__________________________________________________________________ Title: Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions. Vol. VII. 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. VII. __________________________________________________________________ OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. MDCCCXXIII. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ THE CHIEF HEADS OF THE SERMONS. __________________________________________________________________ VOL. VII. __________________________________________________________________ SERMONS XLVII. XLVIII. XLIX. L. ROMANS xii. 18. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. P. 1. 31. 64. 97. Christianity the last and most correct edition of the law of nature: every precept of it may be resolved into a natural reason; as advancing and improving nature in the higher degrees and grander concerns of it. Christianity takes care for man, not only in his religious capacity, but also in his civil and political, binding the bonds of government faster, by the happy provisions of peace, 1. I. The shewing what is implied in the duty here enjoined. II. What are the measures and proportions by which it is to be determined. III. What are the means by which it is to be determined. IV. What the motives by which it may be enforced. I. The duty here enjoined is, live peaceably; which may be taken, 1. For the actual enjoyment of peace with all men: and so he only lives peaceably, whom no man molests. But this cannot be the sense intended here, (1.) Because so to live peaceably is impossible, 1. From the contentious, unreasonable humour of many men, 2. 2. From the contrary and inconsistent interests of many men, 5. (2.) Because, though it were not impossible, it can be no man's duty, 6. For a peaceable behaviour towards all men; which is the duty here enjoined: it seems adequately to consist of two things, 1. A forbearance of all hostile actions; and that in a double respect. (1.) In a way of prevention, 8. (2.) Of retaliation, 10. 2. A forbearance of injurious, provoking words, 13. II. The measures and proportions by which it is to be determined are expressed in these words: if it be possible, 15. Now possible may be taken two ways: 1. As it is opposed to naturally impossible, and that which cannot be done, 15. 2. As opposed to morally impossible, and that which cannot be done lawfully, 15. But the observance of peace being limited by the measure of lawful, all inquiries concerning the breaking of it are reducible to these two: 1. Whether it be at all lawful. 2. Supposing it lawful, when and where it ought to be judged so. Under the first is discussed that great question, whether war can be lawful for Christians, 17. War is of two distinct kinds. 1. Defensive, in order to keep off and repel an evil designed to the public. 2. Offensive, for revenging a public injury done to a community. And it is allowable upon the strength of these arguments: (1.) As it (the defensive) is properly an act of self-preservation, 17. (2.) As it (the offensive) is a proper act of distributive justice, 19. (3.) Because St. John the Baptist, Christ himself, and the apostles, judged the employment of a soldier lawful, 21. The ground of the Socinians' arguments in this case, viz. that God, under the Mosaical covenant, promised only temporal possessions to his people, therefore war was lawful to them; but now, under the covenant of grace through Christ, has made no promise of temporal enjoyments, but on the contrary bids us to despise them, and therefore has taken from us all right of war and resistance. This argument examined and confuted, 23. And The scriptures produced by those who abet the utter unlawfulness of war examined and explained. As, I. Matt. v. 39. Rom. xii. 17, 19. 28. II. Isaiah ii. 4. 31. III. Matthew xxvi. 52. 33. IV. James iv. 1. 34. Under the second inquiry, supposing it lawful, when and where it ought to be judged so? First, some general grounds, that may authorize war, are laid down. As when those with whom we are at peace, 1. Declare that they will annoy us, unless we cut off our limbs, &c. and upon our refusal disturb us, 37. 2. Declare war with us, unless we will renounce our religion, 37. 3. Injure us to that degree as a nation, as to blast our honour and reputation, 38. 4. Declare war with us, unless we will quit our civil rights, 38. Secondly, some particular cases are resolved; as, First case. Whether it be lawful for subjects in any case to make war upon the magistrate? 39. Grotius's seven cases, wherein he asserts it to be lawful, 41. David Parseus his arguments, in a set and long dispute upon Rom. xiii. examined and answered, 43. Second case. Whether it be lawful for one private man to make war upon another in those encounters which we commonly call duels? 49. And here are set down, 1. The cases in which a duel is lawful. As (1.) When two malefactors condemned to die are appointed by the magistrate to fight, upon promise of life to the conqueror, 49. (2.) When two armies are drawn out, and the decision of the battle is cast upon a single combat, 50. (3.) When one challenges another, and resolves to kill him, unless he accepts the combat, 50. 2. The cases in which duels are utterly unlawful. As (1.) When they are undertook for vain ostentation, 52. (2.) To purge oneself from some crime objected, 53. (3.) When two agree upon a duel, for the decision of right, mutually claimed by both, agreeing that the right shall fall to the conqueror, 53. (4.) When undertaken for revenge, or some injury done, or affront passed, 54. But other arguments there are against duels, besides their unlawfulness. As, 1. The judgment of men generally condemning them, 57. 2. The wretched consequences of the thing itself; which are twofold: (1.) Such as attend the conquered person, viz. ]. A disastrous death, 58. 2. Death eternal, 59(2.) Such as attend the conqueror. 1. In case he is apprehended, 60. 2. Supposing he escapes by flight, 61. 3. Supposing by the intercession of great friends he has outbraved justice, and triumphed over the law by a full acquitment, 62. Third case. Whether it be lawful to repel force by force, so as to kill another in one's own defence? 64. If a man has no other means to escape, it is lawful upon two reasons. 1. The great natural right of self-preservation, 65. 2. From that place where Christ commands his disciples to provide themselves swords, 65. Add to this, the suffrage of the civil law, 66. Yet so to assert the privilege as to take off the danger, it is stated under its due limitations by three inquiries. 1st, What those things are which may be thus defended; namely, 1. Life, 66. 2. Limbs, 67. 3. Chastity invaded by force, 69. 4. Estate or goods; which case admitting of some more doubt than the others, the opinions for the negative are stated and answered, 69. Whatsoever a man may thus do for himself, the same also is lawful for him to do in the same danger and extremity of his neighbour, 73. 2dly, What are the conditions required to render such a defence lawful; which are these: (1.) That the violence be so apparent, great, and pressing, that there can be no other means of escape, 75. (2.) That there be no possibility of recourse to a magistrate for a legal protection, 76. (3.) That a man design only his own defence, without any hatred or bitter purpose of revenge, 78. 3dly, Who are the persons against whom we may thus defend ourselves, 78. Fourth case. Whether it be allowable for Christians to prosecute, and go to law with one another? 1. The arguments brought against it are examined, 81. Which seem principally to bear upon two scriptures, (1.) Matt. v. 40. (2.) 1 Cor. vi. 7. The arguments against going to law being drawn from the letter of these scriptures, they are examined and explained according to the sense of them, 81-87. The third argument is the strict command that lies upon Christians to forgive injuries. Here prosecutions are distinguished as they concern restitution or punishment, and going to law with regard to the first of these shewn to be just and allowable, 87. The arguments for the proof of the assertion are next considered. Which are, 1. That it is to endeavour the execution of justice, in the proper acts of it, between man and man, 90. 2. That if Christian religion prohibits law, observance of this religion draws after it the utter dissolution of all government, 91. The limitations of law-contentions are three: 1. That a man takes not this course, but upon a very great and urgent cause, 93. 2. That he be willing to agree upon any tolerable and just terms, rather than to proceed to a suit, 94. 3. Supposing great cause, and no satisfaction, that he manage his suit by the rule of charity, and not of revenge, 95. III. The means by which the duty of living peaceably is to be effected, are, 1. A suppression of all distasteful, aggravating apprehensions of any ill turn or unkind behaviour from men, 97. 2. The forbearing all pragmatical or malicious informations against those with whom we converse, 104. 3. That men would be willing in some cases to wave the prosecution of their rights, and not too rigorously to insist upon them, 112. As (1.) When the recovery of it seems impossible, 113. (2.) When it is but inconsiderable, but the recovery troublesome and contentious, 115. (3.) When a recompence is offered, 116. 4. To reflect upon the example of Christ, and the strict injunction lying upon us to follow it, 118. 5. Not to adhere too strictly to our own judgments of things doubtful in themselves, 120. IV. The motives and arguments to enforce this duty are, 1. The excellency of the thing itself, 122. 2. The excellency of the principle from which peaceableness of spirit proceeds, 124. 3. The blessing entailed upon it by promise, Matt. v. 124. Two instances of this blessing, that certainly attend the peaceable in this world: (1.) An easy, undisturbed, and quiet enjoyment of themselves, 125. (2.) Honour and reputation, which such a temper of mind fixes upon their persons, 126. Their report survives them, and their memory is blessed. Their name is glorified upon earth, and their souls in heaven, 128. SERMON LI. ROM. vi. 23. The wages of sin is death. P. 129. A discourse of sin not superfluous, while the commission of it is continual, and yet the preventing necessary. The design of the words prosecuted in discussing three things: I. Shewing what sin is, 130. As it is usually divided into two sorts: 1. Original sin, 130. 2. Actual sin, 132. Which is considered two ways: (1.) According to the subject matter of it: as, 1. The sin of our words, 133. 2. Of our external actions, 134. 3. Of our desires, 134. (2.) According to the degree or measure of it: as 1. When a man is engaged in a sinful course by surprise and infirmity, 135. 2. Against the reluctancies of an awakened conscience, 136. 3. In defiance to conscience, 137. II. Shewing, what is comprised in death, which is here allotted for the sinner's wages. And 1. For death temporal, 138. 2. Death eternal, 140. Which has other properties besides its eternity, to increase the horror of it. As (1.) It bereaves a man of all the pleasures and comforts which he enjoyed in this world, 141. (2.) Of that inexpressible good, the beatific fruition of God, 142. (3.) As it fills both body and soul with the highest torment and anguish that can be received within a finite capacity, 143. III. Shewing in what respect death is property called the wages of sin. 1. Because the payment of wages still presupposes service and labour, 144. 2. Because wages do always imply a merit in the work, requiring such a compensation, 147. Now sin is a direct stroke, 1st, At God's sovereignty, 149. 2dly, At his very being, 150. Having thus shewn what sin is, and what death is, the certain inevitable wages of sin; he who likes the wages, let him go about the work, 151. SERMON LII. MATT. v. 8. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. P. 152. It may at first seem wonderful, that there are so few men in the world happy, when happiness is so freely offered: but this wonder vanishes upon considering the preposterous ways of men's acting, who passionately pursue the end, and yet overlook the means: many perishing eternally because they cannot eat, drink, sleep, and play themselves into salvation. But this great sermon of our Saviour teaches us much other things, being fraught with the most sublime and absolute morality ever vented in the world, 152. An eminent instance whereof we have in the text, which is discussed under four heads: I. Shewing, what it is to be pure in heart. Purity in general cannot be better explained than by its opposition, 1. To mixture, 154. 2. To pollution, 155. Purity in heart is shewn, (1.) By way of negation; that it does not consist in the external exercise of religion, 156. There being many other reasons for the outward piety of a man's behaviour. As, 1. A virtuous and strict education, 157. 2. The circumstances and occasions of his life, 159. 3. The care and tenderness of his honour, 160. (2.) Positively, wherein it does consist, viz. in an inward change and renovation of the heart, by the infusion of such a principle as naturally suits and complies with whatsoever is pure, holy, and commanded by God, 162. Which more especially manifests itself, (1.) In the purity and untainted sanctity of the thoughts, 163. (2.) In a sanctified regulation of the desires, 164. (3.) In a fearful and solicitous avoiding of every thing that may tend to sully or defile it, 166. II. Explaining, what it is to see God. Some disputes of the schools concerning this, 168. Our enjoyment of God is expressed by seeing him; because the sense of seeing, (1.) Represents the object with greater clearness and evidence than any of the other senses, 170. (2.) Is most universally exercised and employed, 170. (3.) Is the sense of pleasure and delight, 171. (4.) Is the most comprehensive and insatiable, 171. III. Shewing, how this purity fits and qualifies the soul for the sight of God; namely, by causing a suitableness between God and the soul, 172. Now during the soul's impurity, God is utterly unsuitable to it in a double respect. 1. Of the great unlikeness, 173. 2. Of the great contrariety there is betwixt them, 173. IV. The brief use and application is, to correct our too great easiness and credulity in judging of the spiritual estate, either of ourselves or others. If we would prevent the judgment of God, we must imitate it, judging of ourselves as he will judge of us: for he who has outward purity only, without a thorough renovation within him, and a sanctified disposition of heart, may indeed hereafter see God, but then he is like to see him only as his judge, 174. SERMON LIII. GAL. v. 24. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. P. 178. As all sects and institutions have their distinguishing badge, or characteristic name, that of Christianity is comprised in the crucifixion of the flesh, and the lusts thereof, 178. This explained, by shewing, I. What is meant by being Christ's: it consists in accepting of, and having an interest in Christ, as he is offered and proposed in the gospel, under three offices; his prophetical, his kingly, and his sacerdotal, 179. II. What is meant by the flesh, and the affections and lusts: by the former we are to understand the whole entire body of sin and corruption, the inbred proneness in our nature to all evil; by the latter, the drawing forth of that propensity or principle into the several commissions of sin, through the course of our lives, 180. The text further prosecuted in shewing two things: I. Why this vitiosity and corrupt habit of nature comes to have this denomination of flesh: and that for three reasons: 1. Because of its situation and place, which is principally in the flesh; concupiscence, which is the radix of all sin, following the crasis and temperature of the body, 181. 2. Because of its close, inseparable nearness to the soul; being, as it were, ingrafted into it, and thereby made connatural to it, 186. 3. Because of its dearness to us; there being nothing we prosecute with a more affectionate tenderness, than our bodies; and sin being our darling, the queen-regent of our affections, 188. Hence is inferred, 1. The deplorable estate of fallen man, 191. 2. The great difficulty the duty of mortification, 191. 3. The mean and sordid employment of every sinner, 192. II. What is imported by the crucifixion of the flesh: under which is shewn; 1. What is the reason of the use of it in this place: it is used by way of allusion to Christ, of whose behaviour and sufferings every Christian is to be a living copy and representation, 193. 2. The full force and significancy of the expression: it imports four things: (1.) The death of sin, 196. (2.) Its violent death, 198. (3.) Its painful, bitter, and vexatious death, 199. (4.) Its shameful and cursed death, 201. 3. Some means prescribed for the enabling us to the performance of this duty: viz. (1.) A constant and pertinacious denying our affections and lusts in all their cravings for satisfaction, 203. (2.) The encountering them by actions of the opposite virtues, 204. IV. What may be drawn, by way of consequence and deduction, from what has been delivered: and, 1. We collect the high concernment and absolute necessity of every man's crucifying his carnal, worldly affections, because, without it, he cannot be a Christian, 205. 2. We gather a standing and infallible criterion to distinguish those that are not Christ's from those that are, 206. An objection, that "it is an hard and discouraging assertion, that none should be reputed Christ's, unless he has fully crucified and destroyed his sin," answered by explaining the doctrine to mean, an active resolution against sin, 206. SERMON LIV. PREACHED JANUARY 30th. HABAKKUK ii. 12. Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood. P. 209 A short account being given of this whole prophecy, which foretells the great event of the Babylonish captivity, 209. the words of the text are prosecuted in five particulars. I. The ground and cause of this woe or curse; which was the justly abhorred sin of blood-guiltiness, 212. II. The condition of the person against whom this curse is denounced: he was such an one as had actually established a government and built a city with blood, 214. III. The latitude and extent of "this woe or curse; which includes the miseries of both worlds, present and future: and, to go no further than the present, is made up of the following ingredients: 1. A general hatred and detestation, fastened upon such men's persons, 217. 2. The torment of continual jealousy and suspicion, 219. 3. The shortness and certain dissolution of the government, that he endeavours so to establish, 220. 4. The sad and dismal end that usually attends such persons, 222. IV. The reasons, why a curse or woe is so peculiarly denounced against this sin. Among many, these are produced: 1. Because the sin of bloodshed makes the most direct breach upon human society, of which the providence of God owns the peculiar care and protection, 224. 2. For the malignity of those sins, that almost always go in conjunction with it; particularly the sins of fraud, deceitfulness, and hypocrisy, 226. V. An application of all to this present occasion, 227. by shewing how close and home the subject-matter of the text comes to the business of this annual solemnity. 1. In the charge of unjust effusion of blood, considered, 1. As public, and acted by and upon a community, as in war, 228. or, 2. Personal, in the assassination of any particular man, 229. 2. In the end or design for which it was shed; namely, the erecting and setting up of a government, 230. 3. In the woe or curse denounced, which is shewn to have befell these bloody builders. 1. In the shortness of the government so set up, 231. 2. In the general hatred that followed their persons, SERMON LV. 1 JOHN iii. 8. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the Devil. P. 234. This divine apostle endeavours to give the world a right information about this so great and concerning affair in this chapter, and particularly in these words; wherein we have, I. An account of Christ's coming into the world, in this expression; the Son of God was manifested. Which term, though it principally relates to the actual coming of Christ into the world, yet is of a larger comprehension, and leads to an enumeration and consideration of passages before and after his nativity, 234. II. The end and design of his coming, which was to destroy the works of the Devil. In the prosecution of which is shewn, 1. What were those works of the Devil that the Son of God destroyed, 238. and these works are reduced to three: 1. Delusion, his first art of ruining mankind; which is displayed by a survey of the world lying under gentilism, in their principles of speculation and practice, 239. 2dly, Sin. As the Devil deceived men only to make them sinful, some account is given of his success herein, 243. 3dly, Death: the inseparable concomitant of the former, 247. 2dly, The ways and means by which he destroys them. Now as the works of the Devil were three, so Christ encounters them by those three distinct offices belonging to him as mediator. 1st, As a prophet, he destroys and removes that delusion, that had possessed the world, by those divine and saving discoveries of truth, exhibited in the doctrine and religion promulged by him, 248. 2dly, As a priest, he destroyed sin, by that satisfaction that he paid down for it, and by that supply of grace that he purchased, for the conquering and rooting it out of the hearts of believers, 250. 3dly, As a king he destroys death by his power: for it is he that has the keys of life and death., opening where none shuts, and shutting where none opens, 251. SERMON LVI. MATTHEW ii. 3. And when Herod the king-heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. P. 253. It having been the method of divine Providence, to point out extraordinary events and passages with some peculiar characters of remark; such as may alarm the minds and engage the eyes of the world, in a more exact observance of, and attention to, the hand of God in such great changes; no event was ever ushered in with such notable prodigies and circumstances as the nativity of our blessed Saviour, 253. Some of them the apostle recounts in this chapter; which may be reduced to these two heads: I. The solemn address and homage made to him by the wise men of the east. Under which passage these particulars are considered: 1. Who and what these wise men were, 255. 2. The place from whence they came, 258. 3. About what time they came to Jerusalem, 260. 4. What that star was that appeared to them, 262. 5. How they could collect our Saviour's birth by that star, 263. II. Herod's behaviour thereupon, 266. Herod is discoursed of, 1. In respect of his condition and temper, in reference to his government of Judaea; which are marked out by three things recorded of him, both in sacred and profane story. 1st, His usurpation, 266. 2d, His cruelty, 267. 3d, His magnificence, 268. 2. In respect of his behaviour and deportment, upon this particular occasion, which shews itself, 1. In that trouble and anxiety of mind that he conceived upon this news, 270. 2. In that wretched course he took to secure himself against his supposed competitor, 271. 3. In respect of the influence this his behaviour had upon those under his government. The question, why Christ, being born the right and lawful king of the Jews, yet gave way to this bloody usurper, and did not assume the government to himself, answered: 1. Because his assuming it would have crossed the very design of that religion that he was then about to establish; which was, to unite both Jew and Gentile into one church or body, 273. 2. Christ voluntarily waved the Jewish crown, that he might hereby declare to the world the nature of his proper kingdom; which was, to be wholly without the grandeur of human sovereignty, and the splendour of earthly courts, 274. SERMON LVII. MATTHEW x. 37. He that loves father or mother better than me is not worthy of me. P. 275. Our Saviour here presents himself and the world together, as competitors for our best affections, challenging a transcendent affection on our parts, because of a transcendent worthiness on his, 275. By father and mother are to be understood whatsoever enjoyments are dear unto us, 276. and from the next expression, he is not worthy of me, the doctrine of merit must not be asserted: because there is a twofold worthiness, 1. According to the real inherent value of the thing; and so no man by his choicest endeavours can be said to be worthy of Christ, 277. 2. When a thing is worthy, not for any value in itself, but because God freely accepts it as such, 277. This being premised, the sense of the words is prosecuted in three particulars. I. In shewing what is included and comprehended in that love to Christ here mentioned. It may include five things. 1. An esteem and valuation of Christ above all worldly enjoyments whatsoever, 278. 2. A choosing him before all other enjoyments, 279. 3. Service and obedience to him, 281. 4. Acting for him in opposition to all other things, 284. 5. It imports a full acquiescence in him alone, even in the absence and want of all other felicities, 286. II. In shewing the reasons and motives that may induce us to this love. 1. He is the best able to reward our love, 291. 2. He has shewn the greatest love to us, 294. and obliged us with two of the highest instances of it: 1. He died for us, 296. 2. He died for us while we were enemies, and in the phrase of scripture, enmity itself against him, 298. III. In shewing the signs and characters whereby we may discern this love. 1. A frequent and indeed a continual thinking of him, 300. 2. A willingness to leave the world, whensoever God shall think fit by death to summon us to a nearer converse with Christ, 301. 3. A zeal for his honour, and an impatience to hear or see any indignity offered him, 302. SERMONS LVIII. LIX. LX. EPHESIANS iii. 12. In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him. P. 305. 321. 337. Prayer is to be exercised with the greatest caution and exactness, being the most solemn intercourse earth can have with heaven. The distance between God and us, so great by nature, and yet greater by sin, makes it fearful to address him: but Christ has smoothed a way; and we are commanded to come with a good heart, not only in respect of innocence, but also of confidence, 305. The words prosecuted in the discussion of four things. I. That there is a certain boldness and confidence, very well becoming of our humblest addresses to God, 306. This is evident; for it is the very language of prayer to treat God with the appellation of Father. The nature of this confidence is not so easily set forth by positive description, as by the opposition that it bears to its extremes; which are of two sorts. 1. In defect. This confidence is herein opposed, 1. To desperation and horror of conscience, 307. 2. To doubtings and groundless scrupulosities, 308. Some of these stated and answered, 309. 2. In excess. Herein confidence is opposed, 1. To rashness and precipitation, 312. 2. To impudence or irreverence, which may shew itself many ways in prayer, but more especially, 1. By using of saucy, familiar expressions to God, 315. or, 2. In venting crude, sudden, extemporary conceptions before God, 317. II. Is shewn, that the foundation of this confidence is laid in the mediation of Christ, 319. which is yet more evidently set forth, III. In shewing the reason, why Christ's mediation ought to minister such confidence to us: which is, the incomparable fitness of Christ for the performance of that work, 321. and this appears by considering him, 1. In respect of God, with whom he is to mediate, 322. God in this business sustains a double capacity, (1.) Of a Father; and there cannot be a more promising ground of success in all Christ's pleas for us, 322. (2.) Of a Judge: now Christ appears for us, not only as an advocate, but as a surety, paying down to God on our behalf the very utmost that his justice can exact, 323. and besides God himself appointed him to this work, 324. 2. In reference to men, for whom he mediates. He bears a fourfold relation to them. 1. Of a friend, 326. 2. Of a brother, 327. 3. Of a surety, 328. 4. Of a lord or master, 329. 3. In respect of himself, who performs the office. 1. He is perfectly acquainted with all our wants and necessities, 331. 2. He is heartily sensible of and concerned about them, 333. 3. He is best able to express and set them before the Father, 334. IV. Whether there is any other ground that may rationally embolden us, in these our addresses to him, 337. If there is, it must be either, 1. Something within; as the merit of our good actions, 337. But this cannot be, 1. Because none can merit but by doing something absolutely by his own power, for the advantage of him from whom he merits, 338. 2. Because to merit is to do something over and above what is due, 338. It must then be, 2. Something without us: and this must be the help and intercession either, 1. Of angels, or 2. Of saints, 339. Angels cannot mediate for us, and present our prayers; 1. Because it is impossible for them to know and perfectly discern the thoughts, 339. 2. Because no angel can know at once all the prayers that are even uttered in words throughout the world, 339- The arguments some bring for the knowledge of angels, partly upon scripture, 340. and partly upon reason, 344. examined and answered, 341. 344. The foregoing arguments against angels proceed more forcibly against the intercession of saints: to which there may be added over and above, 1. That God sometimes takes his saints out of the world, that they may not know and see what happens in the world, 346. 2. We have an express declaration of their ignorance of the state of things below in Isaiah lxiii. 16. 347. The Romish arguments from scripture, Luke xxi. and from reason, stated and answered, 348. The invocation of saints supposed to arise, 1. From the solemn meetings, used by the primitive Christians, at the saints' sepulchres, and there celebrating the memory of their martyrdom, 351. 2. From those seeds of the Platonic philosophy, that so much leavened many of the primitive Christians, 352. 3. From the people's being bred in idolatry, 352. But the primitive fathers held no such thing; and the council of Trent, that pretended to determine the case, put the world off with an ambiguity, 353. Conclusion, that Christ is the only true way; the way that has light to direct, and life to reward them that walk in it; and consequently there is no coming to the Father but by him, 355. SERMON LXI. GENESIS vi. 3. And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man. P. 357. God, in the first chapter, looks over all created beings, and pronounces them to be good: in this chapter, he surveys the sons of men before the flood, and delivers his judgment, that they were exceeding wicked, nay totally corrupt and depraved. But amidst those aboundings of wickedness, God left not himself without a witness in their hearts: they had many checks and calls from the Holy Spirit, which, by their resolution to persist in sin, they did at length totally extinguish. God withdraws his Spirit, and the strivings of it: and presently the flood breaks in upon them, to their utter perdition, 357. The words afford several observations; as first, from the method God took in this judgment, first withdrawing his Spirit, and then introducing the flood, we may observe, 1. D. That God's taking away his Spirit from any soul, is the certain forerunner of the ruin of that soul, 358. 2. From that expression of the Spirits striving with man, we may observe, 2. D. That there is in the heart of man a natural enmity and opposition to the motions of God's holy Spirit, 359. 3. From the same expression we may observe, 3. D. That the Spirit in its dealings with the heart is very earnest and vehement, 359- 4. From the definitive sentence God here passes we may observe, 4. D. That there is a set time, after which the convincing operations of God's Spirit upon the heart of man, in order to his conversion, being resisted, will cease, and for ever leave him, 359. This last doctrine, seeming to take in the chief scope of the Spirit in these words, is here prosecuted in four things. I. In endeavouring to prove and demonstrate the truth of this assertion from scripture, 360. That it is the way of God's dealings still to withdraw his Spirit after some notorious resistance, instanced from several scriptures: 1. From Psalm xcv. 10, 11. 360. 2. From Heb. iv. 7. 361. 3. From Luke xix. 42. 361. And from Gen. xv. 16. 362. Here note, that by a set time, is not to be understood a general set time, which is the same in every man; but a set and stinted time in respect of every particular man's life, in which there is some limited period wherein the workings of the Spirit will for ever stop, 364. II. In shewing how many ways the Spirit may be resisted; that is, in every way which the Spirit takes to command and persuade the soul to the performance of duty and the avoidance of sin, 364. As, 1. Externally, by the letter of the word, either written or preached, it may be resisted, 365. 1. By a negligent hearing and a careless attendance upon it, 367. 2. By acting in a clear and open contrariety to it, 368. And this last kind of resisting is great and open rebellion; 1. Because action is the very perfection and consummation of sin, 370. 2. Because sin in the actions argues an overflowing and a redundancy of sin in the heart, 370. 2. By its immediate internal workings upon the soul. And here the Spirit may be resisted, 1, In its illumination of the understanding; that is, its infusing a certain light into the mind, in some measure enabling it to discern and judge of the things of God, 371. Now this light is threefold: 1. That universal light, usually termed the light of nature, 372. 2. A notional light of scripture; or a bare knowledge of and assent to scripture truths, 373. 3. A special convincing light, which is an higher degree, yet may be resisted and totally extinguished, 374. 2. In its conviction of the will, 376. Now the convincing works of the Spirit upon the will, in all which it may be opposed, are, 1. A begetting in it some good desires, wishes, and inclinations, 377. 2. An enabling it to perform some imperfect obedience, 378. 3. An enabling it to forsake some sins, 380. III. In shewing the reasons why upon such resistance the Spirit finally withdraws. 1. The first reason is drawn from God's decree, 382. 2. Because it is most agreeable to the great intent and design of the gospel, l. In converting and saving the elect, 385. 2. In rendering reprobates inexcusable, 386. 3. Because it highly tends to the vindication of God's honour: 1. As it is a punishment to the sinner, 390. 2. As a vindication of his attributes: 1. Of wisdom, 392. 2. Of mercy, in shewing it is no ways inferior, much less contrary to his holiness, 393. and not repugnant to his justice, 394. 4. Because it naturally raises in the hearts of men an esteem and valuation of the Spirit's workings: 1. An esteem of fear, 396. 2. An esteem of love, 396. IV. In an application. We are exhorted not to quench the Spirit, but to cherish all his suggestions and instructions, 397. Because our resisting the Spirit will, 1st, Certainly bereave us of his comforts, 398. which are, 1. Giving a man to understand his interest in Christ, and consequently in the love of God, 399. 2. Discovering to him that grace that is within him, 400. 2d, It will bring a man under hardness of heart, and a reprobate sense, by way, 1. Of natural causation, 402. 2. Of a judicial curse from God, 402. 3d, It puts a man in the very next disposition to the great and unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost; the foregoing acts being like so many degrees and steps leading to this dreadful sin, which is only a greater kind of resistance of the Spirit, 402. SERMON LXII. MATTHEW v. 20. For I say unto you. That unless your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees; ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. P. 405. Our blessed Saviour here shews, first, that eternal salvation cannot be attained by the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees; secondly, that it may be obtained by such a one as does exceed it, 405. For understanding the words it is explained, I. That these scribes and pharisees amongst the Jews were such as owned themselves the strictest livers and best teachers in the world, 406. II. That righteousness here has a twofold acception. 1. Righteousness of doctrine, 406. 2. Righteousness in point of practice, 407. III. That the kingdom of heaven has three several significations in scripture: 1. It is taken for the Christian economy, opposed to the Jewish and Mosaic, 407. 2. For the kingdom of grace, 408. 3. For the kingdom of glory, 408. These things premised, the entire sense of the words lies in three propositions. 1. That a righteousness is absolutely necessary to the attainment of salvation, 409. 2. That every degree of righteousness is not sufficient to entitle the soul to eternal happiness, 409. 3. That the righteousness that saves must far surpass the greatest righteousness of the most refined hypocrite in the world, 409. This proposition, virtually containing both the former, is the subject of the discourse, and prosecuted in three things. I. Shewing the defects of the hypocrites, (here expressed by the scribes and pharisees,) 410. As, 1. That it consisted chiefly in the external actions of duty, 410. 2. That it was but partial and imperfect, not extending itself equally to all God's commands, 412. 3. That it is legal; that is, such a one as expects to win heaven upon the strength of itself, and its own worth, 416. II. Shewing the perfections and qualities by which the righteousness that saves transcends that of the hypocrites. Among many, four are insisted upon: 1. That it is entirely the same, whether the eye of man see it or not, 420. 2. That it is an active watching against and opposing every even the least sin, 423. 3. That it is such an one as always aspires and presses forward to still an higher and an higher perfection, 426. 4. The fourth and certainly distinguishing property of it is humility, 428. III. Shewing the necessity of such a righteousness in order to a man's salvation. Which arises, 1. From the holiness of God, 430. 2. From the work and employment of a glorified person in heaven: and no person, whom the grace of God has not thoroughly renewed and sanctified, can be fit for such a task; for it is righteousness alone that must both bring men to heaven, and make heaven itself a place of happiness to those that are brought thither, 432. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ SERMON XLVII. ROMANS xii. 18. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. CHRISTIANITY, if we well weigh and consider it, in the several parts and members of it, throughout the whole system, may be justly called the last and the most correct edition of the law of nature; there being nothing excellent amongst the heathens, as deducible from the external light of nature, but is adopted into the body of Christian precepts. Neither is there any precept in Christianity so severe and mortifying, and at the first face and appearance of things grating upon our natural conveniencies, but will be resolved into a natural reason; as advancing and improving nature in the higher degrees and grander concerns of it. And of so universal a spread is the benign influence of this religion, that there is no capacity of man but it takes care for; not only his religious, but his civil and political. It found the world under government, and has bound those bonds of government faster upon it, by new and superadded obligations. And by the best methods of preservation, it secures both the magistrate's prerogative and the subject's enjoyment, by the happy provisions of peace; the encomiums of which great blessing I shall not now pursue, nor forestall here what will more aptly be inserted hereafter. The text, we see, is a vehement, concerning, passionate exhortation to this blessed duty, and great instrument of society, peace. If it be possible, live peaceably. It is suspended upon the strictest conditions, stretching the compass of its necessity commensurate to the utmost latitude of possibility. The words are easy, but their matter full; and so require a full and a large, that is, a suitable prosecution; which I shall endeavour to give them in the discussion of these four particulars. I. The shewing what is implied in the duty here enjoined. II. What are the measures and proportions by which it is to be determined. III. What are the means by which it is to be effected. IV. What the motives by which it may be enforced. I. And for the first of these, the duty here enjoined is, live peaceably; which expression is ambiguous, and admits of a double signification. 1. It may be taken for the actual enjoyment of peace with all men. In which sense he only lives peaceably, whom no man molests. 2. It may be taken for a peaceable behaviour towards all men. In which sense he lives peaceably, by whom no man is molested. The first of these senses cannot be here intended by the apostle, and that for these two undeniable reasons. (1.) Because so to live peaceably is impossible; and what cannot possibly be done, cannot reasonably be commanded. The impossibility of it appears upon these two accounts. 1st, The contentious, unreasonable humour of many men. Upon this score, David complains of his enemies, that when he spoke of peace, they were for war. Many of the enmities of the world commence not upon the merit of the person that is hated, but upon the humour of him that hates: and some are enemies to a man for no other cause in the earth, but because they will be his enemies. The grounds of very great disgusts are not only causeless, but oftentimes very senseless. Some will be a man's enemies for his looks, his tone, his mien, and his gesture; and upon all occasions prosecute him heartily with much concernment and acrimony. And therefore that argument is insignificant, which I have often heard used by some men to others; who, when they complain of injurious dealings, think they have irrefragably answered them in this; Why should such an one be your enemy? what hurt have you done him? or what good can he do himself by injuriously treating of you? All which supposes that some reason may and must be given for that which, for the most part, is absolutely unreasonable. A little experience in the world would quickly and truly reply to these demands; that such or such an one is an enemy, not upon provocation, but that his genius and his way inclines him to insult, and to be contentious. And nature is sometimes so favourable to the world, as to set its mark upon such a person, and to draw the lines of his ill disposition upon his face; in which only you are to look for the causes of his enmities, and not in the actions of him whom he prosecutes. There are some persons, that, like so many salamanders, cannot live but in the fire; cannot enjoy themselves but in the heats and sharpness of contention: the very breath they draw does not so much enliven, as kindle and inflame them; they have so much bitterness in their nature, that they must be now and then discharging it upon somebody; they must have vent, and sometimes breathe themselves in an invective or a quarrel, or perhaps their health requires it: should they be quiet a week, they would need a purge, and be forced to take physic. And now, if any one should be molested and have his peace disturbed by such a person, would he be solicitous to find out the cause, and satisfy himself about the reason of it? When you see a mad dog step aside out of his walk only to bite somebody, and then return to it again, you had best ask him the reason why he did so. Why, the reason is, that he is mad, and his worm will not let him be quiet, without doing mischief, when he has opportunity. Now such tempers there are in the world, and always were, and always will be; and so long as there be such, how can there be a constant, undisturbed quietness in societies? We may as well expect, that nobody should die when the air is generally infected, or that poison should be still in the stomach, and yet work no effect upon the body. God must first weed the world of all contentious spirits and ill dispositions, before an universal peace can grow in it. And this may be one reason to prove, that a living peaceably with all men, as it signifies the actual enjoying of such a peace, is utterly impossible. 2dly, The second reason is from the contrary and inconsistent interests of many men. Most look upon it as their interest to be great, rich, and powerful: but it is impossible for all that desire it to be so; forasmuch as some's being so, is the very cause that others cannot. As the rising up of one scale of the balance does of necessity both infer and effect the depression of the other. This premised, we easily know further, that there is nothing which men prosecute with so much vigour, vehemence, and activity, as their interest; and the prosecution of contrary interests must needs be carried on by contrary ways and motions; which will be sure to thwart and interfere one with another: and this is the unavoidable cause of enmity and opposition between persons. Sometimes we see two men pecking at one another very eagerly, with all the arts of undermining, supplanting, and ruining one another. What! is it because the one had done the other an injury? or because he is of a quarrelsome temper? Perhaps neither; but because he stands in his way; he cannot rise but by his disgrace and downfall; he must be removed, or the other person's designs cannot go forward. Now as long as both these interests bear up together, and one has not totally run down and devoured the other, so long the persons will be engaged in a constant enmity and contest. The ground that the poet assigned as one great cause of the civil wars between Caesar and Pompey, multis utile bellum, is that into which most men's particular quarrels and enmities are resolved. In peace, every man enjoys his own; and therefore he that has nothing of his own, will be ready enough to blow the trumpet for war, by which he may possibly gain an estate, being secure already that he can lose none. What is the reason that it is observed in tradesmen and artificers, that they are always almost detracting from one another; but that it is the apparent interest of one, by begetting in men a vile esteem of the other, to divert his custom to himself; or at least to secure that in his own hands, which he has already? If the other person is the only workman, why then he shall monopolize all the custom; if he be as good as this, then this shall have the less: and this is that which sets them upon perpetual bickerings and mutual vilifications. The sum of all is, that most men's interests lie cross, their advantages clash, or at least are thought to do so: and contrary qualities will prey upon one another. Where men's interests fight, they themselves are not like to be long at peace. But now God, in his wise providence, is pleased to cast the affairs of mankind into such a posture, that there will be always such inequalities and contrarieties in the conditions and estates of men. And this is the other reason, why to enjoy peace with all men is impossible. (2.) But in the next place, admitting that it were not impossible, yet thus to live peaceably with all men cannot be the sense of the apostle's exhortation, forasmuch as it can be no man's duty. That which is the matter of duty ought to be a thing not only possible in itself, but also in the power of him to whom it is enjoined. But it is not in my power to enjoy peace with all men, since this depends upon their behaviour towards me, and not immediately upon mine towards them. And therefore it can be no more my duty, than it is my duty that another man should not be a thief or a murderer. If he will be so, I cannot prevent him; he only is the master of his own will and actions: and where the power of acting is seated, there only lies the obligation of duty; otherwise, if I should be obliged to that which depends not at all upon my power, a man might as well tell me that I am obliged to see that it does not thunder, or that the Turk does not invade Germany. Wherefore it is clear that the words of the text are to be understood only in the second sense propounded; and that living peaceably imports no more than a peaceable behaviour towards all men: which being the duty here enjoined, we are to see what is included in it. And for this it seems adequately to consist of these two things. 1. A forbearance of hostile actions. 2. A forbearance of injurious, provoking words. This seems to take in the whole scope of it, as comprehending all that makes up the behaviour of one man towards another, which are his actions and his words; what he does and what he says. And if those unruly instruments of action, the tongue and the hands, be regulated and kept quiet, there must needs ensue an entire peace. 1. And first, the living peaceably implies a total forbearance of all hostile actions, and that in a double respect: (1.) In a way of prevention. (2.) In a way of retaliation. (1.) For the first, I call that prevention, when a man unprovoked makes an injurious invasion upon the rights of another, whether as to his person or estate. God, for the preservation of society, has set a defence upon both these, and made propriety sacred, by the mounds and fortifications of a law. For what living were there, did not the divine authority secure a man both in his being and in the means of his being; but should leave it free for the stronger to devour and crush the weaker, without being responsible to the almighty Governor of all things for the injury done to his fellow-creature, and the contempt passed upon the divine law? And certainly one would think it not only a reasonable, but a very easy thing for a man wholly unprovoked to keep his hand from his brother's throat, to let him live and enjoy his limbs, and to have the benefits of nature, and the common rights of creation. It is a sad thing for a man not to be safe in his own house, but much more in his own body, the dearer earthly tabernacle of the two. How barbarous a thing is it to see a Romulus imbruing his hands in the blood of his brother! and he that kills his neighbour, kills his brother, as to the common bonds and cognation of humanity. Now all murders, poisons, stabs, and unjust blows, fall under this just violation of the peace in reference to men's persons; which God will avenge and vindicate, as being parts of his image: for there is none who requires to be honoured in himself, who will endure to be affronted so much as in his picture. It is looked upon by some as a piece of gentility and height of spirit, to stab and wound, especially if they are assured that the injured person will not resist; and so secure them the reputation of generosity, without the danger of betraying their cowardice. The other instance of violence, is the forcible wringing from men the supports of life, their estates, their revenues, or whatsoever is reducible to this notion, as contributing either to their subsistence or convenience. And this is not to be understood barely of oppression managed by open and downright defiance; but by any other sinister way whatsoever, as the overbearing another's right by the interest and interposal of great persons, by vexatious suits and violence cloaked with the formalities of a court and the name of law. And whosoever interverts a profit belonging to another by any of these courses, is a thief and a robber; perhaps a more safe and creditable one indeed, but still a thief; and that as really, as if he did it by plunder and sequestration; which is only a more odious name, but not a more unjust thing. And he is no less a disturber of the peace, and a breaker of this law, who oppresses the widow, and grinds the face of the fatherless and the poor, than he who forages a country with an army. For that is only violence with a greater noise, and more solemnities of terror. But God, who weighs an evil action by the malignity of its principle and the injustness of its design, and not by those exterior circumstances which only clothe its appearance, but not at all constitute its nature, has as much vengeance in store for an oppressing justice (if that be not a contradiction in the terms) as he has for the pillaging soldier or the insolent decimator: it being as truly oppression in the accounts of heaven, when proclaimed by the groans and cries of the orphan, as when ushered in with the sound of the trumpet and the alarm of war. For wherein should consist the difference? Is it because one stands upon his ground, and repels the invasion? and the other opens his bosom to the blow, and resigns himself to his oppressor with patience and silence? Is it peace, because the man is gagged and cannot, or overawed and dares not cry out of oppression? Or is he therefore not wronged, because his adversary, by his place or greatness, has set himself above the reach of justice, and is grown too big for the law? It was an acute and a proper saying of one concerning a prevailing faction of men, Solitudinem cum fecerint, pacem vocant; when they have devoured, wasted, and trampled down all before them, so that there is none indeed so much as left to resist, that they call peace. But certainly neither are the peacemakers blessed, nor is the peace a blessing, that is procured by such dismal methods of total ruin and desolation. And thus much for the forbearance of hostility in point of prevention or provocation. (2.) In the next place, there is required also a forbearance of all hostile actions, as to retaliation. I shall not run forth into the common place about revenge, it being a subject large and important enough to be treated of in a discourse by itself. But this I shall say, that according to the weights and measures by which Christianity judges of things and actions, he that revenges an injury will be found as truly a malefactor in the court of heaven, as he that does one. And he that requires an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, is a Jew, and not a Christian; a person of a mean spirit, and a gross notion, unacquainted with the sublimity and spirituality of so refined and excellent a religion. A peaceable deportment is one of the great duties enjoined in it: and the rule and measure of that is to be charity, of which divine quality the apostle tells us in 1 Cor. xiii. 7, that it suffers all things, hopes all things, endures all things. The very genius and nature of Christianity consists in this, that it is a passive religion: a religion that composes the mind to quietness, upon the hardest and the most irksome terms and conditions. And the truth is, if it drives on a design of peace, we shall find that the consequences of revenge make as great a breach upon that, as a first defiance and provocation. For were not this answered with resistance and retribution, it would perhaps exhale and vanish; and the peace would at least be preserved on one side. For be the injurious person never so quarrelsome, yet the quarrel must fall, if the injured person will not fight. Fire sometimes goes out, as much for want of being stirred up, as for want of fuel. And therefore he that can remit nothing, nor recede, nor sacrifice the prosecution of a small dispensable right to the preservation of peace, understands not the full dimensions and latitude of this great duty; nor remembers that he himself is ruined for ever, should God deal with him upon the same terms. The great God must relax his law, and recede from some of his right; and every day be willing to put up, and connive at many wrongs, or I am sure it is impossible for him to be at peace with us. He shines upon his enemies, and drops the dew of heaven upon the base and the unthankful. And in this very instance of perfection, Matth. v. 48, he recommends himself to our imitation. If revenge were no sin, forgiveness of injuries could be no duty. But Christ has made it a grand and a peculiar one: indeed so great, as to suspend the whole business of our justification upon it, in Matth. xviii. 35. And in the foregoing verses of that chapter, treating of the unmerciful servant, who exacted a debt from his poor fellow-servant, we find that his lord was wroth with him, and delivered him to the tormentors. Neither could it have profited him to have said, that he exacted but what was lawfully his own; what was due to him upon the best and the clearest terms of propriety. No; this excused not the rigour of a merciless proceeding from him, who had but newly tasted of mercy, and being pardoned a thousand talents, remorselessly and unworthily took his fellow by the throat for an hundred pence. It is or may be the case of every one of us. We pray every day for forgiveness; nay, we are so hardy as to pray that God would forgive us just so as we forgive others: and yet oftentimes we can be sharp, furious, and revengeful; prosecute every supposed injury heartily and bitterly; and think we do well and generously not to yield nor relent: and what is the strangest thing in the world, notwithstanding an express and loud declaration of God to the contrary, all this time we look to be saved by mercy; and, like Saul, to be caught into heaven, while we are breathing nothing but persecution, blood, and revenge. But as to the great duty of peaceableness which we have been discoursing of, we must know, that he who affronts and injures his brother breaks the peace; but withal that he who owns and repays the ill turn, perpetuates the breach. By the former, a sin is only born into the world; but by the latter, it is brought up, nourished, and maintained. And perhaps the greatest unquietness of human affairs is not so much chargeable upon the injurious, as the revengeful. The first undoubtedly has the greater guilt; but the other causes the greater disturbance. As a storm could not be so hurtful, were it not for the opposition of trees and houses; it ruins no where, but where it is withstood and repelled. It has indeed the same force when it passes over the rush or the yielding osier; but it does not roar nor become dreadful, till it grapples with the oak, and rattles upon the tops of the cedars. And thus I have shewn the first thing included in a peaceable behaviour, viz. a forbearance of hostile actions, and that both as to provocation and retaliation. But whether all kind of retaliation be absolutely unlawful, shall be inquired into afterwards. 2. The other thing that goes to constitute a peaceable behaviour, is a forbearance of injurious, provoking words. I know none that has or deserves a reputation, but tenders the defence of it, as much as of his person or estate. And perhaps it has as great an influence upon his contents and emoluments as both of them. It is that which makes him considerable in society. He is owned by his friends, and cannot be trampled upon by his enemies. Even those that will not love him, will yet in some manner respect him. For till the enclosures of a man's good name are broke down, there cannot be a total waste made upon his fortunes. Upon this it is, that abusive language, by which properly a man's repute is invaded, is by all men deservedly looked upon as an open defiance, and proclaiming of war with such a person: and consequently, that the reviler is as great a disturber as an armed enemy; who usually invades a man in that which is much less dear unto him. Rabshakeh broke the peace with Hezekiah, as much by his railing, as by the army that besieged him. And he that flings dirt at a man, affronts him as much as he that flings a stone at him. A wound upon the skin is sometimes sooner got off than a spot upon the clothes. I would fain know, what man almost there is, that does not resent an ugly, reflexive word with more acrimony and impatience, than he would the stab of a poniard. He remembers it more tenaciously, prosecutes it more thoroughly, and forgets it much more difficultly. And the reason is, because a blow or a wound directs an evil only to a man's person, but an ill word designs him a wider calamity; it endeavours the propagation and spreading of his unhappiness, and would render him miserable as far as he is known. Besides, it hurts him so as to put the reparation of that hurt absolutely out of his power: for it lodges his infamy in other men's thoughts and opinions, which he cannot command or come at, so as to rectify and disabuse them. But admit that the defamed person by a blameless and a virtuous deportment wipes off and confutes the calumny, and clears himself in the esteem of men; yet it is of those only with whom the scene of his converse lies: but in the mean time the slander spreads and flies abroad; and many hundreds come to hear the ill words by which the man is abused, who never come to see his own behaviour by which he is righted. I conclude therefore, that this great duty of living peaceably is not consummate, without a constant and a careful suppression of all offensive and provoking speeches. And he who does not acquit himself in this instance of a Christian behaviour, will find hereafter, that men will meet with as certain a condemnation for what they have said, as for what they have done. And thus much for the first general thing proposed for the handling of the words; namely, to shew what was implied in the duty enjoined in them. I pass now to the Second, which is to consider, what are the measures and proportions by which it is to be determined. And those are expressed in these words; If it be possible, live peaceably. Now possible may be taken two ways. 1. As it is opposed to naturally impossible, and that which cannot be done. Which sense cannot be here intended, as being supposed in all just and reasonable commands. For none can rationally command or advise a man to that, which is not naturally within his power, as has been already observed. 2. It may be taken, as it is opposed to morally impossible, and that which cannot be done lawfully: for it is a maxim in the civil law, id possumus quod jure possumus; which was the sense of Joseph's answer to his mistress, in Genesis xxxix. 9, How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God? and of that of the apostle, 2 Corinth. xiii. 8, We can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. In both which places, not the possibility, but the lawfulness of the action is specified; and that is the sense here intended. But now the observance of peace being limited by the measure of lawful, it follows, that where the breaking of the peace is not unlawful, there the maintaining of it ceases to be a necessary duty. It is of some moment therefore to satisfy ourselves when it is lawful, and when unlawful to break the peace. And all inquiries concerning this are reducible to these two. 1. Whether it can at all be lawful. 2. Supposing that it may be lawful, when and where it ought to be judged so. Under the first of these I shall discuss that great question, whether war can be lawful for Christians. Under the second, I shall shew those general grounds that may authorize a war, and from thence descend to the resolution of particular cases. As, 1. Whether it can be lawful to break peace with the magistrate. 2. Whether it may be lawful for one private man to make war upon another, in those encounters which we commonly call duels. 3. Whether it be lawful for a man to repel force with force, so as to kill another in his own defence. 4. And lastly, since the prosecution of another in courts of judicature is in its kind a breach of the mutual bond of peace, I shall inquire whether it be allowable for Christians to go to law one with another. All these things admit of much doubt and dispute; and yet, being matters of common and daily occurrence, it concerns us to have a right judgment of them. I shall begin with the first question, which is concerning the lawfulness of war; in order to the resolution of which, I shall premise what it is. War may be properly defined, a state of hostility, or mutual acts of annoyance, either for the preservation of the public from some mischief intended, or in the vindication of it for some mischief already done to it. The ground of war therefore is some public hurt or mischief; and since this may be twofold, either intended or actually done, there are accordingly two distinct kinds of war, defensive or offensive. 1. Defensive is in order to keep off and repel an evil designed to the public; and therefore is properly an act of self-preservation. 2. Offensive is for the revenging a public injury done to a community, and so is properly an act of justice. It is clear therefore, that the lawfulness and justness of war is founded upon the justness of its cause; and this being once found out, and rightly stated, I affirm, that it is allowable before God to cease from peace, and to enter into a state of war; and that upon the strength of these arguments: (1.) That which is a genuine, natural, and necessary consequent derived from one of the chief principles of the law of nature, that is lawful: but so is war, namely, from the principles of self-preservation, the noblest and the most acknowledged of all those principles, by which nature regulates and governs the actions of the creature. Hoc et ratio doctis, necessitas barbaris, feris natura ipsa praescripsit, ut omnem semper vim, quacunque ope possint, a corpore, a capite, a vita sua propulsarent. Cicero, in his defence of Milo. And that self-preservation cannot be maintained without war is too evident to be proved. The Jews, when they were set upon by their enemies on the sabbath day, and then murdered and massacred, because they thought it unlawful to make any resistance, or to defend themselves on that day, have transmitted the sad truth of this assertion in bloody letters to posterity. That men will sometimes invade the rights and the lives of others is certain; and it is also as certain, that the naked breast is not the surest armour, nor patience the best weapon of defence. Do we expect a rescue from heaven? and that God should send down fire from the clouds, and work miracles for our preservation? Experience sufficiently convinces us that such an expectation is vain. God delivers men by means, when means are to be had, and by the interposal of their own endeavours: and therefore he that flies to the church when he should be in the field, and takes his prayer-book in his hand when he should take his sword, tempts God, and loses himself; and, according to a due estimate of things, becomes a murderer, by so patiently suffering another to be so. Victrix patientia is a puff and a metaphor; and may, perhaps, in the issue of things, bear a man through a domestic injury or a private affront; but I never read that it put an army to flight, or rebated the courage or controlled the invasion of a fighting enemy. Besides, patience is properly the suffering quietly, when God in his providence calls us to suffer: but it is not a suffering, when God calls us to act, and to stand upon our own defence. As in some men we see it usual to veil their cowardice and pusillanimity with the names of prudence and moderation; so that, which some call patience, will be once found nothing else but a lazy relinquishment of the rights and privileges of their nature; and that a life and a being was much cast away upon such as would not exert the utmost power they had to defend it. This argument is properly for defensive war. (2.) The second is for offensive; and it proceeds thus: That which is a proper act of distributive justice is lawful; but such a thing is war, it being a retribution of punishment for a public hurt or injury done by one nation to another. That he who does a wrong should suffer for it, is a thing required by justice, the execution of which is committed to the supreme power of every nation: and why justice may not be done upon a company of malefactors defending themselves with arms, as well as upon any particular thief or murderer, brought shackled and disarmed to the block or the gallows, I cannot understand. The case in a civil war is clear between a magistrate assisted by his subjects, against another rebel part of his subjects: for he being the supreme power, the right of punishing offenders, whether single or in companies, is undoubtedly in him. But since to punish is properly an act of a superior to an inferior, and two kingdoms or nations seem to be equal, and neither to have any superiority or jurisdiction over the other, it may be doubted, how the one's making war upon the other can be properly an act of punitive justice. To this I answer, that though these two kingdoms or states be in themselves equal, yet the injury received gives the injured people a right of claiming a reparation from those that did the injury; and consequently, in that respect, gives them a kind of superiority over the other. For, in point of right, still the injured person is superior: and the reason is, because common justice is concerned in his behalf; to whose rules all nations in the world owe a real subjection. If it were not for war, therefore, there could be no provision made of doing justice upon an offending nation; justice would only prey upon particular persons; but national robberies, national murders, must pass in triumph with the reputation of virtues, as high and great actions, above the control of those common rules that govern the particular members of societies. In a word, society could not consist, if it were not lawful for one nation to exact a compensation for the injuries done to it by another; and upon the refusal of such compensation, to endeavour it by force and acts of hostility. Wherefore I conclude, that war must needs be just, when the instrument of its management is the sword of justice. And this argument is for offensive war. But before I dismiss it, there is one doubt that may require resolution, and it is this; that admitting that an injured nation may lawfully make war upon the nation that injured it, yet is it lawful for the injurious nation, being thus justly assaulted by war, also to defend itself? I answer, that it is; and that upon this ground, that be a man's delinquency against the laws of society never so great, yet, as long as he retains the nature of a man, he also retains the natural right of self-defence and preservation; unless where, by his own consent, he has quitted it. But you will say, a particular malefactor is bound to resign up his life to the punishment of the law without resistance: and the case, as to this, seems to be the same in a particular malefactor and an injurious nation; war being a doing of justice upon one, as the execution of the gallows is upon the other: and consequently the obligation to a non-resistance seems to be the same in both. I answer, that the case is very different; and that upon this reason, that a particular member of a commonwealth has consented and submitted to the laws of the nation of which he is a member, which laws enjoin malefactors to surrender up their lives to justice without resistance; whereupon, the right of resisting is lost by his own consent. But now there is no law imposed upon one nation by another, or owned and submitted to by any nation, that obliges it, for having done an injury to another nation, without resistance to endure the effects of war and an hostile invasion; whereupon it still keeps the right of defending itself against all opposition, how just soever it be on their sides that make it. (3.) The third argument is for all kind of war indifferently, and it runs thus: If St. John the Baptist, Christ himself, and the apostles, judged the employment of a soldier lawful, then war is lawful. The consequence is apparent; for every employment is lawful or unlawful, according to the lawfulness or unlawfulness of the actions to which it is designed: an employment being indeed nothing else but a constant engaging of a man's self in such or such a way of action. And now for the assumption, that St. John the Baptist, Christ himself, and the apostles, judged the life and employment of a soldier lawful, it shall be made appear particularly. And first for St. John the Baptist. It was his great office to be the preacher of repentance, and to consign it with the great sacrament of baptism: upon which it is rational to conclude, that he admitted none to baptism, without declaring to them what sins they were to repent of. And since the sum of his doctrine was, that men should bring forth fruits worthy of repentance; when any men asked him what they were to do, to fulfil this great command, it is most consonant to reason to judge, that his answer taught them all that was included in that duty, and shewed them whatsoever was inconsistent with it. But now, when the soldiers amongst others asked John what they should do, Luke iii. 14, he speaks nothing at all of laying down their employment; but rather confirms that, by prescribing rules to them how they should manage it: as, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any one falsely, and be content with your wages. In short, it is not imaginable that the great forerunner of the Messias, even one of the greatest persons that was born of women, should busy himself to instruct men how they should lawfully manage such an employment as was in itself absolutely unlawful; and to countenance men to receive wages for a work that he judged highly impious and unjust. In the next place, for the judgment of Christ and his apostles about this matter; the first we have in Matth. viii. 10, where Christ, speaking of the centurion, said, that he had not found so much faith, no, not in Israel. And the like is testified of Cornelius the centurion, in Acts x. 1, 2, that he was a devout man, and one that feared God with all his house. From whence I argue thus: he whose faith Christ commended, and he to whom the Spirit of God bore this testimony, that he was a devout man, and feared God, could neither of them be engaged in a course of life absolutely unlawful; otherwise saving faith, and the fear of God, would be consistent with a settled, constant, resolved living in sin. For he whose employment is sinful, sins habitually, and with a witness; and we might, with as much propriety of speech, and truth in divinity, commend the faith of an highwayman, and say, a devout bawd, and a devout cheat, as a devout centurion. I conclude therefore, that war is a thing in itself lawful and allowable, and that the proof of it stands firm, both upon the principles of nature and the principles of Christianity. And being so, it is a great wonder that Faustus Socinus, and his school, in other things too partial defenders of nature, should yet in this so undeservedly desert it, as to assert all war to be utterly unlawful; not indeed by virtue of the law of nature, or of Moses, but of Christ, who, they say, has perfected the two former, and superadded higher and more sublime precepts. But still I cannot see that this sect of men are able to quit themselves from the charge of very great unreasonableness in this assertion. For in those truths that concern the theory of the Christian religion, as about the Trinity and the like, they vehemently contend that all scriptures, howsoever in the clearest appearance of natural construction looking that way, yet ought to be interpreted and brought down to the analogy and rules of natural reason. But here, in the highest concerns of practice, in which men's lives and fortunes, their being and wellbeing, are immediately interested, they strip men of all the rights of nature, and that under pretence of such an injunction from the Christian religion. It concerns us therefore to inquire into their arguments; which we shall do, first, by examining the general ground upon which they stand; and then by traversing those several scriptures which these men allege in the behalf of their opinion. First of all then, they lay this as the foundation of all their arguings in this particular, that God, under the Mosaical covenant, made only promises of temporal possessions and blessings to his people; and therefore giving them a temporal Canaan, it was necessary that he should allow them the means of defending it, which was properly by war, and repulsing their temporal enemies: but now under the covenant of grace, established by the mediatorship of Christ with the world, God has made no express promise of any temporal enjoyments or felicities; but rather, on the contrary, bids us despise and take our minds wholly off from them. And therefore, according to the tenor of such a covenant, he has made no provision to secure his people in any such temporalities, but took from them all right of war and resistance. To this, which is a proposition current through the main body of the Socinian divinity, I answer, that it is both false in itself, and as to the present purpose hugely inconclusive. For first, it is to be denied that God transacted with his people, under the Mosaical covenant, only in temporal promises: he did indeed, according to the thick genius of that people, too much intent upon worldly happiness, express and shadow forth spiritual blessings under temporal; but that they had hopes, and consequently promises of a better life after this, is clear from sundry places, as particularly that in Psalm lxxiii. 24, where David says to God, Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel here, and afterward receive me to glory. And it is clear, from all the foregoing verses, that by the guidance of God's counsel, he understood God's favour to him throughout the whole compass of his life. But more fully in Heb. xi. 13, where the divine author, speaking of the ancient heroes before the times of the gospel, says, that they all died in the faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. What could be said more fully and expressly to shew the insolence of that assertion, that by taking from the Mosaical church all promise of future blessedness, would degrade them to the rank of brutes and swine, and epicures, who live only by this beastly principle: Let us eat and drink to-day, for to-morrow we shall die? And further, it is also false, that God has under the covenant of grace made no temporal provision for the persons under it. For what mean those words of Christ, Matt. vi. 33, Seek ye first the kingdom of God., and all these things shall be added unto you? God indeed did not design these temporals as parts of the great promised blessing, as he did under the Mosaical covenant, but only as appendages and concomitants of it, that so he might shew the spiritual nature of this covenant to be much above that of the other: but still it follows not, but God has made an allowance of temporal necessaries under the second covenant, though not in the same manner and upon the same terms that he did under the first. It is clear therefore, that the contrary proposition is false; and that it is as weak in the nature of an argument, as it is false in the nature of a proposition, is no less manifest. For if the only reason that made war lawful to the Jews was because it was a means to secure them in the possession of their temporal Canaan, against the invasion and incursions of the enemy, then when there was no such incursion or invasion, it ceased to be lawful: this is a natural inference. But the contrary is evident: for we know that they commenced a lawful war against the tribe of Benjamin, their brethren, in which there could be no pretence either of securing or enlarging the borders of the promised land; but only a just revenge acted upon them, for a black and villanous trespass upon the laws of common justice and humanity. And then for the Christian church; suppose they should have no federal or spiritual right to their earthly possessions, yet they have a civil and a natural right; which right they may accordingly defend: since, by virtue of the covenant of grace, to have a title to heaven; and withal to have a civil and temporal claim to their earthly estates; and further, to maintain that claim against the violence of an enemy; are not at all opposite or contrary one to the other, but very fairly subordinate. But that I may thoroughly pluck up this false foundation, grounded upon the difference of the two covenants, I shall observe this: that since in the former covenant there were some things of moral and external right, some things only of positive institution, peculiarly made for and restrained to the church and commonwealth of the Jews; whatsoever alterations and abrogations have been made by Christ under the second covenant, were only of those positive laws, peculiar and proper to the Jews; all other things, which depended upon the eternal and immutable laws and rights of nature, remaining inviolately the same under both covenants, and as unchanged as nature itself. Now such a thing I affirm the right of war to be, as being the result and dictate of that grand natural right of self-preservation. It is the voice of reason and nature, that we should defend our persons from assassination, and our estates from violence: and he that seeks for rescue from any thing but a vigorous resistance, will find himself wronged to that degree, that it will be too late for him to be righted. Having thus removed the false ground of the arguments, proving the utter unlawfulness of war, I come now to see what countenance this opinion receives from scripture; from which the abettors of it argue thus: If we are expressly commanded not to resist evil, but being smote on the right cheek, to turn the other also, as in Matt. v. 39. and to recompense no man evil for evil., nor to avenge ourselves, but rather to give place to wrath, as in Rom. xii. 17, 19. if also we are commanded to love our enemies, as in the same Matt v. then war, which includes in it the clean contrary, is utterly unlawful. Before I answer these particular scriptures, I shall premise this: What if we should answer Socinus in his own words, who in his book De Jesu Christo Servatore, disputing against Covelus for the disproving of Christ's satisfaction, has the hardiness to say, that the word satisfaction is not to be found in scripture? which is true. But supposing that it were; yet it being, in his judgment, contrary to right reason, it was not, he says, to be admitted in the sense naturally signified by it. So say I; these scriptures indeed, however they prohibit self-defence, yet this being contrary to the light of nature and right reason, they are not to be admitted in their proper signification. Surely this, though it were a bold and a profane speech, yet to him it were a very full answer, who makes the very same plea upon a parallel occasion. But we shall not need such refuges. To those scriptures therefore I answer, that they are to be understood only of private revenge acted by one particular man upon another, and not of a public, managed by the authority of the magistrate: but such a revenge only is war. That the words are so to be understood is clear, as the occasion of those in Matt. v. shews: for Christ's design was to beat down that corrupt and false gloss of the pharisees upon the law, who taught that it was lawful for any private man to right and revenge himself with his own hands; provided that he observed the just measure of equality between the evil which he suffered, and the evil which he returned: whereas indeed Moses committed the execution of this law of retaliation only to the magistrate. Hereupon Christ tells them, that it was the duty of private men not to resist evil, nor to revenge themselves, but being smote upon one cheek to turn the other; which words are not literally to be understood, for neither Christ himself nor the apostle Paul so behaved themselves: but being smote upon the face, they expostulated the injury of the blow, John xviii. 23, and Acts xxiii. 3. But they are only an hyperbolical speech, prescribing a very great degree of patience and composure of mind; and that of the two, we should rather choose, having received one injurious blow, to offer ourselves to another, than to sin against God by revenging it. But that this prohibition of revenge, further urged in Rom. xii. 19, concerns only private men, and not absolutely damns all kind of revenge, acted by a public person, is manifest; for not above six verses off, namely, in verse 4, chap. xiii. the apostle is so far from denying this to the magistrate, that he tells us it is the very design of his office, and that he beareth not the sword in vain; as being the minister of God., a revenger, to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. We cannot therefore make the apostle to forbid all revenge, without a gross and a palpable contradicting of himself. But besides, as touching revenge, which is properly a retaliation, or repaying one evil for another, that this is not a thing in its nature unlawful, is invincibly proved by this: that God, by an express law, under the Mosaical economy, committed the exercise of it to the magistrate. But were it a thing in the very nature of it unjust, God could not so much as permit or allow the practice of it, much less countenance it by a law. As for the next injunction, of loving our enemies, I answer, 1. That it is there directed by Christ to particular persons, not public bodies or whole nations. 2. But secondly, admitting that it extends to these also, yet I assume that the love here commanded is not properly a love of friendship, but a love of charity; which consists in a freedom from any malice to, or hatred of our enemies' persons: and this may continue and be maintained, even while a man, either in the defence or vindication of his country, kills his adversary in the field. For I suppose a judge may be in charity with a malefactor while he condemns him; and the executioner have no design of hatred to him, whom by the duty of his office he makes a sacrifice to common justice. The case is the same in war; where, when a man kills another, it is not because he has not a love of charity to his person, but because he is bound to love his prince and his country with a greater. __________________________________________________________________ SERMON XLVIII. ROMANS xii. 18. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. II. THE second argument to prove the unlawfulness of all war is taken from that prophecy, in Isaiah ii. 4, where it is said of those that shall live in the times of the gospel, that they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: and nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. Answ. But to this I answer; 1. That prophecies only foretell the future event of things, but determine nothing concerning either the lawfulness or unlawfulness of those things. 2. If these words are understood literally, that after the coming of the Messias war shall every where cease; then they prove nothing, but what the Jews pretend to prove by them, which is, that Jesus Christ is not the Messias; forasmuch as since his coming, we have seen no such thing as a general cessation of war over the world. For the explication of this place therefore we must observe; that in scripture, things have those effects ascribed to them which they have a natural fitness to produce: though by accident, and other impediments, they never actually produce them. Thus, because the gospel delivers such precepts to the world, which if men would live up to, there would certainly ensue such an universal peace and tranquillity; therefore the production of such a peace is ascribed to the gospel, though, through the vice and corruption of men, the case of things fall out to be much otherwise. But it may be replied, that then, however, those who obey and live up to the precepts of the gospel, ought to abstain from all war: whence it follows, that, according to those precepts, war is unlawful. I answer, that upon supposition of such an absolute obedience to the doctrine of Christ, war indeed would not be lawful, because the very ground and occasion of it would be taken away, by the inoffensive behaviour of one man towards another. But the dispute is here concerning what is lawful to be done, when the generality of the world live not according to the tenor of this doctrine, but invade the rights of others. In which case I affirm, that the gospel rends not from any the privileges of a natural defence, and the prosecution of justice in a lawful war. As for instance, the gospel, as much as any doctrine can do, makes provision that there should be no thieves or murderers in the world, by a prohibition of those unhallowed courses: but yet when it falls out that men obey not those prohibitions, but engage in such practices, surely it does not strip the magistrate of all right to animadvert upon such offenders, but leaves the axe as sharp, and the gibbet as strong as ever it was under the law. This exception therefore concludes nothing. But then by the way, for the further clearing of the text from the Jews' objection, raised out of it against Jesus Christ's being the Messiah; besides what has been said, I add further, as to the very literal impletion of the prophecy, that when it is foretold that a thing shall come to pass in the time of the gospel, it is not necessary to understand that it must happen immediately upon the introduction of it, and be always to be found in the world, during the continuance of the gospel: but it is sufficient if it come to pass and be fulfilled in any period of it. And who knows but before the world ends, God may give the gospel such a progress over the earth, and withal such a mighty influence upon the hearts of those that profess it, that there may be such an universal peace to be seen amongst all nations, and such glorious halcyon days, as the very literal purport of these prophecies seems to exhibit to us. From whence I infer, that we must first see an end of all things, before the Jews' objection can be admitted to prove what it does intend. III. The third argument for the unlawfulness of war is taken from that place in Matt. xxvi. 52, where Christ commanding Peter to put up his sword, tells him, that all they that take the sword shall perish by the sword. From whence it follows, that since Christ allowed not his disciple the use of the sword, and that upon such an occasion as the defence of his master, and him also the Lord and Saviour of the world, certainly he would not allow of it as lawful upon any other occasion whatsoever. To this I answer, that the sense and meaning of every speech is to be limited to the subject-matter of it, and also to be measured by that which first occasioned the utterance of it. Now Christ reprehends Peter, because that by an unwarranted, though perhaps a well-meaning zeal, and without any leave, either had or asked from Christ himself, he flew upon the high priest's servant in that manner. The words therefore, howsoever uttered in general terms, signify only thus much; that those who without any call or warrant from the lawful superior power, but merely by the instigation of an hot zeal, and an hotter head, shall presume to use the sword, such shall perish by the sword. But this concludes nothing against the lawfulness of those men's waging war, who come to it armed with the authentic call of the supreme magistrate, to whom God has committed the defence of the subject, and the administration of justice. It is indeed a dagger in the throat of their cause, who can dare to raise armies, ruin countries, and subvert governments, upon no other commission, than the impulse of a furious ambition and a pretended inspiration. IV. The fourth and last argument for the unlawfulness of war may be framed thus: That which proceeds from a sinful cause, and produces sinful, unlawful effects, that itself is unlawful. But so does war. For the sinfulness of its cause, we have an account of that in James iv. 1, Whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts? And for the unlawfulness of its effects, we need only survey our own experience, without recurring to any further histories to inform us what dismal cruelties, rapines, and outrages, are the constant, inseparable attendants of war. Now for that which issues from so evil a beginning, and draws after it such evil consequences, it is certainly very strange, if it should not be in an high degree evil itself. But to this I answer, 1. As for that place of St. James, it speaks only of personal quarrels and dissensions between particular men, and not of national hostilities managed by the public conduct of the magistrate: which only is the thing here disputed of. 2. But secondly, admit that the words may be extended to national hostilities and wars between people and people; yet the apostle speaks only of what usually are the causes of war; and not, what are so of necessity, and according to the nature of the thing itself: which, though on one side they are unlawful, namely on that which gives the offence; yet on the other, the causes of it are not. always men's lusts; but a rational defence of their country, and a due vindication of public justice. In a word, it is one thing to speak of war, as actually it uses to be managed, and another to speak of it, as it ought and may be managed. And this affords also an answer to the second part of the argument, concerning those sad and sinful effects that follow it, as unjust violences, rapines, cruelties, and the like. Of all which it is to be said, that they proceed only from the corruption and vice of those who manage it, but are utterly extraneous to the nature of war, considered precisely in itself. I know no action so good and allowable but may derive a contagion by passing through ill hands. But we are not to judge of the nature of any thing or action by that which is only accidental to it. The nature of war consists properly either in the repelling of an intended, or the revenging of a received injury. But whether this be done with unjust rapines and hideous cruelties upon the innocent, or duly and justly, the nature of war is still the same: the quality is indeed altered from just to unjust, but that amounts to no more than the ill performing of a thing in itself indifferent. And thus I have answered all the arguments that to me seem to be of any moment to prove the absolute unlawfulness of all war; upon the strength of which answers, I think I may reckon upon it as a proved assertion, that war is not a thing in itself unlawful. I suppose nobody will conclude the foregoing discourse to have been a commendation of war, much less an exhortation to it. It is indeed a lawful, but a sad remedy. And I think there is none who looks upon it as a sufficient argument to persuade him that the cutting off a leg or an arm is a desirable thing, because it is better to do so, than to have a gangrene spread itself over the whole body. Caustics and corrosives may be endured, but certainly the causes that make them necessary are not to be chose. War can be desired only in the nature of a remedy, and a remedy always supposes an evil. And I know no argument so strong to prove the lawfulness of war, but that war itself is a stronger argument to prove the worth and the convenience of peace. I have now done with the first general inquiry, concerning the measures by which the great duty of peaceableness is to be determined: which was, Whether war could be at all lawful? I come now to the second, which is to inquire, upon supposition that it may be lawful, When and where it ought to be judged so? And here I shall, First, lay down some general grounds that may authorize war. And, Secondly, descend to the resolution of particular cases. For the first of these, I shall lay these four general grounds of the lawfulness of it, premising first what is the nature of peace. Peace is properly the mutual forbearance of acts of hostility or annoyance, in order to the preservation of our nature in all its due rights and capacities. It is clear therefore, that peace is a means or instrument designed only to such an end. Now that ceasing to be able to compass this end, to which it is designed, ceases also to be an instrument or means, and consequently to engage us to use it: whereupon it is lawful to enter into a contrary estate, namely, of hostility or war. From whence follow these assertions, as so many general grounds of it. 1. When those with whom we are at peace declare that they will annoy us, unless we cut off our limbs, and injure and mangle our bodies; and accordingly upon our refusal disturb us; as Nahash the Ammonite did to the men of Jabesh Gilead, offering them peace only upon condition that they would let him thrust out their right eyes, 1 Sam. xi. 2; it is in such a case lawful to repel and resist that force or disturbance. For every one has a right to preserve his limbs and the faculties of his nature. 2. When those with whom we are at peace declare war with us, unless we will renounce our religion, and, upon our refusal, do so; (which is the case of the pope's exposing the dominions of those whom he calls heretics to the invasion of other princes;) it is then lawful to repel and resist that force or invasion. The reason is, because every man has a natural right to the use of that which he apprehends indispensably to conduce to his chiefest good: and that is his religion. 3. When one nation injures another to that degree, as to blast its honour and reputation, it is lawful to revenge that public breach of honour by a public war. The reason is, because the honour of a nation is as absolutely necessary to the welfare and support of it, as its trade or commerce; it being indeed the great instrument of both, and perhaps also of its very safety and vital subsistence: it being seldom known that a government, dishonoured and despised abroad, did long preserve itself in credit and respect at home. 4. When those with whom we are at peace declare war with us, unless we will quit our civil rights, as our estates and families, and the protection of the laws, and accordingly upon our refusal do so; it is lawful to enter into war with those who make such encroachments upon us. The reason is, because when civil societies are constituted and submitted to, every man, so submitting to them, has a natural right to the conveniences and enjoyments of such societies. Now the foundation of the lawfulness of war in all the forementioned cases is, because whatsoever a man has a lawful right to possess or enjoy, he has by consequence a right to use all those means which are absolutely necessary to the possession or enjoyment of that thing. You will say now, that, according to this doctrine, when the prince encroaches upon his subjects' bodies, estates, or religion, they may lawfully resist or oppose him. This objection brings in the resolution of the first particular case proposed by us to be discussed, which is, Whether it be lawful for subjects in any case to make war upon the magistrate? My answer to it is in the negative; and the reason is, because the subject has resigned up all right of resistance into the hands of his prince and governor. And for this we must observe, that as every man has naturally a right to resist any one that shall annoy him in his lawful enjoyments, so he has a general, natural right, by which he is master of all the particular rights of his nature, so as to retain them or recede from them, and give them away as he pleases. Now when a man consents to be a subject, and to acknowledge any one for his governor, he does by that very action invest him with all the necessary means of being a governor; the chief of which is, a quitting and parting with that natural right of resisting him upon any occasion whatsoever. And every man consents to have such an one his governor, from whom he covenants to receive protection, and to whom he does not actually declare a non-subjection. This being laid down, it follows, that it is not more natural for a man to resist another particular man, who would deprive him of his rights, than it is natural for him not to resist his prince upon the same occasion. Forasmuch as by a superior and general right of nature, he has parted with this particular right of resistance: and consequently, having given his prince the propriety of it, he cannot any more use it, unless his prince should surrender it back to him again; which here is not supposed. And this is the ground upon which I judge a resistance of the supreme magistrate both unlawful and irrational. But there have not been wanting in the world scholars to teach, as well as soldiers to act the contrary. Such as have weakened the ties of government, and shook the supremacy of princes, by prescribing of cases in which this duty of nonresistance binds not the subject; and by which they are so discharged of their allegiance, as to be let loose to carve for themselves, and to restrain their superiors. But before I come to survey any of their opinions, I shall premise this rule or maxim: that those whom the people have a right of proceeding against, so as to punish them by law; those also they may proceed against by war and open force, in case that legal course of proceeding be obstructed. The reason is, because war is a remedy upon the default of law; and therefore, where the coercive power of the law cannot have its effect, war is to take place, and supply the want of it: Ubi judicia desinunt, incipit bellum, says Grotius in his second book de Jure Belli, cap. i. sect. 2. Upon which ground it is, that one private man cannot revenge an injury upon another by open force, the law being open for him to right himself by; but one nation may by force and war revenge an injury done to it by another nation, because there is no provision of a coercive power stated by a law between them, by which one nation may implead the other, and so have a reparation of an injury made it by the sentence of a common judge. Now I premise this observation to shew, that whosoever teaches that the people may judicially proceed against and punish their prince, the same person does by consequence affirm that the people may also take up arms against him, when they cannot otherwise bring him to such a judicial process. This being observed, I cannot but set before you those several cases assigned by Grotius in his first book de Jure Belli, and fourth chapter, in which he asserts it lawful for the people to proceed against their prince. As, (1.) When, according to the professed constitution of the government, the prince is accountable to the people, as in Lacedaemon, where the people owned a coercive power over their king, which power they deposited in the hands of their ephori; who, by virtue thereof, restrained the king at the people's pleasure. (2.) When a prince quits and relinquishes all right of government: after which action, he says, the prince may be dealt withal as any other private man. (3.) When he would transfer and alienate the right of government to another: in which endeavour, he says, the subjects may hinder, and by force resist him. (4.) When he actually attempts the destruction of all his people. (5.) When he holds the grant of the sovereignty from the people upon conditions, and fails in the fulfilling of those conditions. (6.) When the prince holds but part of the supreme power, the senate or people holding the other part: in which case, if the prince invades that part of the sovereign power not belonging to him, those to whom that part does belong may resist him. According to this doctrine, those amongst us who taught that the king was one of the three estates, and that the parliament was a power coordinate with him, did by consequence teach, that in some cases they might make war upon him; and their practice was not short of their doctrine. (7.) When, in the conferring of the sovereignty to a prince, the people declare, that in certain cases it shall be lawful for them to resist him: and the reason is, because he who transfers his right to another, may transfer it upon what terms or under what reserves he thinks fit. This seems of near affinity with the fifth instance, but it is not altogether the same: for the former is suspended upon the prince's not doing of something which he conditioned to do; but this speaks not of the prince's action, but of some events of affairs, under which the people put in caution, that their subjection to him should cease. These aphorisms I had rather rehearse than animadvert upon; the great reputation of the author making all censures upon him, though perhaps true, yet unhandsome. But the foundation which he had laid a little before, in the seventh section of the same chapter, seems large enough to bear all these superstructures, and many more. For proposing the question, Whether the law of not resisting the magistrate binds the subject in a great, imminent, and extreme danger? he answers, that most laws, human and divine, though running in absolute terms, yet imply a condition of relaxation in cases of extremity. And for this law, of not resisting the magistrate, he says it sprung first from the consent of the people, who, for the benefits of government and society, resigned themselves up to the absolute disposal of a sovereign; which people, he says, had they been asked whether they would have chose rather to die, than in any case whatsoever to resist their sovereign with an armed power, he conceives they would never have owned that to have been their will or intention; and consequently, that the sense of that law, which is to be measured by the sense of those from whose consent it took force, ought still to be supposed to imply an exception in cases of extreme danger. And accordingly he concludes, in the eighty-seventh page, that for his part he could not condemn a people, under such a danger, so defending themselves: that is, by a resistance of the magistrate; for that is the thing that he is debating of expressly, and exemplifies it by the Maccabees defending themselves with an army against Antiochus. This assertion, I am apt to think, in the full improvement of it, would widen itself to a very strange latitude. But thus much may be said for this author, that he breathed a popular air, and lived a member of a commonwealth, which needed such maxims as these to justify its being so. But David Paraeus has, with a much more barefaced impudence, flown in the face of sovereignty, in a set and long dispute upon Rom. xiii. a strange text, one would think, to preach rebellion upon. His arguments therefore I shall briefly examine and remove, and so conclude this question. The whole discourse stands upon these two propositions. Prop. I. The first is, that it is lawful for the inferior magistrates to resist and punish the supreme; and some of the cases in which they may do so are these. 1. If he blasphemes God, or causes others to do so. 2. If he does the subjects some great injury. His words are, si ipsis fiat atrox injuria; a term of a very large comprehension, and it is hard if any pretence cannot clothe itself with this name. 3. If the subjects cannot freely enjoy their lives, estates, and consciences. This, I say, subverts all government; for, if the prince may be punished, it follows, (1.) That he is not supreme; for all punishment, as such, is an act of the superior upon the inferior. (2.) If the inferior magistrates may punish him, then they may also judge when he is to be punished; and consequently the prince is never secure, since it is in their power to judge this when they think fit; and they will undoubtedly think it fit, when they find it for their advantage. His reasons for this doctrine are principally these two. 1. He lays down this division: kings are absolute or by compact; and subjoins, that there is none in Europe, but is by compact, and upon conditions. Upon this he reasons thus; that such a prince, violating the conditions upon which he holds the sovereignty, may be judged by the people or senate that made him prince, upon those conditions. To this I answer, first, that those who hold the supremacy upon any such conditional grant, upon default of these conditions, may indeed be made accountable to their people; but then I deny that either the kings of England, France, or Spain, hold their kingdoms by any such compact. Yet, because the kings of England take an oath at their coronation to govern by such and such laws, which in case they should not, Milton, and such others, are so bold as to absolve the subject from his allegiance; I shall, to dash that puritan, antimonarchical tenet, lay down this distinction; that it is one thing for a king to promise to manage his kingly office according to such rules, and another thing to take upon him the kingly office upon condition that he so governs: it is this latter only that would render him accountable to his people; but the former, if not fulfilled, is not breach of an antecedent condition, but only breach of a subsequent promise, for the sin of which he is answerable only to God. 2. The other reason for the inferior magistrate's resisting the supreme is this; because they are joined with him as associates in the government, and God has committed the defence of the people to them in their order; by virtue of which commission, they are to defend them against the supreme magistrate himself, if a tyrant, as well as against any other: forasmuch as being intrusted with the people's defence, it matters not who the persons are, against whom they are to be defended. But to this the answer is ready, by a positive denial of that false and base principle, that the inferior magistrates are associates with the supreme; and that God immediately commissions them to govern and defend the people. For they are not the prince's associates, but his instruments in government, and have no power but what they receive immediately from him: and that he who acts by authority from another, cannot by that authority act against him, whose will and gift is the alone cause of that authority, is too clear to need any proof. It would be too long particularly to insist upon his other reasons to this purpose; I shall reduce them therefore to general heads, annexing to each their respective solutions. (1.) He argues from several scripture instances; as Ehud killing Eglon, and Jehu killing Joram. (2.) From many instances of the heathens; as the Romans deposing Tarquinius. (3.) From several speeches of princes, acknowledging a kind of dependence upon, and an accountableness to their people. To which I answer, 1. For those scripture instances and examples, that most of them are set down without any approbation or disapprobation, but only by a bare historical narration; and withal, that the honesty of the person does not legalize every one of his actions. And perhaps it can no more be said, that to depose or kill a prince is just, because Ehud and Jehu did it, than, because David left Solomon in charge to revenge an old injury upon Shimei, a man may nowadays, having pardoned an injury, yet justly cause his son to revenge it. Add to this, that those persons are said to have done what they did by an especial commission or warrant from God; which men nowadays cannot pretend to. 2. In the next place, to his allegation of the example of the Romans, I answer, that it was unlawful, and that to use it here is to prove the lawfulness of one rebellion by another. 3. And for those several speeches and concessions of princes, acknowledging their right at the people's dispose, I answer, that we are not to judge of the right of princes by what they may sometimes speak in flattery, upon design, or necessity. Besides, that the concessions this or that prince makes from his own right cannot prejudice or infringe the right of others. And thus much for Paraeus's first proposition, by which we see how he has armed inferior magistrates, as sheriffs, constables, bailiffs, and the like, against their prince; and it is much, that he did not take care also for their calling of triennial parliaments. But does he stop here? no, he proceeds further in another proposition, which is this: If the prince shall offer violence to the subject, as a tyrant, murderer, or adulterer, and there is no help to be had from any inferior magistrate, then it is lawful for every private man to defend himself vi et armis, as from a common thief or murderer. This is wholesome divinity indeed; and it was not to be doubted, but that the former assertion would in the end produce this. His reasons for it are these two. (1.) Because what the inferior magistrates may do, that every private man may do in his own behalf, in a case of necessity. The consequence, I confess, is good, and therefore grant this to be just as lawful as I have already proved the former; that is, indeed, absolutely wicked and unlawful. (2.) Because otherwise God would have put it into the power of the magistrate to destroy the commonwealth. To this I answer, 1. That the magistrate is but a particular man, and therefore cannot effect such a thing by himself, but by the assistance of others, against whom some are of opinion that the subjects may defend themselves. As amongst us, let any man rob or injure us, and although he be ever so much commanded by the king to do so, yet we have our action against him at law. But still those who hold that the king's instruments, in any act of violence upon the subject, may be resisted, qualify their assertion with these two cautions: first, that the violence offered be apparent and notorious, such as no man endued with common reason can doubt of or deny; secondly, that the person of the king be still sacred and untouched: yet, since a king, without an absolute obedience to those instruments whom he shall think fit to employ, is but a mere mockery and an insignificant shadow; and since to make the subjects judges, when they are to obey persons so commissioned by him, and when to resist them, clearly opens a door to an insolent shaking off all subjection; I cannot think it safe to build any thing upon this assertion. 2. In the second place therefore I answer, that I see no inconvenience in granting, that that absolute authority which kings are invested withal, puts it within their power, by the abuse of it, to ruin the commonwealth. For if God puts it in the prince's power to be able to preserve, undoubtedly the same power, misemployed, will be as able to destroy society: he indeed is to be responsible to God for his tyrannical abuse of his trust; but subjects, whether their subjection makes them happy or miserable, yet still are to be subjects. And thus I think I have answered Paraeus's discourse, in which he sets himself as a bold arbitrator between the prince and the subject, so stating the privileges of one, as utterly to subvert the prerogative of the other. The usual patrons of this doctrine against princes are the Jesuits, who are properly the pope's janizaries; and those of the presbytery, whether at home or beyond the seas. But this opinion, that the supreme magistrate may be resisted by his subjects, I think none can confute so fully as the supreme magistrate himself. II. The next case that comes to be resolved, according to the order proposed by us, is, Whether it can be lawful for one particular man to make war upon another in those encounters which we commonly call duels? A duel, called by the Greeks monomachi'a, and by the Latins duellum, receiving its denomination from the persons engaged in it, is properly a fight or combat between two persons, mutually undertook, appointed, and consented to, by each of them. That the action is not a thing in itself absolutely unlawful is apparent, because otherwise it could not be lawful for two men, meeting in a battle, to fight one with another; nor for one man to fight for the defence of his life, with the murderer that assaults him. Since therefore this falls within the number of those actions, which, being indifferent in their nature, come to be stamped lawful or unlawful by their principles and circumstances, and other determining ingredients of action, we are to inquire when it is to be allowed, when not. In which inquiry we shall set down, 1. The cases in which a duel is lawful. 2. The cases in which it is impious, unlawful, and utterly to be disallowed. (1.) First of all then, when two malefactors stand convict, and condemned to die, and the magistrate appoints them to fight singly; in which fight he that overcomes shall have his life: in this case it is lawful for persons so condemned to accept of such a fight. The reason is, because on either side it is only a mutual desire of doing execution upon a malefactor convict: and it is lawful for one malefactor, upon the warrant or allowance of the magistrate, to do execution upon the other. (2.) When two armies are drawn out to fight, and the decision of the battle is cast upon a single combat, it is lawful for any two persons, upon the appointment of the generals, to undertake such a combat; the reason is, because it is allowable for soldiers under command to obey their generals in all things not apparently unjust: and a general has full power to draw out as much or as little of his army to fight, as he shall judge most conducible for the success; there being no ground to conclude, why he may not as well command one single soldier, as one regiment or body of men, to fight, how and when he shall judge fit. Besides the convenience of this course, that it is a compendium of war, and a redemption of the lives of thousands by the death of one, bringing all the advantages of a conquest, without the dismal miseries of a battle. (3.) When one challenges another, and resolves immediately to kill the challenged person, unless he accepts the combat, it is then lawful for him to accept it; forasmuch as this is nothing else but a repelling of force by force, and so is resolved into pure self-preservation: which shall be considered of by itself afterwards. But a case may be here propounded: Suppose one should accuse another for his life falsely, offering to verify his accusation by single fight, and the judge should declare that he would proceed to the sentence immediately, unless the person so accused would undertake thus to fight with his accuser in single combat. In answer to this, some affirm that the accused person may lawfully accept the challenge, it seeming to be equally a repelling of force, and the result much the same, whether the accuser endeavours to kill the accused by his own hand, or by the unjust sentence of the judge. But, with submission to better judgments, I conceive that it is not lawful for him in this case to accept the combat, the instances propounded being not indeed the same; for in one the danger is from the sentence of the judge, which, however unjust, a man is bound to submit to; in the other, the danger is from the force of a private person, which no man is obliged to submit to, but has a natural right to repel. And if it be replied, that such an one is necessitated to fight with his challenger in his own defence, for that otherwise he must die; I answer, that this very thing implies, that the necessity or compulsion is not absolute, but only conditional, unless he will submit to death; which of the two he is rather to choose, than to commit a sin. For the man is under a judicial process, and so has no right to defend himself by force: neither matters it to say, that the judge, by his permission or command, gives him a right; for the judge, by commanding or permitting him so to defend himself, unjustly balks his own duty, which would oblige him to decide the case of the innocent another way; and the judge's going against his duty, by an unjust command, cannot give any man a right to do according to that command. If the man is condemned, and dies, he suffers; but if he fights with his accuser, when the law ought to deliver him, he acts, and that unjustly. And this is to be observed, that though a man, by the unjust sentence of a judge, is obliged to suffer an unjust punishment; yet he cannot, by any allowance or command of the judge, have any right or obligation to do an unjust action. The sum of this case is, that a man, under the forementioned condition, is bound rather to die by an unjust sentence, than to take an undue course for his vindication. 2. I come now to shew those cases in which duels are to be judged utterly unlawful. (1.) As first, when they are undertook for vain ostentation, and that either of affection to the dead; as it was the custom of the Romans heretofore, upon the death of some commander or great man, for some soldiers voluntarily to undertake a single fight at the funeral solemnities, and to kill one another, as it were, by way of sacrifice, in honour of the dead; by that, declaring their loss so great, that they had no will to survive them. It was a custom also, for ostentation of strength and valour at their public sights and shows, for persons to entertain the spectators with duels, and to die like fools, to please they knew not whom; till at length this wretched custom so prevailed, that some would hire themselves at the Praetorian shows, to fight thus in single combat, as men are nowadays hired to act upon the stage; and these were called gladiators, a term that grew to as great ignominy amongst the Romans, as thief or cutter is amongst us. I suppose I need not take any pains to prove the unlawfulness, nay, the sottishness of such duellings, where men sold their lives for a crown or an angel; and by a preposterous way of labouring, earned wages, not to get their living, but to procure their death. It argued also, by the way, a strange savageness in the Roman temper, that men, women, and children should come with such eagerness to, and enjoy themselves with such delight at those barbarous spectacles, in which their chiefest diversion and recreation was to behold these duellers kill one another upon the stage. From which custom, as vile as it was, both on their parts that beheld, and on theirs that fought, most learned men are of opinion, that the use of duels, now so frequent, had its infamous original. (2.) Another case in which men used to undertake single combats, was for the cleansing of themselves from some crime objected to them; which must needs be unlawful and highly irrational, as being a means no ways suited in its nature to such a purpose; and withal a bold presumption upon Providence, that any one, without any warrant from the revealed will of God, should presume that he must determine the success on the right side. For the ridiculous unreasonableness of it, besides the demonstrations of experience, that the guilty has frequently killed the innocent, it is further evident, from the very nature of the thing: for is there any natural inference, from a man's strength or success, to his innocence? or is it any argument, that the man did not steal another's goods, or defile his bed, because he had better skill at his weapon than his accuser, and so slew him? I should both abuse my own labour and your patience, should I endeavour to beat down this senseless custom by any further confutation. (3.) A third case is, when two agree upon a single combat, for the decision of the right of possessing any goods or estate, mutually claimed by both, in which it is agreed that the right shall fall to the conqueror. This also is utterly unlawful, as being a course wholly extrinsical to, and unfitted for the decision of matters of right. For in every doubtful case, there is yet a right on one side; and where there is a right, there a right may be proved: the proving of which belongs to the law, and the courts of justice; and he that seeks for law from his rapier, which he should seek from the judge, deserves to have his person instead of his case brought to the bar. No man has a right or power to choose the way of having his right tried, by any course not prescribed or permitted by the law. He indeed whose right the thing is, may possess and defend it against him who is pleased to doubt of the other's right; and in the defence of it may lawfully kill him in his unjust and violent invasion: but yet he may not voluntarily and by choice cast the deciding of his questioned right upon the issues of a single combat, a thing otherwise disallowed. The reason is, because though every man is master of his own right, yet he is not master of the way by which that right is to be tried; that being by all laws took out of private hands, and vested in the person of a public judge. And to what purpose are courts open, and tribunals erected, if causes must be tried in the field, and inheritances conveyed by the decrees of a lawless combat and a contingent conquest? (4.) The fourth and grand case is, when a duel is undertaken either for revenge of some injury done, or for vindication of a man's honour, upon the account of some affront passed upon him. As for the first of these, all plea of lawfulness is taken from it, by what has been already said in condemnation of private revenge. And for the second, which is the defence of the great idol and Diana of the duellists, called honour; it is confessed that the case of the challenger, and of him that is challenged, is very different. And for the former, there are few that patronize or absolve him, under what pretence soever he may absolve himself. But for the latter, many fair allegations may be made: as, that he loses his reputation upon refusal of the combat; and that, as to the real concernments of life, and the advantage of his fortunes, he is thought unfit for any public command or preferment which requires a person of courage; he is despised, scorned, and trampled upon, by which the contents and comforts of life, dearer than life itself, are torn from him: but with a non obstante to all this, I affirm any acceptance of a duel in such a case to be unlawful. And, in answer to what has been alleged, I reply, first, that it proves only to be a difficult duty; such as the exercise of most virtues are, especially according to those straight lines of duty drawn by Christianity. For if every inconvenience attending the performance of a duty should change it from being a duty, where is the difficulty of being religious? How can any man be obliged to suffer for conscience sake, if fear of suffering unties the obligation? The upshot of the dispute is, God by his providence, for the trial of a man's sincerity, and his obedience to the divine law, calls him to an act of duty, beset with high dissuasives, grim circumstances, and great discouragements. So that the point lies here: Will you lose your soul, or your reputation, the favour of God, or the opinion of men? quit your hopes of eternity, or the momentary breath of a popular applause? I suppose here the weight and reason of the thing is sufficient to determine his choice, and to support his spirit in all the calamities that shall attend it. Besides, that which is here supposed, which is loss of honour, is indeed no such thing: the measure of honour, is the judgment of the knowing, and the pious, and the virtuous, who will value and applaud the passive magnanimity of such an one, that durst look a duty in the face, in spite of scorn, and conquer the scoffs of the world, of which the most reputed for valour are afraid. All that he loses is the opinion of those who rate honour by a false rule, and measure glory by the standard of their own ignorance, vanity, and rashness: and the same persons who condemn him for this, would slight him as much for not talking obscenely, not scoffing at religion, and whatsoever is sacred, and for not drinking himself to the condition of a barrel or a spunge; or not rapping out such hideous oaths, as might even provoke divine justice to revenge the impiety of them upon a place or a nation. Those indeed who look upon the not doing of these things as pedantry, would, no question, account all refusal of a duel poorness and pusillanimity. It was a wise, a prudent, and indeed a valiant answer of a certain commander, who being challenged by one of his enemies to a duel, told him, that he would meet him in the head of the enemy; which to a soldier was the true opportunity of fortitude, because indeed the scene of duty. But he that has not the courage to puff at all popular surmises, and to esteem himself superior to the riots and mistakes of hectors; but by a foolish facility appears and ventures his life at the word and challenge of a furious sot, whose life is not worth the keeping, falls ingloriously, and descends to his grave with the burial of an ass; shame is his windingsheet, and the solemnity of his funeral, the reprehension of the wise, the pity of the good, and the laughter of his companions; who can make sport at the loss of a soul, and the miseries of damnation. And thus I have shewn the several cases in which duels are unlawful; and I suppose I preach to an auditory that needs no other argument against them, than the demonstration of their unlawfulness; yet since other arguments there are, I think a truth cannot be too much confirmed. 1. And amongst these, the judgment of men generally condemning them is no contemptible one. I have already observed what an ignominious name the name of gladiator was amongst the heathen Romans: and in the laws of the Lombards, even while they permitted the use of those duels, they branded them with a mark of infamy. Incerti sumus de judicio Dei, et multos audivimus per pugnam sine justa causa suam causam perdere. Sed propter consuetudinem gentis nostrae Longobardorum legem impiam vetare non possumus. They called it an impious law, even while they suffered it to continue; and declared that they did so, because the corruption and vice of the nation was too strong for them, and beyond the control of remedies. The canon law, even to those that died in justs or tiltings, (which were but in a manner the shadows of a duel,) yet denied them the privilege of Christian burial, in the fifth book of the Decretals of Gregory, chap. i. de Torneamentis. And if you will, you may to these add the judgment of the council of Trent, orthodox enough in this matter, where their interest gave them no cause to be otherwise, sess. xxv. chap. 19. Detestabilis duellorum usus fabricante diabolo introductus, ut cruenta corporum morte animarum etiam perniciem lucretur, ex Christiano orbe penitus exterminetur. Were it as needful as it is easy, many more authorities might be added, to discountenance this profane practice: but I suppose these are enough to give more credit to the refusal of a duel, than can accrue upon the acceptance of it, from the opinion and vogue of debauched persons; whose infamy will not let their censure be a reproach. 2. But the second and chief argument shall be taken from the wretched consequences of the thing itself; which are twofold: (1.) Such as attend the conquered person. (2.) Such as attend the conqueror. As for the conquered person, he is sure of these two evils. (1.) A disastrous death. And surely it ought to be a very great gain that is to counterbalance the loss of life; something more than the reputation of not giving the wall, not enduring a slighting word or a trivial disrespect; which might otherwise have been confuted by silence, conquered by contempt, and outlived by the next hour. But now all the labour and expense of a man's former education, all the hopes and usefulness of his remaining years, the expectations of his friends, and perhaps the supports of a family, are lopt off at a blow, extinguished in a moment, with an overplus of misery from the sadness of the occasion. It is a sad thing for any hopeful man, in the vigour of his years, to be carried off by a plague or a fever, or an unfortunate accident; but still all that is uncomfortable in these is, that the man is dead; but there is no criminal circumstance, from the manner of his death, to embitter his remembrance: he did not die by a sin, or by any thing that might stain his surviving name or endanger his future condition. It was the action of Providence, which piety will, and mortality must submit to. But he that dies in a duel, so falls to the earth, that it is to be feared he falls much lower; and that the iron enters deeper into his soul than into his body, and kills much further than it reaches. And this introduces the other fatal consequence which attends the person thus vanquished, and that is, (2.) Death eternal. When two persons come into the field upon such an expedition, they defy one another, they defy the laws both of God and man, and they defy hell: their business is, which shall send the other to that place of misery first. For certainly whosoever quits the body with the marks of murder and revenge fresh upon his soul, and passes from his conquering adversary to his dreadful Judge, shall in that world be condemned for a murderer, though it was his ill hap to be murdered in this. Nay, there will lie a double charge of murder upon him: namely, for being both the unjust occasion of his own death, and the designer of his adversary's: for it is the design that makes the murderer, and not the event and issue of the action, which is wholly contingent and extrinsical to the will. For shall a man be therefore accounted no murderer, because he had less courage, less skill, or less luck than his opposite? because his purpose was stronger than his arm? or because his foot slipt, or his misguided rapier hit upon a rib, and kept the fatal point from the regions of life, and so gave the adversary opportunity to be more sure and mischievous in his thrust? All which plea or excuse amounts to no more than this, that he would have slain his adversary with all his heart, but was prevented, and could not. I neither will nor dare pronounce any thing in limitation of the extent of God's mercy; but this I shall say, that according to the standing rule and tenor of God's revealed will, he that dies in a duel undertook upon an unjust cause, affords no ground for any one to judge that he is saved: for he dies in his sin, directing his sword to his brother's heart; so that there is nothing but his last breath passing between his murderous intention and the final giving up of his accounts to God; before whom he has no other cause to allege for his dying in this manner, but that he was proud, passionate, or revengeful; sad qualifications to recommend a man to the tribunal of such a Judge. We have seen here the miserable consequences that befall the conquered dueller. Let us now, in the next place, take a survey of those that befall the conqueror: and these also are three. (1.) In case he is apprehended: the law has provided that for him which he did for his adversary, but in a more ignominious manner. The rope and the gibbet is to be his portion; die he must; and what honour a man wins or saves, by that which gives him an opportunity of being hanged, is hard to be understood; but he that mistakes the cart for a triumphal chariot, or the gallow-tree for a triumphal arch, may apply himself to the obtaining such victories as these. (2.) But secondly, suppose that he escapes by flight; yet then he quits his country, and lives a banished man, and like Cain, having murdered his brother, he presently betakes himself to wander about the world, leaving behind him the confiscation of his goods, a family lamenting, and perhaps starving; and some of them peradventure dying for grief, and so feeling the murderous influence of his action as really, though not in the same manner, as his slain adversary. Surely these will be sad accidents to a man in cold blood, when the fury of his passion, which abused his reason, and represented revenge so pleasant, shall be over, and transmit the thing naked to his recovered judgment, to be considered according to its real aspect and all its sharp events. By this time, undoubtedly, he will see how much better it had been for him to have kept himself quiet and innocent in the peaceable enjoyment of his friends, his estate, and country; than to wander as an indigent murderer in a strange land, from whence the sense of his guilt, the severity of the laws, and the exasperation of the murdered person's friends, ready to prosecute those laws against him, continually terrify him from all thoughts of a return. (3.) But, in the third and last place, we will suppose the man to have better fortune: that he has fought and killed his adversary, and so satisfied his revenge; and moreover, that through the intercession of great friends, willing to share his guilt, and to derive some of the blood upon their own heads, he has not by flight escaped, but by a full acquitment outbraved justice, and triumphed over the law, and so stands secure as to all temporal retribution. But still, after all this, may we not ask concerning such an one, is all well within? How fares it with him in the court of conscience? Is he able to keep off the grim arrests of that? Can he drown the cry of blood, and bribe his own thoughts to let him alone? Can he fray off the vulture from his breast, that night and day is gnawing his heart, and wounding it with ghastly and amazing reflections? Whether it is, that God has done it for the defence of men's lives, or whether it is the unnaturalness of the sin, or whatsoever else may be the cause, certain it is, that there is nothing which dogs the conscience so incessantly, fastens upon it so closely, and tears it so furiously, as the dismal sense of blood-guiltiness. The man perhaps endeavours to be merry, he goes about his business, he enjoys his cups and his jolly company: and possibly, if he fought for revenge, he is applauded and "admired by some; if he fought for a mistress, he is smiled upon for a day. But when, in the midst of all his gaieties, his conscience shall come and round him in the ear: Sir, you are to remember that you have murdered a man, and what is more, you have murdered a soul; you have sacrificed an immortal nature, the image of God, and the price of Christ's blood, to a pique, a punctilio, to the loves of a pitiful creature, lighter than vanity, and emptier than the air: and these are the worthy causes for which your brother now lies in the regions of darkness and misery, without relief, without recovery; an eternal sacrifice to a short passion, a rash anger, and a sudden revenge. Now when these reasonings shall be joined with the considerations of the divine justice, and the retributions that Heaven reserves for blood; these sad reckonings, that are in store for the successful acquitted murderer: believe it, where these thoughts shall lay hold of the conscience, they will leave their marks behind them. But if the man feels none of these stings or remorses, his condition is infinitely worse: he is sealed up under a spirit of searedness, and reprobation, and an invincible curse. And it is a sign that God intends him not the grace of repentance, perhaps for denying his brother the opportunities of it, by a sudden death; and sending him out of the world in such a condition, that it were ten thousand times better for himself never to have come into the world, than that he should leave it under the like. I have nothing more to say concerning such a person, but that his sin has put him into such an estate, that, living or dying, he is unavoidably miserable. __________________________________________________________________ SERMON XLIX. ROMANS xii. 18. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. YOU may remember that the second particular laid down for the prosecution of these words, was to assign the measures and proportions by which the duty of living peaceably was to be determined: which I shewed were contained within the bounds of lawful. In my inquiries into which, I undertook the resolution of several cases. As, concerning the lawfulness of war; of keeping or breaking the peace with the magistrate; as also of duels. All which I have already finished; so that there remain only two more to be discussed. One of which is, Whether it be lawful to repel force by force, so as to kill another in one's own defence? The matter of which question is very different from that about duels. For a duel is a fight freely and voluntarily undertook by the offer of one party, and the acceptance of the other. But this is a sudden, a violent, and unforeseen assault, in respect of him that is assaulted: who thereupon enters not into combat upon any precedent choice or deliberate appointment; but upon the sudden alarms of force and necessity, and the compulsions of an extreme danger. In which condition we are to suppose the man cut off from all possibility of flying, shut up from all succour by a rescue, or remedy by the law; but drove into those straits, both of place, time, and all other circumstances, that all evasion is rendered desperate and impossible, but through the blood of his adversary. In this case I affirm it to be lawful for a man to save himself by destroying his enemy, and that upon these two reasons. 1. The first taken from that which we have already insisted upon; the great natural right of self-preservation: which right is as full in particular persons as in public bodies. It is the very firstborn of all the rudiments of nature; and the very ground and reason of its actions; not instilled by precept, but suggested by instinct. A man is no more instructed to this, than he is to be an hungry or thirsty, when nature wants its due refection. And that as to this particular the rights of nature are not abridged by Christian religion, will appear from the Second argument, taken from that place where Christ commands his disciples to provide themselves swords: but to have allowed them the instruments of defence, and at the same time to have forbid the use of them as unlawful, had been highly irrational. I suppose Christ did not command those poor fishermen to wear swords for ornament only, as men do nowadays; but that he might countenance them in the management of their own preservation, amidst those many unjust violences and assaults, that were likely enough to attend men odious to the world for the promulgation of severe truths. Add to this the suffrage of the civil law, where the code in the Cornelian law de Sicariis utters itself thus: Is qui aggressorem vel quemcunque alium in dubio vitae discrimine constitutus occiderit, nullam ob id factum calumniam metuere debet. And further, in the Aquilian law, to the same purpose: Vim vi repellere omnes leges omniaque jura permittunt. So that we have seen the verdict of nature, of Christ, and of the civil law, in the present case; and he whom these absolve is a just and an innocent person, whatsoever other law may condemn him. Yet since nature, in the present corruption of mankind, is weak and dark, and so apt to misjudge of the necessity of self-defence; oftentimes making that to be so, which indeed is nothing else but an unnecessary fear or a sinful revenge; it being a very easy thing to clothe an unlawful action or design with a lawful name: therefore it concerns us so to assert the privilege, as to take off the danger; and this will be done by stating it under its due limitations. In order to which, I shall endeavour to clear these three inquiries. 1st, What are those things, for the necessary defence of which it may be lawful to kill the unjust invader? 2dly, What are the conditions required to render that defence lawful? 3dly, Who are the persons against whom we may justly manage such a defence? And first for the things that may be thus defended. 1. The first is life; the eminent and certain danger of which does lawfully unsheath every man's sword in the defence of it. For where it is lawful to live, it is lawful to do all those things without which life cannot be preserved. Life is a purchase to be rated at the loss of all things else. He that loses it, loses all the world with it, and every thing dies, as to the fruition of the dying man. There is no reparation to be made for it, either in kind or any thing else, as in some degree it may be done in all other losses. For he that loses his friend or his honour may be repaid with an estate, though not to an equality of compensation. But a lost life can be repaid with no enjoyment, since it is the foundation of all other enjoyments; and no man enjoys any thing but the living. For can we think that a pompous burial or a fine tomb will make the dead any amends, or to have a few mournful words spoken of him for fashion-sake, as, that he was an excellent person, and that it was a loss to the public that he should be snatched away by such a disaster; which words, being dead, he cannot hear; and if alive, perhaps would not much regard. But all this while the man continues the portion of worms and rottenness, and the great injury of death maintains its full effect upon him. All after-honours and commemorations being but like the serving up of a banquet to a grave, or like the ceremony of courtship and compliment to the cold flints and the insensible rocks. 2. When a man is in imminent danger of the mutilation of a leg or an arm, or the like, it is lawful to prevent the loss of either by the death of the assailant. For who knows but the loss of a part may bring the destruction of the whole. Where the danger is indefinite, there the utmost and the greatest is to be feared, and proportion ably to be provided against. The man perhaps in the issue of the conflict may lose but a finger, but thereupon his hand may gangrene, and then his arm, and from thence the mischief reach his heart: or he may receive but a blow only, which blow may sow the seeds of death in his body, in an imposthume, which shall grow and prevail, and at length break, and bear him to his grave. In which case there is no doubt but the man is murdered, though it be ten years before he dies, as truly as if he had breathed his last the very next minute. For he murders a man, who gives him a hurt, upon which death certainly and irrecoverably follows, whatsoever the time of it chance to be. The cause may have its effect, be the distance of time or place what it will, so long as it reaches it by the connection of a certain influence. And he that pulls one end of the chain, moves the remotest link of it as surely, as if he did it by an immediate touch. But suppose that death should not follow upon the loss of a limb, and moreover (which is yet impossible) that the assaulted person knew so much, yet nature no less dictates the preservation of every part; it being as natural to a man to be entire and perfect, as to be, and to have all his limbs, as any one of them. Besides that it is often worse than death itself to live with the deformities and pains of a shattered, mangled body; as a burden to one's self, and a contempt to others. From which miseries there are few, but, were it in their power, would ransom themselves with the price of the world; and of their blood too, did not the awe of God and the terrors of another death keep them from breaking the uncomfortable prison of such a body, to pass to an eternal execution. 3. When a person's chastity is invaded by force, it is granted on all hands to be lawful to kill the person that invades it. For this is as irreparable as life itself; it is lost but once, and if it should come in competition with life, it would be judged more valuable. Upon which ground, Tamar, had she had strength and courage enough, might have saved her brother Absalom the labour of killing Amnon, and prevented an unjust revenge by a just defence. To lose one's life is indeed a misery, but it is no dishonour; but the ravished person is dishonoured, her glory stained, and the lustre of that reputation by which she lives and stands accepted in the world, is blasted for ever. I know no parent, who deserves to be a parent, who had not rather see a child dead, than defloured. Virginius rescued his daughter from the lust and violence of Appius Clodius the decemvir, by stabbing her dead with his own hand. I am not concerned to warrant his action; but surely it argues the value that the very heathen put upon their chastity, when the very design against it was thought fit to be prevented by the death of the innocent, and to be revenged upon the nocent, even to the subversion of a government. 4. In the fourth place, as for the preservation of estate or goods, the case admits of some more doubt. And there are opinions both for the affirmative and the negative. Those who hold the negative argue, First, From the law of Moses, which, in Exodus xxii. 2, 3, distinguishes the case of a thief robbing by day and by night, allowing it for lawful to kill him, if he makes an invasion in the night; whereas if he is killed in the day, the same law avouches the man that killed him guilty of murder. Of which difference, these two reasons are alleged. (1.) Because it cannot be distinguished in the night, whether he comes barely to steal or to murder also; and therefore it is lawful to kill him, not considered merely as a thief, but upon just suspicion that he might come as a murderer. (2.) Because goods taken away in the night leave the person robbed destitute of all means by which to discover the robber, and consequently of all legal means by which to recover what he had lost. Ans. This is true, and upon the strength of this very ground I answer this argument brought from the Mosaic law, by affirming, that howsoever the letter runs, yet the design of that law was not to make every killing of a thief in the day-time murder, but that usually and ordinarily it was to be accounted so. For since the law makes it lawful to kill a thief in the night, because at that time all people being usually disposed to their rest, it supposes that there are no witnesses present, by whose means the injured man might have right against him at law: but unlawful to kill him in the day, because then it supposes that there may be witnesses, as for the most part there are. Yet since sometimes it so falls out, that there neither are nor can be any; it will follow, by analogy of reason, that a man under such circumstances is permitted to deal with a thief as in the night; since the very cause for which he was permitted to do it then, does equally take place now. (2.) In the second place, some argue against the lawfulness of killing a robber for the preservation of our goods, from the tenor of the gospel, and the design of Christian religion; which bids the professors of it despise and trample upon these temporal things, and therefore certainly permits them not to prevent the loss of them with the blood of any one who should presume to take them. To this I answer, that the gospel commands us only to despise these things comparatively, in reference to spiritual and eternal felicities. Otherwise if the words be understood absolutely, it could not be lawful for us so much as to defend our lives; since some texts in the letter of them command us no less to despise these, than those other enjoyments. I conclude therefore for the affirmative, that it is lawful for a man to defend his estate and goods against an unjust force, even with the death of him who offers that force, if they cannot be retained and possessed otherwise. The reason is, because they are the means and support of life, and therefore are to be reckoned in the same account with life itself. If one should say, that it were lawful for a man to knock him on the head, that should offer to batter down his house to the ground before his face; but that he was by no means to touch him, in case he only took away the chief pillar, upon which the house leaned; notwithstanding that upon the removal of that pillar it must fall as unavoidably as if it were pulled down: surely such a distinction were grossly absurd and ridiculous. The case is the same here. Neither does that reply take off the argument, that a man may live though his estate be lost, as by labour, charity, or the getting of another. For this is accidental, and it may fall out otherwise. And every man is to look upon what he possesses as his only subsistence; since he is not certain, upon the loss of it, to have any other: nay, he is certain that at the present he has none; nor is like to have any for the future, unless some accident or opportunity of a livelihood offers itself, which he is not to suppose or build upon, it being wholly uncertain and contingent; especially, so as to take him off from his dependence upon that which is certain and present. Should a man put his whole estate into a jewel; either for concealment of his estate, as being otherwise in danger, or for some other advantage or convenience; and should be set upon for it by a thief upon the road, so that, all hope of rescue being out of the way, there remained no other means to preserve it but by killing the robber upon the place; I must confess, I can see no solid reason, why he might not do justice upon him, and right to himself, by sending him out of the world, with his blood upon his own head. If any excellent and pious persons have chose to do otherwise, the thief was beholden to them; and they have only quitted their own right, which lays no injunction at all upon others to quit theirs. For if a man sets upon me in the highway to kill me, all grant that I may in my own defence kill him; but if he would only take my money, that, it seems, I must relinquish by any means rather than take his life. But let the reason of the difference be assigned. If I ask, what makes it lawful for me to kill him in the former case? it will be answered surely, to preserve my life. But I reply, Is not my life as much destroyed if I am starved, as if I am stabbed? And when my money is once gone, I am sure I may be starved, and none can assure me that I shall not. For am I certain that I shall find a bag of money or a table spread in the road, or that people will be so charitable, as upon free cost to keep me from hunger and cold? which annoyances, unless they will do so, must as surely despatch me, as either a rapier thrust into my bowels, or a bullet sent to my heart. Neither is that further exception of any moment, that there is no proportion in point of value between the loss of money and the loss of a life. For in the present case my money, compared to my enemy's life, is not to be considered barely as such a sum of money, but as it is the necessary support of my life: so that really, and in effect, the comparison is between his life and mine; in which I conclude myself warranted, by the rights and laws of nature, to prefer my own before his. Nay, if it were but a sixpence that he would rifle me of, and I had no other visible subsistence in the world but that poor sum, I might lawfully defend that, as I would myself, that is, with the death of my enemy; and count it as equal a stake against his life, as if it were ten thousand millions. And thus I have shewn those four things which it is lawful for a man thus to defend; namely, life, limbs, chastity, and estate: where, before I pass any further, I shall add this, that whatsoever it is lawful for a man to do in these cases for himself, the same also is lawful for him to do in the same danger and extremity of his neighbour. The reason is, because the measure and standard of his love to his neighbour, is to be the love that he bears to himself. Which yet, by the way, is to be understood under equal cases and circumstances; for though we are commanded to love our neighbour as ourselves, yet it follows not, but when the danger must inevitably fall upon one of us, we may preserve ourselves before our neighbour; because, in the same condition, we are bound to desire no more for ourselves, but that our neighbour should save us in the next place to himself; and therefore, by virtue of this precept, he can desire no more of us. In a word, we are to love our neighbour as ourselves, putting him into the same condition and circumstances in reference to us, as we are in reference to him: and therefore, as I myself could not in reason desire, but that my neighbour, in a danger equal to us both, should first defend himself; so my neighbour cannot deny, but that I should do as much for myself under this condition, as I allow him to do for himself under the same. But this by way of digression. Certain it is, that the defence of our neighbour in his extremity engages us to all those extraordinary courses that we took for our own preservation. Upon this account it was, that Abraham armed his household, and slew kings for the rescue of -\his kinsman Lot, took captive by them, Genesis xiv. 14, 15. And there is no man, whose concerns and obligations terminate within himself; but he is a relative person, and must own a debt to friendship, to consanguinity, and society. For as in the natural body the whole is maintained by that sympathy and mutual feeling, that the members have of the condition of each other; by which, when any of them is in distress, it calls for and receives help and relief from all the rest: so it is, according to its proportion, in the political body, which is only an aggregate, artificial man. Every particular person lies under an obligation to come in to the succour of his endangered brother, as the hand would presently lift itself up in the defence of the leg or the face, to repel and beat off whatsoever would annoy them. And the contrary would be barbarous and absurd, a perverting of the designs of nature, which, by thus leaving the interest of every part single in itself, and divided from and independent upon the concernment of its fellows, would quickly draw a ruin and dissolution upon the whole fabric. That man who could stand and see another stripped or hacked in pieces by a thief or a rogue, and not at all concern himself in his rescue, is a traitor to the laws of humanity and religion; he commits murder with his eyes, and sheds blood by not striking a blow; and shall one day account to God for the guilt of that action, that was as criminally permitted by him, as done by the other. 2dly, I come now to the second thing, which is, to shew the conditions required to legalize such a defence of ourselves and fortunes. And they are these. (1.) That the violence offered be so apparent, and withal so great and pressing, that there can be no other means of escaping it, but by killing the adversary: otherwise, if a man makes it great by his own presumptions and fears, and so makes it necessary to himself to repel that injury with a mortal wound from his rapier, which he might have done with a blow of a switch or a thrust of his arm, he is a murderer; nor will it excuse him to plead a danger which was only created by his own apprehensions. Thus in the late rebellion, when some persons, by the guilt of great villainies, had exasperated majesty, and so having deserved, were pleased also to fear the just consequences of their actions; they were so bold as to strike the first blow, and then so impudent as to say that they did it in their own defence. But that saying of Vibius Crispus, commended by Quintilian, may be here fitly applied, Quis tibi sic timere permisit? Fear greatens and redoubles every evil, it stretches the shadow, and enlarges the suspicion: but blood must not be shed upon surmise. That which must warrant a man in this before God and his conscience, must be a danger as manifest as the light; a life even perishing, and in the very jaws of death: not an hazard that may be disputed, but an extremity that calls and cries, and admits of no answer but an immediate deliverance. And if in this case a life be taken away, he only is a murderer that deserved, not he that inflicted the blow. (2.) It is required, that all possibility of recourse to the magistrate for a legal protection be taken away. In which case the law leaves every man to his own natural defence. For men are not made for laws, but laws for the good and preservation of men: and therefore, though they enjoin the injured person to fly to them for succour, yet, when he is surrounded with such circumstances as render such access to them impossible; and in the mean time that life, for the preservation of which those laws were designed, is under an unavoidable danger, without flying to other remedies; should those laws tie a man's hand in such a case, they were only snares and traps, and means to deliver a man naked and undefended to be devoured by his enemy. But, as I observed before, war is a remedy upon the failure of law. And when the supreme and fatal law of necessity comes to be in force, all inferior obligations disband and vanish: and the law that tells a man that no particular person's injury can take from him his right to live, ought to take place, and both to direct him what he is to do in this affair, and to absolve him when he has done. (3.) In the third place, it is required that a man in the act of defending himself designs merely his own defence, without any hatred or bitter purpose of revenge towards the person who thus invades him. A lawful action may be depraved and changed by the intervenience of an ill intention. Jehu executed the command of God in extirpating the house of Ahab, and consequently that action of his was lawful; but yet we find that the same action was reckoned to him for sin, because a particular malice and design against Ahab's house mingled with it, and so altered the whole complexion of the performance. To discern whether a man in these defensive conflicts be acted by a purpose of self-defence, pure and unmixed from any spice of revenge, I confess is very difficult, in case the assault shall be continued till it determines in the death of one party. But if the defendant chance to prevail over the assailant to that degree, as to be able to secure himself from him without taking of his life; and yet shall not be brought to give over, or acquiesce, till he has despatched him: though his first stroke in this engagement was but defence, and so lawful; yet the sharpness of revenge growing upon his spirit in the midst of the action, it is to be feared that the last stroke was murder, and so will pass in the accounts of Heaven. And thus much for the second thing, namely, to shew the conditions required to render the killing of another in our own defence lawful 3dly, The third, which I shall despatch in a word or two, is to inquire who are the persons against whom we may lawfully thus defend ourselves. And for this, I cannot conceive that any doubt can be raised, but concerning these two, a magistrate and a parent. As for the magistrate, the grounds that I have already laid of non-resistance, by virtue of every subject's quitting his natural right of defending himself against the magistrate, and resigning up all power of resistance into his governor's hands, sufficiently proves, that this doctrine gives no countenance to the subject in repelling any invasion made upon him by his prince. But as for a parent; the son has made no such resignation of his right up to him. And therefore there are not wanting some casuists among the Jesuits, who have ventured to own the lawfulness of a man's defending himself against parents as well as kings, and all superiors whatsoever; even with the death of those who shall invade him. But yet I affirm, that for a son in any case whatsoever to take away his father's life, from whence, under God, he received his own, seems to imply such a turpitude in the thing itself, and to offer such a grievance to nature, that he is to choose to die rather than, upon any inducement of extremity, to stain his hands in the blood of his father. This I will grant, that in case a father shall unjustly assault the life of his son; his son may proceed to defend himself so far as to disarm him, shut him up, and bind him; but to kill him is unnatural and intolerable. And if a son cannot otherwise secure his life from his father's violence, it is more eligible to die a thousand deaths, than to make such a monstrous and inhuman trespass upon so sacred a name and relation. And thus I have endeavoured both to clear and to assert the doctrine of self-defence in its due latitude. In all which discourse I am not sensible that I have uttered any thing but the voice of nature, and the rightly explained sense of religion. As for those who assert the contrary, and by taking from mankind all right of self-preservation, would have them still live in the world as naked as they came into it; I shall not wish them any hurt, but if I would, I could scarce wish them a greater, than that they might feel the full effect and influence of their own opinion. IV. The fourth and last case to be resolved is; Since to prosecute another in courts of judicature is in its kind a certain breach of the mutual bond of peace, whether it be allowable for Christians thus to prosecute and to go to law one with another? It may perhaps, at first sight, seem a strange and an insolent design, to bring a thing vouched by custom, owned by practice, and established by authority, under dispute: yet since it is no less our duty to be able to give a reason of what we do, than of what we believe; and since there are not wanting scriptures, to whose rules we profess to submit our practice, yet in appearance contrary to this; and since there are also some in the world, who think they have sufficient ground from those scriptures to entertain a contrary opinion; I conceive I may, without blame, enter into a disquisition of a thing already controverted; that so, by an impartial survey of the reasons of both sides, we may settle our future practice upon such sure grounds, that if it appears we have been in the wrong, we may be convinced, and brought off from, but if in the right, we may be confirmed in the thing hitherto allowed by us. As for those who have been so bold as to arraign the courts of law themselves, they are the anabaptists; who succeed into all the principles and opinions of the old anabaptists, those sons of confusion, that once so infested Germany: concerning the nature of whose opinions I cannot but judge this, that those who own a design to remove and cast down all human laws and judgments, ought to be persons either absolutely, and even to a necessity innocent, or very highly malefactors; the former of which might oppose them as needless; the latter, as dreadful and destructive. As for their innocence; the stories of their barbarous 1 rebellions, murders, and the desolations made by them, have settled men's judgments concerning that. And therefore, if their opinions grow from their guilt, in conjunction with their ignorance; as it cannot appear from what root else they should grow; I shall endeavour to remove the latter, leaving the laws themselves to deal with the former. In the management of this question, I shall, 1. Examine the arguments brought against the allowableness of Christians going to law. 2. Consider what may be argued and alleged for it. 3. Propose the conditions required to warrant men in such a practice. 1. First of all then, their arguments seem principally to bear upon two places of scripture. (1.) The first is, that formerly hinted by me, and reserved to be discussed in its proper place here, which is in Matthew v. 40, where Christ determines that general precept of not resisting evil, to an utter abolition of all lawsuits; commanding every disciple of his, that in case any man will sue him at law, and take away his coat, he should let him have his cloak also. And certainly there is scarce any thing more indispensably necessary to a man's subsistence, than his raiment. But now if a man shall be obliged even to relinquish this, and resign it up to the hand of violence, rather than to recover it by a legal trial, it must needs follow, that the rigour of this command cuts off all pretences of going to law whatsoever. In answer to this, I cannot but observe, that it is the custom of this sort of men still to argue from the letter of scripture, in abstraction from the sense; and without any pondering either of the occasion, circumstances, or coherence of the text, immediately to fly and fasten upon the bare outside of the expression. Two things, therefore, may be answered to this text. 1. That it is not certain, that what we render by suing at law signifies any such thing; the Greek is to the'lonti soi krithenai; but kri'nomai signifies to strive, war, and contend with another by force; so that it is all one with ma'chesthai, kai` eri'zesthai' soi. But to sue another at law is kri'nein; and that with an accusative case, to the'lonti' se kri'nein; and to be sued in the passive, kri'nomai: according to which, to the'lonti' soi krithenai, taking soi for upo` sou, must signify, to him that is willing to be sued by thee at law: the meaning being this; He that has took thy coat from thee, and is willing to be brought by thee into a trial for it, to him give thy cloak also. Which sense, besides that it is highly incongruous, to`n chitona' sou labein should have gone before soi krithenai, and so the words have run thus: To him that is desirous to take thy coat., and then to go to law with thee for it: and not preposterously, To him that is desirous to go to law with thee, and to take thy coat, to him give thy cloak also; which is to make the going to law antecedent to the wrong or injury about which men go to law. It is more probable therefore, that the sense of the text is this; If any one would unjustly contend with thee, and forcibly take away thy cloak, let him have thy coat also. According to which sense, the words speak nothing at all of the suits or trials at law. And this interpretation, grounded upon the propriety of the word, and so fully agreeing both with what goes before, and with what follows after, if any one will positively insist upon it, I do verily believe, cannot by any solid reason be disproved. 2. But because I think such respect is to be had to the translation, that it is not, but upon very urgent necessity, to be receded from; therefore, in the second place, I add, That these words are to be interpreted with analogy to the design carried on by Christ throughout this whole chapter, which is, to shew the perverse and sinful practice of the Jews, in which they were abetted by the pharisees; and withal to declare, of how much contrary a temper his disciples and followers ought to be. Now the custom of the Jews was, upon the receiving any injury, to pursue that law of retaliation so fiercely and bitterly, that sometimes (as I have observed before) one private man would execute it upon another; and when they could not safely or conveniently do it themselves, but were forced to implore the help of the magistrate, and to drag the injurious person before him; yet they did it with so much acrimony and gall, and such designs of personal revenge, that it sufficiently appeared to any impartial or judicious eye, that in all their prosecutions of offenders they did not so much consult either the satisfaction of justice, or their own necessary reparation, as indeed seldom needing any at all, as they did the fruitless gratification of a remorseless, vindictive humour. Hereupon Christ reads a contrary lecture of patience, meekness, and quietness to his disciples, telling them, that in case they should have any thing injuriously purloined from them, they should rather sit down under the loss of that and a much greater thing too, than with so much virulence and exasperation of mind, as was common amongst the Jews, and unreprehended, not to say countenanced by the pharisees, pursue the recovery of their former right. These words therefore do not absolutely prohibit them, being injured, to endeavour a just reparation; but conditionally rather to quit the benefit of justice, than to follow it in a sinful manner. They are a sublime precept of patience, upon a wrong offered to our goods, parallel to those words, If any one smite thee on the right cheek, turn the other also; which enjoins the same measure of patience upon a wrong offered to our persons. And consequently, as heretofore, in the exposition of those, I shewed from Christ's own practice, the best comment upon his precepts, that they were not to be understood according to the rigid import of the letter, as if every man were bound to covet injuries and to court affronts; so I affirm also, that this command is not to be exacted according to the bare surface of the words, but to be enlarged to the allowance and latitude of a figure, as being indeed just such another hyperbole. Which is a trope, that to set forth the greatness of a thing more emphatically, words it in expressions greater than really it is. And thus much in answer to what they argue from this place of scripture. (2.) The next great place, which some think to speak as fully to their purpose as this, is that in 1 Cor. vi. 7, Now there is utterly a fault amongst you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do you not rather take wrong f why do you not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded? Which words certainly amount to a pregnant and full prohibition of all going to law, since they declare it to be our duty rather to suffer, nay, even to embrace any wrong, than by such means to recover our right. But to this I answer, 1. That what we render a fault, is in the Greek not ama'rtema, but only e'ttema, which signifies properly a weakness or defect; and such do not always, or of necessity, carry sin along with them. According to which sense, the apostle does not condemn their going to law, as a thing in itself sinful or unjust; but as low, and weak, and not answerable to that greatness and generosity of spirit, which became persons owning so excellent a profession. 2. But in the second place, admitting that the apostle's design here is to discountenance this practice, not only as weak and illaudable, but also as sinful and disallowable; yet I affirm, that he accounted it not sinful from the very nature of the action, but only the irregularity of the circumstance; that they went to law upon every slight occasion, before unbelievers, in verse 1. And though to go to law be very allowable, yet for Christians to prosecute one another before the tribunals of infidels, for those injuries which they might fairly compromise by the arbitration and decision of persons of their own body, was a thing that reflected an high disgrace, and left a great scandal upon Christian religion; and consequently as great a guilt upon those who brought the scandal. In short, the apostle here either reprehends them only for going to law before unbelievers, or barely for going to law, as being a thing utterly unjust in itself. If he designs only the former, as it is clear from the whole chain of the context from the first verse to the ninth that he does; then it concludes nothing against the latter, but that before a believing judge, and a Christian court, with a due observance of other circumstances, Christians may right themselves at law. But if it be said, that the apostle directs the edge of this reproof against the very action itself; then let it be made out, how the apostle can accord himself with himself, who suffers Christians to go to law before the saints, in ver. 1, Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints? Which shews, that what he prohibits under one, in the very same breath he permits under the other. Nay, he proceeds to give reasons why they should manage the judgment of these things themselves, in ver. 2, 3, If the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? And, know ye not that ye shall judge angels? how much more things pertaining to this life? And again, in ver. 5; I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man amongst you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren? And now, is it not as clear from all these places, as if they were writ with a sunbeam, that the apostle's intention is not levelled against their going to law, but against the persons before whom they did it? That they chose to discover and rip up the sores of the church, before such infidels as would deride them, rather than before Christians, who would endeavour to conceal and cure them. The only thing that can be replied here, is, that in those primitive times of Christianity, the Christians had no tribunals or power of judging, as being under the jurisdiction of heathen potentates: and therefore what they did in order to the deciding of controversies and suits between man and man, they did not do as judges armed with the civil power, but as arbitrators chose and consented to amongst themselves, for the ending and composing of differences. And therefore, though it might be lawful to bring one's cause before such judges, yet it cannot now be lawful to sue a brother in any of our courts, properly so called, as holding a power of jurisdiction from the magistrate. But to this I answer; that this is so far from overthrowing or weakening the thing which it is brought to disprove, that it is a notable argument to confirm it: for if the apostles allowed it as lawful for them to bring their causes before Christians, that they might exercise a judicial act in deciding them, who yet were not endued with any legal, judicial authority from the magistrate; certainly it were highly strange and irrational, to prohibit men to seek for the same judicial acts, from such as were both Christians, and also empowered with such a judicial authority from the civil governor. In a word, it would amount to this; that Christians might try their causes before Christians, not having any legal jurisdiction for that purpose, but only the consent of the contending parties. But when the same persons come to have the stamp of public authority, enabling them so to do by virtue of their office; why then, all trials before them must presently cease to be lawful, and become only a betraying of the rights and privileges of believers. I shall say no more of this wild and inconsequent deduction, but that it is an argument fit to be found only in the mouth of those, whose custom it is to dispute against reason, and to fight against government. 3. The third argument against the allowableness of Christians going to law, is that strict command that lies upon them to forgive injuries, and consequently not to prosecute them in courts of judicature, forasmuch as these two seem utterly inconsistent. But to this also I reply, that in most injuries we are to consider and distinguish two things: first, The right that is lost. Secondly, The offence done to whom it is lost. And though it may be my duty to forgive the offence done me by him that violently takes away my right; yet it follows not that I must therefore quit my right; but may, with full allowance of equity and piety, endeavour the regaining of that, while I fully remit the other. And that this is not a mere verbal distinction without a difference, is evident from hence: that supposing that somebody robs me of my goods, and I recover them all to the value of the utmost farthing; yet still after this recovery it is certain that the man has done me an injury, and reason and religion will oblige him to ask me forgiveness; which it could not do, supposing that the wrong did not continue, even after I was repossessed of what I had lost. It is clear therefore, that the prosecution of one's right at law does yet leave a fair scope for the exercise of forgiveness; and consequently that they may not exclude or justle out one another. I cannot think of any thing else in scripture that seems to cast any probability of favour upon this opinion: and therefore looking upon the proof of it as desperate upon this account, I proceed to the second thing; which is to shew what may be argued for the allowableness of Christians prosecuting their rights in courts of judicature. But beforehand I shall premise this: That the ground upon which all such prosecutions proceed is twofold. 1. Restitution; and, 2. Punishment. That is, a man is sued either to restore what he has took from another; or brought into court for some offence or mischief done by him, for which, since no restitution can be made, he is to sustain some penalty for the satisfaction of the law. In which two cases, though it is obvious to see that a man may prosecute another for the restitution of something took from him, without any thoughts of bitterness or revenge; yet since the punishment of another cannot at all redound to my advantage or reparation, it may be inquired, what can warrant a man in his prosecution of another, only to bring him to this, without being chargeable with the designs of revenge. To this I answer; that his obligation and subjection to the community, of which he is a member, engages him to this. For every man is bound to endeavour the good and preservation of the public, and consequently to prosecute a thief or a murderer, though personally they have not injured him, forasmuch as such persons have made a breach upon society and common justice; which requires a reparation: yea, and that so strictly, that if a man is robbed, though, being master of his own right, he might choose whether upon that score he would prosecute him for such robbery; yet since by the same there is an injury done to the public, which he cannot pardon, the law binds him to prosecute the robber; and makes him liable to be prosecuted himself, in case he should not. I conclude therefore, that all these prosecutions of a man in the courts of law are just and allowable. And so I pass to the arguments for the proof of the assertion; which are these. 1. To endeavour the execution of justice in the proper acts of it between man and man, is allowable before God, and not repugnant to religion: but without going to law, there can be no such endeavour for the execution of justice, and consequently it is to be admitted. That the former is not repugnant to religion is clear; for then justice and religion would be contrary, which would be to cast an high aspersion upon both. Justice is the noblest dictate issuing from the principles of improved nature, and nature, which is the law of God written in our hearts, cannot contradict his law as it is written in his word. God cannot write the same thing a duty in one law, and a sin in the other. Justice came down from heaven, and descended upon mankind, as a communication of a divine perfection flowing from him whose great attribute is to be the Just One, and the re warder of every man according to his works. As for the assumption of the argument, that the exercise of this great blessing of the world, justice, cannot take place, unless it be lawful to prosecute offenders before courts and judges; it is a thing that requires no laborious proof. For can we expect that thieves and murderers should come and surrender their persons to the vengeance of the law freely, and of their own accord, as scorning all arrests, and preventing attachments by sheriffs, constables, and such other unnecessary instruments of force? Will they arraign themselves, be both jury and evidence, and stand convict by the generous openness of their own confession? When and where do we read of any instance or example of such strange transactions? When men by frequent villainies have lost even common honesty, may justice expect satisfaction from their ingenuity? But these are unlikelihoods not to be insisted upon; and we may well venture the issue of the whole controversy upon this, that when these things come to pass, then the prosecution of causes at law will cease to be allowable. 2. The second argument is this; that if Christian religion absolutely prohibits and disallows all pursuit of a man's right at law, then the strict observance of this religion unavoidably draws after it the utter dissolution of all government and society; a sad consequence, but naturally issuing from such an antecedent. For does not society consist in a due distinction of propriety amongst men, and in their peaceable and secure enjoying that, of which they are proprietors? Do not all public bodies bear upon the great basis of meum and tuum between particular persons, and upon the provision it makes to protect those persons in their respective titles to what they possess? And moreover, is not the foundation of all just possession a just acquisition; as by gift, labour, or the like, by which the world shares the common benefits of nature, dividing to each man his portion, and enclosing it to him from the encroachment and pretences of all others? These things, I suppose, must be granted to be the very fundamentals and first uniting principles of society. But now, if there be no coercive power to call men to account for their actions; when the world shall be infested with the violent and the unjust, who will not labour, but yet possess; who are nobody's heirs, and yet will inherit; raising a new claim, upon force, rapine, and oppression: what will become of order, of propriety, and right? all those hinges upon which the affairs of mankind and the peace of nations move and depend? He that has the strongest arm, the sharpest sword, the boldest front, and the falsest heart, must possess the world. Whatsoever he grasps must be his own; right and possession will be terms convertible. The meek and the injured part of mankind shall retain a right to nothing, but to patience under the insultations of the mighty and the unjust, and shall see that they can be lawfully nothing else but miserable, when the very plea of the law itself is rendered unlawful. And, what is the greatest misery of all, these bonds of oppression must be bound upon men by the ties of religion. Thieves rob us of our goods, and then this robs us of our remedies. And men will persuade us, that Jesus Christ makes it our duty to be poor, wretched, injured, forlorn, and destitute, as often as it shall please the lawless avarice and insolence of our enemies to make us so. Had the primitive Christians owned this to have been the genius and true intent of what they professed, it would quickly have hissed Christianity out of the world, as the bane of government, and the destroyer of whatsoever was settled, regular, and excellent amongst men. It would have exposed it both to the scorn and hatred of all governors. And the setting up the profession of it in any kingdom would have been like the bringing of a public plague into the bowels of a nation; or the courting of a foreign invasion, to trample down all before them with ruin and confusion. For surely the removal of all courts of judicature would have had no less mischievous effects upon a people, than either of those annoyances. But had this been the design of Christianity, there is no doubt but all nations would have stood upon their guard, and kept it off like a pest; and courts of judicature would sooner have suppressed this religion, than this religion could have beat down those courts. I conclude therefore, that it is far from the purpose of Christ's doctrine to forbid injured persons to take their course at law; under the gospel, courts are to be as much open as churches. And to plead the cause of the afflicted, the fatherless, and the widow, is but part of that great office which God has honoured, by sometimes assuming it to himself. Christianity came to invest the world with new helps and privileges, and not to abridge men of their old. This religion has provided no asylum for thieves or murderers; it neither secures nor sanctifies wrong or oppression. And therefore that opinion, which lays this as a block in their way who would proceed to a legal recovery of their rights, is to be rejected, as absurd and insufferable. Yet since men are too prone to stretch their just allowances beyond their bounds, to abuse privileges, and to spoil a due action by undue circumstances of prosecution; I shall therefore, in the third and last place, briefly propose those conditions that are required to warrant men in their law-proceedings and contentions. And they are three. 1. First, that a man takes not this course against any one, but upon a very great and urgent cause. Every little wrong and trespass is not a sufficient warrant for me to disturb my neighbour's peace, and to make him miserable. It must be a loud and a clamorous injury, that has broke in upon a man's reputation or estate, so that one cannot be entire nor the other safe without a reparation, which must give him a lawful call to use so sharp a remedy. But those uncharitable, unworthy motives, that usually act men in these prosecutions, sufficiently declare how much they deviate from the rules of religion: for what more usual than such kind of speeches; "I will spend five hundred, a thousand pounds, but I will have my will." So that, it seems, it is not so much to have right, as to have their will, for which some go to law. But let me say to such, that God will spend a thousand, nay, ten thousand curses upon them, but that he will fully punish such a wicked and unmerciful disposition. 2. Supposing that the wrong is great, and calls for reparation, yet in the next place it is required that a man be willing, upon any tolerable and just terms, to agree with his adversary, rather than to proceed to a suit: otherwise he does not sacrifice to justice or to necessity, but to a litigious humour and an ill-nature, that loves contention for contention's sake, and descends to it, not as a remedy, but a recreation: he designs not to advantage himself, but to afflict and harass his adversary; and therefore is willing to undergo the trouble and misery of following the suit himself, only for the base pleasure of seeing another miserable. For surely it must be a very strange height of virulence, that shall make a man thus prefer the continuance of a quarrel before an amicable composure of it! when Providence is pleased to order the state of things so, that litigiousness is not only a great, but also a very troublesome, laborious, and costly sin. A man cannot be wicked in this respect, but with the expense of much money, the labour of long attendances, and the anxiety of much care. And when a man has wisely made a shift to recover one hundred pound with the expense of three, and for many terms run up and down, backwards and forwards, sedulously and industriously to no purpose; he will find those words of the apostle to the Corinthians, ready upon every slight cause to prosecute one another at law, Why do you not rather take wrong? why do you not suffer yourselves to be defrauded? to have been not so much a lesson of piety, as of policy, thrift, and good husbandry. And surely if we compare the charges, vexation, and noise of a suit, with that pitiful design which for the most part is drove at by it; if thus contentiously to go to law be a sin, as undoubtedly it is; why then we need look no further, nor enjoin such an one any other penance, but that he should go to law again. 3. But thirdly and lastly, supposing that both the wrong is in itself very great, and no satisfaction or conditions of agreement are offered by him that did it, but that the injured person must of necessity commence a suit against him; yet then it is required, that he manage it by the rule of charity, and not with any purpose to revenge himself upon his adversary. But certainly it is a very rare thing, and seldom found, to see a man of so clear a breast, so sincere a design, as to have waded through such prosecutions without any interposal of vindictive thoughts. The action indeed (as I have proved) is in itself lawful, but the person that is to manage it is weak and sinful, and it is ten to one but his corruption strikes in, and bears a share in what he does; and then the issue of the whole business turns but to the accounts of sin: and when the suit is ended here below, there is an action of revenge brought against him in the court above. And therefore, though he who thus chooses to right himself, does lawfully; yet (except in cases of extremity) certainly that man does more safely, who considers that he is but weak, and so offers not himself to the temptation. And thus I have finished the resolution of the last case propounded, and I hope have stated the controversy with that truth and equality, that I have not at all derogated from the law of God, while I asserted the laws of men. __________________________________________________________________ SERMON L. ROMANS xii. 18. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. WHEN I first entered upon these words, I laid the prosecution of them in the discussion of these four particulars. I. To shew what was included in this great duty of living peaceably. II. What were the measures and proportions by which it was to be determined. III. What were the means by which it was to be effected. IV. What were the motives and arguments by which it might be enforced. The two first of these I have at length despatched; and the two last, as containing nothing of controversy, but being of plain and practical consideration, I shall finish in this discourse, and conclude this subject. And first, for the means conducible to our performance of this excellent duty, I shall, amongst those many that possibly each man's particular experience may better suggest to him, select and reckon these. 1. A careful suppression of all distasteful, but however of all aggravating apprehensions of any ill turn or unkind behaviour from men. He that will preserve himself in a regular course of acting, must not only attend the last issues of the performance, but watch the beginnings, and secure the fountains of action; and he will find it but a vain attempt to oppose it in its birth, when he should have encountered it in its conception. A great sin or a great virtue is a long time in forming and preparing within, and passing through many faculties before it is ripe for execution. And when that chain of preparations is laid, this perhaps is then necessary and unavoidable. As when a man has fixed his thoughts upon an affront offered him, resented it sharply, and rolled it in his mind a long time, so that the rancour of those thoughts begin to reach and infect the passions, and they begin to rise and swell, and those also to possess the will, so that this espouses it into full resolves and purposes of revenge: it is then too late to command a man, under these dispositions and proximities of action, to be peaceable; he is possessed and full, and admits of no advice. The malicious design has got head and maturity; and therefore will certainly pass into act, and rage in a man's behaviour, to the degree of railing, or downright blows, or perhaps bloodshed; or some other instance of a great mischief. But had a man, by an early wariness and observance of his teeming thoughts, crushed those infant sharpnesses, those first disgusts and grudgings, that began to sour and torment his whole mind, he would have found the humour curable and conquerable; and for all these seeds, and little essays of disturbance, yet, as to the main event of practice, he must have passed for a peaceable man. Has a man therefore received an injury, a disrespect, or something at least that he thinks to be so; if he would now maintain himself in a due composure of spirit, and stop the sallyings out of an hasty and indecent revenge, and all this with success and a certainty of effect; let him first arrest his thoughts, and divert them to some other object. Let him but do this easy violence to himself, as to think of something else: amongst those thousand things in the world that may be thought on, let him fix upon any one; as, his business, his studies, or the news of the time: but amongst other things, let the thoughts be directed rather to reconciling objects, such as are apt to leave a pleasure and a sweetness upon the mind; as a man's lawful and innocent recreations, the delights of a journey, of a cured sickness or an escaped danger, or the like. But chiefly, let the thoughts be busied upon such things as are peculiar and proper antidotes against the grudge conceived. As, let a man remember whether he never received a courtesy from that person who he thinks has provoked him; and let him consider, whether that courtesy did not outweigh the present injury; and was not done with greater circumstances of kindness, than this of disrespect. Now by such arts and methods of diverting the thoughts, the quick sense of the injury will by degrees be eluded, weakened, and baffled into nothing: and the grudge will strike a man's apprehensions, but as a gentle breath of air does his face, with a transient, undiscernible touch, leaving behind it neither sign nor impression. For we must know that it is the morose dwelling of the thoughts upon an injury, a long and sullen meditation upon a wrong, that incorporates and rivets it into the mind. And upon this reason it is ill affronting the melancholy and the thinking man, whose natural temper and complexion lays what he has observed before him, by more frequent remembrances, and more stable and permanent representations; so that the mind has opportunity to carry its examination to every particular circumstance, part, degree, and occasion of the affront, brooding upon it with such a close and continued intention, till it binds the remembrance and resentment of it upon the soul with bands of iron and links of brass, never to be dissolved, or fetched asunder, by time, or kindness, or any after-attempts of reconciliation. If a man will indulge his thoughts upon a disrespect offered him, he will find how by degrees they will raise and advance, and get the mastery of him. That which first did but lightly move, shall presently warm, then heat, afterwards chafe, and at length fire and inflame him: and now the evil is grown mighty and invincible; and swelled into a strange unlimitedness, so that that which perhaps but a week or two ago was no more than a slight displeasure, and to be smiled, or talked, or slept away, is now like to go off like a clap of thunder, to scatter an huge ruin, and determine in something dismal and tragical. We shall find that this way of thinking had the like effect upon David, but upon a better subject, in Psalm xxxix. 3, My heart was hot within me, while I was musing the fire burned: then spake I with my tongue. We see here the gradation by which this holy man's thoughts led his zeal up to its full height. In like manner, when an injury has passed upon a man, he begins to muse upon it, and upon this his heart grows hot within him, and at length the fire burns, and then he speaks with his tongue; perhaps railing and reviling: and it is well, if in the issue he does not also strike with his hand. The lion has not always such a present supply of fierceness as to fit him to fly upon his prey, till, by the echoes of his own roarings, and the frequent striking of himself with his train, he has called up his drowsy spirits, and summoned his rage to attend his appetite, and so fully chafed himself into his natural fury; and then he is a lion indeed, and to meet him is death, and to behold him a terror next to it. This is exactly the case of the angry and contentious man; he provokes and works up himself to a passion by a restless employment of thought upon some injury done him; till from a man he grows into a beast of prey, and becomes implacable and intolerable. Surely therefore it concerns the virtuous and the wary, and such as know how absolutely necessary it is to conduct every action of piety by the rules of prudence, to endeavour peaceableness, by keeping down the first inconsiderable annoyances and disturbances of it, which like the mustard seeds in their first sowing are very small and contemptible, but being grown up, shoot out into branches and arms, spread into a vast compass, and settle into a firm strength and consistency of body. Compare a disgust in its beginnings and after its continuance, in the first appearance and the last effects of it; and we shall find the disproportions monstrous and unmeasurable. No man is able to give laws to an overgrown humour, and to grapple with a corruption ripe and armed with all its advantages. Who would think, when he sees a little spring-head, and beholds the narrowness of its circle, its quiet bubblings and small emissions, that by that time this little thing had crope three or four miles off, it should be spacious in its breadth, formidable in its depth, grow insolent in a tempest, rise and foam and wrestle with the winds, laugh at every thing in its way, and bear its conquering stream over dams and locks, and all opposition? Why thus also it is with the mind of man: after he is offended, if he will not be brought to discharge his thoughts of the offence, he may think and think so long, till he has thought a distasteful apprehension into an action of murder. But as in order to a man's keeping of the peace, both with himself and others, it highly lies upon him to give no entertainment to disgustful thoughts, conceived from the behaviour of men towards him; so he is much more to abandon and take heed of all aggravating thoughts. If he will not pass over and forget an offence, at least he is not to heighten it; to make that great, which is but small; and numerous, that is but single. If a man were to chastise a child for a fault, and presently by an error of fancy should persuade himself, that certainly that child was some great porter, and should measure out stripes to him accordingly; there is no doubt but the injury would quickly appear in a sad effect. There are indeed no venial sins towards God, but there are between men; and therefore he who shall prosecute a venial offence with a mortal hatred, and swell a molehill into a mountain, beholding every thing under new created heights and additions; he betrays a turbulent disposition, and a mind to which peace and the spirit of peace is wholly a stranger. It is not unusual to hear such speeches fall from some mouths: He did such a thing purposely to spite me; had he not known that I disgusted it, it had never been spoke or done by him. Whereas perhaps the man, in the word or action for which he is censured, thought no hurt, much less designed any: but did it by an innocent carelessness, not sufficiently alarmed by an experience of the baseness, the falseness, and the exceptiousness of men, to set a greater caution or guard upon his behaviour: or perhaps, take it at the worst, it was a word extorted from him by the exasperation of his spirit, and before he was aware, borne upon the wings of passion, and so quickly out of his reach, and not to be recalled. But shall we now play the exactors and the tyrants, squeezing every supposed irregularity till we fetch blood, and according to that unworthy course condemned in Isaiah xxix. 21, make a man an offender for a word? Are we so perfect ourselves, as to need no allowances, no remissions, no favourable interpretations of what we do or say? Or are we so unjust, as when we need these things ourselves, to deny them to others? Would any one be willing to be took upon an advantage? to have every slip and weakness of his discourse critically observed, every inadvertency in his behaviour maliciously scanned, and at length heightened, and blown up to a crime, or a great accusation? Surely there is no man so privileged from the common lot of humanity or natural affections, but that he is sometimes more open and gay, free and unconcerned, and so obnoxious to the unseasonable rigours of a watching, ill-natured adversary. And, on the other side, there is no man but sometimes suffers the vicissitude of trouble, business, thought, and indisposition of mind, that may cast a roughness upon his deportment, and for a while interrupt the complaisance of his converse. And shall these things be now counted grounds sufficient to build a dislike upon, that shall vent itself in the disturbance of a man's peace, the hatred of his person, the undermining of his interest, and the extinguishing his reputation. It is as certain as certainty itself, that oftentimes they do so: and therefore I have nothing to say more as to this particular, but to make use of that prayer of St. Paul, 2 Thess. iii. 2, God deliver us from unreasonable men: for the way of peace such have not known. And thus much for the first means to help us in the duty of living peaceably; namely, a mature and careful suppression of all distasteful, but especially of all aggravating apprehensions, either of the defective or faulty instances of men's behaviour towards us. 2. A second sovereign means conducing to the same great purpose, is the forbearing of all pragmatical or malicious informations against those with whom we converse. It was a worthy saying of Solomon, well beseeming that reputation of wisdom which he stands renowned for in holy writ, that he that repeateth a matter separateth very friends. The carrying of a tale, and reporting what such an one said or such an one did, is the way to sow such grudges, to kindle such heart-burnings between persons, as oftentimes break forth and flame to the consumption of families, courts, and perhaps at length of cities and kingdoms. The mischief such incendiaries do is incredible, as being indeed for the most part inevitable. And a vine or a rose-tree may as well flourish when there is a secret worm lurking and gnawing at the root of them; as the peace of those societies thrive, that have such concealed plagues wrapt up in their heart and bowels. For let us consider the case a little: there is perhaps in some united body, collection, or society of men, some pick-thank caterpillar or other, who, either to ingratiate himself with some great one, or to mischief some whom he maligns, or peradventure both, comes and cringes and whispers, and tells his story, and possibly with some dissembled expressions of respect to the person whom he is about to ruin: as, that he is heartily sorry that such an one, whom he had always an esteem for, should so misbehave and forget himself, as to be guilty of such things as he found and heard him to be; and indeed was a long time before he could believe any such matter of him, out of the great honour he bore him. Nevertheless thus and thus it is, and he is troubled that he should be forced to be the messenger of any thing to his disadvantage. Well, the good man has told his story, and the secret bolt is shot: let us now see into how many cursed consequences this viperous piece of villainy is like to spread itself; and that, whether we consider the accusation as true or as false; as relating to the person accused, or to him before whom he is accused. And first we will take the allegation that such informers usually make in their own behalf, that truly they said nothing but what was truth, and they conceive truth may be lawfully spoken. Very good! Be it therefore a truth. But yet give me leave to ask such persons a few questions: as, whether a truth may not be reported with as malicious a design as the greatest falsity that ever was hatched in hell; and whether to tell a truth with the purposes of malice, be not a sin of as black an hue in the accounts of Heaven, as to contrive and tell a downright lie. I would also ask, whether the person who told this truth would have been as ready to tell it, had it made for the other's advantage as much as it does for his prejudice: and whether he would be willing that every thing should be told and published which is true of himself. I believe the answer to these interrogatories would appear but very lame and imperfect. But since truth is a thing that seldom dwells in the mouths and discourses of informers, we will suppose the accusation to be, as for the most part it is, really false; and that either as to the very matter of it, there being absolutely no such thing as is reported; or at least in respect of some portion and circumstance of the narration; some little thing being added, over and above the true state of the matter, or something being concealed that should have been mentioned; either of which may make such an alteration in the case, that that which one way is innocent and allowable, the other way becomes impious, vile, and criminal. It is in such reports as it is in numbers, the addition or detraction but of one unit makes it presently another number. But now, if we proceed further, and direct the consequences of this degenerous practice to the persons concerned in it; as first, to him that is informed against: we shall find that, whether the information be true or false, his condition is very miserable. For if it be true, all opportunities of deprecating his offence, and of reconciling himself to the person offended, are cut off, and took out of his hands; but in the mean time, the accusation lies festering in the other's mind to whom it is delivered, waiting only for an occasion suddenly to attack or ruin the poor man, who knows not of the cloud which hangs over him, nor of the snare that is spread under him; but is snapt and destroyed before he is aware, without any remedy or escape. But if the things deposed against him be false, as frequently they both are and may very well be, by reason of the accuser's presumption that he shall never be brought to vouch or prove what he has said; why then an innocent person unheard, untried, and bereaved of all power to clear himself, and to confute his accuser, is concluded against, and condemned; his sentence is passed, the purpose of his ruin sealed, and the man is blown up before ever he understands that there is so much as any crime, accusation, or accuser of him in the world. And is not this an horrid and a barbarous thing, and a perversion of the very designs of society? For to what purpose do men unite and convene into corporations, if the mischiefs they suffer under them are greater than those that attend them in a state of dispersion and open hostility? Certainly it is a grievance to nature, and to that common reason and justice which presides over mankind, to see a brave, an upright, and a virtuous person fall by the informations and base arts of an atheist, a sycophant, and an empty dressed fellow; such an one, that, if but one third part of mankind were like him, neither God nor man would think the world worth preservation. And yet such are the men that overthrow virtue, disappoint merit, and render the rewards of the good and the vicious accidental and promiscuous; and in a word, are the pests and vermin that disturb and infest society. But neither is the poor, accused, ruined person the only one that is abused and injured by the false and malicious informer, but even he who by such information is brought to ruin him. For is it not the worst of injuries, that such a wretch should make a great person the instrument of his sin, and the prosecutor of his malice; and all this by abusing his intellectuals with a lie? deceiving and cheating him with false persuasions, in order to a gaining him to a base or a cruel action; first blinding his eye, and then using his hand, and making him to do that upon a false representation of things, which, had he been rightly informed of, he would not have done for a world. It is like the making of a man drunk, and then causing him to sign a deed for the passing away of his estate. In short, it is a daring encroachment, and an intolerable injury. And if there were any one that might lawfully not be forgiven, it is this. But the abuse rests not here; for such sycophants by these practices do not only abuse men in their understanding, their interest, and their peace, by first making them to believe a falsehood, and then to sacrifice a friend or an innocent man to such a belief; but further, they abuse them in that very instance for which they accuse others. It being very frequent, nay my own little experience has observed it, that those who are so officious, by the traducing of others, to fawn, cog, and flatter men to their faces, are as apt to vilify them behind their backs as any other whatsoever: nay, the matter of the accusation by which they secretly stab others, are usually some unwary expressions slipt from those persons, while they have been trapanned into a compliance with the informer's discourse, in his undervaluing, upbraiding, and detracting from the same men, before whom afterwards he is so diligent to accuse them. Now in this case there is nothing so much to be wished for, as that some lucky hand of Providence would bring the person informed against, and the person to whom he was informed against, together; that they might compare notes, and confer what the informer had said on both sides. And the truth is, so it falls out by a strange connection and trace of events, that usually such whisperers are discovered, and that that which passing from the mouth is but a whisper, from the echo and rebound becomes a voice: the effect of which is, that a vile person comes to be understood, and then to be abhorred, and to be pointed at as he passes by, with such kind of elogies as these; "There goes a person for whom no one breathing was ever the better, but many ruined, blasted, and undone; the scourge of society, a spit-poison, a viper, and to be abandoned and shunned by all companies, like a mortal infection: and yet withal so despicable, so detested, and that amidst the greatest successes of his base projects, that the condition of him who is most ruined by him, even while he is ruined, is much more eligible, and desirable; as of the two, I know no man, but had rather be spit upon by a toad than be a toad." I wonder what such persons think, or propose to themselves, when they come to affront God in his house, praying, hearing sermons, and receiving sacraments; when there is no sin or corruption incident to the depraved nature of man, that more peculiarly unfits them for this divine and blessed duty, than the sin that we have been discoursing of. And I am confident, that when such a person thrusts himself upon the ordinance, and receives the consecrated elements; he yet partakes no more of the body and blood of Christ, or the real benefits of them, than the rat that gnaws the bread, a creature like himself, close, mischievous, and contemptible. We have seen here how much such persons and practices interrupt the peace of societies; but yet we are to know that the burden of this charge is not so wholly to lie upon the framers and bringers of such informations, but that some is to rest upon those also who are ready to hear them. For as there is a parity of guilt between the thief and the receiver, so there seems to be the like between the teller and the hearer of a malicious report; and that upon very great reason. For who would knock, where he despaired of entrance? or what husbandman would cast his seed but into an open and a prepared furrow? so it is most certain, that ill tongues would be idle, if ill ears were not open. And therefore it was an apposite saying of one of the ancients, that both the teller and the hearer of false stories ought equally to be hanged, but one by the tongue, the other by the ears: and were every one of them so served, I suppose nobody would be so fond of those many mischiefs brought by such persons upon the peace of the world, as to be concerned to cut them down, unless, perhaps, by cutting off the forementioned parts, by which they hung. But when there is a conspiracy and an agreement on both sides, and one ill-nature tells a tale, and another ill-nature thanks him for it; and so encourages him in the custom, by shewing how ready he is to hear his words, and to do the intended mischief; so that the ball is kept up, by being tossed from one hand to the other: let not that society or company of men, who are blessed with such persons amongst them, expect any such thing as peace; they may as well expect that the winter sun will ripen their summer fruits, or the breath of the north wind preserve their blossoms. No, they will find, that the blasts of contention will blow and whistle about their ears, and a storm arise, which shall endanger their tranquillity to an utter shipwreck, without any possibility of being appeased, but by throwing such wretches and renegadoes from God and good-nature overboard. Let this therefore be the second means to advance us in the duty of living peaceably; namely, to abominate such practices ourselves, and to discountenance them in others. It is a prescription easy and sovereign, and such an one as will not fail in the experiment: but according to the proportions of its efficacy, will manifest a certain and an happy influence, for the restoring of peace, and the refreshing of human converse: for when the troublers of Israel are removed, the trouble of it must needs cease. And thus much for the second means of maintaining the duty of peaceableness. 3. The third that I shall prescribe is, that men would be willing in some cases to wave the prosecution of their rights, and not too rigorously to insist upon them. There are some things which it may be lawful for a man to do, but falling under cross circumstances, may be infinitely inexpedient. To require reparation for a wrong, is a thing good and lawful; but sometimes it may be done so unseasonably, that peace, which is a much better thing, is lost by it. That same stomachus cedere nescius found in most, is the thing that foments quarrels, and keeps men at such unpeaceable distances. I will not lose my right, says one; and I will suffer no wrong, says another: and so they enter into a conflict, both pulling and contesting, till the quietness of society is torn asunder betwixt them. Now it is here apparent, that unless one of these shall relinquish what he supposes to be his right, the controversy must of necessity be perpetual. But certainly peace is an enjoyment so high, that it deserves to be bought at the rate of some lesser abridgments; and a man shall find that he never does himself so much right, as when, upon such an occasion, he parts with his right. It may possibly be of some difficulty to assign all those instances in which peace may challenge this of us, as to surrender a right for its preservation; and though cases of this nature are as numberless and indefinite as particular actions and their circumstances; yet, to contribute something to the conduct of our practice in so weighty and concerning a matter, I shall presume to set down some. (1.) As first, when the recovery of a right, according to the best judgment that human reason can pass upon things, seems impossible: prudence and duty then calls upon a man to surcease the prosecution of that, and rather to follow peace. It will perhaps be replied here, that this case is superfluous and absurd, for no rational man will endeavour after that which he apprehends impossible. I answer, that this seems true indeed, did all that were rational act rationally. But besides, supposing this also; yet unless a man acts virtuously as well as rationally, he may propose to himself the prosecution of a thing impossible, not indeed with a design to obtain that thing, but for some other end or purpose; as either to gratify an humour, or to annoy an enemy, or the like. As for instance, he that should prosecute a poor widow, not worth above two mites, for the debt of a thousand talents due to him from her, yet by reason of this her great poverty, contracted by losses and misfortunes, utterly unpayable; that man prosecutes an impossible thing, and at the same time knows it to be so, and accordingly despairs of the recovery of his debt, yet he continues the suit, because his disposition may incline him to be troublesome, vexatious, and unmerciful; and where money is not to be had, to pay himself with revenge. He may be one that tastes the calamities of a ruined adversary with an high relish, that finds a music in the widow's sighs, and a sweetness in her tears. But now, in such a case is it not rational to conclude, that Christianity calls us to peace, rather than to a fruitless prosecution of a desperate right? where Providence, by taking away all possibility and means of payment, seems to have decided the case for pardon, and the opportunities of exercising a Christian grace. We may be also called to the same duty of not demanding our right, when the power and villainy of the oppressor put the regaining of it under an impossibility. But you will reply; This is a very hard saying: for ought any one's injustice to prejudice me in the claim of my right? I answer, no: if that claim had any likely prospect of a recovery. Otherwise, what rational effect can follow it? for by all a man's clamours and suits for right, he is not at all benefited, and yet the peace is disturbed; nay, it is enough to stamp his action irrational, that he loses his own peace without the least recompence; all his endeavours expiring into air, and vanishing with no effect: for the door of justice is shut, and his little attempts cannot force it open. It is a thing in itself lawful and commendable, for a subject to vouch and assert the title of his prince. But should it so fall out, that a tyrant and an usurper steps up into his throne, and there surrounds himself with armed legions, and a prevailing interest, so that justice and loyalty are forced to shrink in their heads, and so all purposes of resistance become wholly insignificant; will any one say, that it is here the duty of any particular person to stand forth and defend his prince's claim, in defiance of the usurper, by which neither his prince's right is in the least advantaged, nor the oppressor's power at all weakened or infringed; but yet the common peace is interrupted, and a ruin brought upon his own head, and the head of his confederates. Thus, when a bird comes to be immured in the cage, being took from its natural range in the air and the woods, and begins to feel the injury of a restraint and the closeness of a prison, it strives and flutters to recover its native liberty; and perhaps with striving breaks a wing or a leg, and so pines away: and after all this unquietness, is yet forced at last to die in the cage. It is so with a person overpowered in his right, and bereaved of it by those with whom he cannot grapple. Christianity and reason command him not here to labour in vain, but to make a virtue of necessity, and to acquiesce, expecting the issues of Providence, which disposes of things by a rule known only to itself. And by so doing a man is no worse than he was before; but the peace is maintained, and the rewards of patience may be well expected. (2.) In the second place, it seems to be a man's duty to quit the claim of his right, when that right is but trivial, small, and inconsiderable, but the recovery of it troublesome and contentious. That which being lost makes a man not much the poorer, nor recovered, much the richer, cannot authorize him to enter into the turmoil, the din, and noise of a suit, or a long contest. Nothing can warrant a man in these courses but necessity, or a great inconvenience; which, in the supposed instance, is not pleadable. But he proceeds upon the dictates of humour, the suggestions of revenge, and the instigations of an unquiet disposition: the consequences of which, in this world, are but ill; and the rewards of them in the next much worse. This whole method is like the applying of corrosives, and caustics, and the most tormenting remedies, to remove the pain of a cut finger, or like the listing of armies to chase away flies: the means and the design are hugely disproportionable. (3.) In the third place, it seems to be a man's duty to recede from his claim of any particular right, when for the injury done him he has a recompence offered him, in some good equivalent, and perhaps greater, though of another kind. A man has deposited a jewel in another's hand; the jewel comes to be lost or stolen: but the person to whose keeping it was intrusted is willing to make him satisfaction, in paying him the full value of it in money, or in giving him another of a greater price. In which case, should the person endamaged utterly refuse all such satisfaction, and rigidly insist upon the restitution of that individual thing, he declares himself a son of contention, an enemy of peace, and an unreasonable exactor. Nay, the equity of this extends even to those losses, for which, perhaps, no recompence perfectly equivalent can be made; yet, when the utmost that the thing is capable of comes to be tendered, justice, acting by the rules of charity, will tie up the injured man from righting himself by any further prosecutions. As for instance, we will suppose a man defamed, and injured in his reputation; in this case, the word that gave him the wound cannot be unsaid again, or revoked, any more than a spent hour be called back, or yesterday brought again upon the stage of time; but it is gone, and past recovery. Yet the mischief done by this word is permanent and great; it has spilt a man's good name upon the ground; which, like spilt water, cannot be gathered up again. But after this, the slanderer comes to be touched with remorse and sorrow for what he has done, acknowledges and deprecates his fault before his slandered brother; retracts his words as publicly as they were spoke, offers him a large sum of money or a great advantage: what now is the injured person to do in this condition? True it is that a good name is unvaluable; and all the pelf in the world is not an equal ransom for it. Yet it is also as true, that no quarrel, how just soever, ought to be immortal; but ought to be let fall upon due reparation: and the very nature of this case admits of no other or greater reparation than what has been offered. Should it therefore be flung back in the offerer's face, and the action of slander go on rigorously and inexorably, I am afraid the scene would be altered, and that he who prosecutes his right, having yet more malice than right of his side, would, in the estimate of the supreme Judge, from the injured person turn to be the injurious. The like may be said in the loss of a limb, or any part of the body, as an eye or an arm. Certain it is, that he who has struck out my eye, or cut off my arm, has not the magazines of nature so in his power, as to be able to give me another; nor will all his estate recompense the injury of a maimed, deformed body: yet if he will endeavour to give me the best recompence my sad condition will receive, and make up the loss of these with supplies of other advantages, I must be contented, and lie down patiently under my calamity, no longer owning it under the notion of an injury from the man that did it, but as a sad providence from heaven, as an arrow shot from the bow in the clouds, to punish my sins and to exercise my patience. And therefore all suits and actions and endeavours after a severe retribution, must be let fall; I must not vex, worry, and undo him. The eye that God has left me must not be evil because man has robbed me of the other; nor the remaining arm stretched out to revenge the blow that lopped off its fellow. And thus I have shewn the cases in which the duty we all owe to peace may command us sometimes to remit the rigid prosecutions of our right; which was the third means proposed to give success to our endeavours after peaceableness. 4. A fourth is, much to reflect upon the great example of Christ, and the strict injunction lying upon us to follow it. We shall find that his whole life went in a constant recession from his own rights, in order to the tranquillity and peace of the public: he was born heir to the kingdom of the Jews, yet never vouched his title, but quietly saw the sceptre in an usurper's hand, and lived and died under the government of those who had no right to govern. When tribute was demanded of him, he clearly demonstrated the case to Peter, in Matthew xvii. 24, 25, 26, that they had neither right to demand, nor he obligation to pay any; yet, in verse 27, we find that he would be at the expense of little less than a miracle, rather than, by refusing to obey an unjust exaction, to disturb the peace. Lest we should offend them, says he to Peter, go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and thou shall find a piece of money in his mouth: that take, and give for me and thee. But what if they had been offended, it had been but an offence taken, not given: for where nothing is due, nothing was to be paid, nor consequently to be demanded; yet so tender was he of the public peace, that he waved all these pleas and argumentations, and complied with the common practice. Nay, and what is more, in the great concernment of his life, rather than occasion a tumult, or any unpeaceable disorder, though amongst persons then about the greatest villainy that ever the sun saw; he quitted the grand right of self-preservation: which case, though it was peculiar and extraordinary, and so obliges not us to every particular of the action; yet the design of peaceableness, which induced him to such a behaviour, calls for our imitation in general, that we should be willing to brook many high inconveniences, rather than be the occasions of any public disturbance. They sent out an inconsiderable company with swords and staves to apprehend him; but what could this pitiful body of men have done to prejudice his life, who, with much more ease than Peter drew his sword, could have summoned more angels to his assistance, than there were legions of men marching under the Roman eagles? But he chose rather to resign himself silently and unresistingly, like a lamb to the slaughter, and so to recommend the excellency of patience to all his disciples, in a strange instance and a great example. Now I suppose that it needs not much labour to evince, that what Christ did, upon a moral account,, equally engages the practice of his disciples, according to their proper degree and proportion. And therefore we are to study those divine lessons of peace, to admire, and conform to his behaviour, to transcribe his copy, and to read a precept in every one of his actions. And this is the fourth means to enable us to quit ourselves in the great duty of peaceableness. 5. The fifth and last which I shall propose, which surely, for its efficacy and virtue, will be inferior to none of the former, is this; not to adhere too pertinaciously and strictly to our own judgments of things doubtful in themselves, in opposition to the judgment of our superiors, or others, who may be rationally supposed more skilful in those things. If we pursue most of those contentions which afflict the world, to their first principle, we shall find that they issue from pride, and pride from self-opinion, and a strange persuasion that men have of their knowledge of those things of which they are indeed ignorant. I am not for the implicit faith of the papists, or for any man to pluck out his own eyes, and to be guided by another man's, in matters plain, obvious, and apprehensible; and of which common reason, without the assistance of art and study, is a competent judge. But surely, in things difficult and controverted, the learned, who have made it their business to wade into those depths, should be consulted, and trusted to, before the rash and illiterate determinations of any particular man whatsoever. The not doing of which, I am sure, has ruined the peace of this poor church, and shook it into such unsettlements, that the youngest person alive is not like to see it recovered to its full strength, vigour, and establishment. There is not the least retainer to a conventicle, but thinks he understands the whole business of religion, as well as the most studied and profound doctor in the nation. And for those things that by pious and mature deliberation, grounded upon the word of God, and the constant practice of antiquity, have been ordained for the better and more decent management of divine worship, there is scarce any preaching, discontented ignoramus, any groaning old woman, or any factious shopkeeper, who, for want of custom, sits reading the Bible, but will very pertly, and, as they think, also very judiciously, call them in question. For of those many thousands who use to read the scripture, there are few who understand it, and fewer who think they do not; whereupon they venture on all occasions to affix such bold interpretations on the most concerning passages, as either their interest or their ignorance shall suggest. And having upon such pitiful grounds took up an opinion, they are as ready to fight for it, and to assert it with the last drop of their blood. Armies shall be raised, swords drawn, and the peace of a kingdom sacrificed to a notion, as absurdly conceived as impudently defended. Laws must be repealed, or lie unexecuted, customs abrogated, and sovereignty itself must be forced to bow before the exceptions of a tender conscience, and to give way to every religious opiniator, who is pleased to judge his peculiar sentiments in sacred matters the great standard of truth, to which all must conform. For though they deny a conformity to the church in its constitutions, yet they think it very reasonable, nay, necessary, that the church should conform to them; whereas it is most certain from experience, that such persons seldom persist so steadily in any one opinion, as for a year's space to conform thoroughly to themselves. I conclude therefore, that there is no such bane of the common peace, as a confident singularity of opinion: for men's opinions shall rule their practices, and when their practices shall get head and countenance, they shall overrule the laws. If when men shall refuse to yield obedience to statute and government, and for such refusal plead, that their conscience will not give them leave to think such obedience lawful, and for this assign no other reason, but because they are resolved to think so, or allege some places of scripture, which they will be sure to understand in their own sense, though persons much more numerous and knowing than they understand them in a far different one; and then, after all, shall have this accepted by governors, as a sufficient reason to exempt them from the common obligation that the law designs to lay upon every subject; there is no doubt but that, by this course, the very foundation of peace and government will quickly be unsettled, and the whole fabric of church and state thrown back into its former confusion. And thus much for the third particular proposed for the handling the words, namely, to shew by what means we might be enabled to the great duty of living peaceably. I come now to the fourth and last, which is to shew, IV. What are the motives and arguments by which this duty may be enforced. I suppose, many may be gathered here and there from what has been already delivered, and therefore I shall be the briefer in this. 1. The first enforcing argument that I shall propound, shall be taken from the excellency of the thing itself; which indeed is so great, that the highest appellations of honour recorded in scripture are derived from peace. God himself is pleased to insert it amongst his own titles, and to be called the God of peace, Rom. xv. 33. It is also the honourable name of the Messiah, that he was to be the Prince of Peace, Isaiah ix. 6; and that in the most eminent manner that could be: for he designed the time of his nativity when there was a general peace over the whole world in the reign of Augustus Caesar. And the first message that was sent from heaven upon his nativity was a message of peace; Luke ii. 14, Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace, goodwill towards men. The whole doctrine that by himself and his apostles he preached to mankind is called the gospel of peace, and the word of peace, Rom. x. 15. The last legacy that he bequeathed to his disciples at his departure out of the world was a legacy of peace; John xiv. 27, My peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. And the works of the Holy Ghost in the hearts of believers are expressed by the same thing, Galat. v. 22. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace. And in the last place, both the effects and rewards of piety are set forth by this, Rom. xv. 13, The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing. In a word, there is no one virtue or excellent quality in the world, from which there be half so many denominations of honour and expressions of blessing taken by the penmen of holy writ, as from peace. It is the very style and phrase of scripture; and if I should endeavour to mention how often it is thus used in it, I must not so much quote particular texts, as transcribe books and chapters. Now certainly that must needs be a glorious thing, that thus gives titles of glory to the Prince of glory, that thus fills the heraldry of heaven, and calls gifts, graces, blessings, and every good thing, after its own name. The heathen custom was to derive their names of honour from the triumphs of war, as Numidicus, Asiaticus, Africanus: but Christian religion, that came to unite and cement society, to compose differences, and to conquer minds only, has made up its catalogue of honours with names of peace, a virtue of a more benign nature, that can adorn one man without the disgrace of another. 2. The second motive to peace shall be taken from the excellency of the principle from which peaceableness of spirit proceeds. It is from a pious, a generous, and a great mind. Little things are querulous; and the wasp much more angry and troublesome than the eagle. He that can slight affronts, despise revenge, and rather suffer an inconvenience than employ his passion to remove it, declares himself above the injuries of men, and that though others would disturb him, yet he will not be disturbed, he is too strong to be shaken; and so, has both his quietness and his reputation in his own keeping. Now certainly it is more desirable to be such a person, than to be a subject and a slave to every man's distemper and imprudence; for so he is whom every man is able to exasperate and disquiet: he has let go his happiness, and put it into the power of those who regard not their own; and therefore is forced to be miserable, whensoever any other man shall think fit to be proud, insolent, and passionate. I suppose I need no greater argument to recommend a peaceable temper, than the misery of such a condition. 3. The third motive to peace shall be taken from the consequent blessing entailed upon it by a peculiar promise, Matth. v. 9, Blessed are the peacemakers; and I may add, by a parity of reason, no less blessed are the peace-preservers. The treasures of heaven are opened, and the designs of Providence laid, to serve the interest of the peaceable. All contingencies, unusual passages and casualties of affairs, shall conspire into an happy event, in reference to such persons. For when God intends a blessing, a blessing with an emphasis and a peculiarity, as he does here, he takes a man into a nearer tuition, espouses his concerns, directs his actions, and orders his occasions. I do not doubt but the blessing here pronounced to the peaceable is such an one as reaches heaven, and runs forth into eternity, and does not determine in these transient enjoyments and earthly felicities; yet since these also lie in the bowels of the promise, and may come in as a fair overplus, or serve as a comfortable earnest of those greater happinesses that as yet are but within our prospect; I shall take notice of two instances of this blessing, that will certainly attend the peaceable in this world. (1.) The first is an easy, undisturbed, and quiet enjoyment of themselves. While a man is careful to keep the peace with others, he will in the rebound find the influence of it upon himself. He has no enmities to prosecute, no revenges to beware of, no suspicions to discompose his mind. But he that will disturb others, of necessity casts himself under all those evils. For he that affronts or injures a man, must be at the trouble to make that affront good; he must also expect that the affronted person waits for an opportunity to repay him with a shrewd recompence: whereupon he is to be always upon his guard, to hearken and look about, and contrive how he may frustrate the intended blow. All which is a continual torment and a sad vexation; and like being upon the watch every night, while others are at their rest. But then the chiefest misery of all is this, that as it is a very restless, so it is a very needless condition. For what necessity is there that I should undertake the trouble of troubling another? Why should I take so much pains to be disturbed and out of order, when the charge at which I may purchase my own quietness is no greater than only to let other men enjoy theirs? If I should strike any one a great blow on the teeth, it is very probable that I may bruise my own hand as well as hurt his face. But the peaceable man is composed and settled in the most of those disturbances that embroil the world round about him. He can sleep in a storm, because he had no hand in the raising it. He conjured no evil spirit up, and so is not put upon the trouble to conjure him down again. He is like a sword resting in its scabbard, which, by that means, both hurts nobody and preserves itself. (2.) The other instance of the great blessing attending the peaceable in this world, is that honour and reputation which such a temper of mind and course of life fixes upon their persons. Every one looks upon such a man as a public blessing, as a gift from heaven, as an help and remedy to the frailties and miseries of mankind. There is none but is forced to confess that he has been the better for such an one; and consequently, to acknowledge a debt to Providence, that ever he knew him or conversed with him. But on the contrary, is there any one that prays for or honours a plague, a rat, a serpent, or, which is worse than all, a false and a malicious informer? As amongst all the trees and plants of the earth the bramble is the most troublesome, so it is also the most contemptible. It is the great and notable curse of the earth to bear briers and thorns: and it is also their doom to be burnt; and I know nobody that would find a miss of them. For when such persons are removed, afflicted society seems to have a little respite and time of breathing: for while they have scope to act the mischief of their temper, they are like some flies, that first by their venom make a sore, and then set upon it and afflict it. But it being the nature of mankind to fasten an honour there only where they find either something like to God, or beneficial to themselves; let not such nuisances think, that any generous mind can either honour or affect them; for such can be considerable for nothing, but because they are able to do mischief; and I know nothing so vile or base in nature, but that sometimes it has power to do hurt. Is there any thing more weak and pitiful than a flea or a gnat? and yet they have sting and sharpness enough to trouble a wise man. It is therefore the peaceable mind only, the mind which studies how to compose, and heal, and bind up the bleeding wounds of society, that is truly great and honourable. The name of such is like an ointment poured forth, which we know is both healing and fragrant. Honour and respect court them and pursue them; and when they have finished a glorious life here, ennobled by the good offices done by them, their report survives them, and their memory is blessed. Their name is glorified upon earth, and their souls in heaven. __________________________________________________________________ SERMON LI ROMANS vi. 23. The wages of sin is death. THE two great things which make such a disturbance in the world, are sin and death; the latter both the effect and punishment of the former. Sin, I confess, is an obvious subject, and the theme almost of every discourse; but yet it is not discoursed of so much, but that it is committed much more: it being like that ill custom spoken of by Tacitus in Rome, semper vetabitur, semper retinebitur. But while the danger continues, we must not give over the alarm; nor think a discourse of sin superfluous, while the commission of it is continual, and yet the prevention necessary. In the words, we have a near and a close conjunction between the greatest object of the world's love, which is sin, and the greatest object of its hatred, which is death. And we see them presented to us in such a vicinity, that they are in the very confines of one another; death treading upon the heels of sin, its hateful, yet its inseparable companion. And it is wonderful to consider, that men should so eagerly court the antecedent, and yet so strangely detest the consequent; that they should pour gall into the fountain, and yet cry out of the bitterness of the stream: and lastly, which is of all things the most unreasonable, that a workman should complain, that he is paid his wages. The scope and design of the words I shall draw forth, and prosecute in the discussion of these three following things. I. I shall shew what sin is, which is here followed with so severe a penalty as death. II. I shall shew what is comprised in death, which is here allotted for the sinner's wages. III. And lastly, I shall shew in what respect death is properly called the wages of sin. Of each of which in their order. And, I. For the first of these, what sin is. And according to the most known and received definition of it, it is anomi'a, a breach of the law; a transgression, or leaping over those boundaries which the eternal wisdom of God has set to a rational nature: a receding from that exact rule and measure which God has prescribed to moral actions. This is the general notion of it; but as for the particular difficulties, disputes, and controversies, which some have started upon this subject, and by which they have made the law of God almost as ambiguous and voluminous as the laws of men, I shall wave them all; and not being desirous to be either nice or prolix, shall speak of sin only under that known division of it, into original and actual. 1. And first, for original sin. It may seem strange perhaps, that sin bears date with our very being; and indeed, in some respect, prevents it. That we were sinners before we were born; and seem to have been held in the womb, not only as infants for the birth, but as malefactors in a prison. And that, if we look upon our interest in this world, our forfeit was much earlier than our possession: We are, says the apostle, by nature children of wrath, Ephes. ii. 3. Not only by depravation, or custom, and ill-contracted habits, but by nature; the first principle and source of action. And nature we know is as entire, though not as strong in an infant, as in a grown man. Indeed the strength of man's natural corruption is so great, that every man is born an adult sinner. Sin is the only thing in the world which never had an infancy, that knew no minority. Tantillus puer, tantus peccator, says St. Austin. Could we view things in semine, and look through principles, what a nest of impurities might we see in the heart of the least infant! like a knot of little snakes wrapt up in a dunghill! What a radical, productive force of sin might we behold in all his faculties, ready upon occasion, and the maturities of age, to display itself with a cursed fertility! There are some, I know, who deny that which we here call original sin, to be indeed properly any sin at all; and will have it at the most, not to be our fault, but our infelicity. And their reason is, because nothing can be truly and properly sin, which is not voluntary: but original corruption in infants cannot be voluntary; since it precedes all exercise of their rational powers, their understanding and their will. But to this I answer, that original corruption in every infant is voluntary, not indeed in his own person, but in Adam his representative; whose actions, while he stood in that capacity, were virtually, and by way of imputation, the acts of all his posterity: as amongst us, when a person serves in parliament, all that he votes in that public capacity or condition, is truly and politically to be esteemed the vote of all those persons for whom he stands, and serves as representative. Now inasmuch as Adam's sin was free and voluntary, and also imputed to all his posterity; it follows, that their original corruption, the direct and proper effect of this sin, must be equally voluntary; and being withal irregular, must needs be sinful. Age and ripeness of years does not give being, but only opportunity to sin. That principle, which lay dormant and unactive before, is then drawn forth into sinful acts and commissions. When a man is grown up, his corruption does not begin to exist, but to appear; and to spend upon that stock, which it had long before. Pelagius indeed tells us, that the sons of Adam came to be sinners only by imitation. But then, I would know of him, what those first inclinations are, which dispose us to such bad imitations? Certainly, that cannot but be sinful, which so powerfully, and almost forcibly inclines us to sin. We may conclude therefore, that even this original, native corruption renders the persons who have it obnoxious and liable to death. An evil heart will condemn us, though Providence should prevent its running forth into an evil life. Sin is sin, whether it rests in the inclinations, or shoots out into the practice; and a toad is full of poison, though he never spits it. 2. The other branch, or rather sort of sin, is that which we call actual. This is the highest improvement of the former: the constant flux and ebullition of that corrupt fountain in the course of a vicious life: that abundance of the heart declared in expressions, and made visible in actions. It is that which St. John calls the works of the devil, 1 John iii. 8, and the apostle Paul, the deeds of the flesh, Rom. viii. 13, and a walking and living after the flesh; with other such like descriptions. Now actual sin may be considered two ways. (1.) According to the subject-matter of it. (2.) According to the degree. For the first; considered according to the subject-matter of it, it is divided into the sin of our words, the sin of our actions, and the sin of our desires; according to that short, but full account given of it by the schools, that it is dictum, factum, aut concupitum contra legem Dei. Something said, done, or desired against the rule of God's law. (1.) And first, for the sin of our words; the irregularity of them is, no doubt, sinful, and imprints a guilt upon the speaker. We cannot say in that lofty strain of those in Psalm xii. 4, Our tongues are our own: who is lord over us? No; we have both a lord and a law over us; and our tongues are not so much our own, as to privilege the greatest princes and the most illustrious drolls from being responsible for their extravagance. A word is quickly spoke, but the guilt of it abides; like an arrow, it flies swift, and it sticks fast. And our Saviour assures us, that every idle word stands upon record to be one day accounted for. And that word is such, which is either directed to no end, or not to a right one. A defect in either of which leaves an immorality behind it. For, as it is in Matthew xii. 37, By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned. Thy own tongue shall give in evidence against thee; and thy soul shall pass to hell through thy own mouth. (2.) The second sort of actual sin is the sin of our external actions; that is, of such as are performed, not by immediate production or emanation from the will, but by command of the will upon some exterior part or member of the body, as the proper instrument of action. Such as are the acts of theft, murder, uncleanness, and the like. To prove which to be sins, no more is required but only to read over the law of God, and to acknowledge its authority. They being wrote in such big, broad, and legible characters, that the times of the grossest ignorance were never ignorant of the guilt and turpitude inseparably inherent in them. And where the written letter of the law came not, there, according to the apostle's phrase, men, as to these particulars, were a law to themselves, and by perusing that little book, which every man carried in his own breast, could quickly find enough, both to discover and to condemn those enormities. (3.) The third sort of actual sin is the sin of our desires. Desires are the first issues and sallyings out of the soul to unlawful objects. They are sin, as it were, in its first formation. For as soon as the heart has once conceived this fatal seed, it first quickens and begins to stir in desire: concupiscence is the prime and leading sin, which gives life and influence to all the rest, so that the ground and principal prohibition of the law is, Thou shalt not covet. And in Matthew v. we see how severely the gospel arraigns the very first movings of every irregular appetite, making them equal to the gross perpetration of the sin. And indeed action is only a consummation of desire; and could we imagine an outward action performable without it, it would be rather the shell and outside of a sin, than properly a sin itself. Now all these three ways, namely, by word, action, and desire, does sin actually put forth itself. And this is the division of it, as considered according to its subject-matter. The other consideration of actual sin is according to the degree or measure of it; and so also it is distinguished into several degrees and proportions, according to which it is either enhanced or lessened in its malignity. (1.) As first, when a man is engaged in a sinful course by surprise and infirmity, and the extreme frailty of his corrupt nature; when the customs of the world, and the unruliness of his affections, all conspiring with outward circumstances, do, like a torrent, beat him out of the paths of virtue, and, as it were, whether he will or no, drive and bear him forward in the broad road to perdition: which I take to be frequently the condition of the dangerous, unwary, hardy part of a man's life, his youth; in which generally desire is high, and reason low; temptations ready, and religion afar off. And in such a case, if a strict education, and an early infusion of virtue, does not prepossess and season the heart, and thereby prevent the powers of sin in their first and most furious eruptions; how is a desperate wretch drawn forth into open rebellion against his Maker, into a contempt of all goodness, and a love of those ways that can tend to and end in nothing but his confusion? And yet this is the most tolerable condition that sin designs to bring the sinner into. I call it the most tolerable, because sin, left to its natural course and tendency, would and may plunge him into a much worse. Nevertheless, if a remedy does not maturely interpose, this must certainly prove fatal, and the end and wages of it will be death. (2.) The second degree of actual sin is, when a man pursues a course of sin against the reluctancies of an awakened conscience, and the endeavours of his conversion: when salvation waits and knocks at the door of his heart, and he both bolts it out and drives it away: when he fights with the word, and struggles with the Spirit; and, as it were, resolves to perish in spite of mercy itself, and of the means of grace. This we may see exemplified by several instances both in the Old Testament and the New. Thus God upbraids the house of Israel, Isai. i. 5, Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt yet more and more. And is there any thing more frequent than complaints of their backsliding, their playing fast and loose with God; and their sinning against all God's methods of reclaiming sinners? Isai. lvii. 17, I was wroth, says God. and smote him: I hid myself, and was wroth, and he went on frowardly in the way of his own heart. Here we see God angry, and the sinner unconcerned; God smiting, and yet the sinner still proceeding. And the like examples we find of the Jews sinning in our Saviour's time: they sinned against clear light and irresistible conviction; with an hard heart and a daring hand. If ye were blind, says our Saviour, John ix. 41, ye should not have had sin. No, they sinned knowingly and resolutely, with an open eye and a bare face, as if they would even look conscience itself out of countenance. If our Saviour did wonders and miracles before them, they encountered miracle with miracle, and were as miraculous in their obstinacy as he in his mighty works. Now this is a more robust, improved, and confirmed way of sinning, than any sinner, upon his first entrance into and engagement in the service of sin, ever rises to; and it takes in many grains of guilt and malignity which were not in the former; it inflames the sinner's reckoning; it alters the nature and changes the colour of his sin, and sets it off with a deeper stamp and a more crimson die. (3.) The third and last degree of actual sin is, when a man sins, not only in opposition, but also in defiance to conscience; so breaking all bonds, so trampling upon all convictions, that he becomes not only unruly and untractable, but finally obstinate and incorrigible. And this is the utmost, the ne plus ultra of impiety, which shuts the door of mercy, and seals the decree of damnation. For this we are to reckon upon, that there is a certain pitch of sin, a certain degree of wickedness, though known to God himself alone, beyond which, God never pardons; (not that it is in its nature impardonable, but that God, according to the wise and unsearchable economy of his dealing with sinners, after such an height of provocation, withdraws his grace, and surceases the operations of his Spirit, by which alone the heart can be effectually changed or wrought upon.) So that these being thus withdrawn, the sinner never actually repents or returns; but being left to himself, and the uncontrolled sway of his own corruptions, he still goes on sinning, till he ends his wretched course in final impenitence. And this, no doubt, is the true sense of all those scriptures that represent God limiting his grace to a certain day: the neglect of which (like the last and fatal line drawn under the sinner's accounts) leaves him nothing more to expect, but a dreadful payment; or, as the apostle calls it, a fearful looking for of judgment. For as soon as ever the sinner has filled the cup of God's wrath, the next infusion makes it run over. And thus I have shewn the several degrees of actual sin, the several steps and descents by which the sinner goes down into the regions of death and the bottomless pit. Now this differs from original sin thus, that that is properly the seed, this the harvest; that merits, this actually procures death. For although as soon as ever the seed be cast in, there is a design to reap; yet, for the most part, God does not actually put in the sickle, till continuance in sin has made the sinner ripe for destruction. II. Come we now to the second general thing proposed; which is, to shew what is included and comprised in death, which is here allotted for the sinner's wages. Death is the great enemy of nature, the devourer of mankind; that which is continually destroying and making havock of the creation: and we shall see the full latitude of it, if we consider it as it stands divided into temporal and eternal. 1. And first, for death temporal. We must not take it in that restrained sense, as it imports only the separation of the soul from the body: for that is rather the consummation of death, than death itself; it is properly the ending stroke, the last blow given to the falling tree. But we must take it in a larger compass and comprehension; as it is a summary and compendious abridgment of all those evils which afflict human nature; of all those calamities and disasters, which by degrees weaken, and at length dissolve the body. Look upon those harbingers and forerunners of death, diseases; they are but some of the wages of sin paid us beforehand. What are pains and aches, and the torments of the gout and of the stone, which lie pulling at our earthly tabernacle, but so many ministers and under-agents of death? What are catarrhs and ulcers, coughs and dropsies, but so many mementos of an hastening dissolution, so many foretastes of the grave? What is a consumption, but a lingering, gradual rotting, before we are laid under ground? What is a burning fever, but hell in a shorter and a weaker fire? And to these diseases of the body we may add the consuming cares and troubles of the mind; the toil, and labour, and racking intention of the brain; all made necessary by the first sin of man; and which do as really, though not as sensibly impair and exhaust the vitals, as the most visible, corporeal diseases do, or can do; and let in death to the body, though by another door. Moreover, to these miseries, which reach us in our persons, we may subjoin those which attend our condition; those which we are liable to in our names and estates; as the shame and infamy, which makes men a scorn to others, and a burden to themselves; which takes off the gloss and air of all other enjoyments, and damps the quickness, the vigour, and vivacity of the spirit. Also the miseries of poverty and want, which leave the necessities and the conveniencies, that is to say, the second necessities of nature unsupplied: when a man shall be forced to make his meals upon hunger and expectation; to be clothed with rags, and to converse with filth; and to live only upon those alms which the covetousness or the surfeit of other men can spare. Now all these things are so many breaches made upon our happiness and well-being, without which life is not life, but a bare, thin, insipid existence; and therefore certainly we cannot deny them to be parts of death, unless perhaps from this reason, that upon a true estimate of things, they are indeed much worse. And thus we have seen death in the first fruits of it; how by degrees it creeps upon us, how many engines it plants against us, how many assaults it gives, till at length it ends its fatal progress in the final divorce which it makes between soul and body, never resting, till it has abased us to our primitive earth, and to the dishonours of stench, rottenness, and putrefaction. 2. But secondly, the grand payment of the sinner's wages is in death eternal: in comparison of which, the other can scarce be called death; but only a transient change, a short darkness upon nature; easily borne, or at least quickly past. But when eternity comes into the balance, it adds an infinity to the weight, and sinks it down to an immense disparity. Eternal death is not only the sinner's punishment, but his amazement: no thought, no created reason can take the length of an endless duration. But there are also some other concomitant properties of this death, which vastly increase and aggravate the horror of it, besides the bare considerations of its eternity. (1.) As first, that it bereaves a man of all the pleasures and comforts which he enjoyed in this world; the loss of which, how poor and contemptible soever they are in themselves, yet surely must needs be very afflictive to him who had placed his whole entire happiness in them: and therefore to be stript of all these, and to be cast naked and forlorn into utter darkness and desertion, cannot but be infinitely tormenting, though a man should meet with no other tormentors in that place. For to have strong, eager, immense desires, and a perpetual bar and divorce put between them and their beloved objects, will of itself be hell enough, though the worm should die, and the fire should be quenched. For how will the drunkard, the epicure, and the wanton bear the absence and removal of those things that alone used to please their fancy and to gratify their lust! For here will be neither ball nor masks, plays nor mistresses, for the gallant to entertain himself with; here will be company indeed good store, but no good-fellowship; roaring enough, but no ranting in this place. With what a killing regret must the condemned worldling look back upon his rich manors and his large estate, his parks and his pleasant gardens! to which there is now no return for him, but only by thought and remembrance; which can serve him for nothing, but to heighten his anguish by a bitter comparison of his past and present condition. And this is some of the fruit of sin, which by carrying out the heart to a vicious, irregular enjoyment of the things of this life, which quickly have an end, treasures up in the same heart materials for such a sorrow as shall have none. (2.) Eternal death bereaves the soul of that infinite, inexpressible good, the beatific fruition of God. The greatest and the quickest misery of a condemned sinner is the sense of loss. And if the loss of those puny temporal enjoyments make so great a part of his punishment, as I have shewn it does, what then shall we say of the loss of that, which was the only thing which gave life and spirit to all those enjoyments! which gave them that substance, and suitableness to our nature, as to render them properly felicities! For all the comfort that God conveys to the creature, comes from the sensible, refreshing discoveries of his presence. In thy presence, says the Psalmist, there is fulness of joy, Psalm xvi. 11. This is the reviving light which scatters all the darknesses and dismal blacks of sorrow; that wipes off all tears; the happy sunshine, which dries up those disconsolate dews. For as it is the presence of the king which makes the court; so it is the peculiar presence of God which makes heaven; which is not so much the name of a place, as of a state or condition. But now there is an everlasting cloud drawn between this and a sinner under damnation. God hides himself for ever; so that this is the sum and height of the sinner's doom, that he is condemned eternally to feel God's hand, and never to see his face. (3.) And lastly, eternal death fills both body and soul with most intense pain, and the highest torment and anguish which can be received within a created, finite capacity. All the woes, griefs, and terrors which humanity can labour under, shall then, as it were, unite, and really seize upon the soul at once. I am tormented in this flame, says the rich man, Luke xvi. 24. And surely a bed of flames is but an uneasy thing for a man to roll himself upon to all eternity. The sufferings which shall attend this estate, no tongue can express, no heart can conceive. Pain shall possess the body; horror, agony, and despair, shall rack the mind: so that the whole man shall be made the receptacle and scene of misery, the tragical scene for vengeance to act its utmost upon, and to shew how far a creature is capable of being tormented without the loss of its being; the continuance of which, under those circumstances, is but a miserable privilege, and would gladly be exchanged for annihilation. For every lash which God then gives the sinner shall be with a scorpion; every pain which he inflicts shall be more eager than appetite, more cruel than revenge; every faculty, both of soul and body, shall have its distinct, proper, and peculiar torment applied to it, and be directly struck there, where it has the quickest, the tenderest, and the sharpest sense of any painful impression. God seldom punishes or afflicts in this world, but it is with some allay of mercy; some mixture of clemency, which even in the midst of misery may yet support hope. But when sin has lodged the. sinner in hell, the cup which God then administers shall be all justice without mercy, all wrath and venom, all dregs and yet no bottom; a cup never to be drank off, inexhaustibly full, inconceivably bitter. But I shall use no other argument to evince the greatness of those torments but only this, that the Devil shall be the instrument of their execution. And surely a mortal enemy will be a dreadful executioner; and the punishment which an infinite justice inflicts by the hand of an implacable malice must needs be intolerable. And thus I have despatched the second general thing proposed; which was to shew, what is included and comprised in death, which is here allotted for the sinner's wages. I proceed now to the Third and last; which is to shew, in what respect death is properly called the wages of sin. I conceive it may be upon these two following accounts. 1. Because the payment of wages still presupposes service and labour. And undoubtedly the service of sin is of all others the most painful and laborious. It will engross all a man's industry, drink up all his time; it is a drudgery without intermission, a business without vacation. We read of the mystery of iniquity; and certainly the mystery of no trade can be attained without a long and a constant sedulity. Nemo repente fit turpissimus. It is the business of a life to be a complete sinner. Such as are the commands of sin, such must be also the service. But the commands of sin are for their number continual, for their vehemence importunate, and for their burden tyrannical. Sin is said to conceive and to bring forth; and there is no birth without pain and travail. God condemned Adam upon his transgression to the turmoils of sweat and labour: but one would have thought, that he might have spared this malediction, when labour is not only the consequent, but the very nature of sin. To dig the earth is man's punishment; but the sin which deserves it, is the greater labour. For is there any work so toilsome, so full of fatigue and weariness, as to be always at the call of an unlimited appetite, at the command of an insatiable corruption? The Greek is emphatical, and describes the nature of sin in its name; for poneri'a, which signifies sin or wickedness, takes its derivation from po'nos, which signifies labour. So that the readiest way, it seems, to fulfil the apostle's precept in 1 Thess. iv. 11, of studying to be quiet, is to study to be innocent. And were there nothing else in sin but the discomposing and ruffling of that serene quiet, and undisturbed frame of spirit, which naturally attends a true and steady virtue, it were enough to endear the one, and to discommend the other. For sin seldom acts, but in the strength of some passion: and passion never moves but with tumult and agitation: there being scarce any passion but has its contrary to thwart and to encounter it; so that still the actings of them represent a kind of little war in the soul: and accordingly, as the prophet Isaiah says of every battle of the warrior, so we may say of every stirring of an high passion, that it is with confused noise. The still voice of reason is drowned, the sober counsels of religion are stifled, and not heard. And must not that man, think we, needs be very miserable, who has always such a din and hurry in his breast? His passions raging, and his vicious appetites haling and pulling him, sometimes to this object, sometimes to a contrary! So that what through the clamour, and what through the convulsion of exorbitant clashing desires, the soul is in a rent, distracted condition; like Actaeon amongst his dogs, that first bawl about his ears, and then tear him to pieces. The truth of this is sufficiently manifest, from the general theory of the thing itself; but the same will appear yet more evidently by running over particular instances. And first, take the voluptuous, debauched epicure. What hour of his life is vacant from the slavish injunctions of his vice? Is he not continually spending both his time and his subsistence to gratify his taste? and, as it were, to draw all the elements to his table, to make a sacrifice to the deity of his belly? And then, how uneasy are the consequences of his luxury! when he is to grapple with surfeit and indigestion, with his morning fumes and crudities, and other low and ignoble distempers, the effects of a brutish eating; thus having his stomach always like a kitchen, both for fulness and for filth. And next, for the intemperate drinker: is not his life a continual toil? To be sitting up when others sleep, and to go to bed when others rise; to be exposed to drunken quarrels and to sordid converse; to have redness of eyes, rheums, and distillations; a weakened body, and a besotted mind? And then for the adulterer and unclean person: upon what hard employments does his lust put him! first to contrive, plot, and compass its satisfaction, and then to avoid the furies of an enraged jealousy, and to keep off the shame of an infamous discovery. We find the adulterer, in Job xxiv. 16, digging through houses, till at length, perhaps, he digs his own grave too; and by a laborious pursuit comes to an ignominious end. And lastly, for the covetous, scraping usurer. It is a question whether he gathers or keeps his pelf with most anxiety: he is restless to get, and fearful to lose; but always solicitous, and at work. And perhaps those who labour in the mines are not so busy as those who own them. But I need say no more of such a person but this, that his business is as vast and endless as his desires; and greater it cannot be. And thus I have shewn the toil of sin, in several particulars, to which many more might be added. In short, if idleness were not a sin, there was scarce any sin but what is laborious. So that now the retribution of death following such hard and painful service, may properly bear the denomination of wages; and be reputed rather a payment than a punishment. 2. The other reason why death is called the wages of sin, is because wages do always imply a merit in the work, requiring such a compensation. Sin and death are compared together as sowing and reaping: and we all account it a thing of the highest reason and equity in the world, that he who sows should also reap: He who sows to the flesh, says the apostle, Gal. vi. 8, shall of the flesh reap corruption. The evil of sin is every way commensurate to the evil of death; retaliation is the very nature and spirit of justice; and that a man who does an action contrary to another's good, should be made to expiate it by a suffering contrary to his own, is but proportion. But to this, some make that trite and popular objection; that since the same is the measure and extent of things contrary; and since our good works cannot merit eternal life; it should follow also, that neither can our sins, our evil works, merit eternal death. But to this I answer, that the case is very different in these two. For to the nature of merit, it is required that the action be not due: but now every good action being enjoined and commanded by the law of God, is thereby made due, and consequently cannot merit: whereas, on the contrary, a sinful action being quid indebitum, altogether undue; and not at all commanded, but prohibited, it becomes properly meritorious; and, according to the malignity of its nature, it merits eternal death. But some will yet further urge; that in regard a sinful action is in itself but of a finite nature, and withal proceeds from a finite agent; there seems to be nothing of proportion between that, and an endless, eternal punishment. For what is man but a weak, mutable creature at the best? And what is sin, but a vanishing action, which is performed in the compass of a few minutes, and not to be laid in the scale with the inexhaustible measures of perpetuity? But to this also we answer, that the merit of sin is not to be rated, either by the substance of the act, or by the narrowness and poorness of the agent; but it is to be measured by the proportions of its object, and the greatness of the person against whom it is done. And therefore being committed against an infinite majesty, it greatens, and rises to the height of an infinite demerit. Nevertheless, because men are apt to think that God treats them upon hard terms, and to view sin with a more favourable eye, I shall in a word or two shew what there is in the nature of sin, which renders it so highly provoking, as to deserve the greatest evil that omnipotence itself can inflict upon the creature. And, 1st, Sin is a direct stroke at God's sovereignty. Hence we read of the kingdom of Satan, in contradistinction to the kingdom of God: and in the conversion of a sinner, when grace is wrought in the heart, the kingdom of God is said to come into it: and the whole economy of the gospel is styled the kingdom of heaven. So that sin had translated God's subjects into a new dominion: as amongst men, he who has committed a felony or a murder, usually flies the territories of his lawful prince; and so living in another kingdom, puts himself under the necessity of a new subjection. Thus sin invades the throne of God, usurps his royalty, and snatches at his sceptre. But now there is nothing so tender, and sensibly jealous of the least encroachment, as prerogative; the throne admits of no partner, endures no competitor. Rule and enjoy all Egypt, says Pharaoh to Joseph, but still with this reserve, that in the throne I will be greater than thou. No wonder therefore if God punishes sin, which is indeed treason against the King of kings, with death; for it puts the question, Who shall reign? It grasps at all, it strikes high, and is properly a blow given to the supremacy. 2dly, Sin strikes at God's very being. In Psalm xiv. 1, The fool, that is, the sinner, has said in his heart, There is no God; and if this be his belief, it is so, because it was first his desire. Sin would step not only into God's throne, but also into his room. And it matters not, that the infinite perfection of God sets him far above the boldest reaches of his rebel-creature. For it is enough to see the attempts of malice: God takes an estimate of the sinner by his will; he is as much a serpent now he hisses, as if he stung: for whatsoever a man has an heart to wish, if he had power he would certainly effect. And now, if all this malignity lies wrapt up in the bowels of sin, let none wonder how it comes to deserve death; but admire rather, that God has not invented something greater than death, if possible, to revenge the provocation. And thus I have finished the third and last general thing proposed to be handled from the words: from which, and all the foregoing particulars, what can we so naturally and so directly infer, and learn, as the infinite, incredible folly, which acts and possesses the heart of man in all its purposes to sin! still proposing to the sinner nothing but pleasure and enjoyment, advantage and emolument, from the commission of that which will infallibly subject him to all the miseries and killing sorrows that humanity is capable of. Sin plays the bait before him, the bait of a little, contemptible, silly pleasure or profit; but it hides from his view that fatal hook, which shall strike through his heart and liver, and by which that great catcher and devourer of souls shall hold him fast, and drag him down to his eternal execution The consequent appendant miseries of sin are studiously kept from the sinner's notice; his eye must not see what his heart will certainly rue; but he goes on pleasantly and unconcernedly, and acts a more cruel, inhuman butchery upon his own soul, than ever any self-murderer did upon his own body. I shall close up all with that excellent saying of the wisest of men, in Prov. xiv. 9, that fools make a mock at sin. Fools they are indeed for doing so. But is it possible, for any thing that wears the name of reason, to be so much a fool, as to make a mock at death too? Will a man play with hell, dally with a scorpion, and sport himself with everlasting burnings? In every sin which a man deliberately commits, he takes down a draught of deadly poison. In every lust which he cherishes, he embraces a dagger, and opens his bosom to destruction. In fine, I have endeavoured to shew what sin is, and what death is, the certain inevitable wages of sin; and so, have only this short advice to add, and to conclude with: he who likes the wages, let him go about the work. __________________________________________________________________ SERMON LII. MATTHEW v. 8. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. IT may at first seem something wonderful, especially since the times of the gospel, that there should be so few men in the world happy, when happiness is so freely offered and proposed by God, and withal so universally and eagerly desired by men. But the obviousness of the reason will quickly supersede the wonder, if we consider the perverse and preposterous way of men's acting: who, at the same time, passionately pursue the end, and yet overlook the means; catch at the good proposed, but abhor the condition of the proposal. For all would enjoy the felicity of seeing God, but scarce any can brook so severe a duty as to maintain a pure heart; all would behold so entertaining and glorious a sight, but few are willing to crowd for it into the narrow way. Men would reconcile their future happiness with their present ease, pass to glory without submitting to the methods of grace. So that the grand reason that so many go to hell, is because they would go to heaven for nothing: the truth is, they would not go, but be caught up to heaven; they would (if I may use the expression) coach it to the other world, as Elias did; but to live as the same Elias did in this world, that they cannot bear. In fine, if we could peruse the black roll of all those who have perished eternally, we should find that the generality of men are lost, because they cannot eat, drink, sleep, and play themselves into salvation. But this great sermon of our Saviour teaches us much other things; a sermon fraught with the most refined and elevated doctrine, the most sublime and absolute morality that ever was vented into the world: far before all the precepts and most applauded doctrine of the philosophers; yea, as far before them in perfection and purity, as they were before Christianity in time. For they only played upon the surface and outside of virtue, gilding the actions, and giving some little varnish to the external behaviour of men: but Christianity looks through all this, searches the reins, and pierces into the inmost recesses of the soul, never resting till it stabs sin, and places virtue in the very heart. An eminent instance of which we have in these words; which being so very plain and easy in themselves, ought not to be encumbered with any superfluous explication: and therefore I shall pass immediately to the discussion of them; which I shall manage under these four following heads. As, I. I shall shew what it is to be pure in heart. II. What it is to see God. III. How this purity of heart fits and qualifies the soul for the sight or vision of God. IV. And lastly, make some brief use and application of the whole. I. And for the first of these, we must know, that the nature of purity in general cannot be better explained, than by its opposition to these two things. 1. To mixture. 2. To pollution. 1. And first of all, it excludes mixture; that is to say, all conjunction with any different or inferior nature; purity still infers simplicity: gold cannot be called pure, though never so great in bulk, if it has but the least alloy of a baser metal. Though there be in the heart seeds of virtue, principles of goodness and morality; yet if blended with a greater, or an equal degree of corruption, that heart cannot challenge the denomination of pure: for, as Solomon says, Eccles. x. 1, even so small a thing as a fly falling into the apothecary's ointment will give it an offensive savour; and one grain of folly will taint all the honour of him who has a reputation for wisdom. In this sense also is purity ascribed to the word or law of God, in Psalm cxix. 140; Thy word is pure, therefore thy servant loveth it: which is an elogy that cannot be truly given to any other laws in the world, no not to those of the most renowned lawgivers, as of Lycurgus, Solon, or Plato in his Commonwealth, whose laws, though they enjoined many worthy, virtuous, and noble actions, yet still were debased by the addition of something vile and filthy, not only allowed, but sometimes also commended by them; still there was a vein of immorality running through them, that corrupted and defiled the whole channel, and the best of human laws have still some mixture of imperfection. But now all mixture or composition is a kind of confusion; attempting unity, where nature has made variety and distinction. It raises a certain war or faction in the same compound; and the very cause of death, dissolution, and putrefaction, in all sublunary bodies, is from the contest and clashing of contrary qualities upon mixture; which never takes away the innate enmity of contraries, though it may compose their present quarrel. Christ states this matter fully in Matth. vi. 24, No man, says he, can serve two masters; for he will love the one, and hate the other. In like manner, it is impossible for two opposite principles so to unite and mix themselves in the same heart, as equally to command and share its obedience by such just proportions, that it should at the same time seriously intend the service of virtue and the gratification of a vice. Now to give things their due and exact appellations, I conceive, in the sense hitherto spoken of, a pure heart is properly the same with that which is called in scripture a single heart. 2. Purity excludes also pollution, that is, all adherence of filth and outward contagion; as a fountain is said to be pure, when there is no dirt or soil cast into it, that may discolour or defile it. If the guilt of any gross sinful act cleaves to the conscience, that conscience presently loses its purity and virginity. Every such sin falls upon it like a blot of ink upon the finest linen or the cleanest paper. In this sense St. Paul enjoins purity to Timothy; 1 Tim. v. 22, Keep thyself pure, that is, free from the least taint of vice or scandal. In this sense also St. Paul declares himself, in Acts xx. 26, pure from the blood of all men; that is, clear from the guilt or charge of the murderous neglect of souls. So that a pure heart thus taken,, is properly the same with that which David calls a clean heart; Psalm li. 10, Create in me, O God, a clean heart. For so much of inherent sin, so much of filth and foulness. The very frame and make of man's heart is but dust; but sin degrades it still lower, and turns it into dirt. Having thus shewn what purity is in the general notion of it, I shall now endeavour to shew wherein the purity of the heart consists. And that, First, by way of negation. It does not consist in the external exercise of religion; the heart does not always write itself upon the outward actions. These may shine and glister, while that in the mean time may be noisome and impure. In a pool you may see the uppermost water clear, but if you cast your eye to the bottom, you shall see that to be dirt and mud. To rate a man's internals by his externals, and what works in his breast by what appears in his face, is a rule very fallible. For we often see specious practices spread over vile and base principles; as a rotten, unwholesome body may be clothed and covered with the finest silks. There is often a me'ga cha'sma, many leagues distance between a man's behaviour and his heart. In Isaiah xxix. 13, we have some drawing near to God with their mouth, and honouring him with their lips, of whom it is said in the very next words, that their heart was far from him. Lip-devotion signifies but little. Judas could afford our Saviour the lip, while he was actually betraying him to his mortal enemies. It is in this case with the soul as with the body, the inward vital state of it is not always known by the colour or complexion. For I suppose we are not now to learn, that the grand governing principle of the world is hypocrisy. And while it is so, in judging of men's words and actions, it is but too often necessary to read them backwards. For though, naturally indeed, they are signs, and signs of the thoughts and affections of the mind; yet art may, and usually does make them much otherwise. And it is odds, but he mistakes seldomest, who judges of men quite contrary to what they appear: so seldom do the inward and the outward man correspond with one another. And if this were not so, the prerogative of divine knowledge in judging of a man's internals would not be much superior to the sagacity of an human inspection. For that can read all that is legible to the eye, all that can incur into the outward senses. But still we must observe, that this assertion of not judging by the outward actions, is to be understood only of good actions, not of bad. For although an act materially and outwardly good may proceed from an heart which is stark naught; yet where the outward actions are bad, it is certain that the heart cannot be good. For the matter of the action, which is properly that which comes into the outward view, may be good, and yet the action itself, upon other accounts, be absolutely evil: but if the matter of the action be evil, (since evil is from any defect,) the whole action must be so too. And consequently, since a good tree cannot produce evil fruit, it is manifest that the heart which produces, and presides over those actions, is and must be evil. But to return to what we were before about: that the outward piety of a man's behaviour cannot certainly argue a pious and a pure heart, is evident, because there may be assigned several other principles, short of real piety, and yet sufficient to produce such a behaviour. As, 1st, A virtuous and strict education. Many are born into the world, not only with the general taint of original sin, but also with such particular propensions, such predominant inclinations to vice, that they are as fruitful a soil for the Devil to plant in, and afford as much fuel for sin to flame out upon, as it is possible for the utmost corruption of human nature to supply them with. But God, who in his most wise providence restrains many whom he never renews, has many ways to prevent the outrageous eruption of this vicious principle. And one great one is this of a pious education; which may lay such strong fetters, such powerful restrictions upon the heart, that it shall not be able to lash out into those excesses and enormities, which the more licentious and debauched part of the world wallow in: yet still, though by this the unclean bird be caged up, the uncleanness of its nature is not hereby changed. For as no raking or harrowing can alter the nature of a barren ground, though it may smooth and level it to the eye; so neither can those early disciplines of parents and tutors extirpate the innate appetites of the soul, and turn a bad heart into a good: they may indeed draw some plausible lines of civility upon the outward carriage and conversation, but to conquer a natural inclination is the work of an higher power. Nevertheless it must be always looked upon as an high mercy, where God is pleased to do so much for a man as this comes to; and whosoever he is, who in his minority has been kept from those extravagances which his depraved nature would otherwise have carried him out to, and so has grown up under the eye of a careful and severe tuition, has cause with bended knees to acknowledge the mercy of being born of religious parents, and bred up under virtuous and discreet governors; and to bless God, without any danger of Pharisaical arrogance, that upon this account he is not as many other men are. But still (as I have noted) all this is but the sweeping and garnishing of the house; and though education may sometimes do that, yet it is grace only that can keep out the unclean spirit. And consequently such a person, notwithstanding all this outward flourish of behaviour, must yet know that his heart may be all this while as really unrenewed, and upon that score as impure, as the heart of those, who, not being hampered with such early preventions, break forth into the most open and flagitious practices. 2dly, The circumstances and occasions of a man's life may be such as shall constrain him to appear in an outwardly pious dress. As when a man's dependance is upon persons virtuous and religious, and the whole scene of his life cast under those eyes that shall both observe and hate his impiety, there it is not for his interest to uncase and discover himself, and to follow the lure and dictates of a voluptuous humour. While Judas was to associate himself with Christ and his disciples, it concerned him, though he was really a devil, yet to personate and act the saint. Moreover, when Providence has put a man into a low, a mean, or an afflicted condition, the supplies and opportunities of many vices are thereby cut off, and the man is not able to shew himself, or to draw forth those base qualities which lie lurking in his breast. He neither drinks, nor whores, nor goes to plays, but he may thank his purse, not his heart for it. Want and poverty bind him to his good behaviour: and Providence thinks fit, in kindness to the world, to chain up the fury and violence of his passions by the straitness of his fortunes. For such is the boundless pride and insolence of some natures, that should they meet with estates equal to the grasp of their desires, and have the plenties of the world flow in with the full swing and career of their appetites, they would be intolerable. Society would even groan under them, and neither heaven nor earth would endure them; so that there is a necessity, that penury and scarcity should discipline, and, as it were, diet them into sober courses. But still, amidst all these restraints, the mind of such an one may be as base, as filthy, and as prone to all lewdness, as the mind of a thoroughpaced rebel may be to his old game, after an act of oblivion. For by all this, Providence only ties his hands, grace does not change his heart. 3dly, The care and tenderness a man has of his honour, may engage him to demean himself with some show of piety and religion. For there is scarce any one so vicious (some few monsters, some years since amongst us, excepted) as to desire or judge it for their credit, to be thought so. But generally, as every such person would gladly die the death of the righteous, so he would willingly live with the credit and reputation of the righteous too. The principle of honour (even with persons not styled honourable) will go a great way; and a man will be at the cost of a few seemingly virtuous actions to be reputed a virtuous person. Men use to go to church in their best clothes; and it is for their credit to put on the fairest appearance in a religious performance. We read how far this principle carried the pharisees; and what a glorious outside the love of glory put upon them. They prayed, they fasted, they gave alms, and in short had the very art of mortification; and yet within were full of all fraud, extortion, and excess, and (in a word) of themselves. There were none, whose behaviour shined brighter in the eyes of men, nor whose heart was more loathsome in the eyes of God; for they did all to be seen and talked of; and (as it were) to ride in triumph upon the tongues of men; and, in fine, were the arrantest puritans in the world, those only of a later date excepted, who, it is confessed, have infinitely outdone their original. For all the religion of those pharisees flowed only from the beholder's eye, and not from their own heart. They made broad their phylacteries, and enlarged the borders of their garments, taking the measure of both by the breadth and largeness of their latitudinarian consciences; which were of such ample and capacious dimensions, that after they had breathed themselves into a stomach by a long prayer, they could easily swallow a thousand widows' estates, lands, tenements and all, for the first course, and the revenues of a crown and church for the second, of which we can bring aprobatum est for a demonstration. Machiavel himself, though no great friend to religion, yet affirms, and very frequently too, that the appearance and reputation of religion is advantageous; and that, we know, is not to be acquired without many instances of practice, which may affect and dazzle the spectators into admiration, and then make them vent that admiration in applause. But what is all this to the purity of the heart, to the sanctity of the inner man? It is all but the acting of a part, a piece of pageantry, a mere contrivance of ambition, nothing but dress and disguise, and may possibly procure a man some glory in this world, but none, in the next. Now in all these motives to a religious behaviour, we may observe this of them, that they are forced and preternatural, and raise a motion which they are not able to keep up. As when we see a stone thrown upwards, it moves only from the impression of an outward force, and not from the activity of an inward principle; and therefore it quickly sinks, and falls to the ground. In like manner, when there is not a stock or habit of purity in the heart, constantly and uniformly to diffuse the same into the outward actions, the appearance of piety will be found too thin and weak to support itself long. And let that man, whosoever he is, who acts in the ways of piety and virtue only upon the force and spring of external inducements, be warily observed and attended to, and it is a thousand to one but that some time or other his vice gives his hypocrisy the slip, and lays him open to the world, and convinces all about him, that how fair and specious soever the structure seemed to be which he had raised, yet the foundation of it was laid in the sand, or, which is worse, in the mud. From all which I conclude, that purity of heart neither consists in, nor can certainly be proved by any external religious performances whatsoever. In the Second place therefore, to shew positively wherein it does consist: it consists properly in an inward change and renovation of the heart, by the infusion of such a principle into it, as naturally suits and complies with whatsoever is pure, holy, and commanded by God. It is not a thing born, or brought into the world with us, nor yet reared upon the stock of nature by any art, industry, or cultivation of our own whatsoever. No, it is and must be the product of a new creation. Nor can all our sorrows and tears of themselves wash or purify the heart; but the Spirit of God must move upon the face of those waters, and form in it the new creature, or the heart will continue in its native filth, chaos, and confusion for ever. Now where such a principle of purity is, it will be like a strong bias, continually inclining and carrying out the soul, and that even in its most vigorous appetites, to what is pure. For as we rationally gather and learn the nature of a thing from the quality of those things which agree or disagree with it; so when the heart kindly and naturally closes with the purity and excellency of the divine precepts, but on the other side carries a certain aversion to, and loathing of the sordid, unclean suggestions of sin, it is an argument that it is advanced into new principles and inclinations, and purified from those foul habits which it was originally polluted with. Now there are three things more especially (amongst many others that might be mentioned) in which this purity of the heart does certainly and infallibly manifest itself. As, (1.) In the purity and untainted sanctity of the thoughts. The range of the thoughts is free, and may defy the inspection of the most curious and inquisitive mortal beholder: they walk in such a retirement as is open to no eye, but to that alone, to which nothing can be hid. Now when a man shall carry so strict an hand over these, as to admit of no parley with vice, no, not in his thoughts; when yet he knows, that if he should be never so free and familiar with it there, no man breathing could either observe or reproach him for it: this surely argues, that he loves virtue for itself, and that purity, instead of being his design, is become his nature. For what Solomon says of the dissembling churl in Prov. xxiii. 7, that as he thinketh in his heart, even so is he, the same may be said of every man living, in respect of that principle which sways and governs his mind, be it what it will. For since the thoughts are so quick as to prevent all deliberation, and withal so unruly, as for the most part to admit of no control from reason, when it would either command or carry them out to, or remand, and take them off from any object; it follows, that whatsoever they run out freely and spontaneously upon, that the mind is full of, taken up and possessed with, so that it is, as it were, a mighty spring, incessantly and powerfully possessing and bending the thoughts that way. And therefore, let a man's outward actions seem never so pure, never so unblameable; yet if the constant or main stream of his thoughts runs impure; if they take a liberty to rove over and delight in filthy, unclean objects; and if, where the practice of villainy is restrained, it is yet supplied by an active imagination; there a man may be said to be more cautious and reserved indeed, but not at all the more holy. For it is an undoubted argument, that his heart is of the same temper: since wheresoever the main haunt of the thoughts is, there must the heart be also. (2.) The purity of the heart is infallibly seen in a sanctified regulation of the desires. The first step and advance of the soul is into thought, the second into desire. Now the desires have the same privilege of secrecy and freedom with the thoughts; and if you would collect and argue the nature of the mind from either of them, the argument from these is as evident, and perhaps more forcible, than from the other. For the will is the great scene and subject of vice and virtue; and the desires are the immediate issues of that. No outward force or art whatsoever can stop the vent and passage of desire: but the whole soul flows forth in its inclinations; and therefore, wheresoever they may be discerned, they are the most true, proper, and unfailing interpreters of the heart. For what else means the Spirit of God by that noted expression in Prov. xxiii. 26, My son, give me thy heart; but that a man should give God the strongest and most forcible operations, and (as I may so express it) the firstborn of his heart, his desires. There was nothing from which David gathered the sincerity and goodness of his heart so much as from the free and natural flow of his desires; in Psalm cxix. 20, My soul, says he, breaketh for the longing desire that it hath to thy judgments at all times. And in Psalm lxxiii. 25, There is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of thee. Also in Isaiah xxvi. 9 With my soul have I desired thee in the night-season, says the holy prophet. And again, in Psalm xxxviii. 9, David sums up his final appeal to God, concerning the integrity of his heart, in these words; Lord, all my desire is before thee. So that if any man now would certainly know whether his heart be pure, he has here a compendious and sure way of trial: let him read over his desires, and strictly observe the motions of his will and affections. When he is upon the performance of any holy duty, let him see whether or no his desires keep him company in it; when the allurement of any sinful pleasure or profit plays itself before him, let him see whether his desires do not reach out after it, though perhaps his hand dares not. And this will give him faithful information, and such as will never deceive him; for desire is properly the pulse of the inner man, and as the heart is affected, so that beats. (3.) The third, and that not the least argument of a pure heart, is a fearful and solicitous avoiding of every thing that may tend to sully or defile it. It perfectly hates sin, and therefore dreads the occasions of it: it makes a man know no other way of working out his salvation, but with fear and trembling. And in this great work, the trembling hand is still the steadiest, and the fearful heart the most likely to be victorious. For we must know, that there is nothing almost which we meet with, nothing which comes before us, but may be to us an occasion of sin: some things indeed are so directly, and others are so by accident. And therefore, whosoever he is, who would be wise unto salvation, must absolutely fly from the former, and warily observe himself in the use of the latter. For as the apostle says, that the wisdom from above is first pure; so we may with equal truth affirm convertibly, that the purity which is from above is first wise: that is to say, it considers and casts about for the best methods, how to guard and secure itself against the assaults and stratagems of the grand enemy, who would destroy it. And for this cause, be a thing or practice never so lawful in itself, yet if, either through human frailty or the Devil's subtilty, it is like to prove a snare to a man, and to engage him in some course or other which is not lawful; a principle of true genuine purity will be sure to keep aloof off from it; and by no means admit the enemy into the outworks, where it is careful to defend the main fort. A man of an heart so disposed will say within himself, "I will not venture into such a company, I will not use such a recreation, I will not go to this ball nor to that play, for I know not how my mind may serve me under such circumstances; God may leave me to myself, and my strength may fail me, and my own heart betray me. If I tempt God, God may commission the Devil to tempt me, and so the serpent slide into my bosom before I am aware." No, such an one will carefully avoid those spiritual pest-houses, where scarce any thing is to be heard or seen, but what tends to the corruption of good manners; and from whence not one of a thousand returns, but infected with the love of vice, or at least with the hatred of it very much abated from what it was before. And that, I assure you, is no inconsiderable point gained by the tempter; as those who have any experience of their own hearts sufficiently know. He who has no mind to trade with the Devil, should be so wise as to keep away from his shop. In vain therefore does any one pretend to a pure heart, who puts himself into the tempter's walk, into the very road and highway to sin and debauchery. For can any one really hate to be defiled, and yet handle and embrace pitch? abhor all impurity, and yet plant himself in the very neighbourhood and confines of it? A pure heart is a tender heart, and such an one as will smite the breast that holds it upon sight of the very garment that is spotted with the flesh; such an one as feels the least breath that may blow upon its innocence, and, in a word, dreads the very first approaches and remote dangers of that fatal contagion. And thus much for the first general thing proposed; which was to shew, what this purity of the heart is, and wherein it does consist. I proceed now to the Second, which is to explain, what it is to see God. The enjoyment which blessed spirits have of God in the other world is, both in the language of scripture and of the schools, generally expressed to us by their seeing God; as in Matt, xviii. 10, it is said of the angels, that they always behold the face of God in heaven: and in 1 Cor. xiii. 12 it is said, that hereafter we shall see God face to face; with several other places to the same purpose. Now concerning a man's thus seeing God, the schools raise several disputes, but the most considerable of them may come under these two heads. 1st, In regard every man shall be raised with a body as well as a soul, they question, whether this vision shall be wholly mental, and transacted within the soul; or whether the body shall be refined and sublimated to such a perfection, and nearness to the spiritual nature, as to be also made a sharer in it? And whether it be possible for a corporeal substance to see an incorporeal? To which, those who had rather be wise unto sobriety, than pronounce boldly of such things as their present condition renders them uncapable of judging of certainly, give these answers. (1.) That the knowledge of this is mere curiosity, and consequently such as a man may be without, and yet know never the less of what he is really concerned to know. (2.) That there is no express scripture to decide it either way; and natural philosophy is an incompetent judge in matters which can be known only by revelation. But, 2dly, In the next place, they put the question, whether the soul shall enjoy God, its chief good, by an act of the understanding in its intuition of him, or by an act of the will in its adhesion to him. And there are those who fiercely dispute it on both sides. But to this also it may be answered, that as the soul shall enjoy a perfect good, so it must enjoy it after a perfect manner, so as to diffuse the enjoyment into every faculty that is capable of it: that is to say, it must enjoy it agreeably to a rational nature; which first receives a good by the apprehensions of the intellect, and then transmits it to the adhesion and embraces of the will. For a rational soul cannot love any good heartily, but it must first understand it; nor can it understand an excellent good thoroughly, but it must also love it. And consequently, I conclude, that the soul's fruition of God is neither precisely by an act of the understanding, nor yet of the will, but jointly and adequately of both. But I shall not run out any further into these controversies, as bearing no such necessary relation to the matter before us. Briefly therefore, by our seeing God is meant, and under it comprised, the whole enjoyment of the felicities of the other life; as by seeing the sun, is set forth the entire, total enjoyment of this life; as in Eccl. vii. 11, By wisdom, says the preacher, there is profit to those who see the sun; that is, to those who are alive in the world. The Greeks also use the same phrase, idein pha'os eeli'oio being frequently used by Homer for the whole enjoyment of this life; and the Latins have the like expression, luce privari, to be deprived of the light, being with them an usual phrase for a man's losing his life. Now our enjoyment of God is expressed to us by our seeing him, rather than by any other way, I conceive, for these reasons. (1.) Because the sense of seeing represents the object with greater clearness and evidence, than any of the other senses. Light, the great discoverer both of itself and of all things else, is apprehended only by seeing; and the eyewitness, we know, is still the most authentic. God will then shew himself to the soul so plainly and manifestly, he will so open and display his divine perfections to the understanding, that we shall know him as fully and clearly, as we do now those things which we actually see before our eyes; though still (as we must all along suppose) after much another way. (2.) A second reason is, because the sense of seeing is of all the other senses the most universally exercised and employed. For as long as a man lives, every moment that he converses in the world, he is still looking upon something or other; except it be when he is asleep, during which time he can scarce be said to live. And therefore since our enjoyment of God hereafter shall be so continual and without interruption, as to leave no vacant minute which shall not be taken up and filled with that glorious fruition, it is upon this account most appositely and properly described to us, by our seeing him. For in sight and thought (if in any thing) we have the perpetual motion. (3.) A third reason of this expression may be, because the sense of seeing is the sense of pleasure and delight; and that upon which the whole comfort of our life principally depends. For, says the wise man in Ecclesiast. xi. 7, the light is sweet, and it is a pleasant thing for the eyes to behold the sun. And we know that it is much a greater pleasure for a man to see his friend, than only to hear from him. Put out the eyes, shut but those windows, and the soul will presently be filled with sadness, and horror, and a dismal Egyptian darkness; which we know is to be reckoned amongst the greatest of the Egyptian plagues. Since therefore the enjoyment of God is the highest bliss and pleasure, the most sublime and ravishing delight; for so the scripture speaks of it, in Matt. xxv. 23, Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord: and in Psalm xvi. 11, In thy presence there is fulness of joy, and at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore:--I say, since the nature of this blessedness carries in it the height of joy and rational pleasure, by what could it be more livelily set forth to us than by the perceptions of that sense and faculty, which conveys the most quickening and exalting refreshments to the soul? (4.) And lastly; our enjoyment of God is expressed to us by our seeing him, because the sight is of all the other senses the most comprehensive and insatiable. In Eccles. i. 8, The eye (says the wise man) is not satisfied with seeing. That is to say, let it take in never so much of its object, it never surfeits. It is neither subject to satiety nor lassitude. It could presently run over and drink in the beauties of one world, and in the strength of that repast travel fresh into another. For still the more it takes in, the greater is its capacity to take in more. And in a word, it is the only sense, to which satisfaction procures an appetite. In this respect therefore it gives us the fittest representation of our enjoyment of God in glory: who is a good of that immense latitude, that inexhaustible fulness, as to satisfy, or rather satiate the greediest and most grasping appetites of the soul. It is he only who can fill the eye, and keep pace with desire; and, in a word, answer all those cravings and emptinesses of a rational nature, which the whole creation together could never yet do. There will then flow in such a torrent of delight upon all our apprehensive faculties, that the soul will be even overcome, and lost in the enjoyment. As when a vessel is thrown into a river, the river first fills it, and then swallows it up. This therefore is the sum of our happiness in the next world, that we shall see God, and experiment that which we never could in this world; namely, that we shall so see, as to be filled with seeing. And thus I have despatched the second general head proposed from the words; which was to explain what is meant by our seeing God: I come now to the Third, which is to shew, how this purity of heart fits and qualifies the soul for the sight or vision of God. And to give you a short state and account of this, it does it, in a word, by causing a suitableness between God and the soul, and by removing whatsoever may debar or hinder that intimate communion and intercourse, which ought to be, between such a creature and its Creator: now during the soul's impurity, God is utterly unsuitable to it; and that in a double respect. 1. Of the great unlikeness; and, 2. Of the contrariety, which is between them. 1. And first, for the unlikeness. It is evident, from the clearest and most acknowledged principles of reason, that there can be no true enjoyment, but where there is a certain agreeableness or congruity between the object and the faculty; and if so, what pleasure can it be to a filthy polluted person to converse with those glories which shall both astonish and reproach him? What enjoyment can dirt have in the embraces of a sunbeam? God is infinitely pure, and till the soul has some degrees of purity too, it is no more fit nor able to behold him, than the black mire of the streets to reflect the orient colours of the rainbow upon the sun which shines upon it. God loves not to look upon any spiritual being, unless he can see his own image and likeness in it; and that cannot be seen, where the mirror is foul that should represent it. 2. The next ground of the unsuitableness between God and the soul, is that great contrariety which a state of impurity causes between them. For it is this which makes the soul look upon God as an enemy, as clothed with terror, and as a consuming fire; and upon itself as obnoxious, and fit fuel to be preyed upon and devoured by such a fire. The divine holiness is indeed in itself most amiable, but yet a dreadful and confounding sight to a guilty and defiled soul; as the very light itself, we know, though it be the glory of the creation, and the joy of the universe, is yet a frightful and an abhorred thing to thieves and robbers, and to such beasts of prey as lie only in caves and dens, and converse with nothing but filth and darkness under ground. Heaven is set forth to us as the great mansion of happiness and pleasure, but it is so only to the soul which is prepared for it, and by the renovation of its qualities made congenial to it. But to a soul possessed with the power and guilt of sin, it can be no more a delight, than the openest and the sweetest air can be to the fish; which perishes in the region and element which preserves its proper inhabitants, and dies by that which keeps us alive. And thus we have seen how want of purity utterly incapacitates the soul to enjoy God; namely, by rendering it both unlike him and contrary to him. God's infinite holiness, and his transcendent, amazing brightness, meeting with an impure nature, both shames and consumes it; as the day not only discommends, but also expels and drives away the night. Thou art of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, says the prophet Habakkuk, i. 13. In a word, God is too pure either to see it, or to be seen by it; and therefore none but the pure in heart can behold him. And so I pass to the Fourth and last thing proposed; which was to make some brief use and application of the foregoing particulars. And what better use can be made of them, than to correct our too great easiness and credulity, in judging of the spiritual estate either of ourselves or others. To judge indeed too favourably of others is an error on the right hand: for charity is to pass sentence there, which is a virtue of a benign nature, and whose office is still to think, as well as speak the best of things and persons. Nevertheless, it is one thing to believe charitably, and another to pronounce confidently; and more than the former we cannot do, where the knowledge of the heart is locked up from us; as it is of all men's hearts, besides our own. And in judging of ourselves, I am sure it is charity to suspect the worst, and for every man to probe and descend into his own heart by a strict, accurate, and impartial examination of it. For, from the heart are the issues of life and death, and from the same must be fetched the evidences of our title to either. We see many frequent our churches, hear sermons, and attend upon prayers; they are civil in their carriage, upright in their dealings, and there is no great blot or blemish visible upon their conversation; and God forbid, but a due value should be put upon such excellent preparatives to religion: but after all, will these qualifications certainly prove and place us amongst the pure in heart? Will men set up for heaven and eternity upon this stock? and venture their salvation upon this bottom? If they do, it may chance to prove a venture indeed. For do not our Saviour's own words convince us, that the outside of the platter may be clean, and bright too, and yet in the inside remain full of all filth and nastiness? So that while one entertains the eye, the other may turn the stomach. If we would prevent the judgment of God, we must imitate it; and judge of ourselves, as he will judge of us: that is, by the heart, and by the principles which rule there. And for this, let every man be but true to the resolves of his own conscience, and he will seldom need any other casuist. As for those late specious professions of religion amongst us, and those high strains of purity above the rest of the world, together with boastings of a more intimate converse with God, and acquaintance with the mystery of godliness, and the like; they are generally nothing else but terms of art, and tricks used by spiritual mountebanks, to impose upon the credulous and unwary; and signify but little to that all-searching Judge, who judges neither by fine words nor fair pretences. For let men say, or pray, or pretend what they will, he who has a covetous heart, is in the sight of God a covetous wretch. And he who has a proud, a lustful, or a revengeful heart, passes in the accounts of heaven for a proud, a lustful, and a revengeful person. And he who can harbour schism or faction, sacrilege or rebellion, either in principle or design, though he prays never so devoutly, never so loud, and long, with all the postures of a solemn hypocrisy, as a sad look and a doleful tone; yet let him take it from the word of truth itself, that he has nothing either pure or pious in his heart: for the main spring, the heart, is out of order; and therefore the motion of the wheels must needs be so. too. Briefly, and in a word, and with that to conclude: he who has nothing to entitle him to this blessedness of seeing God, but a civil, inoffensive smoothness of behaviour, a demure face, and a formal, customary attendance upon a few religious duties, without a thorough renovation of the great principle within him, and a sanctified disposition of heart, may indeed hereafter see God, but then he is like to see him only as his judge. To which God be rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen. __________________________________________________________________ SERMON LIII. GALATIANS v. 24. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. IT is common to all sects and institutions to have some distinguishing badges and characteristic names, by which they both express and distinguish their profession. But Christ, that came into the world not to imitate, but to correct and transcend both that of the Jews and of the philosophers, sequesters his doctrine from the empty formality of names, reducing it to its inward vigour and spirituality. So that even in respect of the most solemn appellation, we find that Christianity was some time in the world before the name of Christian; perhaps to convince the world, that religion is not a bare name, and that men might be Christians before they were called so; as daily experience demonstrates that they are often called so before they are. And indeed the name of Christian, without the nature, leaves no more impression upon the soul, than the baptismal water that conveys it does upon the face. Wherefore Christ gives another-guess badge and mark of Christianity; such an one as constitutes the very essence of it; for still it is the same thing that gives both nature and difference to beings. Now this discriminating mark is in short comprised in the crucifixion of the flesh and the lusts thereof. For the explication of which words, I shall shew, I, What is meant by being Christ's. II. What by the flesh with the affections and lusts. I. For the first of these. To be Christ's is to accept of and have an interest in Christ, as he is offered and proposed in the gospel. Now Christ is offered and held forth to every particular person that expects to be saved by him under three offices; 1. his prophetical, 2. his kingly, and 3. his sacerdotal. In which account I give you not only the number of his offices, but also their order, as they stand related to us. And this order and economy of them is founded upon the very nature of the thing, and the natural order of religious actions. For in the procedure of nature there must be, 1. the knowledge of a duty; 2. the performance of it; 3. the reward. Correspondent to these is the economy of Christ's offices. For, 1. by Christ's prophetic office, revealing his mind to us, we come to know his will. 2. Then by his kingly office, ruling and governing us, we come to yield obedience to that will. 3. And thirdly, by his sacerdotal or priestly office, we come to receive the fruit of that obedience in our justification and salvation. For we must not think that our obedience is rewarded with eternal life for its own merit, but it is the merit of Christ's sacrifice that procures this reward to our obedience. Some indeed preposterously misplace these, and make us partake of the benefit of Christ's priestly office in the forgiveness of our sins, and our reconcilement to God, before we are brought under the sceptre of his kingly office by our obedience. But such must know that our interest in Christ as a lord and king to rule us, does precede, if not also cause, our interest in him as a priest to save us. For the gospel perverts not the order of nature; the work must still go before the reward. And those shall never share in the benefit of Christ's sacrifice, who have not submitted to the rule of his sceptre. Now therefore, to sum this up into a firm conclusion, he, and he alone, is properly said to be Christ's, who, upon a sound knowledge of and a sincere obedience to Christ's will, stands justified and reconciled to God by the merit of his death and sufferings: and thus he is perfectly Christ's, who has an interest in him considered under every one of his offices. This may serve to overthrow the wild and irrational justification of the antinomians, libertines, and lazy solifidians, who upon this ground only judge themselves to be Christ's, because they believe they are: a way of justification, for its easiness, rather to be wished true than to be thought so. But easy things in religion are always suspicious, if not false; and such will find, that their belief is not the rule of God's proceeding. II. In the next place we are to see what is meant by the flesh, and the affections and lusts. By the first I suppose I need not tell you that it cannot be understood of the corporeal bulk of man, which together with the soul makes up the whole compound; but it is rather a metonymy of the part for the whole, or perhaps more properly, of the subject for the adjunct, the flesh for the sin adherent to the flesh, as shall be made out by and by. In the mean time by flesh we are to understand the whole entire body of sin and corruption, that inbred proneness in our nature to all evil, in one word expressed by concupiscence, usually called by the schoolmen fomes; that fuel, or combustible matter in the soul, that is apt to be fired by every temptation; the womb that conceives and brings forth all actual impurities, styled in the next words affections and lusts. By which we are not to understand only the brutish affections of carnal sensuality, but indifferently all the actual eruptions of that accursed principle, all the streams that issue from that impure fountain; for as by the flesh is denoted the original depraved disposition of the heart, so by the other is signified the drawing forth of that propensity or principle into the several commissions of sin through the course of our lives; flesh is the fuel, and lust the flame. Having thus given the explication of the words, and shewn what is to be understood by being Christ's, and what by the flesh and its affections, We shall lay the further prosecution of the text in these two things. I. To shew why this vitiosity and corrupt habit of nature comes to have this denomination of flesh. II. What is imported by the crucifying of it. For the first of these. The whole depravation of our nature comes to be called flesh for these reasons. 1. Because of its situation and place, which is principally in the flesh. Here it is placed, here it is enthroned. Concupiscence, I shew, was the radix of all sin, and all the several kinds of sin, to which men are severally inclined, are only so many modifications or different postures of concupiscence; and concupiscence itself follows the crasis and temperature of the body; as we know the liquor for the present receives the figure of the vessel into which it is infused. If you would know why one man is proud, another cruel, another intemperate or luxurious, you are not to repair so much to Aristotle's Ethics, or the writings of other moralists, as to those of Galen, or of some anatomists, to find the reason of these different tempers; for doubtless they arise from the different quality of the blood and the motion of the spirits in those several persons; which things themselves depend upon the climate, diet, and air, in which men are born and bred. Hence we see that those of the same climate are usually disposed to the same sin. Whereupon some have presumed to set down the standing characters of several nations; as that the Grecians are false; the Spaniards formal, grave, and proud; the French wordy, fickle, and fantastic; the Italians lustful; and the English mutinous and insolent to governors. And these characters, if true, seem to agree to these several nations, not only for one age, but successively in all generations: as waters of a river running in the same channel always retain the same colour, taste, and breed the same sorts of fish. And it is not to be questioned, but that it was the same humour that raised the barons' wars, and since acted higher in the late rebellion. I do not believe a transmigration of souls, but surely there is something to be observed that looks very like a transmigration of tempers and manners; so constantly does posterity succeed into the humours, appetites, and ways of their progenitors. But let not any one gather from what has been said, that I place sin in the body only, not in the soul also: for in the body I place only the first seeds and occasions of it, which immediately, upon the sociation of the soul with the body, communicates and transfuses the contagion to that likewise; as we see in stills and alembics, though the fire put under, and the materials put within them, lie in the lower part, yet they send up a steam and exhalation, which settles into drops in the upper part: so all the perturbations of bodily affections, though they are seated in the body, which is the lower part, yet they continually exhale and breathe forth sinful vapours, that leave a guilt and an impurity upon the soul; yea, even upon the top and commanding faculties, the understanding and the will: though, to pursue that similitude a little further, as that which rises from the bottom of the still is but a vapour, and becomes not a drop till it settles upon the upper part of it, so that which comes from the body is but a bare disturbance, and comes not to the proper form and nature of a sin, till consented to and owned by the soul. From what has been laid down, Aristotle observes, that intemperance and luxury about things that affect the body and grosser senses leaves a kind of stupidity and sottishness upon the mind also; as the uppermost part of the chimney is blacked by the fire that burns below. How the body should affect the soul, that which is material work upon that which is immaterial, is, I confess, a problem hardly resolved in philosophy; but experience shews the truth of the thing by its apparent and undeniable effects: and reason itself will not prove that we ought to reject the thing, because we are ignorant of the manner, unless reason would prove also, that we might know every thing. But where philosophy seems to contradict a divine truth, there it is to be reputed vain, and we are to fetch the decision of the case from faith. Divines, in the matter of original sin, which upon good grounds we believe, though I suppose few can explain the way of its propagation; they (I say) acknowledge that the soul, which is by immediate creation infused by God into the body, comes pure, unspotted, and untainted with the least sin; but upon the union and conjunction of it with the body, it contracts a pollution, and so the whole man becomes presently sinful; as the purest water issuing from the fountain, when it slides into a dirty and a muddy kennel, it immediately loses its clearness and virginity, and becomes as filthy as the place in which it runs. This discovers that it is the body that first sullies and besmears the soul; here is the malum propter vicinum malum, this is the unhappy neighbourhood; for no sooner are they joined, no sooner are the body and the soul made brothers, but they are brethren in iniquity. Conformable to what has been said is the verdict of the holy scripture. Hear the exclamation of St. Paul, Rom. vii. 24, O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death? It was his body that wounded, that, as it were, stifled his soul: hence it cries out, as one sinking in a bog or quagmire, for immediate deliverance. This sociable evil, this treacherous companion, is the enticer and betrayer to all sin. Hence again Paul lays the stress and load of all upon this in the eighteenth verse of the same chapter, In me, that is, my flesh, (says he,) there dwelleth no good thing. He earned his prison about him, nay, his bane, his poison, had he not had an antidote from grace: it was a magazine for the weapons of unrighteousness, a full, endless, inexhaustible storehouse of all filth and corruption. This truth, that sin has its first situation and place in the flesh, and that from hence it borrows its name in common dialect of scripture, is yet further clear from this; that the most mortified and sanctified persons in the world cannot by any means wholly discharge themselves from the relicks of sin and concupiscence while they are yet in the body; as having soaked and insinuated itself into the very vital constitution of it: but immediately after they die, and the soul comes to be delivered from the body, we hold that the sanctification of it is then perfect and consummate; so that it sins no more, the very being, as well as the guilt of sin, is then destroyed; the soul is then sprightly, pure, and vigorous, like the spirit or quintessence of a liquor extracted from the dregs and the captivity of matter; or like a pleasant bird that is released from a nasty cage: the soul then finds its activity restored with its purity, and so mounts up to heaven, where it enjoys its Maker by a bright and a clear intuition, and converses with him for ever: and this is an evident demonstration that the vitiosity of our nature is first situate and fixed in the flesh. The papists indeed hold that the souls of the saints, at least of the plebeian and ordinary saints, are not immediately, upon the dissolution of the body, freed wholly from the being and inherency of sin, but are sent into a place called purgatory, where the fire is to calcine and purge off the dross of sin from the soul, before it can be fitted for the society of the blessed. But this is a fabulous and a gross conceit, and, were it not gainful, unworthy the patronage of any learned popish writer. For how can the fire burn the soul? and then how can it burn off sin? Do we think that sin sticks upon the soul like rust upon a piece of iron? But these things are so ridiculous and absurd, that to repeat them is to confute them. 2. The vitiosity of our nature is called flesh, because of its close, inseparable nearness to the soul. There is an intimate conjunction and union between the soul and sin; and the intimacy of their coherence is the cause of the intimacy of their friendship. Sin is fixed in the heart, and therefore it lies in the bosom. Hence, to shew the individual estate and the indissoluble tie of matrimony, the Spirit takes a similitude from this, Matthew xix. 5, and says, They two shall be one flesh. The soul, while it is embodied, can no more be divided from sin, than the body itself can be considered without flesh. The nearness between these two, our soul and our corruption, is so great, that it arises to a kind of identity: hence to deny and conquer our sin is, in scripture language, to deny ourselves, implying that sin adheres so close to us, that it is a kind of second self. I do not say that the substance of the soul is evil, or that the being and nature of it is sinful; but that the stain of sin contracted by it clings so fast to it, that it is scarce to be fetched off. Blackness is not the substance of the ink, yet it is inseparable from it. See the nearness of sin to the soul, by observing the ways and means by which God endeavours to part them, and without which they cannot be divided. No less than the blood of the Son of God to wash off the stain of sin; no less than the Spirit of God to subdue the power; nothing but an infinite price, joined with an infinite power, can work the division. Hence the effectual sin-conquering force of the word is expressed by this dividing quality, Heb. iv. 12; It is quick and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, of the joints and marrow. Is there any thing more closely united than the joint and the marrow? than the soul and the spirit? Yes, the soul and sin. Hereupon, the word being to disenthral the soul from it, must have the same effect upon it that the sword has upon the body, which is, by penetration and dividing the continuity of the parts; for every wound is properly division, an opening or loosening the compactness and closeness of the thing upon which the impression is made. Wherefore, if the great business of the word is to wound and divide the soul from sin, it follows, that they were once intimately and closely cemented together; the connection between these two is a Gordian knot, that cannot be dissolved but by this spiritual sword. We misapply the command of loving our neighbour, and misplace our affection; for sin is our nearest neighbour, and we love that most; it cleaves, it adheres, it sticks to us; but it is as the viper did to Paul's hand. And we may say of it as Christ did of Judas, He that betrays me is with me: sin is, as it were, engrafted into the soul, and thereby made connatural to it, and consequently as a stock upon which another scion is engrafted; the soul does not bring forth its own natural fruit, but the fruit of sin. They are mutually knit and entwined one within the other. Hence the power of remitting sins is in the gospel termed, Matth. xvi. 19, the power of loosing, as the contrary is of binding. Sin has bound itself as close upon the soul as the bonds or fetters that pinion and hold fast an imprisoned malefactor. The same union is yet further evident from the state of every unsanctified, unregenerate person in his death: at which great change, though he leaves his body, he retains his sin; that still keeps close to his side, and follows him into another world. A man's corruption, if dying in his sin, is to him like a bad servant or an unfaithful soldier; though it lives with him, yet it will be sure not to die with him. And this may be the second reason of this denomination. 3. A third reason why the vitiosity of our nature is called flesh is, because of its dearness to us. And this founded upon the former, for vicinity is one cause of love. Now there is nothing that we prosecute with a more affectionate tenderness than our flesh; for as the apostle says, Ephes. v. 29, No man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it. How does the soul sympathize with it, either in its sufferings or its comforts! one would think that reason was even swallowed up in sense: how does every change of weather affect the mind! how sensible is it of every winter's blast, every summer's heat, of the sweetness of ease and the tortures of pain, as if, by conversing with the body, it even grew corporeal. If any the least member is hurt, what a general auxiliary, what a concurrent help is there from all the rest! the eye bewails, the tongue bemoans, and the hand plasters and foments it; and all this to rescue a base carcass from that which will one day certainly attach it, death and dissolution. But in the mean time the conscience may be wounded, the soul bruised and broke with the fatal blows of sin and temptation, and lie even gasping at the brink of eternal death, and yet we feel no pain there, neither seek for a remedy; it may faint and bleed, and we never ask whether there is any balm in Gilead, any spiritual surgeon to pour oil into our wounds. For see whether it is not the usual custom of men not to think of their souls till their body is given over; nor to send for the divine, till they are left by the physician; so dear is this flesh to us: for if it were not so, could we think the drunkard would ruin his soul to please his palate? would the unclean person pawn eternity for the gratification of a base appetite? Nay, take a survey of all the arts, the trades, and the most prized inventions in the world, and you will find ten to four found out and employed either to please or adorn the flesh: it is for this that the artificer labours, and the merchant ventures; and we compass sea and land ten times oftener to make a gallant, than to make a proselyte. Justly therefore upon this account also does the Spirit express our sin by the name of flesh, for this has an equal share in our love. Sin is our darling, our Delilah, the queen regent of our affections; it fills all our thoughts, engrosses our desires, and challenges the service of all our actions. Can there be any greater love than the love of a mother to her child? And we know the scripture tells us, that sin is conceived and brought forth by the soul, James i. 15. Doubt not therefore but it shall be cherished and beloved as a child; it is the firstborn of the soul, the beginning of its strength; but it is such a firstborn to it as Reuben was to Jacob; such an one as he had for ever cause to curse. I shall not stand to shew the excessive love that the miserable, bewitched soul of man bears to sin, much less shall I stand to prove it. Let it suffice us to observe, from the constant, uncessant practices of the world, that there is no cost, study, travail, and labour, either to preserve health, to defend life, or to endear friends, which is not with an abundant overplus of charge and expense freely and greedily laid out upon the satisfaction of sin, and that in its most tyrannical and unreasonable demands. What that man in Micah vi. 7 proffers for the expiation, many hundreds would give for the preservation of their sin; thousands of rams, and ten thousands of rivers oil, yea, the fruit of his body for the sin of his soul: so dear does sin usually cost men in this world, though much dearer in another. This is their paramour, they court it, they go a whoring after it, as the usual scripture expression is: they will not, though you fling the vengeance of God and the fire of hell in their faces, be plucked away, but, maugre all curses or promises, terrors or entreaties, they will even die in the fatal embraces of their dear but killing corruption: and as some will rather rot and perish, and be eat through with a gangrene or an ulcer, than undergo the painful cutting and lancing of their flesh, because they are delicate and tender of it; so the soul will, through the same tenderness to a cruel lust, see itself overgrown, infected, poisoned, and at length ruined by it, rather than remedy and remove it, by the healing severity of a thorough mortification. Let this therefore be the third and last reason why the Spirit has here set forth the pravity and corruption of our nature by the name of flesh. Now what has been hitherto discoursed of may, by way of inference, suggest these things to our consideration. 1. The deplorable estate of fallen man; whose condition is now such, that he carries his plague about him, and wears it something nearer to him than his shirt; that he encloses a viper in his bowels, feeds and maintains, and is passionately fond of his mortal enemy; and, what is the greatest misery of all, has it not in his power to be otherwise; he has a body that is not so much the instrument, or servant, as the dungeon of his soul: and sin holds him by such bonds of pleasure, so strong, so suitable to his perverted and diseased inclinations, that his ruin is presented to him as his interest, and nothing gratifies, delights, or wins upon him, but that which dishonours his Maker, and certainly destroys himself. 2. The next thing offered from hence to our thoughts is, the great difficulty of the duty of mortification: this is a greater work than men are aware of: it is indeed the killing of an enemy, but of such an enemy as a man thinks his friend, and loves as his child; and how hard it is to put the knife to the throat of an Isaac is easily imaginable. What! part with that that came into the world with me, and has ever since lived and conversed with me, that continually lies down and rises up with me, that has even incorporated itself into my nature, seized all my appetites, and possessed all my faculties, so that it is the centre and principle of all my pleasures, and that which gives a relish and a quickness to every object! This is an hard saying, and an harder undertaking. He must be a good orator that should persuade a man to stick daggers and needles in his flesh, to strip his bones, and in a manner to tear his nature over his ears; yet to mortify a sin is something like it: but alas! it would go near to nonplus the most artificial persuader, to bring a man to part with the covering of his body; but how much more with the vestment of his soul! Surely there is no love to God less than that which will induce a man to lay down his life for God, that can enforce him to mortify a corruption for him; and this, one would think, should awaken those who sacrifice to their own dreams, who spread themselves paths of roses to a fool's paradise, and design heaven upon those terms of easiness that the gospel knows not of: but it is an attempt that will cost many a smart blow, many a bitter rencounter, and many a passage through the fiery furnace, before the innate filth of our nature can be severed from us. And whatsoever measures a man may propose to himself, he will find, that to mortify a lust, and to be a Christian, is an harder work than now and then to lift up his eyes, to cry, Lord! Lord! or to hear an absolution, which perhaps does not at all belong to him. 3. In the third and last place, this declares to us the mean and sordid employment of every sinner: he serves the flesh, that is, he is a drudge and a scavenger to the most inferior part of his nature. It is a low and an unmanly thing for any person to be laborious and solicitous, and to spend much time in dressing and adorning his body; it shews him to be a fop, a trifle, and a mere picture: but then how much more ignoble must it be to attend upon his body, in the dishonourable provisions for the lusts and corruptions of it! If it be a preferment to handle sores and ulcers, to converse with diseases, and all the filth of a distempered body, then may it pass for a generous employment, to be sedulous in obeying the dictates of sin and the commands of the flesh; but as the service of God is perfect freedom, so the service of the flesh is perfect, entire, complete slavery. II. I proceed now to the second general thing proposed for the handling of the words, and that is, to shew what is imported by the crucifixion of the flesh; under which I shall do these things. 1. I shall shew what is the reason of the use of it in this place. 2. What is the full force, sense, and significance of it. 3. Prescribe some means for enabling us to the duty signified by it. 4. Make some useful corollaries and deductions from the whole. 1. For the first of these: this word is here used by way of allusion to Christ, of whose behaviour and sufferings every Christian is to be a living copy and representation. Christ will have his death an example to excite, as well as a sacrifice to save: and there is no passage in his life and death but is intended for our instruction, as well as our salvation. Upon this score we are bid to put on Christ, as a garment, Rom. xiii. 14. For as in a garment there is an apposite fitness and commensuration of each part of that to every part of the body; so there is nothing in the whole series of Christ's life and death, but ought in some measure to be answered and transcribed by every believer; as affording to us for every action not only a pattern, but a motive. We read of Christ's nativity: here every Christian is to turn an history into a precept, and read in himself the necessity of a new birth. We find the passion and the crucifixion of Christ for sin: now what can this better suggest to us, than the crucifying sin, the cause of his crucifixion? We read and admire his resurrection from the dead: certainly this might infer in us a spiritual resurrection from the death of sin and the grave, and stench of corruption. Nay, if we have that Christian dexterity and skill of a proper application of these passages, we shall find a correspondent, homogeneous quality derived from each. We shall die with him, and we shall rise with him: we shall find something in his cross that shall kill our sins; something in his resurrection that shall revive our graces: for if we transfer and place it even upon a natural cause, what is it else, but for the body to sympathize with the head? The Socinians indeed place the whole business of our redemption upon a bare imitation; and the truth is, to say no more, (if you will admit the expression,) they do indeed make Christ an example, and that in a much more ignominious way than the Jews did. But now though they place the whole redemption wrought by Christ in a bare following and expressing his example, let not us therefore transgress into the other extreme, and totally exclude this imitation; for undoubtedly Christ in all his sufferings left us a pattern, as well as paid a price. There is none that seems to have so evangelical and raised a notion of this, as the apostle Paul in Galat. ii. 20, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. Paul seems to be recovered to his spiritual life, as the youth upon whom Elisha stretched himself. The prophet put his face to the other's face, his eyes, his mouth, his hands, to the eyes, mouth, and hands of the other; and so, by an adequate application of his body to each part, he brought him at length to enjoy the same life with himself. Thus Paul as it were stretched himself upon the same cross with Christ, and by exactly conforming to his sufferings and death, was advanced to the similitude of his life. Hence it is said, 2 Tim. ii. 12, If we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him. And Paul, in that excellent discourse, Phil, iii. 10, vents an heavenly passionate desire, that he might know the power of Christ's resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable to his death. And thus to endeavour to be like Christ is a laudable, nay, a dutiful ambition; it is our sin to worship, but our duty to be his picture: for doubtless every Christian is obliged not only to obey, but also to represent his Saviour. Certainly Paul, in Galat. vi. 14, where he says, that he is crucified to the world, and tells the believing Romans, in Rom. vi. 6, that their old man is crucified with Christ, could have expressed the same thing by other words sufficiently significant, as, that he was mortified, and his worldly desires extinguished, and that their corruptions were abated, weakened, and subdued; but he rather says crucified. The other, indeed, would have expressed his purity, but this, by a peculiar significance imports his Christianity, as not only declaring an excellent life, but also the example that caused it. It is like fair writing, with the copy prefixed and set above it. The business of a Christian is not invention, but imitation: and because he is too ignorant to prescribe to himself, all his perfection is to follow, and Christ gives every Christian this comprehensive, summary compendium of his duty, Let him take up his cross and follow me. And if we would abridge all religion into this short dichotomy, the sum of our belief is Christ, and of our obedience conformity. Having thus shewn the reason of the use of the word here, I proceed now to the second thing, which is, 2. To shew the full force and significance of it. Crucifying therefore, as it is here applied to the corruption and depraved sinful disposition of our nature, imports these four things: (1.) The death of it. The cross is the instrument of death, and to crucify is to kill. A few interrupted assaults and combats with a man's corruption will not suffice; he may give it some blows, and wounds, and bruises, but after all these it may recover; and we know the seed of the woman was not only to bruise, but to break the serpent's head. He that will crucify his sin must pursue it to the very death. Many, after they have been something humbled for their sin, and for a while have used the means of mortification, so as to terrify it from a present acting, and have took off something of the edge of its fury, conclude that the day is won, and the enemy routed, when by sad experience they find at length that it is but a retreat, and the return is more furious and dangerous than ever. An enemy is never overcome till he is killed; and those only act like wise men who think so. We are to crucify our corruptions, as the Jews did Christ; the whippings, scourgings, and buffetings were but the forerunners and beginnings of the grand suffering that was intended. It was his life and his blood that they thirsted after. Now it is but for a man to change the scene, and act the same upon his own corruption. Sin stands as a malefactor condemned to death by the law of God; and God has intrusted every man with the execution of his own sin; and God will require life for life; so that if a man lets his sin escape alive, the life of his soul must be its ransom. There is nothing that betrays and ruins men, as to the great concerns of their eternal happiness, so much as half and imperfect mortifications of their sin, but supposed to be perfect and complete: for they give sin rather a respite than a ruin; a time of breathing and of re-collecting its strength, and a more prevailing insinuation upon the heart, upon the vicissitude and the return: so that a man is strangely baffled and set backwards in the main work of repentance, while he sees all his endeavours unravelled, and his sin grow upon him afresh, like weeds only cropt and cut, whereas they should have been rooted up. If a man thinks that he has given a shrewd blow to his lust, let him know that this is an argument for him to pursue his advantage, and to redouble his strokes upon it, to a perfect conquest, rather than to acquiesce, as if he had achieved something sufficient to acquit himself in the combat. The utmost cruelty to an inveterate enemy is always successful, if sufficiently powerful; but if a man shall content himself to have given such an adversary a scratch on the hand, when he might and should have stabbed him to the heart, let him thank himself, if in the issue he fall by a recovered fury, and dies by that strength that he spared to his own ruin. Wherefore when we are thus commanded to crucify the flesh, let every one understand the full latitude of this precept; and remember that he is charged to kill his corruption. God's hatred is directed to the life and being of sin; and for a man to spare that, is to be absurdly cruel to his own soul. To strike it, to war against it, without designing its death, is but hypocrisy. A Saul may captivate and imprison an Agag, but a pious Samuel will slay him. (2.) As it implies death, so it further imports a violent death. Sin never dies of age. It is as when a young man dies in the full fire and strength of his youth by some vehement distemper; it as it were tears and forces and fires his soul out of his body. He that will come and fight it out with his corruption to the last, shall find, that it will sell its life at a dear rate; it will strive and fight for it, and many a doubtful conflict will pass between that and the soul. It may give a man many a wound, many a foil, and many a disheartening blow: for, believe it, the strong man will fight for his possession. Never think to dispossess him by a bare summons, or imagine that a man can recover the mastery of his heart and his affections by a few prayers and broken humiliations. No, such a mortifying course must be taken, and such constant violences and severities used, as shall try and shake every power of the soul, before a corruption can be despatched. The conquest had need be glorious, for it will be found, by sharp experience, that the combat will be dangerous. The soul is engaged with such an enemy as will require both the onsets of force and the stratagems of art. Sin will never quit its hold quietly; but, like the Devil, who if we hear is conjured down, it is always in a storm. That man that allows himself in his sin, and humours his corruption, let him consider, that if God ever intend to save him from it, what it will cost him to conquer it; kill it he must, but then it will not be killed like a lamb, which resists not the knife, but like a wolf or a wild boar; he must run it down and conquer it, before he can kill it; and though God do give him the grace to conquer it in the issue, yet he must go the hazard and the dubious adventure of being conquered himself. When a man is put to effect any thing with violence, it is troublesome to him that does, as well as grievous to him that suffers it. This therefore is the second thing implied in the crucifixion of sin, to despatch it by a violent death. (3.) To crucify the flesh with the affections of it imports a painful, bitter, and vexatious death. Let us but reflect upon our Saviour: he was nailed to the tree, and that through those parts which were most apprehensive of pain, the hands and the feet; which members, by reason of the concurrence of the nerves and sinews there, must needs be of quickest sense: thus he hung, in the extremity of torture, till, through the unsupportable pressures of pain, he at length gave up the ghost. Now we are still to take the former observation along with us, that the occasion of the use of this expression here is an allusion to Christ's crucifixion: so that the crucifying the flesh must express the pain also, or the resemblance would not be perfect. This supposed, it would be well that such as are quick and forward to profess the name and undertake the rigour of a Christian course, would first sit down and calculate and ponder the difficulties, the hard, grating, and afflicting contrariety that it bears to the flesh. They are to live as upon the rack; to hear the cries of a tormented, dying corruption, without relenting; when our greatest desires thirst and beg for satisfaction, they are to be answered only with renewed exercises of mortification; when we have got them upon the cross, we are to treat them as the Jews did Christ; when they thirst and call out for their former pleasures, to give them the vinegar and the gall of sharper and sharper severities. The cravings of our dearest and most beloved affections are to be denied; and what a torment is it when desire is upon the career, to separate between the enjoyment and the appetite! It is like rending the skin from the flesh, or the flesh from the bone: yet this is to be done; nor are we to be surprised with wonder at it; for certainly no man was ever crucified without pain. The punishment of the cross is of all others the quickest and the most acute; it is the universal stretching of all the limbs from the joints, so universal, that there is not the least part, sinew, or fibre in the body, but it is distended. So the mortification of sin is to be so general and diffused, as not only to fix upon the bulk and body of sin, but to stretch the inquisition to every the least desire, the most lurking and secret affection; for assuredly there is something more than ordinary implied in this expression of crucifying sin: it cannot but import the most rugged, cruel, and remorseless dealing with it that is imaginable. And however men are nice and favourable to their corruption, yet did they consider what endless pains, what unspeakable torments, their corrupt affections and lusts prepare for them, even self-love could not but be religion enough to make them prevent such miseries, by first inflicting them upon the author. Every man should remember, that for all his indulgence to sin, sin will not spare him; even that corruption that lies in his bosom will prosecute him, and cry out for justice against him at the judgment of the great day. Besides, why should we grudge at the painfulness of this duty, when it is confessed, that every wound given to sin cannot but pain the sinner; but then if we consider withal, that God has decreed to pardon and save none, without giving them some taste of the smart and bitter fruit of sin, we have cause to adore his mercy in this, that the pain we take in mortifying sin, will be the only pain that we shall ever endure for it. (4.) In the fourth and last place, crucifixion denotes a shameful and a cursed death; it is such an one as was marked out and signalized with a peculiar malediction, even of old, by God himself, Deut. xxi. 23, He that is hanged on a tree is accursed of God; and for the shame of it, it is so great amongst all nations, that the infamy were a sufficient punishment, without the pain: so that the Romans used it to slaves only, and the vilest malefactors. Hence, in Heb. vi. 6, such apostates as are said by their unworthy behaviour to crucify Christ, are said also to put him to an open shame. Thus therefore must the corruption and vitiosity of our nature be dealt with. God has doomed it to death, without the benefit of so much as dying honourably. If there be any scorn, loathing, and detestation due to a dying offender, certainly it is much more due to the sin that made him so. Hereupon God has provided one great instrument for the mortifying of sin, which is the irksome shame of confession: I do not mean the auricular, pickpocket confession of the papists, but public confession, such an one as David exercised, when he confessed his sins before the whole congregation; and such an one as the primitive Christian church required of scandalous excommunicate persons, before they were readmitted into its communion. And indeed if we consider the temper of man's mind, confession is of all other penalties the most shameful; shameful I mean to sin, though glorious to the confessing sinner. Hence also humiliation for sin is expressed by taking shame to ourselves. And certainly if shame is not judicially awarded as the punishment, it will naturally follow as the fruit and effect of sin. See all the cursed deaths, the confusion and consternation that attends malefactors: it is all to be ascribed to this cursed cause, that they would not shame their sin, and therefore their sin has now shamed and confounded them. Considering therefore how sin has stained the beauty of our nature, and covered it with the shames and dishonours of corruption, whatsoever we do or can inflict upon it of this kind, it is not so much a punishment from the law of God, as a proper retaliation from ourselves. Having thus shewn what is imported by the crucifying of sin, I proceed now to the third thing proposed. 3. Which is, to prescribe some means for the enabling of us to the performance of this duty. Two therefore I shall mention as conducible to this crucifixion of the flesh, with its affections and lusts. (1.) The first is a constant and pertinacious denying them in all their cravings for satisfaction. A man by fasting too long may come to lose his stomach; so an affection abridged and tied up from its proper gratification comes by degrees to be chastised and even wearied into sobriety; for frequent disappointments in a thing eagerly desired will at length leave a kind of indifference in the desires as to that thing. As on the contrary, every gratification of a corrupt appetite exasperates, calls forth, and enlarges it to new, and greater, and more restless expectations. Let a man therefore begin the crucifixion of his flesh in these negative mortifications; that is, when his voluptuous humour is clamorous for pleasure, let him not answer any of those calls: if he would not maintain it, let him not feed it: he will find that so much as it wants of food, it will lose of its fierceness. This is the course taken for the taming of wild beasts, to reduce and order them by the disciplines of hunger, by long and frequent frustrations of their ravenous appetites. And the reason of this course is founded in a natural cause. For though the design of every appetite is to purvey for nature, and to derive strength to that by receiving such and such objects; yet by the same means it first feeds and strengthens itself. It being like some collectors of public monies, who indeed are employed and intended to serve the exchequer, but yet in the mean time use to be very kind to themselves. In a word, the defraudation of the appetites of sin weakens the whole body of sin and themselves also; as on the other side all satisfaction corroborates and inflames them. And he that takes up a resolution to crucify his intemperance, luxury, or uncleanness, yet when they call for their usual refection, and a fair occasion knocks at his door, or his companions call upon him, has no power to deny either the entreaty of his appetite within, or to slight the invitation of tempting objects from without, he may as well expect to tame a wolf by feeding him, or to extinguish a flame by heaping fuel upon it, as to mortify a sin upon these terms. His attempt is absurd, his success desperate, and his lust must and will prevail. 2. The other means to crucify a corrupt affection, is to encounter it by actions of the opposite virtue. This differs from the former thus: that that was only the denying of fuel to a fire, but this a pouring water upon it, and so vanquishing it by the prevalence of a contrary element. He that is profane, let him subdue his profaneness by the exercise of prayer and meditation. He that is covetous, let him dispossess his mind of that vice by actions of charity and liberality: for as vicious actions frequently repeated produce a vicious habit, that infects and ferments the whole soul; so the like frequent repetition of virtuous actions does by degrees loosen, and at length totally unfix and drive out that habit of vice. Now this is both the nobler and the speedier way of conquest: as it is more glorious to break open than to starve a city, and to take it by force than by surrender. Both indeed are equally conquests, but the latter is the greater triumph. And thus much for the means by which we may be enabled to crucify the flesh with the affections and lusts. 4. Come we now to the fourth and last thing, viz. To see what may be drawn by way of consequence and deduction from what has hitherto been delivered. (1.) First of all then we collect the high concernment and the absolute necessity of every man's crucifying his carnal, worldly affections. I know no work so difficult and unpleasing, but its necessity is an abundant argument to enforce it. And I suppose every one will grant, that it is necessary for him to be a Christian: yet unless he has crucified the flesh he cannot be so, and his assuming that title is only a nullity and an usurpation. Upon this small hinge therefore turns the grand determination of our eternal estate, whether as to happiness or misery. The whole round of man's happiness, from the first dawnings of it in the revelations of grace, to the last consummation of it in glory, runs solely and entirely upon this. Without this, not so much as the blessing of word and sacraments, but it is poisoned with a curse. For first, he that comes to Christ's table who is not Christ's, is in God's esteem only as a dog catching at the children's bread. He that prays to Christ, and yet is not Christ's, is but as a rebel presenting a petition; if he intrudes into the participation of ordinances, and the society of the saints, he is a guest without either invitation or wedding garment, where his best entertainment will be the imprisonment of a malefactor, instead of the welcome of a guest. On the other hand, take all the solid happiness of this life, and the hopes of a better, the privileges of the sanctified, and the eternal fruitions of the glorified, and they are all compendiously but fully couched in this one word, to be Christ's. (2.) In the next place, we gather a standing and infallible criterion, by which to distinguish those that are not Christ's from those that are, and consequently to convince us how few Christians there are in the world; or, to speak more closely, how few Christians there are in Christendom; and that the common use and acceptation of this word is much larger than its real signification. Much the greater number and proportion of men lie wallowing in all the filth and the pollutions of the flesh. But I suppose the precedent discourse has been a sufficient demonstration, that he and he alone has a right to this glorious appellative of a Christian, and to the privileges that attend it, who has mastered his depraved nature, cashiered his corrupt inclinations, and offered violence to his dearest, when sinful affections; so that he overcomes and triumphs, and sees his sin bleeding at his feet. In sum, he only is Christ's who has executed the utmost of that pious cruelty upon his sin, that we have seen hitherto imported by crucifixion. But it will be replied, that this is an hard and a discouraging assertion, that none should be reputed Christ's, unless he has fully crucified and destroyed his sin. But to this I answer, that we must here distinguish of a twofold destruction of sin, 1. In respect of a total abolition: thus every one that is Christ's must have destroyed his sin in design and purpose; this he must intend, whatsoever God enables him to effect; this must be aimed at, whatsoever is reached. 2. In respect of a sincere, though imperfect indication: and thus every one must actually destroy his sin; that is, he must actually begin and be about the work. Where we may observe, that this is properly, nay, with an emphatical significance, implied by crucifixion; for a man is not dead as soon as crucified. We know our Saviour and the two thieves hung some hours upon the cross before they breathed their last: so sin, though it is not immediately dead, yet it is truly crucified if it is a dying. It may struggle for life, indeed, yet for all that it may be under the pangs and power of death. But to shew what is the least degree of the crucifixion of sin indispensably required to entitle a man to this transcendent privilege of being Christ's, I shall lay down this position, viz. that he in a true evangelical sense is to be reputed Christ's, who has crucified his sin, as to an active resolution against it; I say active resolution; where this term active does not illustrate, but imply the nature of it. There is a kind of identity in these terms active resolution, as when we say, a rational man, where the predicate does not describe, but include the subject. Which, by the way, is a sure, unfailing rule for men to try the sincerity of their resolutions by. Many are prone to think, that they are resolved against sin, when indeed they only deceive and abuse themselves, and are not so: for that is no resolution that is not seconded with vigorous, suitable endeavours: if it is not active, it is not so much as resolution. But he that pursues, and backs, and follows home purpose with endeavour, resolution with action, he has given his corruption its deathblow; he has crucified it; and if he does not intermit this course, he shall see his victory completed in the death of his adversary. And thus I affirm, that the crucifixion of sin realized in a sincere though partial mortification of it, makes a man a believer, instates him in grace, entitles him to glory, and, in a word, renders him truly Christ's. And indeed, if this does not, we may conclude, according to that of our Saviour, though in a different sense, when the Son of man comes will he find faith upon the earth? For if this be rejected as no sufficient condition to interest a man in the merits of Christ's death, and the redemption he has purchased, as God indeed has limited the number of saints to very few, so I am afraid that upon these terms we shall reduce it almost to none, and make the passage to heaven yet narrower than ever God made it; who, even in the midst of a sinner's condemnation, is the God that delights to save, and not to condemn. To which God be rendered and ascribed, &c. __________________________________________________________________ SERMON LIV. HABAKKUK ii. 12. Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood. THIS short prophecy, out of which I have selected this portion of scripture to discourse of upon this sad and solemn occasion, was uttered (as interpreters do conjecture, for know it certainly they cannot) about the latter end of the reign of king Josiah, or at least in the following reign of his son, but however some time before the Babylonish captivity, that being the great event which it foretells, and the chief subject of which it treats. The whole prophecy contains in it these two parts: 1st, A double complaint made by the prophet: 2dly, A double answer returned to it by God. 1. And first for the complaint. The prophet cries out of the horrid impiety, the great perfidiousness, and general corruption of the Jewish nation, then grown to that height, that he was forced to invoke the justice of heaven against them, as being too strong for all human control, too big for reproof, and fit only to upbraid the means of grace by their incorrigible impenitence under them. This loud and grievous complaint of his prophet, God answers with the denunciation of a severe judgment against the persons complained of, by bringing in upon them an army of the Chaldeans, that hasty and bitter nation, as they are styled in the sixth verse of the first chapter, persons that should act all the insolences upon them, that victory in conjunction with ill-nature could prompt them to: men whose hearts were flint, and their bowels brass; who knew not what it was to pity or relent, but were utter strangers to humanity, and uncapable of shewing compassion: but upon all these accounts so much the fitter to be instrumental to the divine vengeance, now enflamed against them, and to surpass, if possible, the severity of the sentence by the fierceness of the execution. Which dreadful answer of God is so far from satisfying the prophet's complaint, that it only exasperates his grief, and provokes him to another, in which he expostulates with God the method of this his judgment, that he should punish the wickedness of his people by persons so much viler and wickeder than themselves; that vice should be employed to punish sin, and that his church should be chastised, and, if you will, reformed by persons notable for nothing but blood and rapine, luxury and idolatry. To this complaint also God is pleased to rejoin, and to clear the justice, equity, and reason of his proceeding, by shewing that it was not to be rated by the qualification of the instruments made use of in it; which instruments he would be sure to account with when they had done his work; and that, as he designed his people for the rod, so he designed the rod itself for the fire. He assures his prophet, and with him all pious and humble persons, who could lift their faith above their sense, that as Nebuchadnezzar and his army were not for any worth or piety in themselves suffered to captivate and trample upon God's people, and to make havock of and vent their rage against the church; so that they themselves should infallibly have their turns in the course and circulation of divine justice, and be strictly reckoned with for their intolerable pride, their insatiable avarice, and their unhuman and remorseless cruelty, shewn in the spoil and waste they had made upon all nations round about them for the propagation of their empire, which they were still enlarging as their desires, and their desires as hell, as it is expressed in the fifth verse of the second chapter: for all this, I say, the prophet is assured that these victorious sons of Belial should pay severely, when God should think fit to rebuild Jerusalem upon the ruins of Babylon; and to convince the proud and the cruel, that he neither loves nor values his scourge, though he is sometimes constrained to use it. The words of the text contain in them a woe or curse, denounced personally and directly against the great head of the Chaldean empire Nebuchadnezzar, but by consequence against the whole empire itself. The curse is both for the ground, object, and measures of it considerable: and therefore I shall cast the prosecution of the words into these five particulars. I. I shall shew the ground or cause of this curse, which the text declares to be, that justly abhorred sin of blood-guiltiness. II. I shall shew the condition of the person against whom this curse was denounced. He was such an one as had actually set up and established a government by blood. III. I shall shew the latitude and extent of the curse, and what is comprehended in it. IV. I shall shew the reasons why a curse or woe is so peculiarly denounced against this sin. V. And lastly, I shall apply all briefly to the present sad occasion. I. And first for the ground and cause of the curse here denounced, which was the crying, crimson sin of bloodshed; a sin, in the hatred and detestation of which heaven and earth seem to strive for the mastery. The first great disturbance in the world after the fall of man was by a murderer; whom the vengeance of God pursued to that degree, that he professed that his punishment was greater than he could bear, though he himself could not say, that it was greater than he had deserved. Accordingly in all succeeding generations it has still been the care of Providence, both by civil and religious means, to extinguish all principles of savageness in the minds of men, and to make friendship and tenderness over men's lives a great part of religion. But by nothing has this been so highly endeavoured, as by the rules and constitution of Christianity, the last and noblest revelation that God has made of his mind and will to the sons of men. In which all acts of fierceness, violence, and barbarity, are so strictly provided against, that there are few injuries in which patience and sufferance are not recommended instead of the most just and reasonable pretensions to revenge: nay, and so very tender is it of men's lives, that it secures them against the very first approaches and preparations to murder, by dashing even angry thoughts, and denouncing damnation to vilifying, provoking words: so that we have both law and gospel equally rising up against this monstrous sin: and the sentence of both confirmed by the eternal voice of reason speaking in the law of nations: and so all passing this concurrent judgment, that whosoever sheds man's blood, ought by man to have his blood shed. A judgment made up of all the justice and equity that it is possible for reason and religion to infuse into a law. But now the execution of this law being upon no grounds of reason to be committed to every private hand, God has found it necessary to deposit it only in the hands of his vicegerents, whom he intrusts and deputes as his lieutenants in the government and protection of the several societies of mankind; and so both to ennoble and guard their sceptres, by appropriating to the same hands the use of the sword of justice too. From which it follows, that the law has not the same aspect upon sovereign princes, that it has upon the rest of men; nor that the sword can, by any mortal power, be authorized against the life of him to whom the sole use of it is by divine right ascribed. Upon which account, if it so fall out that a prince invades either the estate or life of a subject, that law, that draws the sword of justice upon the life of any private person doing the same things, has no power or efficacy at all to do the same execution upon the supreme magistrate, whose supremacy, allowing him neither equal nor superior, renders all legal acts of punishment or coercion upon him (the nature of which is still to descend) utterly impossible. But what! does God then approve, or at least connive at those wicked actions in princes, that he so severely takes revenge of in others? No, certainly, the guilt is the same in both, and under an equal abhorrence with God, and shall equally be accounted for; but the difference is this, that while God punishes inferior malefactors by the hands of princes, he takes the punishment of princes wholly into his own: and surely no guilty person is like to speed at all the better for having his cause brought before him who has an infinite wisdom to search into, and an infinite power to revenge his guilt. It is God's prerogative to be the sole judge of princes, and heaven only is that high court of justice, where kings can be legally arraigned, tried, and condemned. God has woes enough in store to humble the highest and the proudest tyrant, without needing the assistance of any of his rebel subjects; and therefore such courses for the curbing or pulling down of princes is neither the cause of God nor the defence of religion, but the doctrine of devils, and the dictates of that which in the judgment of God himself is worse than witchcraft. For be a king never so savage, bloody, or unjust, he is, under all these respects, to be looked upon as a plague or a punishment sent by God upon the people, whose duty I am sure is to submit, be the punishment what it will. And however, that nation is like to find but a strange recovery, be its distemper what it will, if its cure must be a rebellion. II. The second thing to be considered is, the condition of the person against whom this woe or curse is denounced. He was such an one as had actually established a government and built a city with blood. We know that as soon as Cain had murdered his brother, he presently betook himself to the building of a city. And so indeed it falls out, that bloodiness has usually a connection with building, and that upon some ground of reason: forasmuch as men, by shedding of blood, are enabled to build cities, and set up governments; and then because such cities being once built, and governments set up, do secure the shedders of blood from the vengeance due to their sin. The person here spoken of I am sure eminently served his turn by his cruelty and bloodiness in both these respects, as having thereby reared, or at least hugely augmented the most magnificent city that ever was; even Babylon, the stupendous metropolis of the eastern monarchy, then the governess of the world: a city so strong and great, that it might well promise its builder sufficient defence against any mortal power, that should presume to call him to account for any of those slaughters and depredations, by which he had been enabled thus to build it. So that it is not for nothing, that the prophet here expresses the whole Chaldean monarchy by this city, which was of such incredible strength, glory, and vast dimensions, that it might well pass for one of the wonders of the world, and render it almost doubtful whether Babylon should be accounted in the Chaldean empire, or the Chaldean empire be said to be in Babylon. The account the world has had of the Assyrian monarchy, the first and greatest of all the four, is indeed but small and imperfect; but so far as the scattered fragments of antiquity have been able to inform us, we may guess at the unparalleled greatness of the structure by the magnificence of its remains. For if we consider the spaciousness of this city of Babylon, it is reported to have been about four hundred and fifty-eight of our English miles in circuit: yea, so exceeding wide and ample was it, that three days after it was taken, one part of the city knew nothing of what had befallen the other. The wall that encompassed it was two hundred cubits high, and so thick withal, that two coaches might meet upon the breadth of it. It opened itself at an hundred gates, and those all of brass; which whole wall was the work of Nebuchadnezzar, though falsely ascribed to Semiramis. Add to all this, the horti pensiles, art's miraculous emulation of nature, that is, vast gardens and woods planted upon the battlements of towers, and bearing trees fifty foot in height: such prodigious instances of the grandeur of this city have the most authentic historians, both Greek and Latin, transmitted to us. So that Nebuchadnezzar might well vaunt himself upon the survey of such a mighty structure, as, in Daniel iv. 29, 30, we find that he does to some purpose; where we have him walking in the palace of his kingdom, and thus braving it to himself: Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of my kingdom, and by the might of my power? Words that sufficiently declare the speaker of them to have little regarded either God or man. And surely while he uttered them, he thought himself in a condition rather to rival and defy heaven, than to fear it, and far above the reach of all woes or curses. But when God shall send a curse, it shall go with a vengeance, and make its way into the very heart of Babylon, climb its high walls, and break through its brass gates, and drive the tyrant with these very words in his mouth from his throne and all his imperial glories, to herd it with the beasts of the field, till a better mind should fit him for a better condition. For it is worth our observing, that God takes a peculiar delight to surprise and seize upon a great guilt in the height of its pride and bravery, and in the very midst of all its strengths and presumed securities. He delights to commission his curse to arrest a bloody Ahab, just as he is going to take possession of the price of blood, and to dash out the brains of a murderous Abimelech in the very head of his army. These are the triumphs of judgment, and the glorious trophies of blood-revenging justice. III. The third thing proposed was, to shew the latitude and extent of this woe or curse, and what is comprehended in it. Concerning which, there is no doubt but it includes the miseries of both worlds, present and future. And if we go no further than the present, it is grievous enough, and made up of these following ingredients. 1. That it fastens a general hatred and detestation upon such men's persons. For cruelty and bloodiness, armed with power, is the proper motive and the dreadful object of men's fears; and fear and hatred usually keep company; it being very hard, if not impossible, to assign that person, who has not the same share and proportion in men's hatred, that he has in their fears. Every man flies from such an one, as from a public ruin or a walking calamity, who, which way soever he turns himself, both looks and brings certain desolation. He converses amongst the living as an enemy to men's lives; as a sword or a dagger, which the nearer it comes, the more dangerous it is. Cruelty alarms and calls up all the passions of human nature, and puts them into a posture of hostility and defiance. Every heart swells against a tyrant, as against a common enemy of mankind, and blood rises at the sight of blood; and certainly it is none of the least of miseries for a man to be justly hated; for though it be tied up and restrained from its utmost effects, yet the very breathings of it are malignant, the silent grudgings and glances of it ominous and fatal. A great part of the happiness of this life is, to enjoy a free and amicable converse with such as live about us; and therefore an ingenuous nature cannot but account it a real plague, to see a cloud in every countenance he beholds; to observe the black and lowering aspects of a reserved malice, and, as it were, to read his doom in every face, and to gather his fortune from another's forehead. Who so hated as Cain, Nebuchadnezzar, Saul, Herod, and such other bloodsuckers? All the glory of their power and magnificence was smothered in the hatred of their cruelty, deriving a just hatred upon their persons: for it is the concernment of mankind, and of humanity itself, to abhor such destroyers. He that shews the power he has over men's lives only by taking them away, must not think to command or reign over their affections. Neither is this hatred without an equal scorn; for the same temper that is cruel is also sordid and degenerous, and consequently as fit an object for contempt. What so cruel, and withal so base, as a wolf? But on the other side, true worth and fortitude is never bloody. Gold, the noblest of metals, is healing and restorative; and it is only iron, the vilest, with which we wound and destroy. Let this therefore be the first ingredient of the woe discharged against the tyrant and bloody person, to be universally hated and scorned; to go no whither, but with a retinue of curses at his heels; to be murdered in the wishes, and assassinated in the very looks of his subjects. He who is a monster, and an exception from human nature, may perhaps count this nothing, and say with Lucius Sylla, the murdering, proscribing dictator of Rome, Oderint dum metuant; but he that is sensible that man was born for society, that is, to love and to be loved, must in this case look upon himself as an outlaw and an exile from the converse, and consequently from the felicity and proper enjoyments of mankind. 2. The second ingredient of the woe here denounced against bloody persons is, the torment of continual jealousy and suspicion. He that is injurious, is naturally suspicious; and he that knows that he deserves enemies, will always suppose that he has them, and perhaps at length by suspecting come to make them so. But now, is it not the height of misery thus like a wild beast still to fear and to be feared? for the mind to be perpetually struggling with its own surmises, and first to create torments, and then to feel them? The breast of a tyrant is like a sea, it swallows up and devours others, and is still restless, troubled, and unquiet in itself. Could Herod the Great be more poorly and basely unhappy, than to be afraid of poor sucking infants, and not to think himself safe in the throne, unless he stormed nurseries and invaded cradles? A kingdom can be desirable upon no other account, but because it seems to command more of the materials of happiness, and to afford greater opportunities of satisfaction to the desires of a rational nature, than can possibly be had in any inferior condition. But now what real happiness can that prince or great man find, that has his mind depraved into such a jealous, suspicious temper? What can all the enjoyments of a court or kingdom profit, when the tormentor within shall imbitter them all, and the paleness of fear and death sit perpetually upon his heart? What pleasure can it afford to cast roses into that bosom, that feels the gnawings of the wolf? And therefore if the tyrant is brought to this pass, as to feel the reflections of his tyranny over others in that which his own jealousy exercises upon himself, and if his own thoughts plot and conspire against him, his very diadem is but a splendid mockery, his throne a rack, and all his royalty nothing else but a great and magnificent misery. 3. The third ingredient denounced against him that endeavours to raise and settle a government with blood is, the shortness and certain dissolution of the government that he endeavours so to establish. There is no way by which God so usually punishes villainous designs, as the disappointment of them, by those very methods and instruments by which they were to have been accomplished. It is, as I may so say, the great sport of Providence, to ruin unjust titles and usurped government by their very supports. But of all the means employed by tyrants for this purpose, there is none so frequently made use of, though none so often proves fatal to the user, as this of savageness and cruelty; innocent blood always proving but a bad cement to build the walls of a city with. For how do such governments pass the world like so many furious blasts of wind, violent and short! as it were out of breath and expiring with their own violence. How do tyrants, having by much blood and rapine advanced themselves to the sovereign power of a kingdom, like so many fatal comets, shine and blaze, and fright the world below them, in those upper regions for a while, but still portend their own downfall and destruction? For was it not thus with those traitorous captains of Israel, who kinged themselves by slaying their masters and reigning in their stead? How quickly was their usurped government at an end! How soon did they meet with others who did the like for them! Had Zimri peace, who slew his master? Such governments quickly fall and moulder away, like clods dissolved with blood. Was it not thus also with Cinna and Marius, and afterwards with Sylla himself, who had nothing of Dictator Perpetuus but the name? How soon was the family of bloody Saul extinct! And for Herod the Great, did not the same cruelty, for which he deserved to be childless, almost make him so? Archelaus, the only son he left, succeeding but to part of his kingdom, and that too but for a short time. And when afterwards Herod Antipas the tetrarch was routed, and lost all his army in a war with Aretas, king of Arabia, and when by the subtilty of Agrippa he was outwitted and outed of all, and also banished, Josephus himself says, that even the Jews ascribed all this to a divine vengeance upon him for the barbarous and unjust murder of John the Baptist. And for the Jews themselves, does not Christ, in the very same place in which he foretells the ruin and destruction of Jerusalem, upbraid that bloody city with her killing God's prophets, and stoning those that were sent unto her? And lastly, whereas the high priest counselled the putting of Christ to death, lest otherwise the Romans should come upon them, and destroy both their nation and government; is it not evident to any one not obstinately blind, that the very guilt of his blood brought that destruction upon them from the Romans, who not long after sacked their city, burnt the temple, killed, crucified, sold, and dispersed the inhabitants; that is, used them as they had used Christ, till at length they took away both their place and nation? Woe to the bloody city, says the prophet, in Ezek, xxiv. 6. The sin of blood is a destroying, wasting, murdering sin; murdering others, besides those whom it kills; it breaks the back of governments, sinks families, destroys for the future, reaches into successions, and cuts off posterities. 4. The fourth ingredient of the woe here denounced against the bloody builders of governments, is the sad and dismal end that usually attends such persons. He that delights to swim in blood, is for the most part at length drowned in it; and there is a kind of fatal circulation by which blood frequently wheels about and returns upon the shedder of it. How did Cyrus the Persian verify this by a peculiar significancy of death, having his head cut off, and thrown into a tub of blood! How did the fratricide Romulus die, being torn in pieces by the senate! How did Sylla expire in a murdering fit, causing one to be strangled before him in his chamber, and with that passion so disturbing himself, and enraging his distemper, that within a few hours he breathed out his own bloody soul! And, to come to the sacred story, how did Samuel treat Agag? As thy sword has made many childless, so shall thy mother be childless amongst women. And then for Herod the Great, who so barbarously murdered those poor innocents; he died indeed in his bed, as well as our late grand regicide; but with so much horror and disaster, that for some days before he died, he snatched at a knife to have murdered, or rather to have killed himself; and so to have done that, which only wanted another and an higher hand to have made it a just execution. But upon none did the revenging hand of divine justice appear more signally than upon Herod Agrippa, mentioned in the twelfth of the Acts; who, to please the Jews, and thereby to confirm himself in his kingdom, having slain James, the brother of John, with the sword, proceeded to take Peter also. But we read in what terrible strange manner, even in the height of his pride and glory, he was smote by God, infested with worms, and made a living carcass; thus anticipating the effects of death, and suffering the curse of the grave before he descended into the ground. Should I endeavour to give a full rehearsal of all such like instances, I must transcribe the stories of all times, which are scarce fuller of pages, than of examples of this kind. Blood seldom escapes revenge, since it is so easily followed and found out by its own traces. And thus much for the third thing proposed; which was, to shew the latitude and extent of the curse or woe here denounced against bloody persons, and the several plagues comprehended in it. I come now to the fourth particular, which is, IV. To shew the reasons why a curse or woe is so peculiarly denounced against this sin. Many may be assigned, but I shall produce only these. 1. The first is, because the sin of bloodshed makes the most direct breach upon human society, of which the providence of God owns the peculiar care and protection. Concerning which we must observe, that every man has naturally a right to enjoy such things as are suitable to and required by the rational appetites of his nature; in the due and lawful satisfaction of which properly consists his well-being in this world, which is every man's birthright by an irrevocable charter from God and nature. For whosoever is born, has a right to live; and whosoever has a right to live, has a right also to live well. Now that men might the better secure both their lives or being, and withal compass such lawful satisfactions to themselves, as should be requisite to their well-being, they first entered into society, and then, to preserve society, put themselves under government. So that the end of society is a man's enjoyment of himself, and the end of government is society. For in the first and most natural intention of it, no governor, merely as such, is made absolute lord of the lives or proprietor of the estates of those whom he governs, but only a trustee by God to secure them in the free possession and enjoyment of both. And therefore that governor that wrings away a man's estate, or destroys his life, not yet forfeited to the community he lives in by any crime, is in God's account a thief and a murderer, and so shall hereafter be dealt with by him as such; though in the mean time (as I said before) neither reason nor religion can authorize the subjects to revenge these injuries upon their governor. From whence we learn the reason why God so much concerns himself to punish the unjust shedder of blood; first, because he is the great trespasser upon human society, by being destructive to the lives of men; and next, because if he who is so chances to be a sovereign prince, there is no provision in the ordinary course of human justice to call such a destroyer to account. As for the life of man, it is an enjoyment in comparison of which nature scarce values all others: this is the very apple of his eye, sensible of the least touch, and irrecoverable after the first loss. For if a man loses his estate, he may get another; and if he loses his reputation, he may perhaps recover it; or if he cannot, he may live without it, not very happily indeed, but yet he may live. But if the tyrant takes away his life, there is no retrieving of that; this sweeps away being and well-being at one blow: the dying man parts with all at one breath, and is but one remove from annihilation; not so much as his very thoughts remaining, but they also perish, Psalm cxlvi. 4. And now when a tyrant by shedding blood has provoked civil justice, and by shedding so much has put himself beyond the reach of it, does not the matter itself seem to appeal to a superior providence, to invoke the justice of Heaven to make bare its arm in the behalf of injured and oppressed right? Blood certainly shall not go unrevenged, though it be the greatest Herod that sheds it, and the meanest infant that loses it; though whole parliaments and armies shall conspire against the life of the innocent and the helpless. Briefly, it belongs to God, as the supreme governor of the world, to revenge such grand and unnatural violations of the societies of mankind, committed to the tuition of his providence. 2. The second reason why God so peculiarly denounces a woe against the sin of bloodiness, is not only for the malignity of the sin itself, but also for the malignity of those sins that almost always go in conjunction with it, particularly for the abhorred sins of fraud, deceitfulness, and hypocrisy. The two great things that make such a breach upon the peace and settlement of the world are force and fraud. For all men that are miserable become so either by being driven or cheated out of their enjoyments. Hence the Spirit of God, in Psalm lv. 25, joins the bloody and deceitful man together. And does not Christ himself call Herod, that murdered John the Baptist, fox; a beast notable for his craft, as well as for sucking of blood? If we look into history, we shall scarce find any one remarkably cruel, who was not also noted for his dissimulation. But we need not much trouble histories; for has not all the bloodshed amongst us, from the blood of the prince to that of the peasant, issued from the most devout pretences of reformation? Has not the nation been massacred by sanctified murderers, who came into the field masked with covenants and protestations, quoting scripture while they cut throats, and singing psalms while they plundered towns; destroying their prince's armies and shooting at his person, while in the mean time they swore that they fought for him? But this way and method of proceeding is but natural. For men must be first deceived out of their guards and defences, before they can be exposed to the utmost violences. The bird must be caught in the snare, and the fish beguiled with the bait, before they can be killed. But now there is scarce any thing that God hates more thoroughly, and punishes more severely, than deceit and falseness; for it is most properly a defiance of God; who is always either solemnly invoked, or at least tacitly supposed, for the great witness of the sincerity of men's dealings; and if men use not truth in these, the great bond of converse is dissolved. No wonder therefore if bloodiness draw after it such a woe, having always such a sin in its company, and if the curse falls heavy, being procured by two of the greatest sins in the closest conjunction. And thus much for the fourth particular, which was to shew the several ingredients contained within the compass or latitude of the curse or woe here denounced. I descend now to, V. The fifth and last, which is, to apply all to this present occasion. I shew at the beginning, that ever since the creation of mankind, God has all along manifested such a solicitous care for the lives of men, the noblest of all his creatures, that he has not secured them only by severe laws established against murder, but also by making kindness, mercy, and benevolence a great part of religion; and of all other religions, has he chiefly wove these excellent and benign qualities into the very heart and vital constitution of Christianity. By how much the more detestable, and for ever accursed, must those miscreants appear, who have slurred and bespattered the best, the purest, and most peaceable of all religions, by entitling it to all the rapines they have acted, and all the blood they have imbrued their hands in, as shed by the immediate impulse of God's Spirit, and for the defence and preservation of religion! How much this nation has been concerned in this black charge, we need no other argument than this fatal day to convince us; on which was acted the most disloyal, barbarous, and inhuman piece of villainy, and that with all the solemn disguises of piety and religion, that mortal men were ever yet guilty of, since there was such a thing as sovereignty acknowledged, or such a thing as religion professed upon the face of the earth. But to shew further how close and home the subject-matter of the text comes to the business of this annual solemnity, we will survey the correspondence that is between them, as to the three main things contained in the words. The first was a charge of unjust effusion of blood. The second was the end or design for which it was shed, namely, the setting up of a government. And the third and last was a woe or curse denounced against the person that endeavours to establish himself by such a course. As for the first, we must know, that all unjust bloodshed is twofold. 1. Either public, and acted by and upon a community, as in a war. Or, 2. Personal, in the assassination of any particular man. 1. As for that which is public; it is as certain, that he who takes away a man's life in a war, commenced upon an unjust cause, and without just authority, is as truly a murderer, as he that enters his neighbour's house, and there stabs him within his own walls. And as for the late war, upon the account of all laws, both of God and man, whether we respect the cause for which it was raised, which was, the removal of grievances, where there were none, or the persons that carried it on, who were subjects armed against their prince, it was in all the parts and circumstances of it a perfect, open, and most barefaced rebellion. For not all the Calvins, Bezas, Knoxes, Buchanans, or Paraeus's in Christendom, with all their principles of anarchy and democracy, so studiously maintained in their respective writings, can by any solid reason make out the lawfulness of subjects taking arms against their prince. For if government be the effect and product of reason, it is impossible for disobedience to found itself upon reason: and therefore our rebels found it necessary to balk and decry this, and to fetch a warrant for all their villainies from ecstasy and inspiration. But besides, if we translate the whole matter from the merit of the cause to that of the person, no people under heaven had less ground to complain of, much less to fight against their prince, than the English then had, who at that time swimmed in a full enjoyment of all things but a thankful mind; no prince's reign having ever put subjects into a condition so like that of princes, as the peaceable part of the reign of king Charles the First: which indeed was the true cause that made them kick at those breasts that fed them, and strike at that royal oak under whose shadow they enjoyed so much ease, plenty, and prosperity. 2. The other sort of unjust bloodshed is, the assassination of particular persons: and had not our bloodsuckers their slaughterhouses and courts of mock justice, as well as the high places of the field, to act their butcheries upon? Strafford and Canterbury lead the way, both as forerunners of, and introductions to the shedding of a more sacred blood, the stain of which will dye the English calendar for ever, and the cry of which sober persons much fear continues still, and rings aloud in heaven, whatsoever arts have been used, and still are, to silence it here on earth. For it was the blood of one, who had those two things eminently in conjunction, either of which alone should be a sufficient safeguard to the life of him that has them, to wit, innocence and sovereignty. For innocence ought to protect the life of the meanest subject, and sovereignty to secure the person of the highest criminal. But we scorn that word when we speak of this blessed martyr, whose virtues were larger than his dominions, and will make his enemies more infamous than their own vices. Blood therefore we see has been shed amongst us to some purpose: the first thing in which the text is answered by the business of this day. The second was, the end or design for which the blood here spoken of was shed, namely, the erecting or setting up of a government. And was not the very same thing drove at by all our pious murderers? For out of the ruins of a glorious church and monarchy, and all those slaughtered heaps of men sacrificed to the cause of loyalty on one side, and of rebellion on the other, did there not at length rise up a misshapen, monstrous beast with many heads, called a commonwealth; a pack of insolent, beggarly tyrants, who lorded it as long as they were able, till at length they were forced to surrender and pass over all their usurped power into the hands of their great Beelzebub, the prime rebel and regicide, by whom they had done all their mighty works? And so their commonwealth wheeled about again into a monarchy. All those rivulets of tyranny, as it were, emptying and discharging themselves into that great gulf or dead sea of all baseness, cruelty, and hypocrisy: a fellow that had torn and trampled upon all those obligations, either civil or sacred, by which human society does subsist; who, by abusing religion, breaking oaths, mocking of God, and murdering his prince, at length grasped the sovereign power of these three kingdoms, and then called himself their protector, with the same truth and propriety that a wolf or a bear may be said to protect the flocks they worry and tear in pieces. So then, the parallel we see holds good thus far; that our villains reared themselves a government by the blood they shed, as well as those mentioned by the prophet in the text. And now, in the third and last place, have they not, think we, also as full a right and title to the woe and curse there denounced in the same words? Yes, assuredly; there being no persons under heaven that more deserved to drink off the very dregs of God's vengeance, and to empty all his quivers, than these monsters did. As for the curse that befell these bloody builders of government, I shew, that it manifested itself eminently in two respects. 1. In the shortness of the government so set up. And was it long that these murderers of their prince possessed the government they so usurped? Within five years their infant commonwealth expired; and in five years more Cromwell's mushroom monarchy was at an end, in spite of all the prophecies of those impostors, that would lengthen out his life and government out of Daniel and the Revelations, telling him, that there was thirty years more generation-work (as they canted it) cut out for him; and that it was contrary to the methods of Providence, having raised up such an extraordinary instrument, to lay him aside, till he had finished his work. But God, who understood his own counsels better than such saucy interpreters, knew that this wretch had disturbed the world too long already; and so in his good time sent him to his own place. 2. Another part of the curse attending the bloody raisers of government, was the general hatred that always follows such persons. And of this I think our usurpers had as large a portion as ever light upon the heads of mortal men. For in the most flourishing estate of all their greatness they were encompassed with curses as well as armies; men being scarce able to keep down the inward boilings of revenge, and to restrain their tongues and hands from ministering to that fulness of hatred that swelled within their hearts. Men hated them even in the behalf of human nature, and for the vindication of common humanity. And still so much and so justly abhorred are they, that all the pardons and indulgences, all the good words, all the great offices and preferments that can be bestowed upon them, will never be able to sweeten their memory, nor rescue them from the detestation of all sober persons and true lovers of their country. And the truth is, to speak the severest words of these vipers is not (as some call it) a sacrificing to any personal heat or private revenge; but a real serving of the public interest of society, and the doing an act of mere charity to the innocent and to posterity, who, by hearing with what abhorrence such miscreants are mentioned, will dread the imitation of those villainies, that have derived such an odium and infamy upon the actors of them. Nor can I think that any one can concern himself against the ripping up of the baseness of the king's murderers, even in the harshest, that is, the most proper terms, but such as have been either the relations, officers, or servants of that grand regicide, and consequently whose unlimited puritan-consciences will equally serve them to act and thrive under any government whatsoever. But it is well that there is a punishment for villains in the general hatred of mankind; and this is the lot, this the punishment of our rebels: but as for any other penalties that use to descend upon traitors and murderers from the hand of human vengeance, these they have for the most part escaped, as having rebelled under a lucky star, which has prospered their villainies and secured their persons in this world, till the great Judge of all things shall recognise the cause of abused majesty and religion in another, and there award such a sentence upon the violators of them, as shall demonstrate to men and angels, that verily God is righteous; doubtless there is a God that judgeth the world. To whom be rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen. __________________________________________________________________ SERMON LV. 1 JOHN iii. 8. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the Devil. THERE is nothing that contributes so much to the right understanding of the nature of any thing or action, as a true notion of the proper end and design of it; the ignorance of which bereaves mankind of many of the blessings of heaven: because oftentimes while they enjoy the thing, they yet mistake its use; and so pervert the intentions of mercy, and become miserable amidst the very means of happiness. Certainly therefore it concerns men infinitely, not to entertain an error about the greatest of God's favours, and the very masterpiece of his goodness, the sending of his Son into the world. The meaning of which providence should we misconstrue, we should frustrate our grand and last remedy, and perish, not for want, but for misapplication of the means of life. Wherefore this divine apostle, who had been honoured with so near an admittance into his master's mind, and lain so familiarly in the bosom of truth, endeavours to give the world a right information about this so great and concerning affair in this chapter, and particularly in these words; in which we have these two parts. I. An account of Christ's coming into the world, in this expression; The Son of God was manifested. II. The end and design of his coming; which was, to destroy the works of the Devil. I. As for the first of these, the manifestation of the Son of God, though it principally relates to the actual coming of Christ into the world, according to my application of it to the present purpose, yet it is a term of a larger comprehension; and so ought to carry our notice both to passages before and after his nativity. For as in the coming of a prince, or great person, to any place, the pomp of harbingers and messengers is as it were some appearance of him before he is seen; so Christ declared himself at vast distances of time, by many semblances and intimations, enough to raise, though not to satisfy the world's expectation. We shall find him first exhibited in promises, and those as early as the first need of a Saviour, even immediately after the fall; by such an hasty provision of mercy, that there might be no dark interval between man's misery and his hope of recovery; Gen. iii. 15, The seed of the woman shall break the serpent's head. He was afterwards further shadowed out in types and sacrifices, and such other emblems and arts of signification; still with this method of proceeding, that the manifestation brightened and grew greater and greater, according to the nearer and nearer approach of the full discovery. He that at first was known only as the seed of the woman, was in process of time known to be the seed of Abraham, Gen. xxii. 18. And after that, the seed of David, in Isaiah xi. 1. And from thence proceeding to greater particularities relating to the manner of his coming, he was known to be born of a virgin, Isaiah vii. 14. And for the place where; to be born at Bethlem, Micah v. 2. And for his person and condition, that he should be a man of sorrows, Isaiah liii. 3. And that he should suffer and die for sin, verse 8. That he should rise again, Psalm xvi. 10. That he should ascend into heaven, and lead captivity captive, &c. Psalm lxviii. 18. That he should reign till he had subdued his enemies, and saw the world brought under him, Psalm cx. 1. Thus by a continual gradation the promise advanced itself with further steps and increases, shining more and more unto a perfect day; displaying fresh and fuller discoveries through the several ages of the world; every new degree of manifestation being a mercy great enough to oblige an age. But when at length prophecy ripened into event, and shadows gave way upon the actual appearance of the substance, in the birth of Christ, yet then, though the Son of God could be but once born, he ceased not to be frequently manifested: there was a choir of angels to proclaim his nativity, and a new star to be his herald; the wise men of the east came to worship a new sun, where they saw and acknowledged the first miracle of his birth, a star appearing when the sun was up. When he disputed with the doctors, every argument was a demonstration of his deity; and during the whole course of his ministry, all the mighty works he did were further manifestations of a divine nature wrapped up in the flesh: even his death proved, that there was something in him that could not die; and the very effects of mortality, by a strange antiperistasis, declared him to be immortal; 1 Pet. iii. 18, Put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit. And lastly, after all this, the perfection and height of evidence shone forth in the stupendous passage of his resurrection; in which, according to the apostle Paul's phrase, Rom. i. 4, he was declared to be the Son of God with power. God made it his business to shew him publicly, to hold him up to be seen, admired, and believed in. Every thing that concerned him was writ in capital letters, and such as might not only entertain, but help the sight. Now upon the strength of this consideration it is, that we pronounce the Jews inexcusable for persisting in their unbelief. Concerning which as we are to observe, that in order to the convincing of men's belief, it is not only required that the proposition, proposed to be believed, be in itself true, but that it also appear such; so Christ, to comply with the strictest methods of human reason, asserted his being the Son of God with such invincible arguments, that he was manifested to be so: yea, and to that degree, that the Jews' rejection of him is not stated upon ignorance, or the cause of it want of evidence in the thing that they were to know; but upon the malice and depravation of their wills acting counter to their knowledge, in John xv. 24; If I had not done amongst them the works which no other man did, they had not had sin: but now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father. It was not a blind hatred; they saw well enough what they did: they had an open, as well as an evil eye; a resolved obstinacy to outlook the sun and outstare the light. For so was Christ, he was the light of the world; and nothing is more manifest or visible than that which manifests both itself and all things else; and needs no invitation to the eye, but will certainly enter, unless it be forcibly kept out. But they were purposed not to believe their eyes; to question whether it was day when the sun shined; to doubt whether he that did the works of God was sent by God; whether miracles could prove any thing, or signs could signify; and lastly, whether he that fulfilled all prophecies was intended by them. It is clear therefore, that the Jews rejected the Son of God, not because he was not manifested, but because they delighted to be ignorant, and to be sceptics and unbelievers even in spite of evidence. And thus much for the first thing, the manifestation of the Son of God: pass we now to the next, which is, the end of his manifestation, that he might destroy the works of the Devil. In the prosecution of which I shall first shew, 1. What were those works of the Devil that the Son of God destroyed: 2. And secondly, the means and ways by which he destroyed them. 1st. For the first of these. I reduce the works of the Devil, destroyed by the manifestation of the Son of God, to these three: 1. Delusion: 2. Sin: 3. Death. There is a natural coherence and concatenation between these: for sin being a voluntary action, and so the issue of the will, presupposes a default in the understanding, which was to conduct the will in its choices: and then when the delusion and inadvertency of the understanding has betrayed the will to sin, the consequent and effect of sin is death. Christ therefore, that came to repair the breaches and to cure the miseries of human nature, and to redeem it from that phrensy into which it had cast itself, designs the removal and conquest of all these three. 1. And first for delusion. The Devil, as his masterpiece and first art of ruining mankind, was busy to sow the seeds of error and fallacy in the guide of action, their understanding. And surely he has not gained higher trophies over any faculty of man's nature than this. For where, upon a survey of the world lying under gentilism, can we find truth even in principles of speculation, but much less in those of practice? As for the first fundamental thing, the original of nature and the beginning of the world; what dissonant and various opinions may we find, and consonant in nothing but their absurdity! Some will not allow it to have had any beginning; others refer it to accident. And those who acknowledge it to have been efficiently framed and produced by an infinite eternal mind, yet assert the matter and rude chaos, out of which he framed it, to have been as old, or rather as eternal as the artificer. Thus ridiculously making two eternals, and one of them infinitely imperfect; whereas the very notion of eternity and self-existence, pursued into its due consequences, must of necessity infer an infinite perfection in all other respects whatsoever. For all imperfection and finiteness proceeds from the restraint of a superior cause: and what cause could limit that which had no cause; and keep that which had its being from itself, from having all the perfections of being? And for the principles of practice, they were equally ridiculous and uncertain. Some fixed the chief good of man in pleasure, some in contemplation, and some thrust the means into the place of the end, and made the chief good of man to act virtuously; whereas indeed the chief good was to enjoy God, and the way to attain it was to act virtuously. And then if you would know what they understood by acting virtuously, you would find them stating the rates of virtue so, that many actions were taken into that number, which we account vicious and unwarrantable. Ambition was an excellent thing amongst them, and an insatiable desire of honour a current virtue. Lust, if it did not proceed to adultery, that is, to a downright act of injustice, was accounted a very innocent and allowable recreation. In a word, they were at an infinite loss where to state the ground and reason of men's actions; and all their practical maxims were deficient at least, if not unjust. And for those that acknowledged God for the end of all that they were to do, yet did they pursue the enjoyment of that end by means any ways suitable or proportionable to it? Did they worship him as God? No, we know, that they waxed vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened: they changed the glory of the eternal, all-wise, incorruptible God, into the images of silly, sinful, mortal men; nay, and what is yet more incredible and intolerable, into the similitude of beasts, and fowls, and creeping things. All this time worshipping the works of their own hands, or at least using them as instruments of worship and proper conveyances of divine adoration to God himself, held forth to them by such ways of representation; which was a great absurdity in reason, a great impiety in religion, and an horrible injury and affront to the Deity: for could any thing be more injurious, than that men should take their notions of God from such resemblances; and then depress their religious worship of him to the proportion of those notions? Now all this was done by the wisest of the heathens, by the philosophers, the sages, the governors and teachers of the rest of the world; and if these could so degenerate and ride down their reason to such a strange weakness and deception, what can we think of the rout and the vulgar, who could not salve their idolatry with art and distinction? They certainly were in outer darkness, in such thick darkness as might be felt. Their priests' images were their realities; and what they saw with their eyes they worshipped with their heart, thinking of no other deity but what shined upon them in the golden statue or the curious picture; still raising their devotion as the skill of the graver had advanced the object. But then, since the exercise of virtue is not to be bound upon men's consciences, (at least respecting the generality of men,) but by hopes and fears grounded upon the proposal of future rewards and punishments; if we look further, and consider how they acquitted themselves in giving an account of these to the world, we need require no further account of the error and delusion under which the Devil had sealed them. All the reward they proposed to virtue, even in its greatest austerities, self-denials, and forbearances, was to live for ever in the Elysian fields. A goodly reward indeed; a man must forego many of his pleasures, defy his clamorous appetites, and submit to many inconveniences in pursuing the rigidum honestum, the harshnesses of virtue: and afterwards, for all this, we shall be gratified with taking a turn now and then in a fair meadow. And then the punishments they designed for ill lives were no ways inferior in point of unlikelihood and absurdity: as the filling of tubs full of holes, which let out the water as fast as it was poured in. The rolling of a great stone up a steep mountain, which perpetually returned back upon the person that forced it upwards. The being whipt with snakes by three furies. The being bound hand and foot upon a rock, and having one's liver gnawed by a vulture; still growing and renewing itself according as it was devoured. These and such like old wives' or old poets' fables they amused the world withal; which could keep nobody that was witty from being wicked: all awe and dread vanishing upon the discovery of such ill-contrived cheats, such thin and transparent fallacies. Yet this was the economy of the religion of the gentiles before the coming of the Messiah. And for that little handful of men, that God chose from the rest of the world, to impart his law to them, the church of the Jews; even this, sometimes before the birth of Christ, was like an enclosed garden overrun with weeds, the very influences it lived under being noxious and pestilential. Their fountains were poisoned: their teachers were only so many authentic perverters of the law; so many doctors of heresy and immorality; abusing the authority of Moses while they sat in his chair. So that there was a kind of universal error and delusion, and that in matters of the greatest importance, spread over all nations, by that diligent, indefatigable enemy of truth and mankind the Devil. This being his groundwork, to delude men's apprehensions, that so he might command their services: and so blind were their eyes, that he might lead them whither he would. 2. The second great work of the Devil to be destroyed by the manifestation of the Son of God, was sin. It were a sad story to give a full account of this. For the truth is, the Devil deceived men only for this cause, to make them sinful. And such was his cursed success in this attempt, and the vile fertility of this ill thing brought by him into the world, that it conveyed a general infection into all the faculties of man: so that at length the thoughts of his heart were evil, and only evil, and that continually, Gen. vi. 5. It had so corrupted and fouled the world, that it put God to attempt the cleansing of it by a deluge. But neither so was the work effected; for after so many sinners were cashiered, yet sin still survived, and grew and multiplied, like a plant rather watered only than drowned; thriving and increasing as fast as those that peopled the world by a commission and command from heaven. It would be a fearful sight to see those sins that have stained man's nature ranked into their several kinds and degrees, and displayed in their filthy colours: to see one nation branded with one vice; another nation notorious for another; and each in some degree tainted with all. St. John tells us, that the whole world lies in wickedness, 1 John v. 19. And St. Paul gives us a large account of the vices of the gentile world, in Rom. i. from the 26th verse to the end of the chapter. They were possessed with vile affections, acted by unnatural lusts, delivered over to a reprobate mind, being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, &c. And for a concluding epiphonema, it is said of them in the last verse, that knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in those that do them. And certainly for men to take pleasure not only in their own sins, but also in the sins of other men, is the very height and perfection of an overgrown impiety: yet thus far were they arrived. Every one delighted to see the sin of his own temper and practice exemplified, and so in a manner countenanced by another man's behaviour; to see himself transcribed, and his vice propagated into the manners of those that were about him. And to proceed further, their vice did not only reign in their ordinary converse, but also got into their divine worship: and as before I shew that they worshipped their gods idolatrously and foolishly; so their histories tell us that they worshipped them also viciously: revels, drunkenness, and lasciviousness, were the peculiar homage and religious service that they performed to them. What were their bacchanalia, but solemn debauches in honour of a drunken deity? And the rites of their bona dea, in which Publius Clodius was deprehended under the habit of a woman, were transacted with so much filth and villainous impurity, that they are scarce to be thought of without a trespass upon modesty. Now certainly if these courses could propitiate or please their deities, there could be no such dishonour or defiance to them, as the practices of virtue and sobriety. We see here to what a maturity sin was grown amongst the heathens: and amongst the Jews it was not much shortened in its progress. For what are all the writings of the prophets, but so many loud declarations of the prevailing sway that sin had amongst them? How does Isaiah complain, that the faithful city was become an harlot! Isaiah i. 21. How does Jeremy bemoan himself, that he was constrained to dwell and converse with so much impiety, in chap. ix. 2; Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men. And again, in verse 4, Take ye heed every one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant. It seems there was scarce truth and sincerity enough amongst them to serve the common intercourses of society and human life. The truth is, he that fully enlarges himself upon this theme must be endless and infinite, and declaim to eternity. But now when such an enormous corruption of manners had seized upon the church, to whom was committed the law of God, and the living oracles, and all the means of instruction to piety and virtue, and whatsoever was excellent; what was to be expected, but that God should either destroy or reform the world? And therefore having pitched upon the latter, it was now full time for him to send his Son, to cleanse this Augean stable, to purge away the dross of the world; for this was the design of his coming, Mal. iii. 2, 3, to be like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's sope, to purify the sons of Levi, and to purge them as gold and silver; and if it were possible, to recover the world to its former innocence, or at least to such a degree of it, as to break the sceptre and kingdom of the wicked one, who triumphed in the possession that he had got of men's hearts, by the sin that dwelt there, and raged in their lives. Would we know the great purpose that brought Christ out of his Father's bosom, and clothed him with the infirmities and meannesses of our nature, and made him submit to all the indignities that an obscure birth, an indigent life, and an ignominious death could bring upon him? Why it was not through these miseries to acquire a crown, and to advance his glory; for this he had by an eternal birthright, beyond any increase or addition; and his glorification did not so much invest him with any new honour, as restore to him his old. But all this long and miraculous scene of transactions was to redeem poor mortal men from the beloved bonds and shackles of their sins, to disenslave them from the tyranny of ruling corruptions; to dispossess the usurper, and to introduce the kingdom of God, by setting it up first in men's minds; to recover all their faculties to the liberty of innocence and purity; and so, in a word, to restore men both to God and to themselves. Now if this were the grand design of Christ's coming into the world, to conquer and destroy sin; certainly it concerns us not to celebrate the memory of that coming by any thing that may contradict the design of it. To be vain, and dissolute, and intemperate, are strange commemorations of his nativity, who was born into the world to make men otherwise. It is indeed such a solemnity as is the proper and deserved object of our joy; but then it is to be such a joy as is in heaven, of which divine love is the principle, and purity the chief ingredient. And thus much for the second grand work of the Devil, which Christ was manifested to destroy, namely sin. 3. The third and last is death, the inseparable concomitant of the former. This is the Devil's triumphing work, by which he vaunts and shews forth the spoils of our conquered nature, the marks and trophies of his unhappy victory. For since the first entrance of sin into the world, death has dwelt amongst us, and continued, and with a perpetual, irresistible success prevailed over us. Rom. v. 12. Sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. Sin, as it were, opened the sluice, and death immediately, like a mighty torrent, rushed in, and overwhelmed the world. Or like a commanding enemy, it invaded mankind with a ruining, destructive army following it. Plagues, fevers, catarrhs, consumptions, shame, poverty, and infinite accidental disasters; and the rear of all brought up with death eternal. But now Christ, intending to be a perfect Saviour, came to destroy this enemy also; for the apostle tells us, in 1 Cor. xv. 26, that the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. Where yet it is not to be understood, that this benefit of Christ is to extend to all men; but to those only who should believe, and be renewed by the Spirit, and become the sons of God; these are the persons over whom the second death shall have no power. For since this deliverance proceeds upon the conditions of faith and obedience, those who reach not these conditions are not at all concerned in it; but remaining in sin, are consigned over to death. But some will say, Do not saints and believers die as well as the wicked and unbelievers? I answer, that though they do, yet the sting of death is taken away; so that from a curse, it is made a means to translate them to a better life; and that sickness, misery, or temporal death, that has nothing of curse or punishment in it, but, on the contrary, ends in that that gives an end to all misery, according to the estimate of God, comes not into the accounts of death. And this is sufficient to render Christ truly and properly a conqueror of death; that he actually conquers and destroys it in some, and has it in his power to do it in all others, would they but come up to those terms upon which only he is pleased to do it. 2dly. And thus I have shewn what those works of the Devil are, for the destruction of which the Son of God was manifested. I come now to the last thing proposed, which is to shew, what are the ways and means by which he destroys them. Where we must observe, that as those works of the Devil were three, so Christ encounters them by those three distinct offices belonging to him as mediator. 1. As a prophet, he destroys and removes that delusion that had possessed the world, by those divine and saving discoveries of truth exhibited in the doctrine and religion promulged by him. The apostle tells the Athenians, that before the coming of Christ God winked at the ignorance and idolatry that had blinded the gentiles; but after his coming, commanded all men every where to repent, Acts xvii. 30. And in chap. xiv. 15, he tells the men of Lystra, that the design of his preaching was, that they should turn from those vanities unto the living God. And still we find, that according as the gospel found reception and success, men began to be undeceived, and to shake off the yoke of their former delusions. In Acts xix. 19 we find, that upon the preaching of the gospel, those that were addicted to magic and conjuration, brought their books, though of never so great value, and burnt them publicly, as a sacrifice to the honour of Christ, and a solemn owning of the efficacy of that religion. And again, in 2 Tim. i. 10, the apostle tells us, that it was Christ that brought life and immortality to light. The heathens' notion about the future estate of souls was absurd and phantastic; and that which the Jews had was but dim and obscure: but Christ cleared it up to mankind, under evidence and demonstration; he uttered things kept secret from the foundation of the world; he unlocked and opened the cabinet of God's hidden counsels, and has afforded means to enlarge men's knowledge in proportion to their concernment. In a word, the doctrine of Christ gives the best account of the nature of God and of the nature of man; of the first entrance of sin into the world, and of its cure and remedy: of those terms upon which God will transact with mankind, and upon which men must approach to God in point of worship, and depend upon him in reference to rewards. And this is the circle of knowledge necessary and sufficient to make mankind what they so much desire to be, happy. Which if it be sought for any where but in the discoveries of Christianity, it is like seeking for the living amongst the dead; or the expectation of a vintage from a field of thistles. All that the philosophers teach about these things is either falsity or conjecture; and so tends either to make men sinful, or at the best unsatisfied. But Christ was to be a light to the gentiles; and there is no cozenage in the light, no fallacy in the day: wheresoever he shines, mists presently vanish, and delusions disappear. 2. As for the second work of the Devil, sin, this the Son of God destroyed as a priest, by that satisfaction that he payed down for it; and by that supply of grace that he purchased, for the conquering and rooting it out of the hearts of believers. By the former he destroys the guilt of sin, by the latter the power. Christ when he was in his lowest condition, suffering upon the cross as a malefactor, even then he broke the chief support of the Devil's kingdom, and triumphed over his strongest principality, in cashiering the guilt and loosing the bands of sin by a full expiation. Sin, that has so much venom in it as to poison a whole creation, to kindle an eternal fire and an unsupportable wrath, to shut up the bowels of an infinite mercy to poor perishing creatures, and, in a word, to overturn and confound the whole universe; yet being once satisfied for, it is a weak and harmless thing; it is a lion without teeth, or a snake without a sting. But none could make it so but the Son of God, the eternal high priest of souls, who exhausted the guilt and full measure of its malignity, by a superabundant ransom given for sinners to the offended justice of his Father. 3. As for the third and last work of the Devil, which is death; this Christ, as he is a king, destroys by his power: for it is he that has the keys of life and death,, opening where none shuts, and shutting where none opens: this even amongst men is the peculiar prerogative of princes. At the command of Christ the sea shall give up its dead, the graves shall open, and deliver up their trust; and all the devourers of nature shall make a faithful restitution. And surely this is that which should comfort every Christian when he is upon his death-bed, and about to lay his head upon a pillow of dust, and to take his long sleep; that he has the greatest ground in the world to expect that he shall rise again, if an omnipotence can awaken him, if the eternal Son of God can snap asunder the bonds of death, and if the word of the King of kings can give him assurance of all this. Christ has fully finished the work for which he was manifested; he has vanquished the Devil, beat down all his forts, frustrated his stratagems; and so having delivered his elect, in spite of delusion, sin, and death, and all other destructive contrivances for the ruin of souls; as a king and a conqueror he is set down at the right hand of the Most High, receiving the homage of praises and hallelujahs from saints and angels, who are continually saying, Blessing, honour, glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever. To whom, with the Father, and the Holy Ghost, do we also render and ascribe, as is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for ever. Amen. __________________________________________________________________ SERMON LVI. MATTHEW ii. 3. And when Herod the king heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. THOUGH all the works of God, even the most common, and such as every day meet our senses in the ordinary course of nature, carry in them a grandeur and magnificence great enough to entertain the observation of the most curious, and to raise the admiration of the most knowing; yet it has still been the method of divine Providence to point out extraordinary events and passages with some peculiar characters of remark; such as may alarm the minds and engage the eyes of the world, in a more exact observance of, and attention to, the hand of God, in such great changes. And very observable it is, that the alteration of states and kingdoms, the rise and dissolution of governments, the birth and death of persons eminent in their generations, have for the most part been signalized with some unusual phenomena in nature; sometimes in the earth, sometimes in the sea, and sometimes in the heavens themselves: God thereby shewing that the great affairs of the world proceed not without his own particular notice; and therefore certainly ought much more to challenge ours. And of this method of Providence, as the reason on God's part cannot but be most wise, so on man's (the more is our just shame) it is no less than necessary: for that natural proneness in most men to irreligion seems to gather strength from nothing more than from an observation of the constant uninterrupted course of nature, from which some are but too ready to think, whatsoever they speak, that nature is its own god, because they never see it controlled; that things always were, and always will be, as now they are; and in a word, that the world is unchangeable, when they do not see it changed. God therefore is sometimes pleased to interpose with an high hand, and to vary the usual course of nature, thereby to convince mankind, that this great fabric is not an automaton, so as to move itself; nor yet unaccountable, so as to acknowledge no superior law: but that it acts, or is rather acted by that eternal Spirit, and governed by that almighty and all-wise Artificer, that can order, govern, transpose, and, if occasion requires, take asunder the parts of it, as in his infinite wisdom he shall judge fit. But of all the strange passages and prodigies by which God introduced great persons into the world, none were so notable as those that ushered in the nativity of this glorious first-born of the creation, our blessed Saviour. And indeed great reason it was, that he that was Lord of heaven should have his descending into the flesh graced and owned with the testimonies of stars and angels, one shining and the other singing at so great a blessing coming upon mankind. Accordingly the evangelist in this chapter makes it his design and business to recount some of those notable circumstances that attended our Saviour's birth, which we may reduce to these two heads. I. The solemn address and homage made to him by the wise men of the east. II. Herod's behaviour thereupon. For the first of these, there are in this general passage these particulars considerable. 1. Who and what those wise men were. 2. From whence they came. 3. About what time they came to Jerusalem. 4. What that star was that appeared to them. 5. How they could collect our Saviour's birth by that star. Of each of which in their order. 1. And first for the first of these. The persons here rendered wise men (and that certainly with great truth and judgment) are in the Greek termed ma'goi, and in the Latin magi. The origination of which word some take from the Hebrew radix, signifying in the participle benoni in hiphil, one that meditates or mutters. Some from a Syro-Arabic word, signifying explorare or scrutari. Others from a Persian word, but what that word is none pretends to know: though since it is probable that these magi did first exist amongst the Persians, it is also not improbable but that both name and thing might have their original in the same place. As for the use of the word, it is different. At first it was taken, doubtless, not only in an honest, but also in an honourable sense; and the magia of the ancients was nothing else but a profound insight into all truth, natural, political, and divine. So that Suidas gives this account of the word, ma'goi para` Pe'rsais oi philo'sophoi, they were the Persian philosophers. And that they were divines also is clear; for Xenophon in his 8th book, peri` Ku'rpou paidei'as, commends the piety of Cyrus and his care of religion, for his appointing magi to preside in their sacred choirs, and to manage the offering of sacrifices, to'te proton katesta'thesan oi ma'goi umnein tou`s Theou`s, &c. And that this also was a name given to such as were skilled in politic matters is no less evident; for the great counsellors of the Persian kings were called magi; and Cicero affirms, in his 3d book De natura Deorum, that none was ever admitted to the Persian throne, but such as had been thoroughly instructed and trained up by these magi. For, as Plato says in his Alcibiades, it was their work, basilika` dida'skein, to teach and instil into them the arts of government. Now this discourse is only to shew, that the acception of the word amongst the Greeks and Latins, and other modern languages that speak after them, by which magus signifies no better than a wizard or conjurer, is through abuse and degeneration: the ill practices of some who wore this name, having by little and little disgraced the name itself into a bad sense. As for the acception of it here by our evangelist, I doubt not but it is in a good sense, and that the persons here spoken of were great scholars, men well studied in the works of nature, and probably most seen in the mysteries of astrology, the chief and principal part of the eastern learning, For the proof of which, this observation is very considerable, that the word ma'goi applied to the Latins, Greeks, or Egyptians themselves, is for the most part used in a bad sense; but the same authors applying it to the Chaldeans and Persians intend it in a good; and that these men mentioned by the evangelist were Persians, shall presently be made at least very probable. As for the condition and quality of these magi, or wise men, some contend, though I think more eagerly than conclusively, that they were kings; and for the proof of it allege several places of scripture; as first, that of Psalm lxxii. 10, The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents; the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. But what is this to those who came not from Tarshish nor from Sheba, but from Persia, as shall be made appear hereafter? Besides that those words are literally spoke of Solomon, in whom they were eminently fulfilled; for we know what commerce he had with those parts, and we have also a full rehearsal of the great visit and present made him by the queen of Sheba. They allege also that place in Isaiah lx. 3, The gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the glory of thy rising; with other such texts, which they call proofs; though so unconclusive and impertinent to the matter in hand, that they prove nothing but the folly and absurdity of those that allege them. To the whole matter therefore I answer, that it is most improbable that these men were kings; and that the behaviour of Herod and the Jews toward them seems clearly to evince so much. For there was no mention of any pompous, kingly reception, but on the contrary, he treats them as imperiously as he would have done his servants or his footmen, in ver. 8, And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go, search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again. Which surely sounds not like language fit to bespeak princes in. Those indeed whose chief religion is to rebel against princes might possibly talk to them also at this rate; but it is not to be imagined that the rest of the world were yet arrived to this perfection. It is evident therefore that Herod received them not as kings, no, nor with that respect that is due to the ambassadors of kings; but rather as any of our inferior magistrates would nowadays receive some Polonian or Hungarian, that should come to him about a brief, or for a licence to shew some strange, outlandish feats upon a stage. But lastly, this is an undeniable argument that they were not kings, that the evangelist is thus silent of it. For since it is manifest that his design was to set forth Christ's birth, and to render it as notable and conspicuous as he could from those passages that did attend it; it is not imaginable that he would have omitted this, that would have added so much of lustre and credit to it in the eyes of the world. The omission of it is indeed so hugely improbable, that, all things considered, it may almost pass for impossible. 2. The second thing here proposed to our consideration was the place from whence these wise men came. The evangelist describes it only by a general term, ap' anatolon, from the east. But the east is of a large compass, and therefore we may well direct our inquiries to something that is more particular. Some therefore are of opinion, that these wise men came from Arabia, and that part of it that is called Arabia Felix, which lay eastward to Jerusalem; especially since their presents consisted of gold, myrrh, and frankincense, the proper commodities of those places: for Arabia afforded gold, and the adjoining Sabea afforded plenty of all manner of spices and perfumes. Others there are that affirm these wise men to have come from Chaldea or Assyria. I shall not trouble myself to produce or confute the several reasons upon which either of these opinions are built; but briefly give my reasons why neither of them can be admitted. For the first. They could not come from Arabia, because there never was in Arabia any sort or sect of men known or distinguished by the name of magi; and therefore to bring these men from Arabia were altogether as absurd, as if in story we should bring the Brachmans, or Indian philosophers, from the Orcades, or the Druids from America. And as for that reason, that the materials of their presents were the native commodities of those regions, it proves nothing; since other countries afforded them besides, and however might have them otherwise by importation. And when men make presents, they do not always pitch upon such things as grow in their own countries, but upon the best and richest that they have in their possession. In the next place for Assyria or Chaldea: they could not come from thence neither, forasmuch as they lay northwards to Jerusalem: so that frequently in the prophets, when God threatens the Jews with an invasion from the Assyrians, they are still called a nation or army coming from the north. But the evangelist expressly says, that these men came ap' anatolon, from the east, to which words this opinion is utterly irreconcileable. Having thus removed these two opinions, I judge it most probable that they came from Persia; which as it is confirmed by the concurrent testimonies of the most eminent divines, both ancient and modern, so there wants not also solid reasons to persuade the same. (1.) The first of which shall be taken from this; that this sort of men most flourished in Persia: they were most famous there. And I believe there may be better arguments brought to prove that the magi had their first rise there, than any can be brought to the contrary. (2.) The second reason shall be taken from the situation of the place, Persia being situate eastward to Judea; so that it exactly answers the words of the evangelist. (3.) The third and last shall be taken from the manner of their doing homage to Christ, which was that used by the Persians in expressing their homage to kings, namely, by gifts and presents. These reasons seem probably to evince that these magi, or wise men, came from Persia: and we must know, that in matters of this nature, where demonstrations are not to be had, probable conjectures, burdened with no inconvenient consequences, are the best arguments, and such as any rational mind may well acquiesce in. And thus much for the place from whence these wise men came. 3. The third thing proposed was, the time when they came to Jerusalem; for some affirm them not to have come to Jerusalem till two years after the birth of Christ, grounding this their assertion upon what is said in ver. 16, that Herod sent and slew all the children in and about Bethlehem, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men. Whence they infer Christ to have been two years old at the time of the wise men's arrival at Jerusalem. But the words of the text import the time to have been but very small between the birth of one and the coming of the other; for it is said in ver. 1, that when Jesus was born, behold the wise men came; which word idou`, behold, according to the phrase of scripture, is equivalent with forthwith, or presently, as might be made out by sundry parallel places. Besides, that the wise men at their coining found Christ in Bethlehem, where yet it is certain that Joseph and Mary tarried not above forty days, the time appointed by the law for her purification; from whence it follows, that the coming of the wise men must needs have been within the compass of those forty days. As for that argument grounded upon Herod's killing the children of two years old and under, according to the time of his inquiring of the wise men, the solution of it is very easy, if we reckon those two years before the time of his inquiry, and not those two years that immediately followed it. The reason of which is manifest, forasmuch as the wise men spoke not of Christ as yet to be born, but of him as actually born; though the precise time when, they declared not, nor perhaps knew. And therefore Herod, whose design was to secure himself from a rival king, whom he heard was already born, killed all the children that were born within the space of two years before the coming of the wise men and his inquiring of them. From whence it follows, that the time of the wise men's coming to Jerusalem was some few days after the birth of Christ, probably nine or ten, and that they worshipped him at Bethlehem about the twelfth, the day still observed by the church for its commemoration. And now, as we have here removed the opinion of those that state the time of the wise men's coming to Jerusalem two years after the birth of Christ; so another opinion, that makes the star to have appeared two years before Christ's birth, is no less to be rejected, since they gave it the appellation of his star upon this account, that it then declared him to have been born. And whereas some, in defence of this opinion, allege the improbability of their coming from Persia in so few days, I answer, that if they be allowed to have come from those parts of it that lay nearest to Jerusalem, (as well they may,) it is not improbable at all; since a very learned commentator upon this place says, that some parts of Persia were not distant from Jerusalem ultra ducentas leucas, which, reckoning five hundred paces to a leuca, as some do, amount to an hundred of our miles. If fifteen hundred, as Ammianus Marcellinus does, then they make three hundred of our miles. The former of which they might go in that time very easily, and the latter with no such extraordinary great difficulty; considering that camels, the beasts of travel in those countries, are said even with great burdens to despatch forty of those leucas, that is, according to the latter and greater computation, threescore of our miles in a day. And thus much for the third thing, viz. the time of these wise men's coming to Jerusalem. 4. The fourth thing proposed to be considered was, what this star was. Where though some have affirmed it to have been of the same nature with those that have their proper place and motion in the celestial orbs, and though that omnipotent God, that made the sun stand still at one time, and go back at another, cannot be denied to have been able to have commanded any of the stars upon such a message and employment, yet that he actually did so is not necessary for us here to assert, there being otherwise sufficient reasons to persuade us that this was not a real star of the same kind with those heavenly bodies, but only a bright meteor formed by the immediate power of God into the resemblance and similitude of a star, and so by a singular act of his providence used and directed to this great purpose. For had it been indeed a real star, there can hardly any reason be assigned why it should not have appeared to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, as well as to those wise men in their journey from thence to Bethlehem; which yet it is clear that it did not, from the evangelist's being wholly silent of it; who otherwise would undoubtedly have recorded it as a passage, than which none could be more efficacious, to upbraid the Jews with the unreasonableness of their unbelief. Nor does its being called a star prove it to have been really so: it being so usual, both in scripture and common speech, to call the resemblances of things by the names of those things themselves, comets and falling stars still obtaining this appellation, which yet have nothing of stars in them but the name. 5. The fifth and last thing proposed to be discussed was, how these wise men could collect or come to know our Saviour's birth by their seeing this star. Evident it is from the words that they had a full and clear knowledge of it: for they spake of it as of a thing granted; and therefore they ask not whether or no he was born, but where he was born. And they call it emphatically his star; We have seen his star in the east; implying that it pointed him out by a certain and peculiar designation. To this I answer; that all knowledge must commence upon principles either natural or supernatural. If they draw it from the former, it must have been either, 1. From the principles of astrology; and here, for the confutation of this, would the time and measure of this exercise permit, the vanity of this science might easily be shewn, from the weakness of its principles; the confessions of such as have been most reputed for their skill in it; and, what is stronger than their confessions, from their frequent mistakes and deceptions in their most confident predictions; which sufficiently prove the greatest pretenders to it to be indeed but mere planetaries; that is, as we may well interpret it from the force of the word, such as use to err and to be deceived, and consequently, that nothing certain can be concluded from their principles. 2. Or secondly, if these men's knowledge of Christ's birth by the star were natural, the former way being removed, it must needs have been from tradition. And as to this, some affirm that they gathered it from that prophecy of Balaam continued down to them by report from his time, which prophecy is recorded in Numb. xxiv. 17, that a star should rise out of Jacob; and also that they might learn it from several prophecies of the sibyls, one of which sibyls prophesied in Persia. But how much soever these prophecies of the sibyls may have obtained in the world, yet most of them relating to Christ are proved by the learned Casaubon to be spurious and supposititious, and by all wise men believed to be such. Others affirm, that this might have been first learned from the Jews, in the time of their dispersion. But especially from some remaining traditions of Daniel. And certainly, when we consider how much this prophet writes of the kingdom and coming of the Messiah, it is no ways improbable but that he might otherwise, both by writing and word of mouth, leave many things behind him concerning the same. All which, through the greatness of the place he held in the Persian court, and the vast repute that he had for his knowledge and learning, might easily find both a general and a lasting reception. It cannot therefore be rationally denied, but that these wise men might be much directed by such helps as these. But yet I affirm that these were not sufficient; so that we must be forced to derive their knowledge of Christ by this star from a supernatural cause; that is, from the immediate revelation of God: how, or in what manner, that revelation was effected, it is not necessary for us to know; but that they were such persons, to whom God upon other occasions did vouchsafe extraordinary revelations, is clear from the twelfth verse, where it is said, that they were admonished by God in a dream not to return to Herod. Now it is very probable that the same God who warned them of their danger, first suggested to them this great discovery; especially since it was not so difficult to escape the one, as to find out the other. We must conclude therefore, that it was neither their own skill, nor yet the light of that star, that taught them the meaning of that star. But Leo states the matter rightly in his fourth sermon upon the Epiphany: Praeter illam stellae speciem quae corporeum incitavit obtutum, fulgentior veritatis radius eorum corda perdocuit. Star-light is but a dim light to read the small characters of such mysteries by. He only that made the stars could discover it; even that God who rules their influences, and knows their significations. And thus much for the first notable circumstance of our Saviour's nativity, namely, the solemn address of the wise men to him from the east, upon the appearance of a star. I come now to the Second, which was, Herod's behaviour thereupon; who being a person so largely spoken of in the Jewish story, so particularly noted by the evangelist, and made yet more notable by having the birth of the great Saviour of the world fall in his reign, he may well deserve our particular consideration: accordingly we will consider him in these three respects. 1. In respect of his condition and temper in reference to his government of Judea. 2. Of his behaviour and deportment upon this particular accident. 3. Of the influence this his behaviour had upon those under his government. And first for the first of these; we will take an account of his condition and temper in reference to the government held by him, by these three things recorded of him, both in sacred and profane story. 1st, His usurpation: 2dly, His cruelty: and 3dly, His magnificence. 1. And first for his usurpation. When the government of Judea was took from the Asmoneans, the last of which that reigned was Antigonus, this Herod, the youngest son of Antipater, an Idumean, (who had grown up under Hyrcanus, being by him employed in the chief management of the affairs of his kingdom,) through the favour of Marcus Antonius, was by the Roman senate declared king of the Jews; in which dignity, to the wonder of many, he was also confirmed afterwards by Augustus himself. But Herod had a good purse, and having also well experienced Jugurtha's observation of Rome, that it was urbs venalis, knew how to open it for his advantage as well as any man living: which, together with his great courage and resolution, lifted him up to, and settled him in a royal throne, so much above the pitch of any thing that by his birth he could pretend to. But let men be usurpers, and as false and wicked as they will, yet God is still righteous, and will serve and bring about his righteous purposes, even by their wickedness. And I question not but the success of Herod's projects was chiefly from the special providence of God, while the villainy of them was wholly from himself: for by this strange and unexpected translation of the Jewish government, in setting the crown of it upon a stranger's head, was exactly fulfilled that eminent and most remarkable prophecy of the Messias, in Gen. xlix. 10, That the sceptre should not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come. 2. The second thing observable of him was his cruelty. We have already seen him seated in the Jewish throne, though an usurper and an intruder, and one who had no other title to that sovereignty, but the gift of those who had no right to give it. However, being thus possessed of it, he must have recourse to the common method of usurpers, and maintain by blood what he had got by injustice. Accordingly he assassinates all such as he could but suspect might be his competitors. Aristobulus, the last of the Asmonean race, and preferred by him at the instigation of his wife Mariamne to the high priesthood, because the affections of the people were towards him, was by his appointment treacherously drowned. Nor spares he Hyrcanus himself, his predecessor, though now in the extremity of old age, and the person who had raised his father Antipater to that pitch as to give him, his son, the possibilities of a kingdom, and consequently of doing all this mischief. Nay, and his beloved wife Mariamne also, and his own sons Alexander and Aristobulus, and, at length too, his base son Antipater; and, which was the most unparalleled piece of barbarity that ever was acted, last of all, those poor infants also, (which we shall presently speak of,) they must all fall a sacrifice to his remorseless cruelty: so that neither the innocence of infancy, the venerableness and impotence of old age, the sacred obligations of gratitude, the love of a wife, nor, lastly, the endearing relation of a son, could prevail any thing against the inhuman resolves of his base and cruel disposition; which gave occasion to that sarcastical speech of Caesar Augustus concerning him; "That it was better to be Herod's hog, than his son." For as a proselyted Jew, he would not meddle with the former; but as worse than a Jew, he barbarously procured the murder of the latter. 3. The third thing observable in the temper of this Herod was his magnificence. There was none that reigned over the Jews, Solomon only excepted, that left such glorious monuments of building behind them as did Herod. The temple, the arx Antonia, and his own houses, sufficiently declared his vast and boundless spirit: any one of which had been enough to have ennobled the reign of any one prince: but this was all for which he was laudable: God sometimes thinking it fit to give a man some one good quality to season his many bad ones; and so to keep him sweet above-ground. Herod did many things of public advantage, and yet he scarce deserved the reputation of a public spirit, when the end and design drove at by him in all he did was his own private glory, and the gratification of his ambition. The consideration of which may teach us how great a riddle the actions of most men are, even in their most specious and public undertakings. The action may be sometimes of a national emolument, and yet the spring and design that moves it be but personal. Few men know what disguises are worn upon the public face of things, and how much the world is beholding to some men's pride and vain-glory, which often supply the office of charity in those worthy benefactions they pass upon the public; while, in the mean time, the good of those that are benefited by such works is the least thing in the thoughts of those that did them. So far from impossible or improper was that supposition made by the apostle Paul in 1 Cor. xiii. 3, of a man's bestowing all his goods upon the poor, and yet not having charity. For it is not the bulk or outside of the action, but the mind and spirit directing it, that stamps it charitable. Men may give large sums, and do generous actions, upon as great designs of selfishness as ever the vilest miser or usurer entertained, when he amassed heaps upon heaps within his greedy coffers; only with this difference indeed, that one in all this feeds his pride, the other his covetousness. But surely pride is as much a vice as covetousness, though not always of so ill effect to those that are about it. It is not what a man does, but how, and why, that denominates his action good or evil before God. Herod may be Herod still, for all his building of a temple. And thus much for the three qualifications observable in Herod's person. 2. The second thing to be considered of him was, his behaviour upon this particular occasion of the wise men's coming to Jerusalem from the east, to inquire after him that was born king of the Jews, at the nativity of our blessed Saviour; which behaviour of his shews itself in these two things. 1. In that trouble and anxiety of mind that he conceived upon this news. He was full of suspicious, misgiving, and perplexing thoughts, what the issue of things might be, and how he should be able to maintain himself in the throne, against the claim of the right owner, which he knew he held by no other title but that of injury and usurpation. 2. His behaviour shews itself in that wretched course he took to secure himself against his supposed competitor; which was by slaying all the children born in and near to Bethlehem, from two years old and under; the time within which he had learnt from the wise men that Christ must have been born. It must be confessed here (which yet certainly is very strange) that Josephus, who is so particular in recording most things relating to Herod's reign, yet speaks not a word either of the birth of Christ, or of the appearance of the star, or of the wise men's coming to Herod thereupon; nor, lastly, of the massacre of these children. All of which (one would think) were too great and too considerable passages to be passed over in silence by such an historian as Josephus. However, this ought not to shake our faith of these things at all; since if the evangelists had falsified in these narratives, it is infinitely improbable, that the enemies of the Christian religion, who could so easily have convinced them of such falsification, should not some time or other have objected it against the truth of our religion, which yet they never did; but on the other hand, it is hugely probable, that Josephus, a great zealot in the Jewish religion, and consequently a mortal hater of ours, might, out of his hatred of it, omit the relation of these passages which were likely to give it so much reputation in the world. But as for the passage of his murdering the infants, Ludovicus Capellus is of opinion, that in that place where Josephus says, that Herod, drawing near his death, summoned the noblest of the Jews by a menacing edict from all parts of Judea, and shutting them up, gave order to his sister Salome, and her husband Alexas, to see them all put to the sword after his death; it was Josephus's intent, by this device, to slubber over the massacre of these innocents; thus not wholly omitting it, and yet by so obscure a narrative not clearly and plainly discovering it. But whether this observation have any weight in it or no, I hope the testimony of those whose writings have been opposed, but never yet confuted, or convinced of falsity, will have more authority and credit with us, than the ambiguity and shuffling of a partial historian. 3. The third thing proposed to be considered by us was, the influence that this behaviour of Herod had upon those under his government. For the text tells us, that not only he was troubled himself, but that all Jerusalem was also troubled with him: yet not for any love they bore him, we may be sure. But they were troubled and disturbed with the fears they had of what the rage and jealousy of such a tyrant might produce: for seldom does a tyrant confine his troubles within his own breast, but that those about him also go sharers in the smart of them. And what the prophet said of Ahab may be as truly said of Herod, and all such usurpers, that they are those that trouble Israel. For usually such persons neither rise nor fall, but at the cost of the people's blood, and the expense of many innocent lives. When tyrants and victorious rebels invade the regal power of any nation, the people must not expect to rest quiet either in peace or war: nor were the Jews here deceived in their ill-boding presages of what mischief would ensue upon Herod's discontents. Such a cloud could not gather over their heads for nothing. And long it was not before it broke out in that bloody shower that has been made mention of. From all which we may learn how much it concerns the tranquillity and happiness of a kingdom to stop the first pretences and encroaches of usurpers; and as much as in them lies to keep all Herods and Cromwells from getting into the supremacy. For as soon as their own guilt and suspicion shall alarm them with any fears of the right owner's regaining his inheritance, then presently the whole nation is in danger of being forced to a war, to defend and fight for those whom they have more heart to fight against. Or in case Providence shall favour them so far as to enable them to turn, their swords against such domestic pests, yet they must still purchase their delivery by a war; that is, rid themselves of one calamity by another. So that we see, when Herods and usurpers once ravish the government into their hands, whether they stand or whether they fall, all Jerusalem is like to be troubled with them. And thus I have finished what I proposed from the text, namely, the two grand circumstances of our Saviour's nativity. I shall now close up all with a resolution of this short question, Why that Jesus Christ, being born the right and lawful king of the Jews, yet gave way to this bloody usurper, and did not, either in his or his successor's time, assume the government himself? In answer to which, though I think it a solid and satisfactory reason of all God's actions to state them upon his mere will and pleasure; yet there are not wanting other reasons assignable for this. I shall pitch upon two. 1. Christ balked the kingly government of the Jews, because his assuming it would have crossed the very design of that religion that he was then about to establish; which was, to unite both Jew and Gentile into one church or body. But this union could not possibly be effected till the politic economy of that nation, so interwoven with the ceremonial and religious, like the great partition-wall, was broken down. Upon good reason therefore did Christ refuse to undertake the kingly government, and therein the support of that nation, the politic constitution of which, through the special providence of God, in order to the propagation of the Christian religion, was now shortly to expire and to be done away. 2. Christ voluntarily waved the Jewish crown, that he might hereby declare to the world the nature of his proper kingdom; which was to be wholly without the grandeur of human sovereignty and the splendour of earthly courts. In Luke xvii. 20 it is said, that the kingdom of God cometh not with observation. So we read it. But the Greek is kata` phantasi'an, that is, with pomp and gayety of outward appearance. For so the word signifies. Whereupon, in Acts xxv. 23, when Agrippa and Bernice came in much splendour and magnificence to visit Festus, it is said that they came meta` polles phantasi'as, which is there well rendered, with much pomp. This being so, men may save themselves the labour of entering into covenants, raising armies, and cutting of throats, to advance the sceptre and kingdom of Jesus Christ: for Christ has no need of their forces: he came to cast out such legions, and not to employ them. Here in this world he owns no sword but that of his Spirit, no sceptre but his word, no kingdom but the heart. This is his prerogative royal, to govern our wills, to command our inclinations, and to reign and lord it over our most inward affections. Which kingdom, God of his mercy daily propagate and increase within us. To which God be rendered and ascribed., as is most due, all praise, might., majesty, and dominion., both now and for ever. Amen. __________________________________________________________________ SERMON LVII. MATTHEW x. 37. He that loves father or mother better than me is not worthy of me. OUR Saviour in these words presents himself and the world together as competitors for our best affections; which because we never fasten upon any thing but for some precedent apprehension of worth in it, he therefore treats with us not upon terms of courtesy but reason, challenging a transcendent affection on our parts, because of a transcendent worthiness on his. He would have it before the world, for this cause only, that he deserves it above the world. Now because men might be apt to flatter themselves into a false persuasion of their love to Christ, the heart being no less the seat and shop of deceit, than it is of love; lest, I say, they might baffle and impose upon themselves, (as sad experience shews, that most men do in this particular,) our Saviour, with great art, selects and singles out those enjoyments that are most apt to seize and engross our affections, and particularly states the sincerity of our love to him, in the superiority of it over our love to those. An ordinary affection relating to an extraordinary object is no affection. When Christ is the thing that we are to love, between the highest degree of love and a total negation of it, there is no medium; as it is said of Jacob, that he loved Rachel, but he hated Leah; because he loved Leah the less of the two. So if a man loves the world in a greater degree, and Christ in a less, when God shall come to take an estimate of that love, he will make no allowance for the comparison, but account that man absolutely to love the world and to hate Christ. For not to value him more than all, is really to undervalue him. For the exposition of the words we must here observe, that these terms father and mother are not to be understood in a literal, restrained sense, only as they signify such relations; but they are to be taken more largely, as they comprise whatsoever enjoyments are dear unto us: it being usual in scripture to express all that is dear to us by some one thing that is most dear. As it is a frequent synecdoche, to express the whole by some one principal part. Prov. xxiii. 26, My son, give me thy heart. God here requires the service of the whole man; but the heart is only expressed, as being the prime ruling part. Now the affection we bear to our parents is the greatest that we are to bear to any worldly thing, and that deservedly. For if, under God, they gave us our beings, we may well return them our affections. So that Christ by demanding a love greater than that which upon a natural account is the greatest, and by preferring himself before that enjoyment which is the dearest, he does by consequence prefer himself before all the rest. For he that is above a prince, is consequentially above all his subjects. As for the next expression, he is not worthy of me; it may seem from hence to be inferred, that he who should love Christ above father or mother, or any other worldly enjoyment, would thereby become worthy of Christ. But yet to affirm that any man may so qualify himself, or do that which may render him worthy of Christ, would be apparently to introduce and assert the doctrine of merit; a thing of the highest absurdity, both in reason and religion. In answer to this therefore we may observe, that there is a twofold worthiness. 1. A worthiness strictly and properly so called, which is according to the real inherent value of the thing; and so no man by the choicest of his endeavours can be said to be worthy of Christ. He can no more merit grace than he can merit glory, and both are included in Christ. Obtain them indeed we may, but we can never deserve them. Worthiness is a thing that man can never plead before God; but after we have done all, we are still unprofitable, and therefore still unworthy. 2. There is a worthiness according to the gracious acceptance of God, which is a worthiness improperly so called: when a thing is worthy, not for any value in itself, but because God freely accepts it for such. This worth may be rather termed a fitness or a meetness, not consisting in merit, but in due conditional qualifications. And so he that loves father or mother less than Christ is in this sense worthy of him; that is, fitly prepared and qualified to receive him; as having that which God is pleased to make the only condition upon which he bestows Christ. These things being premised by way of exposition, I shall draw forth and prosecute the sense of the words in these three particulars. I. I shall shew what is included and comprehended in that love to Christ that is here mentioned in the text. II. I shall shew what are the reasons and motives that may induce us to it. III. What are the signs, marks, and characters whereby we may discern it. I. As for the first of these, what is included in the love here spoken of, I conceive it may include these five things. 1. An esteem and valuation of Christ above all worldly enjoyments whatsoever. The first foundation stone of this love must be laid in admiration, and an high persuasion of that worth that we are to love. We must first believe Christ excellent, before we can account him dear. Those that profess and avow a love to Christ, and yet, by the secret verdict of their worldly minds, place a greater esteem upon a pleasure, upon honour, upon an estate, do indeed speak contradictions, and delude themselves, and may as well believe their life may remain when their soul is departed, as imagine that their love may go one way, and their esteem another. Upon which account it is clear, that Christ must be first raised above the world in our judgments; he must first rule there; he must lord it in our thoughts, and command our apprehensions. If we trace David through all his Psalms, he is continually breathing out an ardent love to God; they run all along in a strain of the highest affection. And this love we shall find to have been founded upon a proportionable esteem of God, which esteem does eminently appear in several expressions. How often does he repeat and insist upon this one, Lord, who is like unto thee? Psalm xxxv. 10, and xlxi. 19. His thoughts were even transported into a ravishing admiration of God's surpassing excellencies, before his heart could be drawn forth in love and affection to him; he suffered an ecstasy in his thoughts before he did in his desires. And again, Psalm xviii. 3, Thou art worthy to be praised. God's worth, presented to the soul by thoughts of esteem, is that which so strongly, and, as I may say, invincibly draws its affections. It is indeed the price of our desires, and really buys them before it has them. Some are of opinion that the dictates of the understanding have such a determining, controlling influence upon the will and affections, that they cannot but desire whatsoever the understanding shall sufficiently offer and propose to them as desirable. But whether or no the judgment does certainly and infallibly command and draw after it the acts of the will, (which is a controversy too big to be discussed in a sermon,) yet this is certain, that it does of necessity precede them, and no man can fix his love upon any thing, till his judgment reports it to the will as amiable. This must be the only gate and portal through which we must introduce loving thoughts of Christ into the heart; he must be first valued before he can be embraced. For this is undoubtedly certain, that nothing can have a greater share of our affections, than it has of our esteem. 2. This love to Christ implies a choosing him before all other enjoyments. For a man to pretend affection to Christ, by extolling his person, admiring what he has done for us, by praising the ways of God, commending the practice and the practisers of godliness; and yet in the mean time to act and labour for the world, to live in sin, and upon all occasions to submit to a temptation, rather than to a precept; notwithstanding this strange opposition and clashing between his profession and his course, I suppose every rational man would read his judgment, not in his words, but in his choice. Laudant illa, sed ista legunt; he that commends such books, but reads others, only shews that he praises one thing but values another, and that the best interpreter of his mind is not what he says, but what he chooses. By this Moses undeniably proved both the strength and sincerity of his love to God and to the people of God, that he chose rather to suffer afflictions with them, than to enjoy all the pleasures of Pharaoh's court. For to have solicited their cause with Pharaoh, to have procured them a mitigation of their bondage, to have won them favour and a good opinion from the Egyptians, had indeed been signs and effects of love; but this was love itself. His affection was in his choice; for had he still chose Pharaoh's court, all other things that he could have done for his brethren had amounted rather to a good wish, than to a true affection. Thus, on the contrary, wicked men are said to love death: but can any man make his greatest evil the object of his best desire, which is love? No, assuredly, while he considers it as such, he cannot; but because it is rational from men's choice to infer and argue their love, they may be said therefore truly and properly to love death, because they choose it. And by the same reason, on the other side, a believer, though he may be sometimes ensnared in sin, and so brought to commit it, yet he cannot be said indeed to love it, because it is seldom his choice, but his surprise; he makes it not his end and his design. It is rather a sudden invasion made upon his affections, than the resolved purpose of his will. Thus therefore we see how the spirit and force of our love exerts itself in choice; for the design of love is to appropriate as well as to approximate its object to the soul: and to choose a thing is the first access to a propriety in it. For choice, as I may so say, is possession begun, and possession itself is nothing else but choice perfected. Barely to esteem Christ (if we may suppose a division of those things which indeed are not to be divided) is as much inferior to a choosing him, as a good look is below a good turn. 3. Love to Christ implies service and obedience to him; the same love that when it is between equals is friendship, when it is from an inferior to a superior is obedience. Love, of all the affections, is the most active; hence by those who express the nature of things by hieroglyphics, we have it compared to fire, certainly for nothing more than its activity. The same arms that embrace a friend, will be as ready to act for him. This is the natural progress of true love, from the heart to the hand: where there is an inward spring, there will quickly be an external visible motion. When we have once placed our affection upon any person, the next inquiry naturally will be, what shall we do for him? And if this be the property of love when it lays itself out upon natural objects, we may be sure it will be heightened when it pitches upon supernatural. It is indeed changed, but withal advanced; the object altered, but the measure of the act increased. Divine and heavenly things do indeed refine and lop off the extravagancy, but they abate nothing of the vigour of our affections. Christ has determined the case in short, John xiv. 15, If ye love me, keep my commandments. There is more real love to God shewn in the least sincere act of obedience, than in the greatest and the most pompous sacrifice. Many may please themselves in their fair professions, their orthodox opinions, and their judgment about the ways of Christ, but God knows there may be much of all this, and yet but little love. It is the command that must try that; and believe it, the grand inquiry hereafter will be, not what we have thought or what we have said, but what we have done for Christ. Christ all along in scripture proposes himself to us as our Lord and Master; and a servant's love to his master is his service. It was the idle servant that God dealt with as his enemy. How does a wicked man's love to sin appear, but by his continual, indefatigable acting and working for it, obeying its commands, and fulfilling even its vilest lusts and most unreasonable desires! Now Christ requires that every believer should manifest his love to him in that height and measure, that a wicked person manifests his love to sin. So that when he required a testimonial of Peter's affection, he did not ask him what he thought of him, or what he was ready to profess concerning him: for we know he thought him to be the Son of God, Matth. xvi. 16; and he professed, that if all others forsook him, yet he would not, Matth. xxvi. 33; yet for all this he afterwards both denied and foreswore him. Christ therefore exacts a demonstration of his love in service and obedience. Peter, lovest thou me? Feed my sheep, John xxi. 17. He knew he that would obey and serve him, and execute his commands, loved him beyond all possibility of dissimulation. A man usually speaks, but he seldom does one thing and thinks another. It is natural for love, where it is both sincere and predominant, to subdue the party possessed with it to undertake the most servile, laborious, and otherwise uncomfortable offices in the behalf of him whom he loves. If you will admit the paradox, it makes a man do more than he can do. Will is instead of power, and love supplies the room of ability. Had the love of Christ but once thoroughly seated itself in our hearts, we should find that, according to that most expressive phrase of the apostle, it would constrain us. It were but Christ's saying, Go, and we should go; Do this, and we should do it. We should find a double command, one from Christ and one from our own affection. Love without works is a greater absurdity than faith without works; faith works by love, and love by obedience. Let none therefore ever think to divide himself between God and mammon; to afford his love to Christ, but his service to the world. If a man may honour his parents but not obey them, keep loyalty to his governor but rebel against him, then may also his love stand sincere to Christ while unseconded with obedience. It is the masterpiece of Satan and our own corruptions, to bring us under this persuasion, that we may love Christ without serving him: but believe it, it is a destructive and a damnable delusion; equal in the absurdity and in the danger: and I believe, if we could divide these two, and give the Devil his choice, he would accept of one instead of both: give but the Devil your service, and he would give Christ your love. We are apt to place all upon persuasion; but how shall we be disappointed when God comes to reckon with us for performance! 4. Love to Christ implies an acting for him in opposition to all other things; and this is the undeceiving, infallible test of a true affection. We may not only value and commend, but think also that we serve Christ by reason of the undiscernible mixture of his and our interests sometimes wrapt together; so as to be persuaded that we serve and carry on his interest, while indeed we only serve our own in another dress. I believe that Jehu did not only persuade others, but himself also, that he served the cause of God in destroying the posterity of Ahab and the worshippers of Baal; when in truth, God's honour and his own safety, the interest of religion and of his crown, at that time so particularly met and combined together, that he mistook his own meaning, and thought he was all the time honouring of God, while he was only endeavouring to establish himself, and pursuing the designs of policy under the mask of zeal. But when two distinct interests are drawn forth in an open, avowed opposition, and visibly confront one another; when those that embrace one are apparently discriminated from the other, and none can embrace both, but a man must either testify a real affection on one side, or an odious indifference and neutrality, then love will appear to be love; dissimulation will be rendered impossible, and a man will be judged to love there only where he shall dare to appear. When Christ and the world, Christ and our honour, Christ and our profit, shall make two opposite parties, then is the time to try our affections. If one servant should follow two several persons, it were hard to discern whose servant he was, while they both walked quietly together; but should they once quarrel and come to strokes, we should quickly see by his assistance where he had engaged his service. The truth is, it is but one and the same league, that is, defensive in respect of our friends, and offensive to their enemies. Neither is there any defending of Christ's interest, without an active opposing that of Satan and the flesh, when the preservation of one lies in the destruction of the other. If Christ cannot increase, unless John decrease, the Baptist himself must not be spared. Because Peter would shew that he loved Christ above the rest, he drew his sword for him. He that fights for another pawns his life that he loves him: competition is the touchstone of reality. It is not to make invectives against sin and the courses of the world, or to speak satires against the Devil, that infallibly concludes us to be Christ's disciples. Those may chide very sharply, who are yet hearty and real friends. But shew me the person who can act with as keen a vigour as he speaks; who can put his foot upon the neck of his lust; who can be restless and active in circumventing, undermining, and defeating his corruption; and all this only for its implacable enmity to Christ; such an one indeed declares to the world by a demonstration of the highest evidence, that Christ bears the rule and preeminence in his affections. Had king Josiah spoke great and glorious words of his love to God's church, and of his hatred to idolatry, this indeed might have been a fair commendation of his zea