such a custom brings such a darkness upon the mind or conscience, is this: that a man naturally designs to please him self in all that he does; and that it is impossible for him to find any action really pleasurable, while he judges it absolutely unlawful; since the sting of this must needs take off the relish of the other, and it would be an intolerable torment to any man's mind, to be always doing, and always condemning himself for what he does. And for this cause a man shuts his eyes and stops his ears against all that his reason would tell him of the sinfulness of that practice) which long custom and frequency has endeared to him. So that he becomes studiously and affectedly ignorant of the illness of the course he takes, that he may the more sensibly taste the pleasure of it. And thus, when an inveterate, imperious custom has so overruled all a man's faculties, as neither to suffer his eyes to see, nor his ears to hear, nor his mind to think of the evil of what he does; that is, when all the instruments of knowledge are forbid to do their office, ignorance and obscurity must needs be upon the whole soul. For when the windows are stopped up, no wonder if the whole room be dark. The truth is, such an habitual frequency of sinning, does, as it were, bar and bolt up the conscience against the sharpest reproofs and the most convincing instructions; so that when God, by the thunder of his judgments and the voice of his ministers, has been ringing hell and vengeance into the ears of such a sinner, perhaps, like Felix, he may tremble a little for the present, and seem to yield and fall down before the overpowering evidence of the conviction; but after a while, custom overcoming conscience, the man goes his way, and though he is convinced and satisfied what he ought to do, yet he actually does what he uses to do: and all this, because, through the darkness of his intellect, he judges the present pleasure of such a sinful course an over balance to the evil of it. For this is certain, that nature has placed all human choice in such an essential dependence upon the judgment, that no man does any thing, though never so vile, wicked, and inexcusable, but, all circum stances considered, he judges it, pro hic et nunc, absolutely better for him to do it, than not to do it. And what a darkness and delusion must conscience needs be under, while it makes a man judge that really best for him, which directly tends to, and generally ends in, his utter ruin and damnation! Custom is said to be a second nature, and if by the first we are already so bad, by the second, to be sure, we shall be much worse. Thirdly, Every corrupt passion or affection of the mind will certainly pervert the judging, and obscure and darken the discerning power of conscience. The affections, which the Greeks call pa'the, and the Latins affectus animi, are of much the same use to the soul? which the members are of to the body; serving as the proper instruments of most of its actions; and are always attended with a certain preternatural motion of the blood and spirits peculiar to each passion or affection. And as for the seat or fountain of them, philosophers both place them in and derive them from the heart. But not to insist upon mere speculations: the passions or affections are, as I may so call them, the mighty flights and sallyings out of the soul upon such objects as come before it; and are generally accompanied with such vehemence, that the Stoics reckoned them, in their very nature and essence, as so many irregularities and deviations from right reason, and by no means incident to a wise or good man. But though better philosophy has long since exploded this opinion, and Christianity, which is the greatest and the best, has taught us, that we may be angry, and yet not sin, Ephes. iv. 26. and that godly sorrow is neither a paradox nor a contradiction, 2 Cor. vii. 10. and consequently, that in every passion or affection there is something purely natural, which may both be distinguished and divided too from what is sinful and irregular; yet, notwithstanding all this, it must be confessed, that the nature of the passions is such, that they are extremely prone and apt to pass into excess, and that when they do so, nothing in the world is a greater hinderance to the mind or reason of man, from making a true, clear, and exact judgment of things, than the passions thus wrought up to any thing of ferment or agitation. It being as impossible to keep the judging faculty steady in such a case, as it would be to view a thing distinctly and perfectly through a perspective glass, held by a shaking, paralytic hand. When the affections are once engaged, the judgment is always partial and concerned. There is a strong bent or bias upon it, it is possessed and gained over, and as it were feed and retained in their cause, and thereby made utterly unable to carry such an equal regard to the object, as to consider truth nakedly, and stripped of all foreign respects; and as such to make it the rigid, inflexible rule, which it is to judge by; especially where duty is the thing to be judged of. For a man will hardly be brought to judge right and true, when by such a judgment he is sure to condemn himself. But this being a point of such high and practical importance, I will be yet more particular about it, and shew severally, in several corrupt and vicious affections, how impossible it is for a man to keep his conscience rightly informed, and fit to guide and direct him in all the arduous perplexing cases of sin and duty, while he is actually under the power of any of them. This, I know, men generally are not apt to believe, or to think, that the flaws or failures of their morals can at all affect their intellectuals. But I doubt not but to make it not only credible, but undeniable. Now the vicious affections which I shall single and cull out of those vast numbers, which the heart of man, that great storehouse of the devil, abounds with, as some of the principal, which thus darken and debauch the conscience, shall be these three. First, Sensuality. Secondly, Covetousness. Thirdly, Ambition. Of each of which I shall speak particularly: and, First, for sensuality, or a vehement delight in and pursuit of bodily pleasures. We may truly say of the body, with reference to the soul, what was said by the poet of an ill neighbour, Nemo tam prope tam proculque: None so nearly joined in point of vicinity, and yet so widely distant in point of interest and inclinations. The ancient philosophers generally holding the soul of man to be a spiritual, immaterial substance, could give no account of the several failures and defects in the operations of it, (which they were sufficiently sensible of,) but from its immersion into, and intimate conjunction with matter, called by the Greeks u'le. And accordingly all their complaints and accusations were still levelled at this u'le, as the only cause of all that they found amiss in the whole frame and constitution of man's nature. In a word, whatsoever was observed by them, either irregular or defective in the workings of the mind, was all charged upon the body, as its great clog and impediment. As the skilfullest artist in the world would make but sorry work of it, should he be forced to make use of tools no way fit for his purpose. But whether the fault be in the spiritual or corporeal part of our nature, or rather in both, certain it is, that no two things in the world do more rise and grow upon the fall of each other, than the flesh and the spirit: they being like a kind of balance in the hand of nature, so that as one mounts up, the other still sinks down; and the high estate of the body seldom or never fails to be the low, declining estate of the soul. Which great contrariety and discord between them, the apostle describes, as well as words can do, Gal. v. 17. The flesh, says he, lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit lusteth against the flesh: and these two are contrary; like two mighty princes whose territories join, they are always encroaching and warring upon one another. And as it most commonly falls out, that the worse cause has the best success; so when the flesh and the spirit come to a battle, it is seldom but the flesh comes off victorious. And therefore the same great apostle, who so constantly exercised himself to keep a conscience void of offence, did as constantly and severely exercise himself to keep under his body, and bring it into subjection, 1 Cor. ix. 27. And the same in all ages has been the judgment and practice of all such as have had any experience in the ways of God and the true methods of religion. For all bodily pleasure dulls and weakens the operations of the mind, even upon a natural account, and much more upon a spiritual. Now the pleasures which chiefly affect, or rather bewitch the body, and by so doing become the very pest and poison of the nobler and intellectual part of man, are those false and fallacious pleasures of lust and intemperance: Of each of which severally: and First, for lust. Nothing does or can darken the mind or conscience of man more: nay, it has a peculiar efficacy this way, and for that cause may justly be ranked amongst the very powers of darkness: it being that which, as naturalists observe, strikes at the proper seat of the understanding, the brain: something of that blackness of darkness mentioned in the thirteenth of St. Jude, seeming to be of the very nature as well as punishment of this vice. Nor does only the reason of the thing itself, but also the examples of such as have been possessed with it, demonstrate as much. For had not Samson, think we, an intolerable darkness and confusion upon his understanding, while he ran roving after every strumpet in that brutish manner that he did? Was it not the eye of his conscience which his Delilah first put out, and so of a judge of Israel rendered himself really a judgment upon them? And when the two angels (as we read in Gen. xix.) struck those monsters, the men of Sodom, with blindness, had not their own detestable lust first stricken them with a greater? Or could Herod have ever thought himself obliged by the religion of an oath to have murdered the Baptist, had not his lust and his Herodias imprisoned and murdered his conscience first? For surely the common light of nature could not but teach him, that no oath or vow whatsoever could warrant the greatest prince upon earth to take away the life of an innocent person. But it seems his besotted conscience having broken through the seventh commandment, the sixth stood too near it to be safe long: and therefore his two great casuists, the devil and his Herodias, (the worse devil of the two,) having allowed him to lie and wallow in adultery so long, easily persuaded him that the same salvo might be found out for murder also. So that it was his lust obstinately continued in, which thus darkened and deluded his conscience; and the same will, no doubt, darken and delude, and in the end extinguish the conscience of any man breathing, who shall surrender himself up to it. The light within him shall grow every day less and less, and at length totally and finally go out, and that in a stink too. So hard, or rather utterly unfeasible is it, for men to be zealous votaries of the blind god, with out losing their eyes in his service, and it is well if their noses do not follow. From all which it appears, what a paradox it is in morals, for any one under the dominion of his lust, to think to have a right judgment in things relating to the state of his soul: and the same, in the Second place, holds equally in that other branch of sensuality, intemperance; whereupon we find them both joined together by the prophet Hosea, iv. 11. Whoredom, says he, and wine take away the heart; that is, according to the language of holy writ, a man's judging and discerning abilities. And therefore, whosoever would preserve these faculties (especially as to their discernment of spiritual objects) quick and vigorous, must be sure to keep the upper region of his soul clear and serene; which the fumes of meat and drink luxuriously taken in will never suffer it to be. We know the method which this high and exact pattern of spiritual prudence, St. Paul, took to keep the great sentinel of his soul, his conscience, always vigilant and circumspect. It was by a constant and severe temperance, heightened with frequent watchings and fastings, as he himself tells us, 2 Cor. xi. 27. in watchings often, in fastings often, &c. This was the discipline which kept his senses exercised to a sure and exquisite discrimination of good and evil, and made the lamp within him shine always with a bright and a triumphant flame. But gluttony, and all excess, either in eating or drinking, strangely clouds and dulls the intellectual powers; and then it is not to be expected that the conscience should bear up, when the understanding is drunk down. An epicure's practice naturally disposes a man to an epicure's principles; that is, to an equal looseness and dissolution in both: and he who makes his belly his business will quickly come to have a conscience of as large a swallow as his throat; of which there wants not several scandalous and deplorable instances. Loads of meat and drink are fit for none but a beast of burden to bear; and he is much the greater beast of the two, who carries his burden in his belly, than he who carries it upon his back. On the contrary, nothing is so great a friend to the mind of man, as abstinence; it strengthens the memory, clears the apprehension, and sharpens the judgment; and, in a word, gives reason its full scope of acting; and when reason has that, it is al ways a diligent and faithful handmaid to conscience. And therefore, where men look no further than mere nature, (as many do not,) let no man expect to keep his gluttony and his parts, his drunkenness and his wit, his reveilings and his judgment, and much less his conscience, together: for neither grace nor nature will have it so. It is an utter contradiction to the methods of both. Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? says Solomon, Prov. xxiii. 29. Which question he himself presently answers in the next verse, They who tarry long at the wine, they who seek after mixed wine. So say I, Who has a stupid intellect, a broken memory, and a blasted wit, and (which is worse than all) a blind and benighted conscience, but the intemperate and luxurious, the epicure and the smell-feast? So impossible is it for a man to turn sot, without making himself a block head too. I know this is not always the present effect of these courses, but at long run it will in fallibly be so; and time and luxury together will as certainly change the inside, as it does the outside of the best heads whatsoever; and much more of such heads as are strong for nothing but to bear drink: concerning which, it ever was, and is, and will be a sure observation, that such as are ablest at the barrel, are generally weakest at the book. And thus much for the first great darkener of man's mind, sensuality; and that, in both the branches of it, lust and intemperance. Secondly, Another vicious affection, which clouds and darkens the conscience, is covetousness; concerning which it may truly be affirmed, that of all the vices incident to human nature, none so power fully and peculiarly carries the soul downwards as covetousness does. It makes it all earth and dirt, burying that noble thing which can never die. So that, while the body is above ground, the soul is under it, and therefore must needs be in a state of darkness, while it converses in the regions of it. How mightily this vice darkens and debases the mind, scripture instances do abundantly shew. When Moses would assign the proper qualifications of a judge, (which office certainly calls for the quickest apprehension and the solidest judgment that the mind of man is well capable of,) Deut. xvi. 19. Thou shall not, says he, take a gift. But why? He presently adds the reason; because a gift, says he, blinds the eyes of the wise. And no wonder, for it perverts their will; and then, who so blind as the man who resolves not to see? gold, it seems, being but a very bad help and cure of the eyes in such cases. In like manner, when Samuel would set the credit of his integrity clear above all the aspersions of envy and calumny itself, 1 Sam. xii. 3. Of whose hands, says he, have I received a bribe to blind my eyes therewith? Implying thereby, that for a man to be gripe-handed and clear-sighted too was impossible. And again, Eccl. vii. 7. A gift, says the wise man, destroyeth the heart; that is, (as we have shewn already,) the judging and discerning powers of the soul. By all which we see, that in the judgment of some of the wisest and greatest men that ever lived, such as Moses, Samuel, Solomon himself, covetousness baffles and befools the mind, blinds and confounds the reasoning faculty; and that, not only in ordinary persons, but even in the ablest, the wisest, and most sagacious. And to give you one proof, above all, of the peculiar blinding power of this vice, there is not the most covetous wretch breathing, who does so much as see or perceive that he is covetous. For the truth is, preach to the conscience of a covetous person (if he may be said to have any) with the tongue of men and angels, and tell him of the vanity of the world, of treasure in heaven, and of the necessity of being rich toward God, and liberal to his poor brother; and it is all but flat, insipid, and ridiculous stuff to him, who neither sees, nor feels, nor suffers any thing to pass into his heart, but through his hands. You must preach to such an one of bargain and sale, profits and perquisites, principal and interest, use upon use; and if you can persuade him that godliness is gain in his own sense, perhaps you may do something with him: otherwise, though you edge every word you speak with reason and religion, evidence and demonstration, you shall never affect, nor touch, nor so much as reach his conscience; for it is kept sealed up in a bag under lock and key, and you cannot come at it. And thus much for the second base affection that blinds the mind of man, which is covetousness: a thing directly contrary to the very spirit of Christianity, which is a free, a large, and an open spirit; a spirit open to God and man, and always carrying charity in one hand and generosity in the other. Thirdly, The third and last vile affection which I shall mention, (as having the same darkening effect upon the mind or conscience,) is ambition. For as covetousness dulls the mind by pressing it down too much below itself, so ambition dazzles it by lifting it up as much above itself; but both of them are sure to darken the light of it. For if you either look too intently down a deep precipice upon a thing at an extreme distance below you, or with the same earnestness fix your eye upon something at too great an height above you; in both cases you will find a vertigo or giddiness. And where there is a giddiness in the head, there will be always a mist before the eyes. And thus, no doubt, it was only an ambitious aspiring after high things, which not long since caused such a woful, scandalous giddiness in some men's consciences, and made them turn round and round from this to that, and from that to this, till at length they knew not what bottom to fix upon. And this, in my opinion, is a case that admits of no vindication. Pride, we know, (which is always cou