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           Title: Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions. Vol. V.
      Creator(s): South, Robert, (1634-1716)
     Print Basis: Oxford: Clarendon Press (1823)
   CCEL Subjects: All; Bible
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SERMONS

PREACHED UPON

SEVERAL OCCASIONS,

BY

ROBERT SOUTH, D.D.

PREBENDARY OF WESTMINSTER,

AND CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD,
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A NEW EDITION, IN SEVEN VOLUMES.
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VOL. V.
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OXFORD,

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS.

  MDCCCXXIII.
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ADVERTISEMENT.

   THE Discourses contained in the three last volumes of the present
   edition, with the exception of the Appendix, were first published in
   the year 1744, with the following title:

   "Five additional Volumes of Sermons preached upon several Occasions. By
   Robert South, D.D. late Prebendary of Westminster, and Canon of
   Christ-Church, Oxon. Now first printed from the Author's Manuscripts.
   With the chief Heads of the Sermons prefixed to each Volume: and a
   general Index of the principal Matters. London: printed for Charles
   Bathurst, opposite St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet-Street. M.DCC.XLIV."

   The editor is said to have been Dr. William King, Principal of St. Mary
   Hall in the University of Oxford. See Nichols's Literary Anecdotes of
   the Eighteenth Century, vol. II. p. 608.

   These Sermons do not appear to have been prepared or even intended for
   the press by the author, from whose rough drafts they were evidently
   printed in so careless and incorrect a manner, as in many passages to
   be absolutely unintelligible. In the present edition it has been deemed
   proper to have recourse occasionally to conjectural emendation of the
   text, in preparing which considerable use has been made of a copy
   bequeathed to the Bodleian Library by Charles Godwyn, B.D. in which
   many of the errors are corrected in Mr. Godwyn's own hand. But in all
   cases, in which an obvious and almost certain correction did not
   present itself, the original edition has been followed without
   alteration. A list of the words or passages corrected is subjoined to
   each volume.
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    THE

CHIEF HEADS OF THE SERMONS.
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VOL. V.
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SERMON I.

  EPHESIANS iv. 10.

   He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all heavens,
   that he might fill all things. P. 1.

   Christianity, in those great matters of fact upon which it is founded,
   happily complies with man's mind, by affording proper objects to affect
   both the pensive, sad, and composed part of the soul, and also its more
   joyful, serene, and sprightly apprehensions; which is instanced in many
   pas sages of Christ's life, from the humble manger, attended with
   angels, to his descent into the grave, followed by his miraculous
   resurrection and ascension, 1. This last great and crowning passage,
   however true, still affords scope for the noble actings of faith; and
   since faith must rest itself upon a divine word, such a word we have
   here in the text, 3. Wherein are four things considerable:

   I. Christ's humiliation implied in these words, he that descended, 4.

   The Socinians answered concerning Christ's descent according to his
   divine nature, 5. And an inquiry made as to the place whither he
   descended, the lower parts of the earth, 5. which, 1. Some understand
   simply of the earth, as being the lowermost part of the world, 6. 2.
   Some of the grave, 6. 3. Some of hell itself, the place of the damned,
   6. 4. The Romanists by the help of this text have spied a place called
   purgatory; or rather the pope's kitchen, 7. These words may bear the
   same sense with those in Psalm cxxxix. 15. and be very properly taken
   for Christ's incarnation and conception in the womb of the blessed
   Virgin, 8. and that upon these grounds:

   1. Because the former expositions have been shewn to be unnatural,
   forced, or impertinent, and there is no other be sides this assignable,
   8.

   2. Since Paul here uses David's very words, it is most probable that he
   used them in David's sense, 8.

   3. The words descending and ascending are so put together in the text,
   that they seem to intend a summary account of Christ's whole
   transaction in man's redemption, which was begun in his conception, and
   consummate in his ascension, 8.

   II. Christ's glorious advancement and exaltation, he ascended far above
   all heavens; that is, to the most eminent place of dignity and glory in
   the highest heaven, 9.

   III. The qualification and state of Christ's person, in reference to
   both conditions: he was the same. He that descended, &c. which evinces
   the unity of the two natures in the same person, 11.

   IV. The end of Christ's ascension, that he might fill all things, 15.
   All things may refer here, 1. To the scripture prophecies and
   predictions, 15. 2. To the church, as he might fill that with his gifts
   and graces, 15. Or 3, (which interpretation is preferred,) to all
   things in the world, 16. which he may be said thus to fill in a double
   respect.

   1. Of the omnipresence of his nature, and universal diffusion of his
   godhead, 16.

   2. Of the universal rule and government of all things committed to him
   as mediator upon his ascension, 19.

   It remains now that we transcribe this into our lives, and by being the
   most obedient of servants, declare Christ to be the greatest of
   masters, 21 .

SERMON II.

  EPHESIANS iv. 10.

   That he might fill all things. P. 22.

   These words are capable of a threefold interpretation, 22.

   1. All things may refer to the whole series of prophecies and
   predictions recorded of Christ in the scriptures, which he may be said
   to fulfil by his ascension, 22.

   St. Paul vindicated against the Jews' charge of perverting the
   prophet's meaning in that eminent prediction, Psalm lxviii. 18. 23.

   2. All things may refer to the church: which sense is here most
   insisted on, 25.

   The church, from its very nature and constitution, has unavoidably a
   double need or necessity, which it is Christ's prerogative to fill, 26.

   1. In respect of its government. Hereupon he gave some, apostles; some,
   evangelists; some, prophets; some, pastors and teachers, 26.

   2. In respect of instruction: for this Christ made a glorious provision
   by the diffusion of the Holy Ghost upon the apostles, 27. In which
   passage two things are observable:

   I. The time when, 27. Which is remarkable in respect,

   1. Of Christian religion itself, it being about its first solemn
   promulgation, 27.

   2. Of the apostles. It was when they entered upon the full execution of
   their apostolic office, 29-

   II. The manner how the Holy Ghost was conferred; namely, in the gift of
   tongues, 33. And as these tongues were a proper representation of the
   gospel, so the peculiar nature and efficacy of this gospel was
   emphatically set forth by those attending circumstances of the fire and
   the mighty wind, both of which are notable for these effects; 1. To
   cleanse. 2. To consume and destroy, 34.

SERMON III.

  JOHN ix. 4.

   The night cometh, when no man can work. P. 36.

   The sense of the text naturally lies in three propositions.

   I. That there is a work appointed to every man to be performed by him,
   while he lives in the world, 36.

   Man, as he is, 1. a part or member of the body politic, hath a temporal
   work, whereby he is to approve himself a good citizen, in filling the
   place of a divine, lawyer, &c. 38.

   2. As a member and subject of a spiritual and higher kingdom, he has
   also a spiritual calling or profession of a Christian; and the work
   that this engages him to is three fold, 40.

   1. Making his peace with God, 41.

   2. Getting his sins mortified, 42.

   3. Getting his heart purified with the proper graces and virtues of a
   Christian, 44.

   II. That the time of this life being once expired, there is no farther
   possibility of performing that work, 46.

   The word by which the time of this life is expressed, viz. a day, 46.
   may emphatically denote three things.

   1. The shortness of our time, 46. 2. The sufficiency of it for our
   work, 47. 3. The determinate stint and limitation of it, 48.

   III. That the consideration of this ought to be the highest argument
   for using the utmost diligence in the discharge of this work, 49. Which
   requires all our diligence; 1. From its difficulty, 49. 2. From its
   necessity, 50.

SERMON IV.

  PREACHED AT THE CONSECRATION OF DR. SETH WARD, BISHOP OF OXON.

  JEREMIAH xv. 20.

   I will make thee unto this people a fenced brasen wall: and they shall
   fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am
   with thee to save thee and deliver thee, saith the Lord. P. 54.

   Presbytery, derived by some from Jethro, came first from Midian, an
   heathenish place, 54. Their elders are mentioned sometimes in the Old
   Testament, but their office not described, 54. A superintendency of
   bishops over presbyters may be argued from the superiority of the
   priests over the Levites, much better than they can found their
   discipline upon the word elder, 55. But if God instituted such a
   standing superiority and jurisdiction of the priest over the Levites,
   these two things follow;

   1. That such a superiority is not in itself absolutely irregular and
   unlawful, 55.

   2. That neither does it carry in it an antipathy and contrariety to the
   power of godliness, 55.

   And yet upon these two suppositions, as if there was something in the
   very vital constitution of such a subordination irreconcileable to
   godliness, are all the presbyters' calumnies commenced, 55.

   In the words are three things considerable.

   I. God's qualification of Jeremy to be an overseer in his church; I
   will make thee a fenced brasen wall, 56.

   Now a wall imports, 1. Enclosure, 57. 2. Fortification, 58. This
   metaphor of a wall, as applied to a church-governor being explained; to
   make good that title he must have, 1. Courage, 59. 2. Innocence and
   integrity, 60. 3. Authority, 62.

   II. The opposition that the church-governor thus qualified will be sure
   to meet with in his office: They shall fight against thee, 64. And this
   they are like to do,

   1. By seditious preaching and praying, 64.

   2. By railing and libels, 65.

   3. Perhaps by open force, 66.

   III. The issue and success of this opposition: They shall not prevail
   against thee, 68.

   It is bold to foretell things future, which fall under human cognizance
   only two ways: 1. By a foresight of them in their causes, 68. 2. By
   divine revelation, 69. And from both these there is ground of hope to
   the church, 69.

   The arguments against this answered, 1. That the enemies of the church
   in the late confusion did not prevail against her: for that only is a
   prevailing which is a final conquest, 70. 2. That he who is pillaged or
   murdered in the resolute performance of his duty is not properly
   prevailed against, 70.

   Wherefore the governors of the church may with confidence from the text
   bespeak their opposers; Who shall fight against us? it is God that
   saves. Who shall destroy? it is the same God that delivers, 71.

SERMONS V. VI.

  TITUS i. 1.

   Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to
   the faith of God's elect, and the acknowledging the truth which is
   after godliness. P. 73.

   The end of all philosophical inquiries is truth; and of all religious
   institutions, godliness; both which are united and blended in the
   constitution of Christianity, 73.

   I. In this expression of the gospel's being the truth which is after
   godliness, three things are couched.

   1. That it is simply a truth, 74.

   2. That it is an operative truth, 75.

   3. That it operates to the best effect, 75.

   The words may have a double sense, 76. 1. That the gospel is so called,
   because it actually produces the effects of godliness in those that
   embrace it, 76. 2. That it is, in its nature, the most apt and proper
   instrument of holiness, 76. and the truth which has thus an influence
   upon godliness consists of two things, 76.

   1. A right notion of God, 77.

   2. A right notion of what concerns the duty of man, 77.

   II. Three things are deduced from this description of the gospel, 79.

   1. That the nature and prime design of religion is to be an instrument
   of good life.

   This cleared by these arguments. 1. That religion designs the service
   of God, by gaining to his obedience man's actions and converse, 80. 2.
   It designs the salvation of man, who is not saved as he is more
   knowing, but as he is more pious than others, 80. 3. That the
   excellency of Christianity does not consist in discovering more sublime
   truths or more excellent precepts than philosophy, (though it does
   this,) but in suggesting better arguments to enforce the performance of
   those precepts, than any other religion, 81. 4. That notwithstanding
   the diversity of religions, men will generally be condemned hereafter
   for the same things, viz. their breaches of morality, 82.

   2. That so much knowledge of truth as is sufficient to engage men in
   the practice of godliness, serves the necessary ends of religion, 82.
   For,

   If godliness be the design, it ought also to be the measure of men's
   knowledge in this particular, 83.

   3. That whatsoever does in itself, or its direct consequences,
   undermine the motives of a good life, is contrary to and destructive of
   Christian religion, 83.

   The doctrines that more immediately concern a good life are,

   1. Such as concern the justification of a sinner, 83.

   And herein the motives to holy living are subverted,

   1. By the doctrine of the covenant of grace without conditions of
   performance on man's part, but only to believe that he is justified:
   taught by the antinomians, 84. 2. By the doctrine of acceptance with
   God by the righteousness and merits of other saints: taught by the
   Romanists, 85.

   2. Such as concern the rule of life and manners, 87.

   And here the motives to godliness are destroyed,

   1. By that doctrine of the antinomians, that exempts all believers from
   the obligation of the moral law, 87.

   2. By that doctrine of the church of Rome, which asserts any sin to be
   in its nature venial, 89. The church of Rome herein resembling the
   Jewish church corrupted by the Pharisees, who distinguished the
   commandments into the great and the small, 91. 3. By the Romish
   doctrine of supererogation, 93. 4. By that doctrine, that places it in
   the power of any mere mortal man to dispense with the laws of Christ,
   so as to discharge any man from being obliged by them, 95.

   3. Such as relate to repentance, 99.

   The doctrine of repentance may be perverted in a double respect:

   1. In respect of the time of it: as is done by the Romish casuists, who
   say, that a man is bound to repent of his sins once, but when that once
   shall be, he may deter mine as he thinks fit, 100. 2. As to the measure
   of it, 103. The Romish doctrine considered in this respect, and
   refuted, 104.

   The improvement of all lies in two things:

   1. To convince us how highly it concerns all, but especially the most
   knowing, to try the doctrines that they believe, and to let inquiry
   usher in faith, 106.

   2. It suggests also the sure marks, by which we may try them, 107. As,
   1. It is not the pleasingness or suitableness of a doctrine to our
   tempers or interests, 107. nor, 2. The general or long reception of it,
   108. nor, 3. The godliness of the preacher or asserter of any doctrine,
   that is a sure mark of the truth of it: but if it naturally tends to
   promote the fear of God in men's hearts, and to engage them in virtuous
   courses, it carries with it the mark and impress of the great eternal
   truth, 1 09.

SERMONS VII. VIII. IX.

  PROVERBS xxix. 5.

   A man that flattereth his neighbour, spreadeth a net for his feet. P.
   111.

   The words being plain, the matter contained in them is prosecuted under
   three general heads, 111.

   I. What flattery is, and wherein it does consist, 112.

   Though we cannot reach all the varieties of it, the general ways are,

   1. Concealing or dissembling the defects or vices of any person, 112.
   And here are shewn two things:

   First, Who they are that are concerned to speak in this case; namely,
   1. Such as are intrusted with the government of others, 114. 2. Persons
   set apart to the work of the ministry, 115. 3. Those that profess
   friendship, 116.

   Secondly, The manner how they are to speak: as, 1. The reproof should
   be given in secret, 117. 2. With due respect to and distinction of the
   condition of the person reproved, 119. 3. With words of meekness and
   commiseration, 123. 4. That the reproof be not continued or repeated
   after amendment of the occasion, 127.

   2. The second way of flattery is the praising and defending the defects
   or vices of any person, 129.

   Under this species, the distinction between a religious and a political
   conscience observed, and censured, 132. And two sorts of men charged as
   the most detestable flatterers:

   1. Such as upon principles of enthusiasm assure persons of eminence and
   high place, that those transgressions are allowable in them, that are
   absolutely prohibited and condemned in others, 134.

   2. The Romish casuists, who persuade the world, that many actions,
   which have hitherto passed for impious and unlawful, admit of such
   qualifications as clear them of all guilt, 135.

   This kind of flattery is of most mischievous consequence, and of very
   easy effect: 1. From the nature of man, 137. 2. From the very nature of
   vice itself, 137.

   3. The third kind of flattery is the perverse imitation of any one^s
   defects or vices, 138.

   4. The fourth consists in overvaluing those virtues and perfections
   that are really laudable in any person, 141.

   II. The grounds and occasions of flattery on his part that is
   flattered, 144.

   Three mentioned. 1. Greatness of place or condition, 144. 2. An angry,
   passionate disposition, and impatient of reproof, 146. 3. A proud and
   vainglorious disposition, 148.

   III. The ends and designs of the flatterer. He spreads a net for his
   neighbour's feet, 152.

   The flatterer is influenced by these two grand purposes;

   1. To serve himself, 152.

   2. To undermine him whom he flatters, and thereby to effect his ruin,
   154. Which he does, 1. As he deceives him, and grossly abuses and
   perverts his judgment, which should be the guide of all his actions,
   155. 2. He brings him to shame and a general contempt, 156. He effects
   his ruin; forasmuch as by this means he renders his recovery and
   amendment impossible, 157.

SERMONS X. XL XII.

  PSALM xix. 13.

   Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have
   dominion over me. P. 160.

   These words suggest three things to our consideration.

   1. The thing prayed against; presumptuous sins, 160.

   2. The person making this prayer; one adorned with the highest elogies
   for his piety, even by God himself, 160.

   3. The means he engages for his deliverance; namely, the divine grace
   and assistance, 160.

   The words are discussed under two general heads.

   I. Shewing what these presumptuous sins are.

   II. Shewing the reason of this so holy person's praying so earnestly
   against them.

   The first head is handled in three things.

   1. Shewing in general what it is to presume, 160.

   The scripture description of presumption. Three parts go to make up a
   presumptuous sin. 1. That a man undertake an action, known by him to be
   unlawful, or at least doubtful, 161. 2. That, notwithstanding, he
   promise to himself security from any punishment of right consequent
   upon it, 162. 3. That he do this upon motives utterly groundless and
   unreasonable, 162.

   The presumptuous sinner is divested of the two only pleas for the
   extenuation of sin. As, 1. Ignorance, 163, 2. Surprise, 165.

   Distinction between sins of presumption and sins of infirmity.

   Three opinions concerning a sin of infirmity, 167. The

   1st, Derives the nature of it from the condition of the agent;
   affirming that every sin committed by a believer, or a person truly
   regenerate, is a sin of infirmity, 167. This doctrine is considered and
   refuted, 168.

   2. Some, from the matter of the action; as that it is committed only in
   thought or desire, or perhaps in word, 170. To this is answered, 1.
   That there is no act producible by the soul of man under the power of
   his will, but it is capable of being a sin of presumption, 170. 2. The
   voice of God in scripture is loud against this opinion, 171.

   3. Some, from the principle immediately producing the action, viz. that
   the will is carried to the one by malice, to the other by inadvertency,
   171.

   But for our better conduct is shewn, first negatively, what is not a
   sin of infirmity: as, 1. When a man ventures and designs to commit a^,
   sin upon this ground, that he judges it a sin of infirmity, 172. 2.
   That sin, though in itself never so small, that a man, after the
   committing of it, is desirous to excuse or extenuate, 173. 2.
   Positively, what is: namely, a sin committed out of mere sudden
   inadvertency, that inadvertency not being directly caused by any
   deliberate sin immediately going before it, 173.

   II. Assigning some of the most notable kinds of presumptuous sins, 175.
   As,

   1. Sin against the goodness of God, manifesting itself to a man in
   great prosperity, 175.

   2. Sins committed under God's judging and afflicting hand, 178.

   3. Committing a sin clearly discovered, and directly pointed at by the
   word of God, either written or preached, 181.

   4. Committing a sin against passages of Providence, particularly
   threatening the commission of it, 182.

   5. Sins against the inward checks and warnings of conscience, 184.

   6. Sins against that inward taste, relish, and complacency, that men
   have found in their attempts to walk with God, 186.

   7. The returning to and repeated commission of the same sin, 188.

   III. Proposing some remedies against these sins. As,

   1. Let a man endeavour to fix in his heart a deep apprehension and
   persuasion of the transcendent evil of the nature of sin in general,
   191.

   2. Let him most seriously consider and reflect upon God's justice, 194.

   3. Let him consider, how much such offences would exasperate even men,
   195.

   Second general head: shewing the reason of the Psalmist's so earnest
   praying against these sins, 197.

   The prosecution of the first head might be argument enough: but yet,
   for a more full discussion of the point, these further reasons, which
   might induce him to it, are considered.

   1. The danger of falling into these sins. 1. From the nature of man,
   which is apt to be confident, 198. 2. From the object of presumption,
   God's mercy, 199- 3. From the tempter, who chiefly concerns himself to
   engage men in this kind of sin, 199-

   2. The sad consequences of them, if fallen into. Amongst which are, 1.
   Their marvellous aptness to grow upon him that gives way to them, 201.
   2. That of all others they prove the most difficult in their cure, 203.
   3. They waste the conscience infinitely more than any other sins, 204.
   4. They have always been followed by God with greater and fiercer
   judgments than any others, 205.

SERMON XIII.

  PSALM cxxxix. 3.

   Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all
   my ways. P. 209.

   The metaphorical expressions in the text being explained, 209. this
   doctrinal observation is gathered from it; viz.

   That God knows, and takes strict and accurate notice of the most secret
   and retired passages of a man's life; which is proved by reasons of two
   sorts.

   I. Such as prove that it is so, that God knows the most secret passages
   of our lives, 212.

   1. He observes them, because he rules and governs them, 212. Which he
   does three ways: 1. By discovering them 2. By preventing of them, 213.
   3. By directing them for other ends than those for which they were
   intended, 214.

   2. Because he gives laws to regulate them, 215.

   3. Because he will judge them, 216. First, in this life, wherein he
   often gives the sinner a foretaste of what he intends to do in the
   future, 217. 2. At the day of judgment, 218.

   II. Such reasons as shew whence it is that God takes such notice of
   them.

   He observes all hidden things:

   1. From his omniscience, or power of knowing all things 219.

   2. From his intimate presence to the nature and being of all things,
   220.

   The application of the whole lies in shewing the uses it may afford us:
   which are,

   1. A use of conviction, to convince all presumptuous sinners of the
   atheism of their hearts, 221.

   2d use. It speaks terror to all secret sinners, 223. Now secret sins
   are of two sorts, both of which God perfectly knows. As,

   1. The sins of our thoughts and desires, 224. And he will judge of men
   by these, 1. Because they are most spiritual, and consequently most
   opposite to the nature of God, 226. 2. Because man's actions and
   practice may be overruled, but thoughts and desires are the natural and
   genuine offspring of the soul, 228.

   2. Such sins as are not only transacted in the mind, but also by the
   body, yet are covered from the view of men, 229.

   3. As God's omniscience is a terror to secret sinners, so it speaks no
   less comfort to all sincere-hearted Christians, 231.

SERMON XIV.

  ECCLES. vii. 10.

   Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were letter than
   these? for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this. P. 233.

   In the days of Solomon, when Jerusalem was the glory of the whole
   earth, these complaints of the times were made; and yet a little
   backward in the calendar, we have nothing but tumults, changes, and
   vicissitudes, 233.

   The words run in the form of a question, yet include a positive
   assertion, and a downright censure, 234. The inquiry being determined
   before it was proposed, now the charge of folly here laid upon it may
   relate to the supposition, upon which it is founded, in a threefold
   respect; viz.

   I. Of a peremptory negation, as a thing absolutely to be denied, that
   former times are better than the following.

   II. As of a case very disputable, whether they are so or no.

   III. As admitting the supposition for true, that they are better, 234.

   In every one of which respects this inquiry ought to be exploded. And,

   I. That it is ridiculous to ask, why former times are bet ter than the
   present, if they really are not so, 235. And that they are not, is
   evinced, 1. From reason, 236. 2. From history and the records of
   antiquity, 237.

   II. Supposing the case disputable; which being argued, 1. On the side
   of antiquity, 240. 2. Of succeeding times, 241. this inquiry is shewn
   to be unreasonable,

   1. In respect of the nature of the thing itself, 243.

   2. In respect of the incompetence of any man living to judge in this
   controversy, 243.

   III. Supposing it true, that former times are really best; this
   querulous reflection is foolish,

   1. Because such complaints have no efficacy to alter or remove the
   cause of them, 244.

   2. Because they only quicken the smart, and add to the pressure, 246.

   3. Because the just cause of them is resolvable into ourselves, 247,
   &c.

SERMON XV.

  A FUNERAL DISCOURSE.

  MATT. v. 25, 26.

   Agree with thine adversary quickly , whiles thou art in the way with
   him: lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the
   judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.

   Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till
   thou hast paid the uttermost farthing. P. 250.

   In these words, Christ enforces the duty of an amicable concord and
   agreement betwixt brethren, from the unavoidable misery of those
   obstinate wretches that persist in and perpetuate an injury, 250.

   Some understand the words in a literal, some in a figurative sense,
   251.

   The several terms therein explained in the spiritual sense of them;
   according to which, by the word adversary is meant the divine law, or a
   man's own conscience, as commissionated by that law, 251. By the way,
   the time of this life, or rather the present opportunities of
   repentance, 252. By judge, the great God of heaven, 252. By officer,
   the Devil, 253. By prison, hell, 253. By paying the utmost farthing,
   the guilty person's being dealt with according to the utmost rigour and
   extremity of justice, 253.

   The text is parabolical, and includes both senses. For the better
   understanding which, a parable is explained to contain two parts. (1.)
   The material, literal part, contained in the bare words. (2.) The
   formal, spiritual part, or application of the parable; which is
   sometimes expressed, and sometimes understood, as in this place, 254.

   The sense of the text is presented under three conclusions:

   1. That the time of this life is the only time for a sinner to make his
   peace with God, 256.

   2. That this consideration ought to be a prevailing, unanswerable
   argument to engage and quicken his repentance, 256.

   3. That if a sinner lets this pass, he irrecoverably falls in to an
   estate of utter perdition, 256.

   The second conclusion, the subject of this discourse, the truth whereof
   made appear three ways:

   I. By comparing the shortness of life with the difficulty of this work
   of repentance, 256.

   The difficulty of repentance appears,

   1. Because a man is to clear himself of an injury done to an infinite,
   offended justice, to appease an infinite wrath, and an infinite,
   provoked majesty, 259.

   2. Because a man is utterly unable of himself to give God any thing by
   way of just compensation or satisfaction, 261.

   II. By comparing the uncertainty of life with the necessity of the
   work, 263.

   III. By considering the sad and fatal doom that will in fallibly attend
   the neglect of it, 266.

   The misery and terror of this doom consists in two things: 1. That it
   cannot be avoided, 267. 2. That it cannot be revoked, 268.

   Application in urging over the same duty from another argument, namely,
   that so long as there is enjoyment of a temporal life, there may be
   just hope of an eternal. Therefore kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and
   so ye perish from the way, 270.

SERMON XVI.

  MATT. xxiii. 5.

   But all their works they do for to be seen of men. P. 272.

   This notable instance of religious ostentation in the pharisees leads
   to an inquiry, how far the love of glory is able to engage men in a
   virtuous and religious life, 272.

   I. A love of glory is sufficient to produce all those virtuous actions
   that are visible in the lives of those that profess religion: because,

   1. It has done so: this shewn from the examples of the noblest and most
   virtuous of the heathens, 273. from the abstinence of the ancient
   athletics, 274. from the character of the ancient pharisees, 275. and
   from that of many modern Christians, 276.

   2. There is nothing visible in the very best actions, but what may
   proceed from the most depraved principles, if acted by prudence,
   caution, and design, 277.

   II. The reasons, whence this affection comes to have such an influence
   upon our actions, are these:

   1. Because glory is the proper pleasure of the mind; it being the
   complacency that a man finds within himself arising from his conceit of
   the opinion that another has of some excellency or perfection in him,
   279.

   2. Because it is founded in the innate desire of superiority and
   greatness that is in every man, 282.

   3. Because a fair reputation opens a man's way to all the advantages of
   life: as in the times of the rebellion, when the face of a dissembled
   piety gave men great credit and authority with the generality, 284.

   III. This principle is insufficient to engage mankind in virtuous
   actions, without the assistance of religion: two considerations
   premised, viz.

   1. That virtue and a good life determines not in outward practices, but
   respects the most inward actions of the mind, 285.

   2. That the principle of honour or glory governs a man's actions
   entirely by the judgment and opinion of the world concerning them, 287.

   These considerations premised, the principle of honour appears to be
   utterly insufficient to engage and argue men into the practice of
   virtue in the following cases:

   1. When, by ill customs and worse discourses, any vice, (as
   fornication, theft, self-murder, &c.) comes to have a reputation, or at
   least no disreputation, in the judgment of a nation; the shame God has
   annexed to sin being in a great measure taken from it by fashion, 288.

   2. When a man can pursue his vice secretly and indiscernibly: as,
   first, when he entertains it in his thoughts, affections, and desires;
   secondly, when, though it passes from desire into practice, yet it is
   acted with such circumstances of external concealment, that it is out
   of the notice and arbitration of all observers, 291.

   If then honour be the strongest motive nature has to enforce virtue by,
   and this is found insufficient for so great a purpose, it is in vain to
   attempt such a superstructure upon any weaker foundation, 294.

   IV. Even those actions that a principle of honour does produce are of
   no value in the sight of God; and that upon the account of a double
   defect:

   1. In respect of the cause, from which they flow; inasmuch as they
   proceed only upon the apprehension of a present interest, which when it
   ceases, the fountain of such actions is dried up, 295.

   2. In respect of the end to which they are directed; which end is self,
   not the glory of God, 296.

   In both these respects, the most sublime moral performances of the
   heathens were defective, and therefore have been always arraigned and
   condemned by Christian divinity, 297.

   Two things inferred, by way of corollary and conclusion:

   1. The worth and absolute necessity of religion in the world, even as
   to the advantage of civil society; and the mischievous tendency of
   atheistical principles, 297.

   2. The inexcusableness of those persons who, professing religion, yet
   live below a principle inferior to religion, 298.

SERMON XVII.

  2 COR. i. 24.

   For by faith ye stand. P. 300.

   Faith more usually discoursed of by divines than explained, 300. Three
   sorts of faith mentioned in scripture. 1. A faith of simple credence,
   or bare assent, 300. 2. A temporary faith, and a faith of conviction,
   301. 3. A saving, effectual faith, (which here only is intended,)
   wrought in the soul by a sound and real work of conversion, 301 . Two
   things considerable in the words. I. Something supposed, viz. that
   believers will be encountered and assaulted in their spiritual course,
   302. In every spiritual combat are to be considered,

   1. The persons engaged in it, 303. which are believers on the one side,
   and the Devil on the other.

   2. The thing contended for by it, 304. This assault of the Devil
   intended to cast believers down from their purity and sanctity of life,
   304. and from their interest in the divine favour, 305.

   3. The means by which it is carried on, 307. The Devil's own immediate
   suggestions, 307. The Devil assaults a man, by the infidelity of his
   own heart, 308. by the alluring vanities of the world, 309. and by the
   help of man's own lusts and corruptions, 311.

   II. Something expressed; viz. that it is faith alone that in such
   encounters does or can make believers victorious, 313. For making out
   which, is shewn,

   1. How deplorably weak and insufficient man is, while considered in his
   natural estate, and void of the grace of faith, 313.

   2. The advantages and helps faith gives believers for the conquest of
   their spiritual enemy, 315. It gives them a real union with Christ,
   316. It engages the assistance of the Spirit on their behalf, 317. And
   lastly, gives them both a title to, and a power effectually to apply,
   God's promises through Christ, who is the rock of ages, the only sure
   station for poor sinners, and able to save, to the uttermost, all those
   that by faith rely upon him, 319.

SERMON XVIII.

  PSALM cxlv. 9.

   The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.
   P. 323.

   Mercy, as it is ascribed to God, may be considered two ways, 323.

   I. For the principle itself, 323.

   II. For the effects and actions flowing from that principle, which, in
   the sense of the text, are such as are general and diffusive to all,
   324.

   The words are prosecuted by setting forth God's general mercy and
   goodness to the creature in a survey of the state and condition,

   1. Of the inanimate part of the creation, 324.

   2. Of plants and vegetables, 325.

   3. Of the beasts of the field, and the fowls of the air, 328.

   4. Of man, 329.

   5. Of angels: in respect of their nature, 331. of their place of
   habitation, and of their employment, 333.

   A deduction from the precedent discourse, to settle in the mind right
   thoughts of God's natural goodness to men, 334. with arguments against
   the hard thoughts men usually have of God, drawn from two qualities
   that do always attend them, 336.

   1. Their unreasonableness, 337.

   2. Their danger, 339.

SERMON XIX.

  JAMES i. 14.

   But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and
   enticed. P. 342.

   The explication of these two terms being premised,

   1. What the apostle means here by being tempted, 342.

   2. What is intended by lust, 343.

   The prosecution of the words lies in these particulars:

   I. To shew the false causes upon which men are apt to charge their
   sins. And that,

   1. The decree of God concerning things to come to pass is not a proper
   cause for any man to charge his sins upon, 344. Objection to this
   stated, and answered, 345.

   2. The influences of the heavens and of the stars imprint nothing upon
   men that can impel or engage them to do evil, 347.

   3. Neither can any man charge his sins upon the constitution and temper
   of his body, as the proper cause of them, 349.

   4. No man can justly charge his sins upon the Devil, as the cause of
   them, 350.

   Though these be not the proper causes of sin, they are observed to be
   very often great promoters of it, where they meet with a corrupt heart,
   352.

   II. To shew, that the proper cause of sin is the depraved will of man;
   which being supposed sufficiently clear from scripture, is farther
   evinced by arguments and reasons.

   1. From the office of the will, 354.

   2. From every man's experience of himself and his own actions, 354.

   3. From the same man's making a different choice of the same object at
   one time from what he does at another, 355.

   4. From this, that even the souls in hell continue to sin, 355.

   III. To shew the way by which a corrupt will, here expressed, is the
   cause of sin. And,

   1. It draws a man aside from the ways of duty, 356.

   2. Entices him, by representing the pleasure of sin, stript of all the
   troubles and inconveniencies of sin, 357. and by representing that
   pleasure that is in sin greater than indeed it is, 359. But

   The exceeding vanity of every sinful pleasure is made to appear by
   considering,

   1. The latitude or measure of its extent.

   2. The duration or continuance of it, 360.

SERMON XX.

  ISAIAH xxvii. 11.

   For it Is a people of no understanding: therefore he that made them
   will not have mercy on them, and he that formed them will shew them no
   favour. P. 362.

   The prophet, after eloquently describing a severe judgment to be
   inflicted on the Jews in the deplorable destruction of Jerusalem, 362.
   does in the next words assign a reason for it: For it is a people of no
   understanding. This ignorance is here explained to be not that of an
   empty understanding, but of a depraved heart and corrupt disposition,
   and therefore the highest aggravation, 363.

   From the words of the text are deduced two observations;

   I. The relation of a Creator strongly engages God to put forth acts of
   love and favour towards his creature, 365. The strength of which
   obligement appears,

   1. Because it is natural, 366. 2. Because God put it upon himself, 366.

   There are three engaging things, implied in the creature's relation to
   God, that oblige him to manifest himself in a way of goodness to it:

   1. The extract or original of the creature's being, which is from God
   himself, 366. which includes in it two other endearing considerations.
   (1.) It puts a likeness between God and the creature, 367. (2.)
   Whatsoever comes from God, by way of creation, is good, and so there
   naturally does result an act of love, 368.

   2. The dependence of its being upon God, 368.

   3. The end of the creature's being is God's glory, 370.

   II. How sin disengages, and takes off God from all those acts of favour
   that the relation of a Creator engaged him to, 371.

   1. It turns that which, in itself, is an obligation of mercy, to be an
   aggravation of the offence, 371.

   2. It takes away that similitude that is between God and the creature,
   which (as has been observed) was one cause of that love, 373.

   3. It takes off the creature from his dependence upon God; that is, his
   moral dependence, which is a filial reliance and recumbency upon him,
   375.

   4. It renders the creature useless, as to the end for which it was
   designed, 376.

   In an application of the foregoing, the first use is to obviate and
   take off that common argument, in the mouths of the ignorant, and in
   the hearts of the knowing, that God would never make them to destroy
   them; and therefore, since he has made them, they roundly conclude that
   he will not destroy them, 378.

   Now the reasons upon which men found their objections may be these two:

   1. A self-love, and a proneness to conceive some extraordinary
   perfection in themselves, which may compound for their misdemeanours,
   380.

   2. Their readiness to think that God is not so exceeding jealous of his
   honour, but he may easily put up the breach of it, without the ruin of
   his creature, 381.

   These pleas and objections of men answered by considering and comparing
   the offence of a child against his natural parent, with that of a
   creature against his Creator, 383.

   The second use is to inform us of the cursed, provoking nature of sin,
   385. And,

   The third use may shew us under what notion we are to make our
   addresses to God; not as a Creator, but a reconciled God, 386.

SERMON XXI.

  MATT. xix. 22.

   When the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he
   had great possessions. P. 389.

   After reflecting upon the command that gave occasion to this sorrow
   under these three degrees; 1. Go sell that thou hast. 2. Give to the
   poor. 3. Come and follow me, 390. and likewise stating and answering
   some abuses in the doctrine of the papists concerning this scripture,
   391. the words of the text are observed to contain in them four things
   considerable:

   1. The person making the address to Christ, who was one whose reason
   was enlightened to a solicitous consideration of his estate in another
   world, 393.

   2. The thing sought for in this address, viz. eternal life, 393.

   3. The condition upon which it was proposed, and upon which it was
   refused; namely, the sale and relinquishment of his temporal estate,
   393.

   4. His behaviour upon this refusal: he departed sorrowful, 393.

   Which are all joined together in this one proposition, viz.

   He that deliberately parts with Christ, though for the greatest and
   most suitable worldly enjoyment, if but his natural reason is awakened,
   does it with much secret sting and remorse, 393. In the prosecution of
   this is shewn,

   I. Whence it is, that a man, acted by an enlightened reason, finds such
   reluctancy and regret upon his rejection of Christ: it may proceed from
   these causes:

   1. From the nature of conscience, that is apt to recoil upon any error,
   either in our actions or in our choice, 394.

   2. From the usual course of God's judicial proceeding in this matter,
   which is to clarify the eye of reason to a clearer sight of the
   beauties and excellencies of Christ, in the very moment and critical
   instant of his departure, 396.

   3. Because there is that in Christ, and in the gospel, even as they
   stand in opposition to the best of such enjoyments, that answers the
   most natural and generous discourses of reason, 397. For proof hereof,
   two known principles of reason produced, into which the most severe
   commands of the gospel are resolved:

   (1.) That the greatest calamity is to be endured, rather than the least
   sin to be committed, 397.

   (2.) That a less good is to be forsaken for a greater, 400. To reduce
   this principle to the case in hand, two things are demonstrated. 1st,
   That the good promised by our Saviour to the young man was really
   greater than that which was to be forsook for it, 401. 2dly, That it
   was proposed as such with sufficient clearness of evidence, and upon
   sure, undeniable grounds, 403.

   Here, to omit other arguments, the truth of the gospel seems chiefly to
   be proved upon these two grounds,

   1. The exact fulfilling of prophecies in the person of Christ, 403.

   2. His miraculous actions; the convincing strength of which is
   undeniable upon these two most confessed principles. (1.) That they did
   exceed any natural created power, and therefore were the immediate
   effects of a divine, 404. (2.) That God cannot attest, or by his power
   bear witness to a lie, 404.

   II. The causes are shewn why, notwithstanding this regret, the soul is
   yet brought in the issue to reject Christ.

   (1.) The perceptions of sense overbear the discourse of reason, 406.

   (2.) The prevailing opposition of some corrupt affection, 408.

   (3.) The force and tyranny of the custom of the world, 410.

   Now the inferences and deductions from the words thus discussed are
   these:

   1. We gather hence the great criterion and art of trying our sincerity,
   412.

   2. That misery which attends a final dereliction of Christ; whereby a
   man loses all his happiness. (1.) That which is eternal, 415. And, (2.)
   even that which is temporal also, 417. Now we may conclude, that
   unbelief is entertained upon very hard terms, when it not only condemns
   a man to die, but also (as it were) feeds him with bread and water till
   his execution; and so leaves him wretched and destitute, even in that
   place where the wicked themselves have an in heritance, 418.

SERMON XXII.

  1 PETER ii. 23.

   Who, being reviled, reviled not again. P. 419.

   A Christian's duty is fully comprised in his active and his passive
   obedience, 419. Christ's example shews, that he was not only able to
   do, but also to suffer miracles: and all his actions are usually
   reduced to three sorts. 1. His miraculous, 420. 2. His mediatorial,
   420. 3. His moral actions; which last he both did himself, and also
   commanded others to do: wherefore it is our positive duty to imitate
   this particular instance of Christ's patience, 421.

   The words are discussed in three particulars.

   I. In shewing what is implied in the extent of this duty of not
   reviling again. It implies two things:

   1. A suppressing of our inward disgusts, 423.

   2. A restraint of our outward expressions, 424.

   A caution given for our regulation in this duty, that a due asperity of
   expression against the enemies of God, the king, and the public, is not
   the reviling in the text, the scene of which is properly private
   revenge, 425.

   II. In shewing how the observation of this duty comes to be so
   exceeding difficult.

   It is so, 1. From the peculiar, provoking quality of ill language, 428,
   2. Because nature has deeply planted in every man a strange tenderness
   for his good name, which, in the rank of worldly enjoyments, the wisest
   of men has placed before life itself, 430.

   III. In shewing by what means a man may work himself to such a
   composure and temper of spirit, to observe this excellent duty.

   Nothing less than God's grace can subdue the heart to such a frame; but
   we may add our endeavours, by frequently and seriously reflecting, that
   to return railing for railing is utterly useless to all rational
   intents and purposes, 432. This is made appear inductively, by
   recounting the several ends and intents to which, with any colour of
   reason, it may be designed.

   1. The first reason should be to remove the cause of the provocation
   received, 432. 2. May be by this means to confute the calumny, and to
   discredit the truth of it, 433. 3. To take a full and proper revenge of
   him that first reviled, 434. 4. To manifest a generous greatness of
   spirit, in shewing impatience of an affront, 436.

   By severally unravelling of which is shewn, how unfit reviling again is
   to reach or effect any of them. And St. Paul writes, If any one that is
   called a brother be an extortioner or a railer, not to keep company
   with such an one, no, not to eat; but especially at the Lord's table:
   and he that is thus excommunicated and excluded the company of the
   saints in this world, is not like to be thought fit for the society of
   angels in the next, 437.

SERMON XXIII.

  PSALM xc. 11.

   Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is
   thy wrath. P. 438.

   This description of God's anger is supposed to come from Moses, who
   might well be sensible of its weight, 438.

   Anger (and the like affections) cannot properly be said to be in the
   infinitely perfect God at all; but is only an extrinsical denomination
   of a work wrought without him, when he does something that bears a
   similitude to those effects that anger produces in men, 439.

   The prosecution of the words is managed in four particulars.

   I. Two preparatory observations are laid down concerning God's anger.

   I. That every harsh and severe dispensation is not an effect of it,
   440. 2. That there is a great difference between God's anger and his
   hatred, 442.

   II. Those instances are shewn in which this unsupportable anger of God
   does exercise and exert itself.

   1. It inflicts immediate blows and rebukes upon the conscience, 444.

   2. It imbitters afflictions, 445.

   3. It curses enjoyments, 447.

   III. Those properties and qualifications are considered, which set
   forth and declare the extraordinary greatness of it.

   1. It is fully commensurate to the very utmost of our fears, 449.

   2. It not only equals, but infinitely transcends our fears, 451.

   3. Though we may attempt it in our thoughts, yet we cannot bring it
   within the comprehension of our knowledge, 453.

   4. The greatness of God's anger appears, by comparing it with that of
   men, 454.

   IV. Some use and improvement made of the whole. As,

   1. It may serve to discover to us the intolerable misery of such as
   labour under a lively sense of God's wrath for sin, 455.

   2. It may discover to us the ineffable vastness of Christ's love to
   mankind in his sufferings for them, 456.

   3. It speaks terror to such as can be quiet, and at peace within
   themselves, after the commission of great sins, 457.

   4. All that has been said of God's anger is a warning against sin, that
   cursed thing which provokes it. Therefore men are advised to begin
   here, and not expect to extinguish the flame, till they withdraw the
   fuel. Let them but do this, and God will not fail to do the other, 459.

SERMON XXIV.

  MATT. x. 28.

   Fear not them which Mil the body, but are not able to kill the soul:
   but rather fear him which is able to destroy both body and soul in
   hell. P. 460.

   Christ in this chapter is commissioning his twelve apostles for their
   evangelical expedition: from the fifth verse almost to the end of the
   chapter we have an explication of their commission. 1. In respect of
   the place where they were to administer it, 460. 2. In respect of the
   doctrine they were to preach, 460.

   Christ's instructions are reducible to these two. (1.) A caution
   against the luxury of the world, 461. (2.) An encouragement against the
   cruelty of the world, 462.

   And to make his admonitions more effectual, he descends to those
   particular things he knew they chiefly feared. 1. Bodily torments, 464.
   2. Disgrace, 464. 3. Death, 465.

   Which last he cautions them against for these three reasons. (1.)
   Because it is but the death of the body, 465. (2.) Because hell is more
   to be feared, 465. (3.) Because they live under the special care of
   God's overseeing Providence; and therefore cannot be taken away without
   his special permission, 465.

   An objection concerning the fear of men stated, and answered, 465.

   These things premised, the words of the text are pregnant with many
   great concerning truths. As,

   1. That it is within the power of man to divest us of all our temporal
   enjoyments, 467.

   2. That the soul of man is immortal, 467.

   3. That God has an absolute and plenary power to destroy the whole man,
   468.

   4. That the thought of damnation ought to have greater weight to engage
   our fears, than the most exquisite miseries that the power or malice of
   man is able to inflict, 468. The prosecution of this lies in two
   things:

   I. In shewing what is in these miseries which men are able to inflict,
   that may lessen our fears of them. Seven considerations ought to lessen
   our fears of those miseries.

   (1.) That they are temporal, and concern only this life: as, l. Loss of
   reputation. 2. Loss of an estate. Or, 3. Loss of life, which of itself
   is quickly past, 469-

   (2.) They do not take away any thing from a man's proper perfections,
   470.

   (3.) They are all limited by God's overruling hand, 473.

   (4.) The good that may be extracted out of such miseries as are
   inflicted by men, is often greater than the evil that is endured by
   them, 474.

   (5.) The fear of these evils seldom prevents them before they come, and
   never lessens them when they are come, 475.

   (6.) The all-knowing God, who knows the utmost of them better than men
   or angels, has pronounced them not to be feared, 476.

   (7.) The greatest of these evils have been endured, and that without
   fear or astonishment, 478.

   II. In shewing what is implied in the destruction of the body and soul
   in hell, which makes it so formidable, 480.

   After running over several common considerations, this gives a sting to
   all the rest; that it is the utmost the al mighty God can do to a
   sinner, 482.

   Some objections about total annihilation and diminution of being, here
   answered, 483.

   Application in exhorting us, whenever we are discouraged from duty, or
   tempted to sin by man, on one side conscientiously to ponder man's
   inability, and on the other God's infinite power to destroy. The power
   of the latter consideration instanced in the case of Shadrach, Meshach,
   and Abednego; of Joseph, and of the apostles perseverance in preaching;
   and the neglect of the former consideration in the case of Saul and
   Amalek; David's madness, and Peter's denial of Christ, 485.

   2d Use. That it is not absurd to give cautions for the avoiding eternal
   death, even to those whose salvation is sure, and sealed up in the
   purpose of God, 489.

   3d Use. This speaks reproof to that slavish sort of sinners who are
   men-pleasers. Flattery of men always carries with it a distrust or a
   neglect of God: it is ignoble as a man; and irreligious as a Christian,
   490.

SERMON XXV.

  HEBREWS ii. 16.

   For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him
   the seed of Abraham. P. 492.

   The dark and miserable ignorance considered, that had overspread almost
   all the world for four thousand years before the coming of Christ, who
   was born to be the great mediator and instructor of mankind; which he
   was to do by the strongest methods, and most miraculous condescensions
   to our likeness, 492.

   A critical exposition of the words to vindicate the translation of the
   text, 494. which is prosecuted in two particulars.

   I. In shewing what is naturally inferred from Christ's taking on him
   the seed of Abraham. Four things follow, and are inferred upon it.

   1. The divine nature of Christ is unavoidably consequent from hence,
   497.

   2. The reality of Christ's human nature, 498.

   3. The truth of his office, and the divinity of his mission is
   deducible from the same ground, 500.

   4. Christ's voluntary choice and design, to assume a condition here
   upon earth low and contemptible, 501 .

   II. In shewing why Christ took upon him the nature of man, and not of
   angels. The reasons whereof (besides that it was the divine will, which
   is a very sufficient one, 504.) may be these two:

   1. The transcendent greatness and malignity of the sin of the angels
   above that of men; (1.) As being committed against much greater light,
   505. (2.) As commenced upon a greater liberty of will and freedom of
   choice, 506.

   2. Without such a Redeemer the whole race and species of mankind had
   perished, as being all involved in the sin of their representative;
   whereas though many of the angels sinned, yet as many, if not more,
   persisted in their innocence, 507.

   We are exhorted to a return of gratitude, and to a remembrance that
   Christ made himself the Son of man, that, by the change of our nature,
   we might become the sons of God, 508.
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SERMON I.

  EPHESIANS iv. 10.

   He that descended is the same also that ascended Jar above all heavens,
   that he might fill all things.

   IF religion were not to bear only upon the unshakeable bottom of divine
   authority, but we might propose to ourselves in idea what could be
   fittest to answer and employ those faculties of man's mind that are
   capable of religious obligation, reason would contrive such a religion
   as should afford both sad and solemn objects to amuse and affect the
   pensive part of the soul, and also such glorious matter and bright
   representations as might feed its admiration, and entertain its more
   sprightly apprehensions: for the temper of all men in the world is
   either sad and composed, or joyful and serene; and even the same man
   will find that he is wholly acted, in the general tenor of his life, by
   the vicissitude and interchange of these dispositions.

   Accordingly Christianity, in those great matters of fact upon which it
   is founded, happily complies with man's mind by this variety of its
   subject. For we have both the sorrows and the glories of Christianity,
   the depressions and the triumphs, the mournings and the hosannahs: we
   have the affecting sad nesses of Christ's fasting, his bloody agony,
   his crucifixion, and the bitter scene of his whole passion in its
   several parts and appendages: on the other side we gaze at his
   miracles, admire his transfiguration, joy at his supernatural
   resurrection, and (that which is the great complement and consummation
   of all) his glorious ascension.

   The first sort of these naturally suit with the composed, fixed, and
   monastic disposition of some minds, averse from all complacency and
   freedom; the second invite the joys of serener minds, happier
   constitutions, and brisker meditations.

   Nay, such a divine chequer-work shall we find in the whole contexture
   of the story of our religion, that we have the light still with the
   advantage of the shade, and things exhibited with the recommending
   vicinity of their contraries; so that it is observed, that in the whole
   narrative of our Saviour's life, no passage is related of him low or
   weak, but it is immediately seconded, and as it were corrected, by
   another high and miraculous.

   No sooner was Christ humbled to a manger, but the contempt of the place
   was took off with the glory of the attendance, in the ministration of
   an gels. His submission to that mean and coarse ceremony of
   circumcision was ennobled with the public attestation of Simeon
   concerning him; his fasting and temptation attended with another
   service of angels; his baptism with a glorious recognition by a voice
   from heaven. When he seemed to show weakness in seeking fruit upon that
   fig-tree that had none, he manifested his power by cursing it to
   deadness with a word. When he seemed to be over powered at his
   attachments, he then exerted his mightiness, in causing his armed
   adversaries to fall backwards, and healing Malchus's ear with a touch.
   When he underwent the lash and violent infamy of crucifixion and death,
   then did the universal frame of nature give testimony to his divinity;
   the temple rending, the sun darkening, and the earth quaking, the whole
   creation seemed to sympathize with his passion. And when afterwards he
   seemed to be in the very kingdom and dominions of death, by descending
   into the grave, he quickly confuted the dishonour of that, by an
   astonishing resurrection, and by an argument ex abundanti, proved the
   divinity of his person over and over, in an equally miraculous
   ascension.

   Which great and crowning passage of all that went before it, however it
   is most true, and therefore most worthily to be assented to, yet still
   it affords scope for the nobler and higher actings of faith: for reason
   certainly would now very hardly be induced to believe that upon bare
   testimony and report, which even those who then saw it with their eyes,
   that is, with the greatest instruments of evidence, scarcely gave
   credit to.

   For it is expressly remarked in Matt. xxviii. 17, that of those who
   stood and beheld his ascension, though some worshipped, yet others
   doubted.

   It seems things were not so clear as to answer all the objections of
   their eyes, or at least of their in credulity. But he ascended in a
   cloud, as it is said; there was some darkness, something of mists and
   obscurity that did attend him. Yet a lively potent faith will scatter
   all such clouds, dispel such mists, conquer this and much greater
   difficulties: which faith, since it must rest itself upon a divine
   word, such a word we have here; and that a full, a pregnant, and a
   satisfying word, which, from the pen of a person infallibly inspired,
   assures us, that he who descended is the same also that ascended far
   above all heavens, that he might fill all things.

   In the words we have these four things considerable.

   I. Christ's humiliation intimated and implied in those words; he that
   descended.

   II. His glorious advancement and exaltation; he ascended far above all
   heavens.

   III. The qualification and state of his person in reference to both
   these conditions; he was the same. He that descended is the same also
   that ascended.

   IV. The end of his exaltation and ascension; that he might fill all
   things.

   Of all which in their order. And when I shall have traversed each of
   these distinctly, I hope I shall have reached both the full sense of
   the text and the business of the day.

   I. And first of all for Christ's humiliation and descension. As every
   motion is bounded with two periods and terms, the one relinquished, the
   other to be acquired by it; so in Christ's descension we are to
   consider both the place from which it did commence, and the place to
   which it did proceed. The place from whence, we are told, was heaven.

   But the difficulty is, how Christ could descend from thence: according
   to his divine nature he could not; for, as God, he filled the universe;
   and all motion supposes the mover to be sometimes out of the place to
   which he moves, and successively to acquire a presence to it; so that
   nothing that adequately fills a place, can move in that place, unless
   it moves circularly; but progressively, or in a direct line, it is
   impossible. Whither then should the divine nature move where it is not
   prevented by its own ubiquity? whither should it go where it is not
   already? And as for Christ's human nature, that could not descend from
   heaven, forasmuch as it was not first in heaven, but received its first
   being and existence here upon earth.

   This argumentation, we see, is clear and undeniable; how then shall we
   make out Christ's descension?

   The Socinians, who allow Christ nothing but an human nature, affirm,
   that he is said to descend from heaven only in respect of the divinity
   of his original and production; as it is elsewhere said, that every
   good and perfect gift descends from above, namely, because it is
   derived from a divine principle. But his descending being here in the
   text opposed to his ascending, clearly shews, that there is a further
   and more literal meaning imported in the word.

   I answer therefore, that Christ descended according to his divine
   nature, not indeed by a proper and local motion, as the former
   arguments sufficiently demonstrate, but because it united itself to a
   nature here below; in respect of which union to an earthly nature, it
   might metaphorically be said to descend to the place where that nature
   did reside: and thus much for the way and manner how Christ did
   descend.

   We are now to direct our next inquiry to the place whither he
   descended; and for this we are to reflect an eye upon the former verse
   of this chapter, which tells us, that it was into the lower parts of
   the earth; but what those lower parts of the earth are, here lies the
   doubt, and here must be the explication.

   There are several opinions to be passed through before we can come to
   the truth. I shall propose them all, that every one may be his own
   judge which of them carries in it the greatest probability.

   1. Some understand it simply of the earth, as being the lowermost part
   of the world. But why then could not the apostle have said, that Christ
   descended eis ta` kato'tera tou ko'smou, and not tes ges, to the lower
   parts of the world, not of the earth? but to call the earth the lower
   part of itself is an apparent violence to the naturalness of the
   expression, and indeed not more forced than ridiculous.

   2. Some understand it of the grave, which is called the heart of the
   earth in Matt. xii. 40. The Son of men shall be three days and three
   nights in the heart of the earth. Now the heart or middle of the earth
   is the lowest part of it, forasmuch as every progression beyond that is
   an access nearer to heaven, which encloses and surrounds the whole
   earth, and the nearer we come to heaven, the higher we are said to go:
   but this exposition is more artificial than natural, more ingenious
   than solid, and only to be valued as we do those things that are far
   fetched.

   3. Some understand it of hell itself, the place of the damned; and our
   creed tells us, that Christ descended into hell: but to this I answer,
   that it relates not at all to our present purpose, whether Christ
   descended into hell or no; but the thing to be proved is, that hell, or
   the place of the damned, is the lower parts of the earth; which we
   deny, as being contrary both to the judgment of the church and of
   reason; it being hard to conceive what capacity there can be within the
   earth for the reception, not only of the souls, but of the bodies of
   all the persons that for six thousand years shall have peopled the
   world, the number only of those who shall be saved (which we are told
   are very few) being excepted.

   4. But 4thly, the quicksighted Romanists, (forsooth,) who can see
   further into the earth than other men, have by the help of this text
   spied in it a place called purgatory, or rather the pope's kitchen, for
   certain it is that nothing so much feeds his table. Now here, they say,
   are those lower parts of the earth, whither Christ descended: but
   before they prove that Christ came down hither, I would have them prove
   that there is such a place.

   They say they prove it from 1 Pet. iii. 19, where it is said, that
   Christ by his spirit went and preached to the spirits in prison; the
   words in the Greek are, en ho kai tois en phulake pneumasi poreutheis
   ekeruxen. But do these words imply that those spirits were in prison at
   that time that he preached to them? Not at all; but the entire sense of
   them is this: He preached to the spirits in prison; that is, Christ in
   the days of Noah, by his spirit, preached to and strove with those
   disobedient spirits, which spirits are now in prison, or in hold, for
   so en phulake signifies; that is, they are held in chains of darkness
   to the judgment of the great day: as, suppose I should say, that Christ
   preached to many hundred souls in hell, does it follow hence, that they
   were in hell while he preached to them? No, but it must be took in a
   divided sense, that many hundreds, who are now in hell, were once
   preached to by Christ.

   And thus having shewn the nullity of this argument, I think it is clear
   that Christ descended not into purgatory, for that which is not cannot
   be descended into. But I wonder why men should be so solicitous in
   finding out a purgatory; for if they go not to heaven, they need not
   doubt but that there is room enough in hell, without providing
   themselves of a third place.

   5. In the fifth and last place therefore, I conceive these words in the
   text to bear the same sense with, and perhaps to have reference to,
   those in Psalm cxxxix. 15, where David, speaking of his conception in
   his mother's womb, says, that he was framed and fashioned in the lowest
   parts of the earth. In like manner, Christ's descending into the lowest
   parts of the earth may very properly be taken for his incarnation and
   conception in the womb of the blessed virgin.

   That this is so, yet with submission to better judgments, I judge upon
   these grounds.

   1. Because the former expositions have been clearly shewn to be, some
   of them, unnatural and forced, and others impertinent: but those four
   being removed, there is no other besides this assignable.

   2. It is usual for the apostles to transcribe and use the Hebrew
   phrases of the Old Testament: and since Paul here uses David's very
   words, it is most probable that he used them in David's sense.

   3. I add, that these words of Christ's descending and ascending are so
   put together in the text, that they seem to intend us a summary account
   of Christ's whole transaction of that great work of man's redemption
   from first to last; which being begun in his conception, and consummate
   in his ascension, by what better can his descending be explained, than
   by his conception, the first part and instance of this great work, as
   his ascension was the last? So that by this explication the apostle's
   words are cast into this easy and proper sense, that the same Christ,
   and eternal Son of God, who first condescended and debased himself so
   far as to be incarnate and conceived in the flesh, was he who
   afterwards ascended into heaven, and was advanced to that pitch of
   sublime honour and dignity, far above the principalities and powers of
   men and angels.

   And thus much for the first thing, Christ's humiliation and descension,
   both as to the manner how, and the place whither he did descend.

   II. I come now in the next place to consider his exaltation and
   ascension. For shall he so leave his glory, as never to re-assume it?
   Shall such a sun beam strike the earth, and not rebound?

   As for the way and manner how he ascended, I affirm, that it was
   according to his human nature, properly and by local motion; but
   according to his divine, only by communication of properties, the
   action of one nature being ascribed to both, by virtue of their union
   in the same person.

   As for the place to which he advanced, it is, says the apostle, far
   above all heavens. In the exposition of which words it is strange to
   consider the puerile fondness of some expositors, who will needs have
   the sense of them to be, that Christ ascended above the empyrean
   heaven, the highest of all the rest, and there sits enthroned in the
   convexity and outside of it, like a man sitting upon a globe: for, say
   they, otherwise how could Christ be said to have ascended above the
   heavens? But if they will stick to this term above, let them also stick
   to the other, far above, and then they must not place him just upon the
   empyrean heaven, but imagine him strangely pendulous in those spatia
   extramundana, those empty spaces that are supposed to be beyond the
   world. How improper, and indeed romantic, these conceits are, you
   easily discern.

   But the words of the text have something of figure, of hyperbole, and
   latitude in them; and signify not, according to their literal niceness,
   a going above the heavens by a local superiority, but an advance to the
   most eminent place of dignity and glory in the highest heaven.

   Besides, the very common use of the word does not of necessity enforce
   the former interpretation; for we think we say properly enough, that a
   man is upon the top of an house or tower, if he be but in one of the
   uppermost parts of it, without his standing upon the weather-cock: but
   it is the usual fate of such over-scrupulous adherers to words and
   letters, to be narrow men and bad interpreters.

   I have nothing else to add for explication of Christ's ascension, but
   only to observe and adore God's great and wise methods of exalting,
   exemplified to us by an instance in his dearest Son. He, we see, is
   depressed before advanced, crucified before enthroned, and led through
   the vale of tears to the region of eucharist and hallelujahs. He was
   punished with one crown before he was rewarded with an other, and
   disciplined by the hardships of shame and servitude to the glories of a
   kingdom.

   And do we now think to have our whole course spun in one even thread?
   to live deliciously in one world, as well as gloriously in another? to
   tread softly, and to walk upon paths of roses to the mansions of
   eternal felicities?

   No, it is the measure of our happiness, and ought to be so of our wish
   too, to be but like Christ. The preferments of heaven will be sure to
   meet us only in the state of an afflicted abject humility. Christ
   preached upon the mountain, but he lived and acted his sermons in the
   valley.

   The way of salvation must needs be opposite to that of damnation. We
   must (as I may so speak) descend to heaven; for it was Adam's aspiring
   that brought him down, and Lucifer's fall was but the consequent of his
   ascension.

   III. I come now to the third thing, which is the qualification and
   state of Christ's person, in reference to both these conditions: he was
   the same; He that descended is the same also that ascended. Which to me
   seems a full argument to evince the unity of the two natures in the
   same person; since two several actions are ascribed to the same person,
   both of which, it is evident, could not be performed by the same
   nature.

   As for Christ's descending, I shew that it could not be by his human
   nature, for that received its first existence on earth, and therefore
   could not come down from heaven; but it was to be understood of his
   divine nature, though improperly, and only so, as it became united to a
   nature here below: but as for his ascending, it is clear that Christ
   did this by his human nature, and that properly and literally; and yet
   it is here affirmed, that it was the same Christ who both ascended and
   descended; a great proof of that mysterious economy of two natures in
   one hypostasis.

   The school of Socinus, we have heard, affirms Christ to have descended
   from heaven, only in respect of his divine and heavenly origination:
   but how, according to their opinion, can they make it out that it was
   the same Christ who ascended? for they affirm concerning the body which
   lie had before his death, and after his resurrection here upon earth,
   that he did not carry that with him into heaven, but that was left here
   behind, whether by annihilation, or some secret conveyance of it into
   the earth by the power of God, they tell us not, nor indeed know
   themselves; but in the room of it, they say, he had a spiritual,
   ethereal body, with which he ascended into heaven; a body without flesh
   and bones, a refined, sublimated, angelical body; which are words
   enough, I confess, but where the sense is, we may go seek. I wonder
   they do not further explain their subtile notion, and say, that it is a
   certain body with out corporeity.

   But though they will not allow the union of two complete natures in the
   same person, yet they and all the world must grant, that two distinct
   sub stances, the soul and the body, go to compound and integrate the
   man: and I know, according to their usual appellation of him, they will
   allow him to be the man Christ Jesus.

   Now I demand of them upon what principles of reason or philosophy they
   will prove that to be the same compound, when one entire half, that
   goes to the making of it, is wholly another thing. When we take white,
   and mingling it with red, make a third distinct colour; if we could now
   separate that white from the red, and join it to a blue, do we think
   that this conjunction would make the same kind of colour that the
   former mixture did? In like manner can I affirm, that the same soul,
   successively united to two several bodies of a kind wholly diverse, if
   not opposite, makes the very same compound? If the whole be nothing
   else but its parts united, essential parts totally changed, I am sure,
   cannot be the same whole.

   Neither let them reply, that this argument savours too much of
   philosophy; for by saying so, they say only that it savours too much of
   reason.

   I confess there are some passages that fell out after Christ's
   resurrection, that seem to persuade us that the body he then appeared
   in was not of the same nature with our bodies nowadays, nor with that
   which he himself had before his death; for we read, that he vanished
   out of some of the disciples' sight, and that he came into them, the
   doors being shut.

   Which considerations, I suppose, drove Origen to assert, that Christ's
   soul had such a command over his body, and his body such a ductility to
   comply with those commands, that the soul could contract or expand it
   into what compass, or transfigure it into what shape it pleased; so as
   to command it through a chink, or crevice, or represent it sometimes
   under one form, sometimes under another.

   But to this I answer, that however Christ's body, as every body else,
   is capable of continuing the same, notwithstanding the alteration of
   its qualities and outward form; yet, that a body of such a dimension
   should be contracted to such a thinness, as to pass through a chink or
   crevice, cannot be effected without a penetration of the parts, and a
   mutual sinking into one another: which those who under stand the nature
   of body know to be a contradiction, and consequently impossible.

   As for those scriptures which seem to give colour to the opinion that
   Christ, after his resurrection, had such an aerial fantastic body,
   before I answer them, I shall premise that great instance and
   affirmation that Christ gave of the reality of his body, to his
   disciples, being frighted at his presence, and supposing they had seen
   a spirit or apparition, Luke xxiv. 38, 39. Why, says he, do such
   thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is
   I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as
   ye see me have. What could be more plain and positive for the clearing
   of this particular? Certain it is, therefore, that he had the very same
   body, be the explication of other places that seem to imply the
   contrary never so difficult.

   The first is in Luke xxiv. 31. He vanished out of their sight. To which
   I answer, that it is not at all absurd, to affirm, that Christ, by his
   divine power, might cast a mist before their eyes; or suspend the
   actings of their visive faculty in reference to himself, while he
   conveyed himself in the mean time away; or possibly he might depart
   with so quick a motion, that it was almost instantaneous, and so in
   discernible: for either the exceeding quickness or slowness of motion
   makes the successive progress of it not observable to the eye, as is
   manifest from an hundred daily experiments.

   For the second place in John xx. 19, where it is said, that he came
   amongst his disciples, the doors being shut: this is capable of an
   explication that is obvious, and removes all difficulty. For it is not
   to be understood of the doors being shut in the very act of his
   entrance, but just antecedently to it; that is, Christ coming to the
   place found the doors shut; yet notwithstanding, by his immediate
   power, he caused them to fly open, as the angel did the prison doors at
   the release of Peter, Acts xii. and then he entered. Thus we read, that
   the lame walk, the blind see; not indeed while they continued lame and
   blind, but the lame and blind were first cured of those infirmities,
   and so made to walk and see.

   So Christ did not enter, the doors continuing shut, but the doors that
   he found fast shut, he by a strange power opened, and so came amongst
   his disciples, which was enough to affright and amaze them.

   But to reduce this to a familiar instance: Sup pose a stranger or
   suspicious person should come into an house, and the master of the
   house should ask his servant, whether the doors were shut or open when
   he came in? Surely his meaning is not, did he pass through the door
   while it was shut? But his sense is, did he find the door shut, and so
   broke it open, or did he find the door standing open, and so entered?
   This exposition is natural, and so clears the doubt, that the
   difficulty itself vanishes, and is but an apparition: and so much for
   the third thing.

   IV. I proceed now to the fourth and last thing; which is, the end of
   Christ's ascension, that he might fill all things.

   This also is capable of various interpretation, for this term, all
   things, may refer,

   1. Either to the scripture, that he might fill, or rather fulfil, (for
   the Greek plero'o signifies both,) all those prophecies and predictions
   recorded of him in the books of the prophets.

   2. Or secondly, it may refer to the church, that he might fill all
   things belonging to that with his gifts and graces; for it is
   subjoined, that he gave some, apostles; some, prophets; some,
   evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers: for the perfecting of the
   saints, and for the edifying of the body of Christ. Both these
   expositions, I confess, are probable. But,

   3. In the third place, it may relate to all things in the world, within
   the whole compass of heaven and earth; and since the words so taken
   afford us an eminent proof, both of Christ's essential deity, as also
   of the power with which he was endued as mediator; we shall not let so
   great a prize slip out of our hands, but prefer and follow this as the
   most genuine interpretation.

   Now Christ may be said thus to fill all things in a double respect.

   1. In respect of the omnipresence of his nature and universal diffusion
   of his godhead. The schools, in stating the manner how one thing is in
   another, whereas they make bodies present by circumscription, finite
   spirits definitive, that is, by being so here, as at the same time not
   to be there; not improperly, I think, make God to be in all things by
   repletion; that is, he is so in them, that they are rather in him;
   spreading such an immense fulness over all things, as in a manner
   swallows and folds them up within himself.

   Such a fulness has Christ as God, by which he fills, or rather
   overflows the universe, et ad omnia praesentialiter se habet. Could
   there be a more full and apposite proof of this than that place, John
   iii. 13. No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from
   heaven, even the Son of man, which is in heaven. He came down from
   heaven, and at that time was talking with Nicodemus upon earth; and yet
   even then he was still in heaven. How, but by the omnipresence of his
   divine nature, that scorned the poor limitations of place, diffused an
   immense presence every where, and could be in heaven without ascending
   thither?

   But what I say of Christ, as to his divine nature, should I assert the
   same of his human, it would be both an error in divinity, and a
   prodigious paradox in philosophy.

   Yet the Romanist will have Christ's whole body to be in ten thousand
   places together, and at once; namely, wheresoever their host is
   celebrated, and in every particle of that host; which certainly is the
   greatest absurdity and most portentous piece of non sense that ever was
   owned in the face of the rational world.

   And the Lutherans, who, by a dough-baked reformation, striking off from
   the Romish errors, have rather changed than corrected this grand
   absurdity, they assert a consubstantiation, and the consequent of it,
   the ubiquity of Christ's human nature.

   But certainly they have some unanswerable arguments that force their
   assent to such uncouth propositions. What they are, we shall hear. They
   argue thus:

   Christ, in respect of his human nature, sits at God's right hand; but
   God's right hand is every where, and consequently Christ's human nature
   must be so too.

   If I might answer a foolish argument according to its folly, I might
   demand of them, if God's right hand be every where, where then will
   they place his left? But do not they know that Christ's sitting at
   God's right hand is not taken in a metaphysical sense, for his
   coexistence with it; but is only a phrase, importing God's advancing
   him to high dignity and honour, as princes use to place their
   favourites at their right hand?

   But they proceed. If Christ's human nature be united to the whole
   divine nature, then, wheresoever his divine nature is present, there
   must be also his human. But supposing that his human nature is not
   every where, and that his divine is, then in those places where the
   human nature is not, the divine is there without it; and so
   consequently in those places it is not united to it: for things
   intimately united must be present together in the same places.

   But what pitiful, thin sophistry is this! whatever at the first sight
   it may appear: for they distinguish not a spiritual union from that
   which is corporeal, and between things having quantity. If indeed
   Christ's human nature were united to his divine by way of adequate
   commensuration one to the other, it would then follow, that if one was
   where the other is not, the union so far would cease; but the union
   between these two natures is only by intimate, indissolvable relation
   one to the other; so that wheresoever the divine nature of Christ is
   present, though his human is not there present too, yet it still holds
   the same relation to it, as to a thing joined with it in one and the
   same subsistence. And so much in answer to a sophistical argument
   brought to defend a misshapen, monstrous assertion.

   We see here the first way how Christ fills all things in the world;
   namely, by the essential omnipresence of his divine nature. But yet
   this is not the filling all things directly intended in the text; for
   that was to be consequent to his ascension; he ascended that he might
   fill all things; it accrued to him upon and after his ascension, not
   before; but his omnipresential filling all things being an inseparable
   property of his divine nature, always agreed to him, and was not then
   at length to be conferred on him.

   2. In the second place therefore, Christ may be said to fill all
   things, in respect of the universal rule and government of all things
   in heaven and earth committed to him as mediator upon his ascension.
   This is the only filling all things that the school of Socinus will
   allow him; forasmuch as they make him to be God only by office, not by
   nature; and that his full deity bears date from his ascension; at which
   time he took possession of the government of the world.

   But in this, I must confess, they are so much the less injurious to
   Christ, since they allow the Father himself to fill all things no
   otherwise: they acknowledge him indeed to have such an extent of power
   as to reach all places, persons, and things; but his omnipresence they
   deny, and confine his being to a circumscribed residence within the
   highest heaven; as we may see in Crellius's book de Attributis Dei,
   chap. 1. So little ought we to wonder at their denying the deity of the
   Son, when they have even torn the fairest perfections out of the
   godhead of the Father.

   But to look back upon Christ, now enjoying the end of his ascension,
   even the sovereignty of all things. This is he, that is now King of
   kings, and Lord of lords; who wields the sceptre of heaven and earth,
   and wears the imperial crown of the universe. Heaven is his throne, and
   the thrones of kings his footstool.

   He now shines in the head of that glorious army of martyrs, and,
   wearing the trophies of conquered sin and death, possesses the kingdom
   of the world by the two unquestionable titles of conquest and in
   heritance. The angels, those immediate retainers to the Almighty, and
   ministers of Providence, are his attendants; they hear his will, and
   execute his commands with a quick and a winged alacrity.

   All the elements, the whole train and retinue of nature, are
   subservient to his pleasure, and instruments of his purposes. The stars
   fight in their courses under his banner, and subordinate their powers
   to the dictates of his will. The heavens rule all below them by their
   influences, but them selves are governed by his. He can command nature
   out of its course, and reverse the great ordinances of the creation.

   The government, the stress and burden of all things, lies upon his
   hands. The blind heathen have been told of an Atlas that shoulders up
   the heavens; but we know that he who supports the heavens is not under
   them, but above them.

   And to give you yet a greater instance of his sovereignty, he extends
   his dominion even to man's will, that great seat of freedom, that, with
   a kind of autocracy and supremacy within itself, commands its own
   actions, laughs at all compulsion, scorns restraint, and defies the
   bondage of human laws or external obligations.

   Yet this, even this absolute principle, bends to the overpowering
   insinuations of Christ's spirit; nay, with a certain event, and yet
   with a reserve to its own inviolate liberty, when he calls, it cannot
   but be willing. My earthly prince may command my estate, my body, and
   the services of my hand, but it is Christ only that can command my
   will: this is his peculiar and prerogative.

   It remains now that we transcribe this article of our creed into our
   lives, express his sovereignty in our subjection, and, by being the
   most obedient of servants, declare him to be the greatest of masters:
   even the blessed and only Potentate, who only hath immortality,
   dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto.

   To whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be rendered and ascribed,
   as is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now and
   for evermore. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

SERMON II

  EPHESIANS iv. 10.

   --that he might fill all things.

   THESE words exhibit to us the great end and design of Christ's
   ascension, and, without any strain or force laid upon them, are capable
   of a threefold interpretation; a distinct survey of each of which shall
   be the business of the present exercise.

   1. In the first place then, this term all things may refer to the whole
   series of prophecies and predictions recorded of Christ in the
   scriptures; which he might be said to fill, or rather to fulfil by his
   ascension; which signification, as it is most proper to the force of
   the Greek word, (forasmuch as all other places which we translate
   fulfil,) are expressed by this word plero'o, so it is most agreeable to
   the method of the scriptures, speaking of Christ; of whom we never find
   any great action recorded, which was before pointed at by some
   prophecy, but it is immediately added, that it was done hina plerose,
   that such or such a scripture might be fulfilled. And for Christ's
   ascension, and the consequent of it, his diffusion of the gifts of the
   Spirit, we have an eminent prediction of that in Psalm lxviii. 18, here
   referred to by the apostle; He ascended up on high, he led captivity
   captive, and gave gifts unto men.

   Concerning which place it must be confessed, that both the Hebrew and
   the Septuagint from the Hebrew render it, not, he gave gifts unto men,
   but he received gifts amongst men, ane'bes eis u'psos, kai` e'labes
   do'mata en anthro'pois: and for this the Jews, who at all hands lie
   upon the catch, charge Paul as a perverter of the prophet's meaning, in
   a false rendition of the sense of the place.

   But to repel their calumny, and to salve the credit of our apostle,
   there may be a double answer applied to this.

   1. That the apostle did not precisely tie himself to the very words,
   but followed only the design and sense of the text: and this was the
   same in both those different words, e'labe kai` e'doke, he received and
   he gave. For the prophet, speaking of it as of a thing at that time
   future, says, that Christ received gifts, namely, from his Father:
   which gifts he was afterwards, in the fulness of time, to pour forth
   upon men. But the apostle, speaking of it as of a thing in his time
   past and fulfilled, mentions only his giving and actual bestowing those
   gifts, which in deed was the end for which he first received them of
   his Father.

   2. But, secondly, if the Hebrew be rendered, not he received gifts for
   men, but from or amongst them, as the Jews contend that it ought;
   forasmuch as the prophet, in that psalm, relates the conquest God gave
   his people over their enemies; where upon he is said to have received
   gifts from them; as it is the custom for conquerors to set apart and
   consecrate some of their spoils to their god: I say, if this be
   admitted, as the plea is very plausible, we affirm then, that it was
   not Paul's design to use these words, he gave gifts unto men, by way of
   citation out of David; but having by a kind of transumption and
   accommodation borrowed those former words of his, he ascended up on
   high, he led captivity captive, to shew how great a triumph God made
   over those greater enemies, sin and death, in the ascension of Christ,
   that he might now also express how much this spiritual triumph did
   exceed those temporal ones that God wrought for his people over their
   temporal enemies; whereas the psalmist says, that upon those triumphs
   he received gifts from men. Paul here adds these words of his own, that
   upon this greater triumph in the ascension of Christ, he gave gifts
   unto men; according to which sense the words carry in them an elegant
   antithesis, designed to set forth the excellency of one above the
   other, by how much it is more excellent to give than to receive. And
   thus we have a full vindication of the apostle.

   But here, for the further illustration of Christ's filling all things
   in this sense, I cannot pass over that useful observation of Grotius
   about the word plero'o, that it does not signify only a bare giving an
   event to a prophecy, many of which, though applied to Christ by the
   apostles, yet indeed were fulfilled before him; as particularly that
   place in Matt. ii, I have called my son out of Egypt, was fulfilled in
   the children of Israel, of whom it was first spoke. But because those
   prophecies had not only a literal and historical, but also a further
   and a mystical intention, therefore this word plero'o signifies a
   completion even to a redundancy, a fulfilling them over and above;
   namely, such a one, as not only reaches their first and historical
   event, but also verifies their mystical and more remote sense.

   And such a filling or fulfilling of the old prophecies and predictions
   was proper and peculiar to Christ, to whom they all pointed, and in
   whom they all ended, as in their utmost period, their only centre,
   their great and last design. And thus much for the first
   interpretation.

   2. But 2dly, the term all things may refer to the church; which sense I
   shall most insist upon, as carrying in it the subject-matter of this
   day's commemoration.

   Now Christ, it seems, would not have the fabric of his church inferior
   to that of the universe: it being itself indeed a lesser world picked
   or rather sifted out of the greater, where mankind is brought into a
   narrower compass, but refined to a greater perfection. And as in the
   constitution of the world, the old philosophy strongly asserts that
   nature has with much care filled every little space and corner of it
   with body, there being nothing that it so much abhors as a vacuity: so
   Christ, as it were, following the methods of nature in the works of
   grace, has so advantageously framed the whole system of the church;
   first, by an infinite power making in it capacities, and then by an
   equal goodness filling them.

   Chasms and emptinesses are the infelicities of the work, but the
   disgrace of the workman. Capacity unfilled is the opportunity of
   misery, the very nature and definition of want. Every vacuity is, as it
   were, the hunger of the creation, both an undecency and a torment.

   Christ therefore would have his body the church not meager and
   contemptible, but replenished and borne up with sufficiency, displayed
   to the world with the beauties of fulness and the most ennobling
   perfections.

   Now the church being a society of men combined together in the
   profession of Christian religion, it has unavoidably a double need or
   necessity emergent from its very nature and constitution. That is, one
   of government, the other of instruction; the first agreeing to it
   simply as a society, the second as it is such a society. And it is
   Christ's great prerogative to fill it in both these respects.

   1. And first in respect of its government, of which excellent and
   divine thing in general we may say this, that, as at first it could be
   nothing else but the invention of the infinite, eternal mind; so now it
   is the vital support, and very sinew that holds together all the parts
   of society. And being of such universal necessity, there must be a
   policy in church as well as state. The church indeed is a spiritual
   body, but government is the very spirit of that.

   Hereupon it follows in the next verse, that Christ gave some, apostles;
   some, evangelists; same, prophets; some, pastors and teachers; part of
   which are names importing rule and jurisdiction.

   But yet in all this catalogue of ecclesiastical officers we find no
   lay-elders, no church-aldermen, no spiritual furs; nor yet in the whole
   current of antiquity, till they dropped from the invention of a late
   impostor, who, being first expelled by the popular rout, became
   afterwards obnoxious to it, and so had no way to make himself chief in
   the government, but by allowing them a share.

   But Geneva certainly is not the mother-church of the world, nor are Mr.
   Calvin and Mr. Beza fit correctors of antiquity or prescribers to
   posterity ; nor ought this new fashion in church-government to be
   therefore authentic, because derived to us from France.

   2dly. The church being thus framed into the economy of a governed body,
   stands equally in need of instruction. For inasmuch as the doctrine it
   professes grows not upon the stock of natural principles, so as to be
   deducible from thence by the strength of reason and discourse, but
   comes derived from immediate and divine revelation; it requires the
   helps and assistances of frequent inculcation, to water and keep it
   alive upon the understanding and the will, where nature gives it no
   footing from any notions within, but what it receives from the force
   and arts of external impression.

   Now for this also, Christ made a full and glorious provision by that
   miraculous diffusion of the Holy Ghost, after his ascension, upon those
   great pastors and representatives of his church, the apostles.

   In which notable passage of his conferring the Holy Ghost, we have
   these two things observable.

   I. The time when.

   II. The manner how it was given.

   As for the time in which it was conferred, this is remarkable in a
   double respect.

   1. In respect of Christian religion itself, it being about its first
   solemn promulgation; which though it was a doctrine most true and
   excellent, yet certainly it was also very strange and unusual. And this
   we may observe, that there is no strange institution that can ever be
   of long continuance in the world, but that which first enters and
   ingratiates itself by something signal and prodigious.

   The beginning of every thing has a strange and potent influence upon
   its duration: and the first appearances usually determine men either in
   their acceptance or dislike. Nothing stamps itself so deep in the
   memory as that which is fresh and new, and not made contemptible by a
   former acquaintance; and the freshness of every thing is its beginning.

   Had not Christ therefore ushered in his religion by miracle and wonder,
   and arrested men's first apprehensions of it by something grand and
   super natural, he had hindered its progress by a disadvantageous
   setting forth, exposed it naked to infidelity, and so rendered it first
   disputable, and then despised. It had been like the betraying a sublime
   and noble composition by a low and creeping prologue, which blasts the
   reputation of the ensuing discourse, and shuts up the auditors
   approbation with prejudice and contempt.

   Moses therefore, by the appointment of God, bringing in a new religion,
   did it with signs and wonders, the mountain burning, and the trumpet
   sounding; so that it was not so much the divine matter of the law, as
   the strange manner of its delivery, that took such hold of the
   obstinate Jews; and possibly Moses should never have convinced, had he
   not first frighted their belief.

   And this is so necessary upon the very principles of nature, that even
   those impostors who have introduced false religions into the world,
   have yet endeavoured to do it by the same methods by which the true was
   established. Thus Numa Pompilius settled a religion amongst the old
   Romans, by feigning strange and supernatural converse with their
   supposed goddess Egeria. Apollonius Tyanaeus, who endeavoured to
   retrieve gentilism in opposition to Christianity, attempted it by such
   strange and seemingly miraculous actions. And Mahomet is reported to
   have planted his impostures by the same way of recommendation. Though
   in all these, the sober and judicious observer will easily perceive
   that their miracles were as false as their religions.

   But however, this shews how the mind of man is naturally to be
   prevailed upon; and that in the proposal of so great a thing to it as a
   new religion, the natural openness and meeting fervours of men's first
   acceptance are by all means to be secured and possessed; which is more
   successfully done by a sudden breaking in upon their faculties, with
   amazement and wonder, than by courting their reason with argument and
   persuasion.

   2. But secondly, the time of Christ's sending the Spirit is very
   remarkable in respect of the apostles themselves. It was when they
   entered upon the full execution of their apostolic office, and from
   followers of Christ became the great leaders of the world.

   During the time of their discipleship, and Christ's converse with them
   upon earth, we read of no such wonderful endowments, such variety of
   tongues, such profound penetration into the mysteries of the gospel.
   But, on the contrary, with many instances of very thick ignorance,
   childishness of speech, and stupidity of conception, as appears from
   their many weak and insignificant questions proposed to Christ; their
   gross dulness to apprehend many of his speeches, in themselves very
   plain and intelligible: so that Christ is almost perpetually upbraiding
   them upon this account, as in Luke ix. 41, How long shall I be with
   you, and suffer you? and Matt. xv. 16, Are ye also yet without
   understanding? and Luke xxiv. 25, O fools, and slow of heart to believe
   all that the prophets have said; with many other such increpations;
   which shews, that while they were yet under Christ's wing, and, as it
   were, in the nonage and minority of their apostleship, they were not
   the most seraphic doctors in the world.

   But when Christ brings them forth upon the stage of a public office, to
   act as his commissioners and ambassadors, to gather and to govern a
   church in his name; immediately, like Saul upon his being anointed
   king, they step forth men of another spirit, great linguists, powerful
   disputants, able to cope with the Jewish sanhedrim, to baffle their
   profoundest rabbies, and to out-reason the very Athenians. With their
   faculties strangely enlarged, their apprehensions heightened, and their
   whole mind furnished with that stock of endowments and rare abilities,
   that in others are the late and dear-bought acquisitions of large
   parts, long time, and severe study.

   I confess there is something in office and authority that of itself
   raises a man's abilities; and the very air and genius of government
   does, as it were, inspire him with that largeness and reach of mind,
   that never appeared in the same person yet in the state of privacy and
   subjection: so that government oftentimes does not only indicare virum,
   but facere; insensibly mould and frame the man that has it, to a
   fitness for it; and at length equals him to his employment; raising him
   above all the personal defects and little nesses of his former
   condition; sublimating his parts, changing his thoughts, and widening
   his designs. The reason and philosophy of which I shall not inquire
   into, the thing itself being clear from experience.

   Now that the apostles felt these natural influences from their
   apostolic employment, we have no reason to deny. Yet certainly these
   could not work in them such a stupendous change. This could be ascribed
   to nothing, but to those omnipotent assistances of the Spirit
   descending upon them from heaven, and investing them in their office by
   so magnificent and miraculous an installation.

   And here I cannot but reflect upon the brutish folly and absurd
   impudence of the late fanatic decriers of the necessity of human
   learning, in order to the ministerial function, drawing an argument
   from this, that the first and greatest ministers of the church were
   persons illiterate, and not acquainted with the academy, but utterly
   ignorant of the arts and sciences, the study of which takes up so much
   of our time, and draws after it so much of our estimation.

   Which argument though they vaunt in as their greatest and most
   plausible, yet there is none that so directly strikes at the very
   throat of their cause. For whereas God found the apostles upon their
   first access to the ministry thus naked of those endowments, he by a
   miracle supplies what their opportunities permitted them not to learn,
   and by immediate power creates in them those abilities which others by
   their industry acquire.

   Had not the knowledge of tongues and the force of disputation been
   necessary to a divine, would God have put himself to a miracle to
   furnish the apostles with such endowments, in themselves so useless,
   and in these men's judgment also pernicious? But such persons are below
   a confutation, and made only to credit what they disapprove.

   Now concerning the time of the effusion of the Holy Ghost, upon
   comparing one scripture with an other, there seems to me a very
   considerable doubt, very near a contradiction, and therefore worthily
   deserving our explication.

   The giving of the Holy Ghost is, by many clear scriptures, affirmed to
   be after Christ's ascension: nay, his ascension is made not only
   antecedent, but also causal to it, John vii. 39, The Holy Ghost was not
   yet given., because that Jesus was not yet glorified. And yet in John
   xx. it is said, that Christ, a little before his ascension, conferred
   the Holy Ghost upon his disciples, ver. 22, And he breathed upon them,
   and said., Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Now these places seem directly
   contradictory.

   To which I answer, that if the giving of the Holy Ghost be in both
   places to be understood for one and the same thing, they certainly
   contradict one another. Wherefore, to avoid this, we must allow a
   double giving of the Holy Ghost: one, in which Christ conveys the
   ministerial power; the other, in which he confers ministerial gifts and
   abilities. Now it was the first of these that happened before Christ's
   ascension, as is clear from the following words in ver. 23, Whose
   soever sins ye remit, they are remitted. Which we know is the great
   instance of ministerial power and authority. And this, by the way,
   excellently explains the sense of our church, as it uses the same words
   in the ordination of priests, Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whereby she
   does not profess to convey to the person ordained ministerial gifts and
   abilities, but only ministerial power.

   But this solemn giving of the Holy Ghost after Christ's ascension, was
   a conferring gifts, graces, and abilities upon the apostles, to fit
   them for the discharge of their ministerial office and power, which had
   been conveyed to them by the former giving of the Holy Ghost before
   Christ's ascension. And thus we have given a fair accommodation to
   these places of scripture.

   And so having considered the first thing observable in Christ's giving
   the Holy Ghost, viz. the time when; I pass now to the

   Second; which is, the manner how it was conferred. And here the more
   brevity is required, the thing being so eminently known to us all upon
   that full description of it in Acts ii. 2, 3; as, That the Holy Ghost
   descended and sat upon the apostles in the form of cloven fiery
   tongues, ushered in with the sound of a rushing mighty wind. The
   various significancy of which circumstances would furnish out matter
   for a year's discourse. And as for the popish writers and commentators,
   they are almost endless in this particular, so anatomizing the miracle
   into all its minute particles, and spinning out every circumstance into
   infinite allusions and metaphors: which indeed is their custom, in
   treating of most of the grand passages of the gospel, till they have
   even made their religion itself but a metaphor, that is, something like
   a religion, but not a religion.

   But the design of this great action being to signify and to transmit
   spiritual notices by sensible conveyances, it must not wholly be passed
   over in silence.

   Briefly therefore, it exhibits to the world the great means chosen by
   God for the propagation of the kingdom of Christ. The apostles, beating
   upon that general misconceit of the Jews about the kingdom of the
   Messiah, in the preceding chapter, ver. 6, asked Christ, Whether he
   would at that time restore the kingdom to Israel f and questionless, in
   the strength of that prejudice, they expected here some strange
   appearance of angels that should conquer the world before them, and
   bring all nations to the Jewish yoke and subjection.

   But suddenly, by a new kind of warlike preparation, they receive no
   other weapons but tongues, the proper badges of him that is the eternal
   Word, weapons that draw no blood, break no bones; their only armour and
   artillery was variety of languages, that fitted them more to travel
   over than to conquer the world: and thus was that first cause of the
   world's confusion made the great instrument of its salvation.

   And as these tongues were a proper representation of the gospel, so the
   peculiar nature and efficacy of this gospel was emphatically set forth
   by those attending circumstances of the fire and the mighty wind, both
   of which are notable for these two effects.

   I. To cleanse. 2. To consume and destroy. The gospel came like a great
   and mighty wind, to dry and cleanse a dirty and polluted world; like a
   fire, to purge and carry off that dross that had spread and settled
   itself in the inmost regions of our nature. The design of Christianity
   was nothing else but to make virtue as universal and as natural to men
   as vice, as desirable to their thoughts, and as suitable to their
   affections. Christ's intent was not so much to amuse men's reason with
   the belief of strange propositions, but to refine their manners, to
   correct their tempers, to turn vultures into doves, goats into sheep;
   to make the drunkard once for all vomit up his sin; to bring the wanton
   only in love with purity, and to see no beauty but in holiness; to make
   men, of covetous, cruel, and intemperate, to become liberal, courteous,
   and sober; in a word, to be new creatures and excellent persons.

   And therefore he that, in the profession of so pure and noble a
   religion, thinks not of the design of it, but only hears, and never
   feels the word; to whom it comes only in the sound of the wind, but not
   in the force and efficacy of the fire: who, in the midst of all
   spiritual helps, of the several methods of amendment and renovation;
   as, seasonable sermons, continual prayers, frequent sacraments, and the
   like; yet carries his old, base inclinations fresh and lively about
   him; and cannot say that he ever conquered so much as one habitual sin,
   nor got the better of any one vile appetite; but remains sordidly
   obnoxious, and a slave to all its motions and returns; so that by a
   desperate vicissitude of sin and duty, he hears and sins, prays and
   sins, partakes and sins; and that perhaps with a better stomach than
   before; till, by such a continual mockery of God, he comes at length to
   have finished the fatal round of reprobation: such a one will find,
   that that Word which could not cleanse him will be a wind to blast, and
   a fire to consume him; and that the same Spirit, that only breathed in
   gentle, but neglected persuasions, will at length, like a resisted
   tempest, rage in the sad effects of incurable breaches and a final
   confusion.
     __________________________________________________________________

SERMON III.

  JOHN ix. 4.

   --The night cometh, when no man can work.

   THESE words, as they lie in the context, are a general maxim or
   assertion, assigned as a reason of Christ's constancy and assiduity in
   the particular discharge of those works, which, as mediator, he was to
   perform while he was yet conversant in the world. And for the
   figurative scheme of the words, there is nothing more usual in the
   dialect of scripture, than to set forth and express the time allotted
   for this life by day; and the time and state after life, which is
   death, by night: the reasons of which similitude being very natural and
   obvious, to be exact and particular in recounting them would be but to
   tell men what they know already, and consequently a work both precise
   and superfluous.

   The sense of the text seems most naturally to lay itself forth in these
   three propositions.

   I. That there is a work allotted, begun, cut out, and appointed to
   every man, to be performed by him while he lives in the world.

   II. That the time of this life being once expired, there is no further
   opportunity or possibility of performing that work.

   III. That the consideration of this ought to be the highest and the
   most pressing argument to every man, to use his utmost diligence in
   discharging the work incumbent upon him in this life.

   I. For the first of these, That there is a work cut out, &c. we must
   observe, that every man may be considered under a double capacity or
   relation.

   1. As he is a part or member of the body politic, and so is not his
   own, but stands included in and possessed by the community. In which
   capacity he is obliged to contribute his proportion of help to the
   public; as sharing from thence with others the benefits of society, and
   so being accountable to make it some retribution in his particular
   station and condition.

   2. A man may be considered as he is a member and subject of a spiritual
   and higher kingdom. And in this capacity he is to pursue the personal,
   yet great interest of his own salvation. He is sent into this world to
   make sure of a better; to glorify his Maker by studying to save
   himself; and, in a word, to aim at enjoyments divine and supernatural,
   and higher than this animal life can aspire unto.

   Now these two capacities are very different; by the former, a man is to
   approve himself a good citizen; by the latter, a good Christian: and
   though these relations have their precise limits and distinctions, yet
   we are not to be ignorant of the subordination of one to the other, as
   its superior. So that if they chance to clash and thwart, the inferior
   must give way; nor must a man do any thing to preserve a civil interest
   that is contrary to a spiritual, and the greater obligations lying upon
   him with reference to the good of his soul, and the invaluable concerns
   of felicity in the other world. The distinction of a politic and a
   private conscience is a thing that true reason explodes, and religion
   abhors, as placing the matter of duty under a contradiction, and
   consequently can be nothing but an art to give a man satisfaction in
   the midst of his sin.

   We have seen then how every man sustains a double capacity; according
   to which he has also a double work or calling.

   1. A temporal one, by which he is to fill up some place in the
   commonwealth by the exercise of some useful profession, whether as a
   divine, lawyer, or physician; a merchant, soldier, mariner, or any
   inferior handicraft; by all which, as by so many greater and less
   wheels, the business of the vast body of the public is carried on, its
   necessities served, and its state upheld.

   And God, who has ordained both society and order, accounts himself so
   much served by each man's diligent pursuit, though of the meanest
   trade, that his stepping out of the bounds of it to some other work (as
   he presumes) more excellent, is but a bold and thankless presumption,
   by which the man puts himself out of the common way and guard of
   Providence. For God requires no man to be praying or reading when the
   exigence of his profession calls him to his hammer or his needle; nor
   commands any one from his shop to go hear a sermon in the church, much
   less to preach one in the pulpit.

   God, as the lord and great master of the family of the universe, is
   still calling upon all his servants to work and labour; a thing so much
   disdained by the gallant and the epicure, is yet that general standing
   price that God and nature has set upon every enjoyment on this side
   heaven; and he that invades the possession of any thing, but upon this
   claim, is an intruder and an usurper. I have given order, says the
   apostle, 2 Thess. iii. 10, that if any one refuse to labour, neither
   should he eat. It is the active arm and the busy hand that must both
   purvey for the mouth, and withal give it a right to every morsel that
   is put into it.

   Some perhaps think they are not born to labour, because they are born
   to estates. But the sentence that God passed upon Adam is universal; we
   find in it no exception or proviso for any noble or illustrious drone:
   no greatness can privilege a man to lie basking in sloth and idleness;
   and to eat the labours of the husbandman's hand, and drink the sweat of
   his brow; to wallow and sleep in ease only, as an useless lump of well
   clothed, well descended earth: earth for heaviness only, but not for
   fruitfulness, serves no other end of society, but only to make one in a
   number.

   But it may be replied, Shall those whom God has blessed in the world,
   and, as it were, by a particular mark of his providential favour
   exempted from the general curse of toil and labour, be obliged to work
   in a trade, or to be of such or such a laborious profession? No, I
   answer, that they need not, nor is this the thing contended for, but
   simply that they should labour and fill up all the hours of their time
   by employing themselves usefully for the public; and there are superior
   and more noble employments in which this labour may be sufficiently
   exerted. For is any one so rich or high as to be above the labour of
   doing good to a whole neighbourhood, of composing differences, studying
   the customs of his country, reading histories, and learning such arts
   as may render him both eminent and useful, serviceable to the public
   both in peace and war.

   If it be answered, that he stands in need of none of all these, as
   being already abundantly supplied with all the plenties and supports of
   life: to this also I rejoin, that they are not only a man's own
   personal needs, but the general needs of society, that command a supply
   and relief from his labour; add to this also, in the second place, that
   the obligation to labour, lying upon men, is not founded upon their
   needs and necessities, but upon God's command, as its proper reason;
   which command he has laid universally and impartially upon all; and he
   that excuses himself from all labour, the common lot of mankind, by
   loading it with the odious name of servility, should do well to
   consider whether the custom of a place, the vogue of his dependants,
   and his own little arts of evasion, will be able to bear him out in so
   broad a contempt of an express command; and to rescue him from that
   thundering sentence leveled so directly at him in Matt. xxv. 30, Cast
   ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness, there shall be weeping
   and gnashing of teeth.

   2. Correspondent to a Christian's other, that is, his spiritual
   capacity, he has also a spiritual calling or profession; and the work
   that this engages him to, is that grand one of working out his
   salvation; a work that a life is too little for, had a man any thing
   more than a life to bestow upon it; a work that runs out into eternity,
   and upon which depends the wo or welfare of an immortal soul.

   Now this work is threefold.

   1. To make our peace with God.

   2. To get our sins mortified.

   3. To get our hearts purified with the contrary graces.

   1. And first, for the first of these, the making our peace with God. We
   know how tedious a work it is to reconcile or appease a potent enemy
   amongst men; frequent addresses must be made, great and irksome
   submissions must be digested. Days must be spent in attending, and
   nights in projecting how to assuage, and qualify, and remove the
   swelling disgust, and recover a place in that breast that has been
   boiling with rancour and enmity, and designs of mischiefs. Many years
   perhaps go over a man's head, before he gets any ground upon such an
   one, if, peradventure, he succeeds at last; so hard, so troublesome,
   and discouraging a task it is, to win back a lost affection. Now every
   man must know, that, upon his very first coming into the world, he has
   this huge task upon him, to appease and pacify a great enemy; an enemy
   so much the harder to be pacified, because once a friend. This enemy is
   God, and therefore his enmities must be commensurate to his person,
   that is, infinite and unlimited. And it has this property also, that it
   is an enmity not commencing upon a mere grudge, but upon an injurious
   violation of his justice, and consequently not to be laid down without
   satisfaction. This satisfaction was to be infinite, and so impossible
   to be exhibited by a finite nature. The case being thus, Christ, the
   eternal Son of that offended God, was pleased to offer himself as a
   surety and a ransom in our behalf; so as to answer and satisfy all the
   demands of offended justice.

   A satisfaction therefore there is made for us, but so made, that there
   are conditions required on our parts, before there can be any
   application of it to our persons; and if these conditions are not
   reached, we may die with pardons in our Bibles, but not at all be
   longing to us. Now these conditions are faith and repentance; words
   quickly uttered, but things not so easily effected. There must pass
   such a change upon our natures, such a renovation of the very spirit of
   our minds, as may amount to the verification of this of us, that we are
   new creatures. The new creature is the subject of justification. And
   being once justified, the apostle tells us, Rom. v. 1, we have peace
   with God.

   But how is it possible to establish a peace between natures of the
   widest distance and the fiercest opposition? such as is the most holy,
   pure, and just nature of God, and the nature of man, polluted and
   envenomed by original corruption. Can fire and stubble strike a league
   together, and be friends? Can guilt and justice unite and embrace? No,
   nothing of any reconcilement was to be expected, till such time as
   repentance should cleanse this Augean stable, and the Spirit of God
   infuse into the soul a new principle called faith; which principle
   shall really translate a man into another family, advance him to the
   privilege of adoption, and so make him a son and an heir to the God of
   heaven, by the merits of the second Adam, who was an outlaw and a
   traitor by the first.

   2. The second work that we are to do, is to get our sins mortified. For
   after we are transplanted from the state of nature into a state of
   grace, we are not presently to think that our work is wholly done. For
   after the Israelites were possessed of Canaan, they had many of the
   Amorites and other enemies to conquer and drive out before them. Every
   man has corrupt, sinful habits that have overspread, and, as it were,
   engarrisoned themselves in the most in ward parts of his soul; habits
   deeply fixed, and not easily dispossessed. These are the adversaries
   that he is to encounter and to wage war with; adversaries that have all
   the advantages against him imaginable; such as he must make his way to
   through his own heart, and open his bosom, that the weapon may reach
   them.

   The sharpest, the most afflicting, and yet the most concerning part of
   a Christian's duty, is the mortification of his sin. For it is, as it
   were, a man's weeding of his heart; he shall find it a growing evil; an
   evil, that, by a cursed fertility, will sprout out after the cutting.
   For scarce any weed is fetched up at once; the gardener's hand and hook
   must be continually watching over it; and he accounts his ground
   preserved, if it is not overrun.

   Let a man make experiment in any one vice; only let it be such an one
   as is agreeable and incident to the several ages of man; as for
   instance, be it pride: for the extirpation of which, we will suppose a
   man, by the influences of a preventing grace, very early in his
   attempts against it, and laying the axe to the root of this towering
   vice in his very youth. Yet, does it fall before him suddenly and
   easily? does the first foil or blow make him victorious, and enable him
   to set his foot upon the neck of his conquered enemy? No, there are
   many vicissitudes in the combat; sometimes he seems to get that under,
   sometimes that seems to be above him. And what through the strength of
   its hold, and the treachery of its working, a man finds enough to
   exercise and humble his old age; and perhaps, after all his conflicts
   with it, goes out of the world only with this half-trophy, (enough
   indeed to save him,) that he was not overcome.

   Now what I say of this is equally true of all other vices; and he that
   has a voluptuous, an intemperate, or a covetous heart to deal with,
   will find work enough laid out for him for this life. And let him
   beware that he ply his spiritual warfare so, that after forty, fifty,
   or threescore years, his vice is not as lively in his aged bones, and
   under his hoary hairs, as ever it was; and he die a decrepit, aged
   sinner, but yet in the youth and vigour of his sin.

   3. The third work incumbent upon every man from his Christian calling,
   is to get his heart purified and replenished with the proper graces and
   virtues of a Christian. Christianity ends not in negatives. No man
   clears his garden of weeds, but in order to the planting of flowers or
   useful herbs in their room. God calls upon us to dispossess our
   corruptions, but it is for the reception of new inhabitants. A room may
   be clean, and yet empty; but it is not enough that our hearts be swept,
   unless they be also garnished; and that we lay aside our pride, our
   luxury, our covetousness, unless humility, temperance, and liberality,
   rise up and shine in their places. The design of religion would be very
   poor and short, should it look no further than only to keep men from
   being swine, and goats, and tigers, without improving the principles of
   humanity into positive and higher perfections. The soul may be cleansed
   from all blots, and yet still be left but a blank.

   But Christianity, that is of a thriving, aspiring nature, requires us
   to proceed from grace to grace; to virtue adding patience, to patience
   temperance, to temperance meekness, to meekness brotherly kindness, and
   the like; thus ascending by degrees, till at length the top of the
   ladder reaches heaven, and conveys the soul so qualified into the
   mansions of glory.

   I shewed before the difficulty of mortification, and we are not to
   think that it is at all less difficult to make a depraved heart
   virtuous, to force the soil of an ill temper, and, as it were, to graft
   virtuous ha bits upon the stock of a vicious nature. We see those that
   learn a trade, and the habit of any mechanic art, must yet bestow time
   and toil in the acquiring of it; though perhaps they have also a
   natural propensity to the art they are in pursuit of. Which being so,
   with how much more difficulty may we imagine a man to get humility or
   heavenly-mindedness, while all the appetites, and the very nerves of
   his soul, strive against it, and endeavour to pull down as fast as he
   can build up.

   True it is therefore, that there is not one virtue that is produced in
   the soul of fallen man, but is in fused into it by the operation of
   God's Spirit. And if any one should hereupon except, first, To what
   purpose then is our endeavour in this matter, if the Spirit of God
   works all? And secondly, Whence is it that these virtues are not in an
   instant conveyed into the heart in their full perfection, but appear
   and shew themselves only gradually, and by certain steps and increases?

   To both these doubts this one answer will give full satisfaction,
   namely, that habits, though they are in fused, do yet come after the
   manner of such as are acquired. Though our working produces not those
   habits, yet the Spirit infuses them into us while we are working; and
   that in those gradual proportions, that in the whole action it still
   maintains an imitation of the course of nature, that passes from less
   profit to more, till at length it arrives at the utmost perfection that
   it first intended.

   And thus I have finished the first proposition, and shewn that there is
   a work appointed to every man, to be performed by him while he lives in
   the world; as also the several parts of that work. I come now,

   II. To the second proposition, namely, that the time of this life being
   once expired, there remains no further opportunity or possibility of
   performing this work.

   There is no repenting when we are once nailed up in our coffins; no
   believing in the grave; no doing the works of charity and temperance in
   the dust, or growing new creatures amongst the worms; life is the
   adequate space allotted by the wisdom of Heaven for these matters,
   which being ended, there is no after-game, or retrieving of a bad
   choice. And so much seems couched under that one word, by which the
   time of this life is expressed, namely, a day, which, as it is applied
   to life, may emphatically denote three things.

   1. The shortness of it. What is a day, but a few minutes sunshine; one
   of the most inconsiderable proportions of time; such an one, as we
   never grudge to bestow upon any thing; an indiscernible shred of that
   life that is itself but a span. Yet in these reckonings, God is pleased
   to rate it by a narrower and a more contemptible measure. God will not
   dally with us in the great affairs of eternity. He allows us our day,
   and but our day, to choose whether or no we will be happy for ever.
   Which shows what a value God puts upon these opportunities, by
   dispensing them so sparingly, that though we have enough to use, yet we
   have none to lavish or to lend. We are hurried through the world; our
   whole life is but, as it were, a day's journey; and therefore certainly
   it concerns us to manage it so, that we may have comfort at our
   journey's end.

   2. A day, as it denotes the shortness, so it implies also the
   sufficiency of our time. A day, as short as it is, yet it equals the
   business of the day. God, that knows the exact proportions of things,
   took the measure of both, and found that the compass of our lives would
   fully grasp and take in all our occasions. Are there not twelve hours
   in the day? says our Saviour: implying that that was time enough for
   any man to discharge all the work, that God, and nature, and his
   profession could, for that space, impose upon him.

   And if any one here object the shortness of the time allotted for a
   Christian's work against the sufficiency of it; though it must be
   confessed, that, should we live never so long, we could not have too
   much time to do the works of repentance, and to honour God in; yet,
   according to the economy and measures of the gospel, in which God
   accepts our services according to their truth, not their bulk, we have
   space enough assigned us, even in this short life, to do all that is
   necessary to bring us to a better.

   And he that repents not and turns to God in the space of fifty, or
   threescore, or perhaps seventy years, would, for any thing that is in
   him, live and persevere in the same impenitence, should God add five
   hundred years to his life. And it is not to be doubted, but God
   prolongs the life of many here on earth, not with any expectation of
   their repentance and conversion, as knowing them to be incorrigible,
   but to serve other ends of his providence in carrying on the affairs of
   the world.

   3dly and lastly, By a day is denoted to us the determinate stint and
   limitation of our time. For none must think that the great and wise
   Governor of the world has left a matter of so high a concernment, and
   of so direct an influence upon the business of the world, as the life
   of man is, loose and unfixed. God has concluded all under a certain and
   unchangeable decree; and we have our bounds, be yond which we shall not
   pass. For as, after such a number of hours, it will unavoidably be
   night, and there is no stopping of the setting sun; so, after we have
   passed such a measure of time, our season has its period; we are
   benighted, and we must bid adieu to all our opportunities.

   It is not in the power of man to carve out a longer life to himself.
   The disposal of times and seasons is part of the divine prerogative:
   and we know not whether God will allow the figtree to grow one, or two,
   or three years in his vineyard; but sure it is, that, when its
   appointed time is come, it must cumber the ground no longer. God has
   allotted to men talents of time, as well as of other things; to some
   ten, to some five, to some one. But still we see each man's proportion
   is set. And he that has but five, must not think to traffick at the
   rate of him that has ten.

   And thus we have taken some survey of the second proposition, namely,
   that the time of this life being once expired, there remains no further
   opportunity or possibility of performing the great work incumbent upon
   us.

   I descend now to the third and last,

   III. Which is, that the consideration of this ought to be the highest
   and the most pressing argument to every man to use his utmost diligence
   in the discharge of this work.

   The enforcing reason of diligence in the undertaking of any work, is
   the difficulty of the performance of that work. Which difficulty here
   in our case will appear by comparing of the work to be done, with the
   time allowed for the doing of it. The time I shewed was both short and
   limited, so, on the other side, the work to be done is both difficult
   and necessary.

   1. And first for its difficulty: though this has been sufficiently
   intimated in what was discoursed of before, yet, for the further
   declaration of it, it is observable, that there is no action of mankind
   that carries any thing of hardship with it, but the scripture expresses
   the work and duty of a Christian by it. It calls it a warfare; and is
   there any thing so hard and uneasy as what befalls men in the wars? It
   calls it a wrestling with principalities and powers: and is there any
   thing that employs and distends every joint and fibre of the body so
   much as wrestling does? It calls it a resisting of the Devil, and, what
   is more, a resisting unto blood: and do men shed their blood and expose
   their lives to the point of the rapier, and the fury of the enemy, with
   so much pastime?

   But no expressions are so emphatical as those of our Saviour, who calls
   this work a taking up of one's cross; a severe task indeed, whether a
   man bear the cross, or the cross him. It seems to be our Saviour's
   design all along to possess men with a true and impartial
   representation of those afflicting parts of duty, that will be
   indispensably required of such as shall give up their names to
   Christianity.

   But above all, there is a place in Luke xiii. 24, which I wonder any
   considerate person can read without trembling: Strive, says our
   Saviour, to enter in at the strait gate; for many, I say unto you,
   shall seek to enter inland shall not be able. What! seek to enter, and
   yet find no entrance? Good God! What then will become of those
   numberless numbers of men, who never so much as sought, who never were
   at the expense of an hearty endeavour to get them selves into these
   narrow paths of felicity? If those that come crying, Lord, Lord, and
   striving, shall yet have the door shut upon them, what shall the lewd,
   the slothful, and the sottish epicure build the hopes of his salvation
   upon?

   And now, when we have seen the work to be done so highly difficult, and
   the time to do it in so very short, can there be a more cogent
   argument, to induce a man to be covetous of every moment, and to make
   his industry piece out the scantiness of his opportunities? He that has
   far to go, and much to do, surely is concerned to rise very early; to
   count not only hours, but minutes, to make his work keep pace with his
   time; and, in a word, to mate the difficulty of the business with the
   diligence of the prosecution.

   2. Next to the difficulty of the work, let us take an argument from its
   necessity. So far as it is necessary for a man to be saved, so far this
   work is necessary. Which argument will be heightened by comparing this
   necessity with the stinted, fixed limitation of the time allotted for
   the work. There is no deferring it beyond our day: there is no such
   thing as a to-morrow in the Christian's calendar. And yet, are there
   any almost that lay this so important a consideration to heart? Men,
   especially in the flower and freshness of their youth, are infinitely
   careless: while they think they spend upon a full stock, and have the
   supplies of nature, the treasures of strength, and opportunity open
   before them. They know not the value of those precious, never-returning
   hours, that they quaff, and revel, and trifle away, when as the
   revocation of the least minute is not to be purchased with all the
   Persian treasures, or the mines of both the Indies.

   But when a man comes at last to reflect upon his past days, and the
   little sand that is left him to run; when his feet are stumbling upon
   the dark mountains, and the shadows of his long night have overtaken
   him, he never asks the question then, how to pass away time, and to
   spend the day. None of his hours then lie upon his hands.

   Now, when amidst all this, his great accounts shall also press hard
   upon him, and the terror of past sins lie heavy upon his conscience; it
   is worth considering his behaviour in this condition. None, surely,
   ever heard such a one calling religion pedantry, deriding a divine, or
   jesting upon the scriptures. How much soever a wretch and a scoffer lie
   was before, his note is changed now; and we may hear him with the most
   earnest, humble, and lamentable outcries plying his offended God.

   Lord, spare me for a while: Lord, respite me but for a month, a week,
   or but a day, to make my peace with thee. Set the long and the dark
   night back for a few hours, that I may put my accounts in some better
   order for my appearance before thy dreadful tribunal.

   And then for this spiritual guide, whom, perhaps, not long since, he
   could scoff out of his company with disdain, he can now bespeak in a
   more abject and entreating dialect. Sir, do you think that there is any
   mercy, any hope for such a one as I? Have I not outsinned the line of
   grace? Do you not perceive any mortal symptoms upon my sins? Do you
   think that my repentance is sincere, that it reaches the conditions of
   the covenant, and that I may venture my salvation upon the reality of
   it? Can you give me any solid argument from scripture, or the judgment
   of divines, that the promises of mercy can extend to a man that has
   committed such and such sins, and that under such and such
   circumstances? And that I do not all this while abuse and flatter
   myself, and only prepare for an eternal disappointment? Never did any
   client, with so much scruple and solicitousness, inquire of his counsel
   about the strength or weakness of his title, when he was to go to law
   for all his estate, and to see his whole fortune canvassed at the bar,
   as a man in this condition will dispute his title to heaven, and argue
   his several doubts and misgivings with his spiritual guide or
   confessor.

   No sinner, be he never so hardy and resolved, must think to keep up the
   same stoutness of heart, when he is just a stepping into the other
   world. No; these are usually the sad accents and language of the dying
   sinner, when he perceives his time spent, and, in the prospect of his
   approaching end, lies further bemoaning himself.

   Oh that I were to live over my former days again! that I could command
   back some of those portions of time that I sacrificed to my vice, to
   the humour of my companions, and to those vanities that now serve only
   to remind me of my folly, and to upbraid me to my face! Oh that I had
   employed myself in those severities, that I then laughed at as the need
   less, affected practices of brainsick, melancholy persons! my work had
   not been now to do, when my time of working is expired.

   I shall close up all with that excellent counsel of the preacher,
   Ecclesiastes ix. 10, Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all
   thy might: for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom,
   (and I may add also, nor working out a man's salvation,) in the grave
   whither thou goest. And going thither we all are apace: wherefore,
   since after a few days comes death, and after death judgment, and after
   judgment an eternal, unchangeable condition; surely it concerns us all
   so to acquit ourselves in the several parts of our Christian
   profession, that we may be able to leave the world with that saying of
   the blessed apostle, I have fought a good fight, I have finished my
   course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a
   crown of righteousness.

   Which God of his mercy at last bestow upon us all, to whom be rendered
   and ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion,
   both now and for evermore. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

SERMON IV.

    PREACHED AT THE

  CONSECRATION OF DR. SETH WARD, BP. OF EXON.

  JEREMIAH xv. 20.

   I will make thee unto this people a fenced brazen wall: and they shall
   fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am
   with thee to save thee and deliver thee, saith the Lord.

   I SHALL not pretend to derive episcopacy from the Old Testament, as
   some do presbytery from Jethro, in his humble petition and advice to
   Moses concerning the government of the Jews. Which presbytery, though
   some call the rod of Aaron, yet it more resembles those rods of Jacob,
   as being designed to midwive a piebald, mixed, ringstraked progeny of
   church-governors into the world. How ever, it is well that we see from
   whence it first came, even from Midian, an heathenish place, and
   unacquainted with the true worship of God, then confined only to the
   Jews.

   But it is pity that the Old Testament does not describe the office of
   those elders, as well as mention the name; we reading scarce any thing
   of them there, but that some of them scuffled with Moses and Aaron in
   the classis of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. As also of their idolatry,
   Ezekiel vi. And of their private examination of Susanna in the story of
   Daniel; which book, though it be apocryphal, yet the practice remains
   authentic and canonical.

   I say, I shall not derive episcopacy from the Jewish model; though, if
   I would take their liberty to use allusions for arguments. I might
   argue a superintendency of bishops over presbyters from the superiority
   of the priests over the Levites, much better than they can found their
   discipline upon the word elder, catching at the bare letter, and.
   according to their custom, stripping the word from the sense: and also
   with much more probability than their corypheus in queen Elizabeth's
   time argued their discipline from Psalm cxxii. 5, that in Jerusalem
   there are set thrones of judgment. By which it seems they would be
   kings as well as priests, and reign as well as rule, dashing the
   princes of the earth like a potter's vessel, (an expression which they
   much delight in.) till, at length, they crouched to the holy
   discipline, kissed the rod of Aaron, and so acknowledged their elders
   for their betters.

   But surely this I may argue solidly: that if God instituted such a
   standing superiority and jurisdiction of the priests over the Levites.
   then these two things follow.

   1. That such a superiority is not in itself absolutely irregular and
   unlawful.

   2. That neither does it carry in it an antipathy and contrariety to the
   power of godliness.

   And yet upon these two suppositions, as upon two standing truths, all
   their calumnies are commenced; as if there were something in the very
   vital constitution of such a subordination, that was irreconcileable to
   the power of godliness. As in respect of the civil power, Calvin, in
   his commentary upon Daniel, chap. v. 21, that it is common to all kings
   to jostle out God from his government; a good plea for his abetting the
   ejection of the lawful prince of Geneva from his government and
   prerogative.

   But to come yet closer to the matter; I do not say that Jeremy was a
   bishop, nor, with an exact parallel, argue from one to the other. But
   we know, that, in things of a most different nature, we may yet so
   sever their peculiar, determining differences, as to leave some one
   general reason in which they may unite and agree; so here, setting
   aside the peculiar differences of the Jewish and the Christian economy,
   there is a general nature of government in which both correspond. And
   therefore, what concerned Jeremy, as a church-governor, may with good
   logic be applied to a bishop.

   Though indeed the correspondence here may extend to more peculiar and
   personal resemblances; for might not our bishops lately take up and
   appropriate to themselves that complaint of Jeremy, in chap. xv. 10, I
   have wronged no man, I have neither lent on usury, nor have men lent to
   me on usury, and yet every man curses me? Were they not also, like
   Jeremy, persecuted from prison to prison, and, like him, traduced as
   secret friends and parties with Babylon, and put into the dungeon for
   their impartial speaking their consciences? And lastly, notwithstanding
   their piety, hospitality, and moderation, have they not, with Jeremy,
   seen a sad and uncomfortable issue of all their ministerial labours,
   and been forced to second their prophecies with lamentations?

   But now to enter upon the words; we have in them these three things
   considerable.

   I. God's qualification of Jeremy to be an overseer in his church; I
   will make thee a fenced brazen wall.

   II. The entertainment that he should meet with in the administration of
   his office, they shall fight against thee.

   III. The issue and success of this opposition, that, through God's
   eminent and peculiar assistance, they should not prevail against him.

   I. And first for the first of these, God's qualification of Jeremy to
   his charge, I will make thee a brazen fenced wall. Now a wall imports
   these two things.

   1. Enclosure.

   2. Fortification.

   1. It implies enclosure. God did not think fit to leave his church
   without enclosure, open, like a common, for every beast to feed upon
   and devour it. Commons are always bare, pilled, and shorn as the sheep
   that feed upon them. And our experience has shewn us, as soon as the
   enclosures of our church were plucked up, what a herd of cattle of all
   sorts invaded it. It contained, as commons usually do, both multitude
   and mixture.

   God said to Moses, Pull off thy shoes, for the place upon which thou
   standest is holy ground; which command would have been but of little
   force amongst us, where the ground has been therefore counted common
   because holy; church-lands have been every one's claim, free and common
   to all but to churchmen; even as common as the churchyard itself; one
   to be possessed by the living, the other by the dead.

   And the offices of the church were as prostitute as her revenues; every
   one would be a labourer in that field from whence they expected so fair
   an harvest. Here a brewer, here a cobbler, there a butcher; a fair
   translation from the killing of one flock to the feeding of another.

   We have Christ comparing the kingdom of heaven, that is, the church, to
   traffick, to merchandise: but we might compare ours to a fair, in which
   there was a general confluence and appearance of all tradesmen; and he
   that had broke in any, presently set up in divinity.

   Wherefore to stave off the profane intrusions of the rabble for the
   future, we must have an enclosure, and an hedge will not serve turn. So
   many rotten stakes of lay-governors will not raise a fence; an hedge
   that surrounds an orchard may harbour those thieves that intend to rob
   it.

   No, one brazen wall, one diocesan bishop, will better defend this
   enclosed garden of the church, than a junto of five hundred shrubs,
   than all the quicksets of Geneva, all the thorns and brambles of
   presbytery.

   2. A wall imports fortification. No city can be secure without it. It
   is, as it were, a standing inanimate army; a continual defence without
   the help of defenders.

   There is no robbery, but the wall is first broke; no invasion, but it
   enters through the ruins of this. And therefore David puts up this for
   Sion in Psalm cxxii. 7, Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity
   within thy bulwarks. Indeed it had therefore peace and prosperity,
   because it had walls and bulwarks.

   Something must encircle the church that will both discriminate and
   protect it. And the altar must be railed in, not only for distinction
   but defence.

   And such a thing is a church-governor, a well-qualified bishop. It is
   he that must secure the church, and not the little inferior pastors
   about him. There is as much difference between his protection and
   theirs, as there is between being encompassed by one continued wall,
   and by a rank of little hills.

   It was Moses, and not the elders of Israel, that stood in the gap; and
   for our own parts, if we would determine upon whom to place our
   government, certainly, of all others, those persons are most unfit to
   stand in the gap that first made it.

   We have seen now what is imported in this metaphor of a wall, as
   applied to a church-governor. Which title that he may make good and
   verify, there are required in him these three qualifications.

   1. Courage, which leads the way to all the rest; a wall, nay, a brazen
   wall, will not sometimes prove a defence, if it is not well manned.
   Every church man should have the spirit of a soldier. And pray let us
   make an exchange; the soldiers have sufficiently invaded the ministers
   offices; let ministers now borrow a little of the soldiers courage.

   Peter was a resolute and a bold man, and therefore fit to feed Christ's
   lambs. But he that is timorous and flexible, apt to decline opposition
   when he can, and, when he cannot, to yield to it, will be jaded and rid
   like an ass; and, like a pitcher, he will be took and emptied by his
   own handle, to the ruin of the church and the reproach of his function.
   He will be used, instead of being obeyed; and men will make him their
   instrument, instead of their governor.

   He that does not find in himself a courage to withstand the boldness
   and violence of a proud seducer or a popular schismatic, betrays his
   charge in the very undertaking it. A servile temper in any one is
   unworthy; but a spirit of servitude in the place of government is
   unnatural: and he that fears does something more than serve: he wears
   his white in his timorous face, and therefore deserves not to wear it
   in his sleeves.

   The greatest attempts in the world that have failed, have miscarried by
   the treachery of this one quality, irresolution. Fear is a base thing,
   it enslaves a man's reason to his fancy; and for the most part proceeds
   from, but always looks like guilt.

   And it agrees to no man living so ill, as to a prelate of the church;
   of whose qualities if we take a survey, we shall find that, though
   learning be his ornament, piety a necessary property, yet resolution is
   his very essence; and now, especially, is the want of it inexcusable,
   when the ground is firm under you, and the heavens, as yet, fair above
   you; and all the prudent and judicious for you, that are about you.

   Shall those be able to nose and outbrave you, who take all their
   courage from guilt and from despair? They deride and tax you for bowing
   and cringing; pray therefore, whatsoever you do, do not bow and cringe
   to them.

   2. There is required innocence and integrity. A brazen wall admits of
   no cracks and flaws; but that which is made of the baser materials of
   mud and mortar, of a corrupt conscience, and a corrupter conversation,
   it gapes into chinks and holes, and quickly totters, being weak and
   obnoxious.

   Hic murus ahencus esto,
   Nil conscire sibi.

   Let our governors expect reproaches and calumnies, but being thrown at
   brass, they will never stick, upon mud they will; clay cannot mingle
   with brass or iron. And if men throw dirt, it will not fasten till it
   meets with dirt.

   A bishop's integrity is the best way to silence a factious minister.
   Let men first wash their hands in innocency, and then let them compass
   the altar.

   In these stars of God's right hand, it is their power indeed that gives
   them an influence, but it is their innocence that makes them shine.
   Unblameableness of life, an untainted pureness of manners, it defends
   the person and confirms the office; as cleanliness, it both refreshes,
   and, at the same time, also strengthens the body. Rust, it not only
   defaces the aspect, but also corrodes the substance; and a. rusty sword
   does execution upon nothing but its own scabbard.

   Nothing that is vicious can be lasting; vice is rotten, and it makes
   so. Whatsoever is wicked is also weak; Ezek. xvi. 30, Since thou doest
   these things, how weak is thy heart!

   The enemies of the church may fear your power, but they dread your
   innocence. It is this that stops the open sepulchre, and beats back the
   accusation upon the teeth of the accuser. The innocent white, it is a
   triumphant colour.

   And believe it, when all these calumniators shall have spit their
   venom, it will be found, that an unspotted life will be to them both a
   confutation and revenge.

   For sin they love, that is, to enjoy it in themselves, and to accuse it
   in others; but God forbid that we should so far gratify their malice,
   as to verify their invectives, or that any crime should sit blushing
   upon the mitre.

   And certainly it were a strange and a shameful thing, to behold vice
   installed, debauchery enthroned; and to have the whole transaction only
   the solemnity of an advanced sin and a consecrated impiety.

   3. The third and last qualification that I shall mention is authority;
   it is to be a fenced, as well as a brazen wall. The inward firmness of
   one must be corroborated by the exterior munitions of the other.

   Courage is like a giant with his hands tied, if it has not authority
   and jurisdiction to draw forth and actuate its resolution. Courage is
   nothing, if it is not backed with a commission.

   There are those who absolutely deny any jurisdiction to belong to the
   church; affirming, that all the apostolical sanctions were rather
   advice than law; thus making the church-officers to be only like a
   college of physicians, who when they consult about, and determine any
   matter in physic, and prescribe to their patients, their prescriptions
   command no thing by way of authority, but only propose by way of
   counsel. Whence it is the less wonder, that Erastus, a physician,
   should endeavour to reduce the church to such an imaginary power.

   Others, amongst which a person of great learning and discontent, though
   they proceed not to a plain, barefaced denial of the church's
   jurisdiction, yet they deny the derivation of it from Christ; and
   derive it from the consent of the primitive Christians, voluntarily
   choosing governors and a government, and then submitting themselves to
   their jurisdiction.

   But God forbid that the church should be forced either to follow
   Erastus's prescriptions, or to try her title and plead her cause at an
   adversary's bar.

   Certain it is, that the New Testament makes mention of several acts of
   ecclesiastical jurisdiction performed by the apostles and others. And
   we find also several express speeches of Christ that do evidently endue
   them with such a jurisdiction. But we read not a word, that it came
   from any such consent, or voluntary submission of a company of
   Christians combining together, and choosing their own model; and it is
   strange that, in such a matter, the antiquary should so much recede
   from the judgment of antiquity.

   But thanks be to God that our church has not only its jurisdiction from
   Christ, but also a superadded overplus of confirmation from the secular
   power, which has piously and prudently provided those laws, that will
   certainly bind up her breaches, and bring order out of confusion, if
   they be executed with the same courage with which they were enacted.

   But if the governors and trustees of the church's power fly back, and
   shrink, and bury a noble law as soon as ever it is born, may not those
   that made it object to us, that they would have healed us, but we would
   not be healed? May they not also use that speech of our Saviour to us,
   Behold, now your house is left to you desolate? You have lost your
   advantages, and overlooked your opportunities.

   Does it become a man, with a sword by his side, to beseech? or a
   governor, armed with authority, to entreat? He that thinks to win
   obstinate schismatics by condescension, and to conjure away those evil
   spirits with the softer lays and music of persuasion, may, as David in
   the like case, have a javelin flung at his head for his pains, and
   perhaps escape it as narrowly.

   There is a strange, commanding majesty in two things, truth and law,
   and they are now both on the church's side; but there is a dastardly
   poorness in guilt and faction, that will shrink before the face of
   justice and the aspect of authority.

   And let faction look and speak big in a tumult, and in the troubled
   waters of rebellion; yet I dare vouch this as a truth of certain event,
   and that without the spirit of prophecy, that courage assisted with
   law, and law executed with courage, will assuredly prevail.

   Come we now to the second thing, namely,

   II. The opposition that the church-governor thus qualified will be sure
   to meet with in the administration of his office, expressed in those
   words, they shall fight against thee; and this they are like to do
   these three ways.

   1. By seditious preaching and praying.

   2. By railing and libels.

   3. And thirdly, perhaps, by open force.

   1. And first of all, they will assault their governors with seditious
   preaching and praying. To preach Christ out of contention is condemned
   by the apostle; but to preach contention, instead of Christ, certainly
   is most abominable. We have seen men preached into schism, lectured
   into sacrilege, and prayed into rebellion; the very pulpit has been
   made to undermine the church.

   We have been robbed and plundered in scripture phrase, and have heard
   rapines and bloodshed not only justified, but glorified.

   People in the mean time thronging to the church, not like doves to
   their windows, but like eagles to their prey; to have their appetites
   enraged, to have their talons whet against government, and their
   Consciences fired against whatsoever is constituted in church and
   state.

   Read the collections of sermons upon their bloody thanksgivings, and
   their bloodthirsty humiliations, and upon other occasions before the
   two houses, which are so many satires against government, so many
   declamations against the church; every line and period almost spitting
   poison against monarchy, against discipline and decency; to the
   reproach of that exercise, to the shame of their calling, and (so far
   as it lay at the mercy of their practices) to the blot of Christianity:

   I say, let any one read that collection, or, to speak more properly,
   that magazine of sermons, and then let him confess that it was the
   sword of the tongue that first drew and unsheathed the other.

   He that would hear an invective against the ministry, let him not go to
   a tavern, to a camp, or to an exchange, but let him repair rather to a
   church. And when his occasions shall carry him to the market-town, to
   furnish himself with other commodities, if he would be furnished also
   with a stock of arguments against loyalty and the church, let him leave
   the market-place a while, and step aside into the lecture.

   2. Their second way of fighting against the officers of the church will
   be by railing and libels. I may seem to commit an absurdity, I confess,
   in making this a different head from their preaching and praying. But,
   considering that they speak from the press as well as from the pulpit,
   and in other places besides the church, we must admit of this
   distinction.

   And for this way of opposition, by virulent, unseemly language, odious
   terms, and vilifying words, none ever improved their talent to such an
   height of perfection.

   The reverend fathers of the church were the chief mark at which their
   virulence was levelled: and for these, the more moderate of their
   opposers were contented to call them by no worse names than whited
   walls, hypocrites, painted sepulchres, scribes and Pharisees,
   implacable enemies of godliness, limbs of Antichrist, retainers to the
   whore of Babylon. But others, who had a greater measure of this gift,
   be stowed upon them higher titles, as, devils incarnate, murderers of
   souls, dumb dogs; and some, that would tip their virulence with more
   than ordinary wit, have thought fit to call them dumb dogs that could
   only bark at God's people.

   I could give you a larger catalogue of these gentle, pious, Christian
   expressions, used by the brotherhood in queen Elizabeth's days; though
   since much augmented with several additions and enlargements never
   before extant, by their worthy successors and true posterity; persons,
   whose mouths are too foul to be cleansed, and too broad to be stopped.

   But they are in nothing so copious and eloquent, as when they amplify
   and declaim upon that old, beaten, misapplied theme of persecution.
   Which charge, if true, yet they, of all men living, were the most unfit
   to make it. But I shall not busy my self to confute, much less to
   retaliate their aspersions.

   3. In the third and last place, they may oppose the governors and
   government of the church by open force; and this is fighting indeed;
   but yet the genuine, natural consequent of the other: he that rails,
   having opportunity, would rebel; for it is the same malice in a various
   posture, in a different way of eruption; and as he that rebels shows
   what he can do, so he that rails does as really demonstrate what he
   would do.

   The reason of the thing itself does evince this, and, what is yet a
   greater reason, experience; and he that will not believe what he has
   felt, nor credit the experience of twenty years, deserves to undergo it
   for twenty years more.

   As the trumpet gives an alarm to the battle, so bold invectives do as
   certainly alarm the trumpet; it is the same breath by which men utter
   the one and blow the other.

   What insurrections, what attempts, what tumults they may make, we know
   not; but we know their principles, and we have sufficiently seen them
   illustrated in their practices; and therefore from what has been done,
   do but rationally collect what may.

   We have heard much of the power of godliness, by which indeed is meant
   only the godly party being in power; and the godly party with them are
   those who have sworn the destruction of monarchy and of the church, and
   have bewitched the people with a fardle of strange, canting,
   insignificant words.

   And let men know, that, notwithstanding the disguise of a whining
   expression and a demure face, there is no sort of men breathing who
   taste blood with so good a relish, and who, having the power of the
   sword to second their power of godliness, would wade deeper in the
   slaughter of their brethren, and with the most savage, implacable
   violence, tumble all into confusion, ruin, and desolation.

   The quicksilver of Geneva is a thing of a violent operation, and cannot
   lie still long, but it will force its vent through the bowels of a
   nation; and God grant, that it may be throughly purged out, before it
   becomes mortal and incurable: and give us the defence of a prudent
   jealousy, to beware of those whose loyalty and submission lies only in
   their want of occasion.

   We have now despatched the two first things considerable in the text;
   in which, as in a set battle, we have seen the armour and preparations
   of defence in the first place, and the assault and opposition in the
   second. It remains now,

   III. That, as in all fights, we see the issue and success, which is
   exhibited to us in these words; but they shall not prevail against
   thee.

   It is a bold venture to foretell things future, be cause it is infamous
   to lie under the shame of a mistaken prediction, and some, if they had
   prophesied less, perhaps would have preached better.

   Things future fall under human cognizance only these two ways:

   1. By a foresight of them in their causes.

   2. By divine revelation.

   For the first of these, moral causes will afford but a moral certainty;
   but so far as the light of this shines, it gives us a good prospect
   into our future success.

   For which is most likely to prevail, a force marshalled into order, or
   disranked and scattered into confusion? A force united and compacted
   with the strength of agreement, or a force shrivelled into parties, and
   crumbled into infinite subdivisions? A government confirmed by age, and
   rooted by antiquity, and withal complying with the conveniences of
   society, or a government sprung up but yesterday, and yet become
   intolerable to day; having the rigour, without the order of discipline;
   like a rod or twig, both for its smart and also for its weakness?

   But besides the arguments of reason, we have the surer ground of divine
   revelation. God has engaged his assistance, made himself a party, and
   obliged his omnipotence as a second in the cause: I am with thee to
   save thee and deliver thee, saith the Lord. We have something more to
   plead than God's providence, their old heathenish argument.

   We have his word for our rule, and his promise for our support. He that
   undertakes God's work, may, by a legitimacy of claim, challenge his
   assistance.

   Yet neither are we destitute of arguments from providence, so far as
   they may be pleaded. For has God, by a miracle, raised a church from
   the dead, only to make it capable of a second destruction? has he
   buoyed it up from the gulfs and quicksands of faction and sacrilege,
   only to split it upon the rocks of a new rebellion? Has he scattered
   those mists of delusion, discovered the cheat of a long, religious
   fallacy, and so strangely opened men's eyes, that he may more strangely
   put them out again? Or will Christ invert the order of his works, and
   having cured us, do another miracle only to make us blind?

   No certainly; for as God does not create but with a design to preserve,
   so he does not deliver but with a purpose to defend.

   But you will say, Does not our own late experience stare us in the
   face, and confute this assertion? For has not the church been exposed
   to the lust, fury, and rapine of her adversaries? Have they not
   prevailed and trampled upon her? Have they not ruined, reformed, and
   torn her in pieces as they pleased? And what assurance have we, that
   what has been done already may not be done again? And then what will
   become of the truth of this, they shall not prevail against thee?

   To this I answer two things, with which I shall conclude.

   1. That even those enemies of the church, in the late dismal swing of
   confusion, did not prevail against her. For that only is a prevailing,
   that is a final conquest.

   But this was only a cloud that hindered the sun shine for a while, but
   did not put out the sun. A veil drawn over the church's face, not to
   extinguish her beauty, but to hide it for a time. In short, it was only
   an interruption, not an abolition of her happiness.

   2. But secondly, I add, that he who is pillaged or murdered in the
   resolute performance of his duty, is not properly prevailed against.

   It has been a constant tradition of the church, that Jeremy himself, to
   whom this very promise was made, was barbarously knocked o' the head
   and killed in Egypt for his impartial prophesying; yet still this
   promise was the word of God, and therefore doubtless could not fall to
   the ground, however the prophet might.

   There is a great deal of difference between a murder and a conquest.

   So that should God again let loose the reins to the former tyranny;
   should he once more give the sword to faction, ignorance, and
   discontent, and arm the diabolical legion that lately possessed us, and
   has been since cast out; should he commission all this rabble to harass
   and run down the nation with plunders, bloodshed, covenants, and
   sequestrations; yet still God will verify these words to every
   faithful, courageous officer in his church, they shall not prevail
   against thee.

   Such an one may be plundered indeed, and yet not undone; he may be
   sequestered, imprisoned, yea, and slain, and yet, according to the
   soberest judgment of reason, not conquered.

   Some may now think that the work of this exercise is not discharged,
   unless directions are given for the management of the episcopal office;
   but I persuade myself, that our government advances none to this
   office, but such as are able to direct themselves. However I, for my
   part, had rather promise obedience, than proffer counsel to my
   superiors.

   The business I undertook was to speak encouragement to those that shall
   sit at the stern of the church in such a discouraging age, and to tell
   them, that God will make them fenced brazen walls. And he that strikes
   at a wall of brass may maul his own hands, but neither shake nor
   demolish that.

   Wherefore, let the furies of a new confusion break forth, let the
   spiritual trumpets sound another march to rebellion, and the pulpit
   drums beat up for volunteers for the Devil, and threaten the church
   once more.

   Yet the governors of it may here take sanctuary in the text; and, with
   confidence from hence, be speak their opposers.

   Who shall fight against us? it is God that saves. Who shall destroy? it
   is the same God that delivers.

   To which God, fearful in praises, and working wonders, be rendered and
   ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion,
   both now and for evermore. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

SERMON V.

  TITUS i. 1.

   Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to
   the faith of God's elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is
   after godliness.

   IN the last words of this verse, about which only our present discourse
   shall be concerned, we have a full though compendious account of the
   nature of the gospel, ennobled by two excellent qualities. One, the end
   of all philosophical inquiries, which is truth; the other, the design
   of all religious institutions, which is godliness; both united, and as
   it were blended together in the constitution of Christianity.

   Those who discourse metaphysically of the nature of truth, as to the
   reality of the thing, affirm a perfect coincidence between truth and
   goodness; and I believe it might be easily made out, that there is
   nothing in nature perfectly true, but what is also really good. For
   although it is not to be denied, that true propositions may be framed
   of things in themselves evil, yet still it is certain that the truth of
   those propositions is good. Nothing so bad as the Devil, or worse than
   a liar; yet this affirmation, that the Devil is a liar, is hugely true
   and very good.

   It would be endless to strike forth into the elogies of truth; for as
   we know it was the adored prize for which the sublimest wits in the
   world have always run, and sacrificed their time, their health, their
   lives, to the acquist of it; so let it suffice us to say here, that as
   reason is the great rule of man's nature, so truth is the great
   regulator of reason.

   I. Now in this expression of the gospel's being the truth which is
   after godliness, these three things are couched.

   1. That it is simply a truth.

   2. That it is an operative truth.

   3. That it is operative to the best of effects, which is godliness.

   And first for the first of these; it is a truth, and upon that account
   dares look its most inquisitive adversaries in the face. The most
   intricate and mysterious passages in it are vouched by an infinite
   veracity; and truth is truth, though clothed in riddles, and surrounded
   with darkness and obscurity: as the sun has still the same native,
   inherent brightness, though wrapt up in a cloud.

   Even those transcendent enigmas of the Trinity, the incarnation of the
   Son of God, and the resurrection of the dead, they all challenge our
   assent upon the score of their truth. And that three is one and one
   three, is altogether as true as that three is three, though far from
   being so plain. It is hard indeed to conceive a reparation of the same
   numerical body having been transformed by so many changes, yet we have
   the divine word for it; and death itself is not more sure, than that
   men shall rise from the dead.

   Now the gospel being a truth, it follows yet further, that if we run
   through the whole catalogue of its principles, nothing can be drawn
   from thence, by legitimate and certain consequence, but what is also
   true. It is impossible for truth to afford any thing but truth. Every
   such principle begets a consequence after its own likeness.

   2. The next advance of the gospel's excellency is, that it is such a
   truth as is operative. It does not terminate in notion, or rest in
   bare, unactive speculation, but from the head it shoots forth into the
   hand, and sets all the faculties of our nature at work. It does not
   dwell in the mind like furniture, only for ornament, but for use, and
   the great concernments of life. Most sorts of human knowledge are like
   the treasures of a covetous man, got with labour and much industry; and
   being got, they lie locked up and wholly unemployed: and indeed the
   very nature of them abstracts from practice. The knowledge of
   astronomy, geometry, arithmetic, music, and the like, they may fill the
   mind, and yet never step forth into one experiment; but the knowledge
   of the divine truths of Christianity is quick and restless, like an
   imprisoned flame, which will be sure to force its passage, and to
   display its brightness.

   3. The third and highest degree of its perfection is, that it is not
   only operative, but also operative to the best of purposes, which is to
   godliness: it carries on a design for heaven and eternity. Some things
   are indeed active, but the design of their action is trivial, cheap,
   and contemptible; so that, in effect, it is no more than a sedulous and
   a laborious doing of nothing; which kind of actions, should they be
   arrested with that question, Cui bono? the vanity of such performances
   would quickly appear, that they were but a shooting without any aim, a
   raising of a bubble, and a pursuing of the wind. Every thing is
   ennobled by its design; and an action is advanced in its worth, when it
   drives at an object grand and necessary; John xvii. 3, This is life
   eternal, to know thee the only true God, and whom thou hast sent,
   Christ Jesus. It serves the two greatest interests in the world, which
   are the glory of the Creator and the salvation of the creature; and
   this the gospel does by being the truth which is after godliness.

   Which words may admit of a double sense.

   1. That the gospel is so called, because it actually produces the
   effects of godliness in those that embrace and profess it. 2. That it
   is directly improvable into such consequences and deductions, as have
   in them a natural fitness, if complied with, to engage the practice of
   mankind in such a course.

   In the former of these senses, the gospel cannot universally sustain
   this appellation; forasmuch as in many hearts it is no sooner conceived
   but it proves abortive; and like the seed falling upon stony ground, it
   is choked by the thorns of cares and lusts, and other corruptions
   growing up and hindering it, so that it never brings forth fruit to
   perfection. Many entertain principles which they defy by their
   practices, and unlive all that they have believed; so that that which
   was intended for the cure of sin, by accident becomes its aggravation.
   Wherefore the latter sense only can take place here; that is, that the
   gospel, in its nature, is the most apt and proper instrument of
   holiness in the world, the most naturally productive of holy living and
   a pious conversation; unless a man prevaricates with the articles of
   his faith, runs counter to his profession, and acts contradictions.

   Now the truth that we have declared to have thus an influence upon
   godliness, consists in these two things.

   1. A right notion of God.

   2. A right notion of what concerns the duty of man.

   These two are the foundations of all sound and rational piety; and as
   it is a matter of great moment, so it is also of great difficulty, so
   to assert and state each of these, both in their just latitude, and yet
   within their due limits, that one may not in trench upon or evacuate
   the other.

   It highly concerns us so to discourse of God in the matter of religion,
   that his prerogative of being the first cause of all things, and both
   the author and finisher of man's salvation, be not infringed by such
   assertions as of necessity infer the contrary. And yet, on the other
   side, this prerogative of God is to be defended with such sobriety, as
   not in the mean time to leave the creature no scope of duty, or to
   render all exhortations and threatenings, and other helps of action,
   absurd and superfluous. The difficulty of doing right to both which,
   appears from this; that those who endeavour to assert one, usually
   encroach upon the other.

   As for instance; some of those who manage the defence of God's
   prerogative in being the first cause of all things, and sovereign
   author of our salvation, assert that the creature never advances into
   action, but by an irresistible predetermination of the faculty to that
   action; upon the presence of which predetermination the faculty cannot
   but act, and upon the absence or defect of which, it cannot possibly
   move or determine itself. And then, over and above this
   predetermination, they assert a concurrence of God to that action of
   the power or faculty, perfectly the same with that action. Which
   assertions, in spite of all qualifications of them, leave it
   unapprehensible what place can reasonably he left for addressing
   exhortations to the will, when it is not at all in its power to proceed
   to the performance of the thing to which it is exhorted, but solely in
   the power of him that exhorts.

   On the contrary; those who would redeem the will from this inactivity,
   usually extend the freedom of it to that compass, as to make God a mere
   stander by in the great business of the soul's salvation; it being at
   the courtesy of the will's choice and acceptance, whether all that God
   does towards the saving of a man shall, in the issue, become effectual
   or not effectual to that purpose. Such will not allow any thing to be
   liberty of will, but a perfect equilibrium and indifferency of choice
   as to good or evil; which for papists to assert, who in this assertion
   lay the foundation of their pretended merits, is no wonder; but why
   protestants should be so fond of it, I see no reason: for that this
   indifferency to good and evil is not of the intrinsic nature and
   essence of the will's liberty, is clear from this; that then the
   saints, who are confirmed in the love of God and goodness, so that they
   cannot sin, or choose that which is evil, could not be said to love God
   freely; nor the devils to sin freely, for they cannot choose but sin;
   nor Christ to have done actions of holiness freely, for he could not do
   otherwise. Besides that the supposition of original sin, and the total
   depravation of man's nature, renders such a liberty in those that are
   not renewed by baptism strangely absurd; for it is an apparent making
   of a corrupt tree to bring forth good fruit.

   But you will say, that this nullifies all exhortations to piety; since
   a man in this case cannot totally come up to the thing he is exhorted
   to. But to this I answer, that the consequence does not hold: for an
   exhortation is not frustrate, if a man be but able to come up to it
   partially, though not entirely and perfectly. As, take a man under the
   original depravation of nature; though in this condition he cannot
   avoid all sin, both as to the matter and manner of the action, yet
   there is no particular sin but he may forbear; though the imperfection
   and obliquity of the end or motive inducing him so to for bear it,
   makes the manner of that forbearance not wholly void of fault. A man
   unregenerate, and unrenewed by grace, may choose whether he will be
   drunk, fornicate, or swear; but it is not in his power to be acted to
   these forbearances, out of a love to God, to piety, or virtue; and yet
   if they proceed not from such a principle, such forbearances are, in
   the sight of God, but faulty and imperfect.

   I am not ignorant, that in giving an account of these matters there is
   a knot on both sides; and that, upon a nice screwing of consequences,
   not easily to be resolved; yet surely it concerns us so to discourse of
   these points in general, as neither to clip the divine prerogative, nor
   yet, on the other hand, to tie up the creature so, as to undermine duty
   by taking away the energy of precepts, threatenings, and exhortations.

   II. To proceed therefore. There are three things that I shall deduce
   from this description of the gospel's being the truth according to
   godliness.

   1. That the nature and prime essential design of religion is to be an
   instrument of good life, by administering arguments and motives
   inducing to it.

   2. That so much knowledge of truth as is sufficient to engage men's
   lives in the practice of godliness, serves the necessary ends of
   religion.

   For I shew, if godliness were the design, it ought also, by
   consequence, to be the measure of men's knowledge in this particular.

   3. That whatsoever doth in itself or its direct consequences undermine
   the motives of a good life, is contrary to and destructive of Christian
   religion.

   1. That the nature and prime essential design of religion is to be an
   instrument of good life, by administering arguments and motives
   inducing to it.

   It were to be wished, that to produce reasons and proofs for such a
   proposition were wholly needless and vain; yet since the capricious and
   fantastic notions of some men have made it much otherwise, I shall
   endeavour to clear up the assertion I have laid down by these
   arguments.

   1. The first is, because religion designs the service of God, by
   gaining over to his obedience that which is most excellent in man, and
   that is, the actions of his life, and continual converse. That these
   are the most considerable is clear from hence; because all other
   actions naturally proceed in a subserviency to these. As the actions of
   a man's understanding, directing, and of his will commanding, they are
   all designed for the regulation of his constant behaviour; and that
   which is the end to which other things are designed, is, as such, more
   excellent than those things designed to that end.

   2. The design of religion is man's salvation: but men are not saved as
   they are more knowing or assent to more propositions, but as they are
   more pious than others. Practice is the thing that sanctifies
   knowledge; and faith without works expires, and becomes a dead thing, a
   carcass, and consequently noisome to God; who, even to those who know
   the best things, pronounces no blessing till they do them. Upon this
   ground it is, that when a man would gather some comfortable assurance
   of his future estate, he does not seek for evidences from his
   knowledge, and the boldness of his belief, but from his godliness, and
   the several instances of an holy life, the only infallible
   demonstration of a sincere heart; otherwise, it is probable that hell
   is paved with the heads of the knowing and the wicked, and the
   catalogue of the damned made up of such as knew their master's will,
   and did it not.

   3. A third argument is from hence, that the discriminating excellency
   of Christianity consists not so much in this, that it discovers more
   sublime truths, or indeed more excellent precepts than philosophy,
   (though it does this also,) as that it suggests more efficacious
   arguments to enforce the performance of those precepts, than any other
   religion or institution whatsoever. Compare the precepts of Pythagoras,
   of the stoics, and of Christian religion: Does Christian religion
   commend piety towards God, and justice to our neighbour? Does it
   arraign vicious affections and corrupt desires? So do they. Wherein
   then has it the preeminence? Why in this; that after they had taught
   the world their duty, what they were to do, and what not to do, they
   had no arguments prevalent with the nature of men, above their contrary
   propensions, to bind them over to such practices.

   But Christianity has backed all its precepts with eternal life and
   eternal death to the performers or neglecters of them; whereas
   philosophy could do nothing, but by taking in the assistance of
   fabulous stories, or by telling men, that virtue was a sufficient
   reward to itself; which, upon all experience, has been found an
   argument infinitely short, and unable to bear up the practices of men,
   contrary to the soli citations of their opposite, impetuous
   corruptions.

   4. The fourth and last argument is from this; that notwithstanding the
   diversity of religions in the world, yet men hereafter will generally
   be condemned for the same things; that is, for their breaches of
   morality. Men shall be condemned for being false, lustful, injurious,
   profane, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, and the like. But
   these are the sins of all nations, and are universally found in the
   profession of all religions.

   It is confessed there shall be an accession to men's guilt, and more or
   less fuel added to their torments, according as the religion they lived
   under administered to them clearer or obscurer notions of duty, and
   more or less pregnant instructions to the exercise of piety; otherwise,
   men shall not so much be condemned for not believing of riddles and
   hard sentences, as for not practising of plain duties: for this is that
   which religion drives at; not to subtilize men's conceptions, but to
   rectify their manners.

   And these are briefly my reasons for the first deduction from the
   words, namely, that the nature and prime essential design of religion
   is to be an instrument of good life, by administering arguments and
   motives inducing to it.

   2. A second inference from the gospel's being the truth according to
   godliness is this.

   That so much knowledge of truth as is sufficient to engage men's lives
   in the practice of godliness, serves the necessary ends of religion;
   for if godliness be the design, it ought also, by consequence, to be
   the measure of men's knowledge in this particular: which consideration,
   well and duly improved, would discover how needless it is, to say no
   more, that ignorant people should be let loose to read and judge of
   writings that they do not understand. The principles of Christianity,
   briefly and catechistically taught them, is enough to save their souls;
   but, on the other hand, they may read themselves into such opinions and
   persuasions, as may at length destroy a government, and fire a whole
   kingdom: and for this I shall not seek for arguments, after experience.

   3. The third and great consequence, from the gospel's being the truth
   according to godliness, shall be this.

   That whatsoever does in itself, or its direct consequences, undermine
   the motives of a good life, is contrary to and destructive of Christian
   religion.

   Now the doctrines that more immediately concern a good life are
   reducible to these three heads.

   1. Such as concern the justification of a sinner.

   2. Such as concern the rule of manners.

   3. And such as concern repentance.

   All which things are such vital ingredients of religion, that an error
   in any of them is like poison in a fountain, which must certainly
   convey death and contagion to every one that shall taste the streams.
   It will be of some moment therefore to bring the doctrines that lie
   under these several heads to a particular examination, that so, having
   a distinct view of life and death before us, we may both secure our
   choice and direct our practice.

   First of all then, concerning the justification of a sinner. The great
   business that we have in this world, is to endeavour to be saved, and
   the means to that is to be justified. This, therefore, is the great
   mark at which all our actions are to be levelled, the great prize for
   which we run: and, consequently, if it is not stated and proposed to us
   upon such terms as shall employ and call forth the utmost attempts of
   the soul, the nerves of piety are cut, and obedience is overlaid by
   taking away its necessity. How this may be done, let us take a brief
   survey.

   1. First then, that doctrine that holds that the covenant of grace is
   not established upon conditions, and that nothing of performance is
   required on man's part to give him an interest in it, but only to
   believe that he is justified; this certainly subverts all the motives
   of a good life. But this is the doctrine of the antinomians: and the
   foundation of this they have laid in another wild, erroneous assertion,
   that every believer was actually justified from eternity, and that his
   faith is only a declaration of this to his conscience, but no ways
   effective of any alteration of his state or condition. Justified in the
   sight of God he was before his belief, but his belief at length gives
   him the knowledge of it; and so makes him not more safe, but more
   confident than he was before.

   But certainly this inevitably takes away the necessity of godliness:
   for it asserts that a sinner, and an ungodly person, while such, may
   stand justified before God. For the better understanding of which we
   must observe, that a man may be said to be a sinner in a double
   respect: 1. In respect of the law, as having not continued in all
   things written in the law, to do them. 2. In respect of the gospel, as
   having not believed and repented; which are the terms upon which,
   through Christ, we are accepted as righteous.

   As for the former of these respects, all men are sinners upon a legal
   score, as not having performed an entire, indefective, legal obedience.
   But in the latter sense, upon evangelical allowances, a man that
   believes is not counted to be in a state of sin, though legally he is.

   Now the forementioned doctrine allows justification to these sinners
   also; for if a man is actually and perfectly justified from all
   eternity, whereas he comes but in some period of his life to believe
   and repent, does it not invincibly follow, that he was justified before
   that belief and repentance; and, consequently, while he was under an
   estate of unbelief and impenitence? which assertion is the very bane of
   all piety and gospel obedience. It dashes all industry in the ways of
   holiness, lodges a man's hands in his bosom, and renders a pious life
   superfluous and precarious.

   2. That doctrine that teaches that a man may be accepted with God for
   the righteousness and merits of other saints, poisons and perverts the
   nature of justification, so as to render it utterly ineffectual to
   engage men in a course of godliness. For if there is a treasury of good
   works and merits deposited in the custody of the church, and to be
   dispensed by her to whom she pleases, for all the purposes of
   salvation, a man need not be rich in good works of his own, provided he
   be rich enough in money to purchase himself a propriety in those of
   other men. So that it is not a good life, but a good purse that is
   necessary to the justification of a sinner: yet upon such wretched
   doctrines as these is built one of the most externally glorious fabrics
   that the world has yet seen.

   But it will be objected, perhaps, that the doctrine of the imputed
   righteousness of Christ does equally evacuate all motives to a good
   life; for if his righteousness, which is infinitely perfect and exact,
   be imputed to us, what need we produce any of our own? To this I
   answer, that the reason is not the same. For though the righteousness
   of Christ be imputed to us, yet it renders not a good life on our part
   needless, since this is made the very condition of that imputation.
   That is, if we fill the measures of sincerity, in doing the utmost that
   we are able, Christ's righteousness shall be imputed to us for
   justification, notwithstanding our failing in many things, which, by
   reason of the infirmities of our nature, we have not done. Thus,
   therefore, the imputation of Christ's righteousness is suspended upon a
   man's own personal righteousness, as its necessary antecedent
   condition.

   But now it is otherwise in the imputation of the merits of the saints
   to any man, since this cannot proceed upon any such condition of
   personal obedience on his part. For thus the argument against it will
   run: either that man does the utmost that he is able, and lives as well
   as he can, according to the terms of e\ angelical sincerity, or he does
   not; if he does, then what need can he have of the righteousness and
   merits of the saints, who themselves were able to do no more while they
   lived in the flesh? But if he does not acquit himself in an holy life,
   and it be admitted that the righteousness of the saints may supply such
   a defect, so as to render the man accepted before God; is it not as
   clear as the sun, that by this means the sinner is discharged from
   pressing after godliness, as necessary to his justification? For it
   seems he may want it, and yet, for all that, have his business done to
   his hand.

   How much the great God has been dishonoured, and how many poor souls
   have been murdered, by such assertions as these, is sad to consider:
   for they have been abused into a confidence in, and reliance upon, such
   supports; which, in the invaluable concernments of eternity, have
   deceived and given them the slip, and let them fall without remedy into
   the bottomless gulf of endless perdition. God amend or rebuke such
   pernicious impostors.

   In the next place, let us consider the doctrines that relate to the
   rule of life and manners, which is the law of God.

   1. First then, that doctrine that exempts all believers from the
   obligation of the moral law is directly destructive of all godliness;
   which doctrine is taught and asserted by the antinomians, who from
   thence derive that name, as being opposers of the law. But now, if
   there be no obligation upon men to the duties of the moral law, how can
   it be necessary for them to perform any such duties? and consequently
   the command of loving God with all their strength and all their soul,
   of not worshipping images, of not dishonouring God's name, of obeying
   parents, of not committing murder and adultery, and the like, concerns
   not these persons. But if this be their opinion, it is well that they
   are not able to escape the force of human laws, as they do the
   obligation of the divine.

   I confess the apostle Paul oftentimes opposes the law to grace, and
   affirms of believers, that they are not under the law, but under grace.
   But what does he mean by these expressions? why his meaning is founded
   upon a twofold acceptation of the law.

   1. That it may be taken as a covenant conveying life upon absolute,
   entire, indefective obedience, and awarding death to those who fail in
   the least iota or punctilio.

   2. It may be taken as a rule of life and a transcript of the duty of
   man.

   Now it is in the former sense only that believers are not under the
   law; for if they were, they could not possibly be saved, since all men
   have sinned; and the law, as a covenant, promises life only upon the
   terms of such an exact obedience, as excludes all sin. But the covenant
   of grace, under which believers are, promises life upon condition of
   such obedience as is sincere, though legally imperfect: that is, such
   an one as is not absolutely exclusive of all sin, but only of the
   reign, and power, and dominion of sin.

   Yet all this does not loose them from the obligation of the law as it
   is a rule of life, to which they are to conform their actions. The law
   tells believers what they are to do, and withal obliges them to do it;
   but what measure of obedience will be accepted of a man, in order to
   his salvation, that is deter mined not by this rule, but by the
   covenant of grace declared in the gospel; which, upon the account of
   Christ's merits, pardons and dispenses with many deviations from that
   strict rule, and condemns for none, but such as are inconsistent with a
   state of sincerity.

   The forementioned persons, who cashier this obligation of the law also,
   and admit it for not so much as a rule, resigning themselves up to the
   sole conduct of their own heart, which they call the spirit; these, I
   say, as needs they must, assert also, that believers cannot sin: for
   since sin is a transgression of a law, it roundly follows, that those
   who are obliged to no law can be guilty of no transgression.

   But this doctrine is so broadly impious, that it does not undermine a
   good life, but directly blow it down. And therefore I shall only say
   this of the abettors of it, that those who can own themselves to be
   without sin, demonstrate themselves to be without shame.

   2. That doctrine which asserts any sin to be in its nature venial, that
   is, such as God cannot in justice punish with damnation, tends to
   subvert a good life: but the doctrine of the church of Rome asserts
   this; and lays the foundation of this assertion in a distinction
   between works done against the law, and works done beside the law. Now
   they say a thing is done beside the law, when though it is a deviation
   from the law, yet it is not contrary to the end of the law, which is
   love to God, but very fairly consistent with it: that is, though a man
   does such and such things, yet the doing of them ejects not the love of
   God out of his heart, and so long the design and purpose of the law is
   served and complied with, notwithstanding all such diminutive
   transgressions.

   But this discourse is very weak and impertinent. For when they say,
   that some actions destroy not the creature's love to God, and so are
   only beside the law, as not overthrowing the end of it; they either
   understand that those actions destroy not that love as to the habit, or
   the act. If they intend the former, they speak nothing to the purpose;
   for an action may be sinful, and yet not drive the principle of
   habitual love to God out of the soul; forasmuch as an habit is not
   destroyed by every contrary action: as a man may be habitually holy,
   and yet sometimes be surprised with the commission of unholy actions;
   and as to the main, a wise man, though possibly he may have spoke or
   done some things in his life unwisely. But however, neither the
   holiness of one, or the wisdom of the other, makes an unholy or unwise
   action to be upon that account holy or wise.

   But if, on the other side, they assert, that these kind of sins
   interrupt not the actual exercise of the creature's love to God, they
   will prove that which I believe was never yet proved; namely, that it
   is possible for a man, in one and the same action, to deviate from the
   law of God, and yet to exert an act of love towards him; which indeed
   amounts to a plain contradiction: for since to love God is to perform
   his commands, if we assert that that love is not for the present
   hindered or intermitted by some transgressions of those commands, does
   it not clearly follow, that a man may perform the command, and yet
   transgress it at the same time and in the very same action?

   But it is not directly my business to insist here upon the absurdity of
   this doctrine, but to demonstrate the impiety of it, so far as it tends
   to abate men's endeavours in the pursuit of a stricter course of
   holiness; which surely it does with a very great and pernicious
   efficacy. For if men can pervert their judgments so, as to look upon
   some deviations from the law of God, the great rule of life, as no
   sins, taking sin strictly and properly, they will proceed to a general
   undervaluation of the nature of sin; and, keeping a due proportion, if
   small sins must pass for no sins, the greatest sins must lose many
   degrees of their greatness. The heart of man will insensibly be wrought
   upon to make a sport of sin, and to trifle with two the most dreadful
   things in the world, a strict law and an infinite justice.

   But there are no two things that seem to bear so great a resemblance
   one to another, as the state of the Christian church perverted by the
   doctors of the church of Rome, and the state of the Jewish church
   corrupted by the glosses and doctrines of the Pharisees. For as the
   Romists hold fast the distinction of mortal and venial sins; so the
   Pharisees, with the same result, distinguished of the divine precepts
   and commandments, that some were great, that is, necessary to be
   observed, and some small, that is, such as did not bind the conscience
   with so strict an obligation, but that the violation of them might,
   with a very fair comportment with the divine justice, be dispensed
   with. And it is with direct allusion to this distinction of theirs,
   that our Saviour speaks in Matt. v. 19, Whosoever shall break one of
   these least commandments, and shall teach men to do so, he shall be
   called the least in the kingdom of heaven; that is, in the Hebrew
   dialect, he shall have nothing to do there at all; least being here not
   only a term of diminution, but of absolute negation.

   The meaning and design of those words was Christ's clearing himself
   from the common imputation that the scribes and pharisees loaded him
   with, of being an underminer of the law of Moses. As if he had said, I
   am so far from having an intent to destroy or untie the binding force
   of the law, that I enforce a stricter observation of it than those that
   make this charge against me. For whereas they teach that some of the
   divine commandments are to be reputed little, and such as men are not
   bound to the strict observance of; I on the contrary affirm, that there
   are no such little commands, (as they call them,) but that the very
   least of them obliges so indispensably, that the violation and neglect
   of it will, without repentance, exclude from heaven, and bind over to
   damnation.

   And no question, but, were he now amongst us, he would rebuke the
   modern Pharisees, and patrons of venial sins, in the same manner; who,
   by that unhallowed distinction, have lopped off a large proportion of
   that obliging force that belongs to every divine precept, and so in
   effect have made the law itself faulty and defective; not obliging
   where men are pleased not to be obliged; and making that to be no duty,
   which licentious persons are unwilling should be so. Indeed he that
   sins against the law is bad enough, but he that makes even the law to
   sin, that he may discharge himself, is incurable and in sufferable.
     __________________________________________________________________

SERMON VI.

  TITUS i. 1.

   --The acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness.

   3. THAT doctrine that asserts, that it is in men's power to
   supererogate, and to do works of perfection over and above what is
   required of them by way of precept, tends to the undermining and
   hinderance of a godly life. Works of evangelical perfection or
   supererogation are defined, such as a man may without sin not do, but,
   if he does them, they entitle him to a greater reward. Which assertion
   carries along with it this visible impiety, that a man is not obliged
   to do the utmost, in the way of holiness, that he can; for the law is
   the measure of men's obligation, and no man is obliged to any thing as
   his duty, but what the law obliges him to: but if it is in his power to
   do some sublime works of holiness, over and above what the law exacts
   of him, it clearly follows, that without sin he may omit the doing of
   them; for where there is no law there is no sin: and here we suppose
   the obligation of the law not to extend thus far.

   Now surely there can be no greater a stop to an active endeavour, than
   to state the proportions of men's duty less than the proportions of
   their strength and ability; and to assure them, that they do all that
   is necessary for them to do, though they do much less than they are
   able. It seems by this, that God does not call for all their strength
   and all their souls, but they have great reserves of both left entirely
   in their own disposal; nay, and those of much greater worth and
   excellence than what the law demands from them; since the doing of
   these advances them to an higher perfection, and prepares for them a
   greater and a brighter crown than all the rest of their obedience.

   But if this were so, how shall we make out the sense of those precepts
   that command us to strive to enter in at the strait gate; and to press
   forward to the mark of the prize of the high calling; and to use our
   utmost diligence to make our calling and election sure; that having
   done all, we may be able to stand; and the like. Certainly these are
   expressions that stretch endeavours to the highest, and determine in no
   less compass than the whole that a man by all the powers and faculties
   of his soul can perform.

   Nor can it avail the persons that we contend with to reply, that God
   vouchsafes us those assistances of grace, that are able to bear men
   beyond the lines of mere duty; for the dispensations of grace would,
   upon these terms, put us into the same condition of perfection, that we
   are to expect only in a state of glory. Grace indeed extinguishes the
   reign of sin, but it does not wholly extirpate the inherence of it as
   to all the remainders. It makes a man that he will not devote and give
   himself over to the practice of sin, but it does not wholly rescue him
   from the surprise of many infirmities.

   And were not these men fuller of pride than perfection, and more
   Pharisees than Christians, they would acknowledge so much, and let down
   those gaudy plumes of their high pretences of a double refined
   sanctity, upon the sight of their black feet and polluted goings. For
   surely they have not yet convinced the world of the feasibleness and
   truth of their propositions, by any manifest transcriptions of them
   upon their lives. But can these doctors style them selves angelical
   from any thing that they do, what soever they are pleased to teach? I
   cannot see but that a friar or a Jesuit is subject to the same passions
   and irregular motions that other men are. Nor can I perceive that their
   lives proceed in such a super natural strictness, and transcendency of
   piety, above the rest of the world. They should do well to prove their
   doctrines of perfection by instance and example; and to demonstrate
   that a thing may be done, by shewing that actually it has been done:
   but if they cannot, they should first acquit themselves in point of
   duty, before they flourish it with their supererogations; and think of
   paying their debts, before they go about to purchase.

   Besides, to assert that the perfection, commanded by the law, is less
   than the perfection that the power of man can raise itself to, seems an
   high imputation upon God's wisdom and holiness, as he is a legislator;
   the design of which must needs be to work up the creature to the
   highest conformity to himself, that a created nature is capable of. But
   he that, in stead of stretching himself to the latitude of the law,
   contracts the law to his own measures, will find that God, when he
   comes to deal with him, will have recourse to his own rule, and not
   correct a true original by a false copy.

   4. That doctrine that places it in the power of any mere mortal man to
   dispense with the laws of Christ, so as to discharge any man, in any
   case, from being obliged by them, is highly destructive of holy living:
   but so does the doctrine of the church of Rome, that vests such a
   dispensing power in the pope; by which they raise the pretended chair
   of St. Peter above the throne of Christ himself: for the sovereign
   power resides not so much in him that makes the law, as in him that is
   able to do with the law what he pleases when it is made, by either
   continuing or suspending the obligation of it. Christ indeed has given
   laws to his church; but when it is at the pope's pleasure, whether
   those laws shall oblige or not oblige, I leave it to the judgment of
   the meanest reason, who, in this case, must be accounted superior.

   The laws of men are dispensable, because the nature of them subjects
   them to the reason of dispensation; that is, because no human lawgiver
   is of that wisdom, as to provide against all future inconveniences in
   the constitution of laws, but that the observation of them may
   sometimes run men upon greater mischiefs, than the making of them was
   designed to prevent: but Christ was of that infinite wisdom and
   knowledge, as to enact laws of that universal compliance with all the
   conditions of man, that there can be no new, emergent inconvenience
   unforeseen by him, that should at any time make the obligation of them
   to cease.

   It is possible indeed, that the law may cease to oblige, upon the
   removal or want of the matter of the obligation. As it is every man's
   duty to give alms; but if a man has nothing, he can give nothing: and
   to communicate is a duty, but if the materials of the sacrament, bread
   and wine, cannot be had, to communicate is impossible, and so no man
   can be obliged to it: but still, in all this, there is no dispensation
   with either of these laws; for the impossibility of their performance
   makes them, to such persons, under such circumstances, cease to be
   laws. But a law is then properly dispensed with, when it is capable of
   being obeyed; and the person capable of yielding such obedience to it
   is yet, by an intervenient power, discharged from his obligation to
   obey: the former case is like fire's not burning, when it has no fuel,
   or matter, to fasten or prey upon; the latter is like the fire's not
   burning the three children in the furnace, when both the fire was in
   full force, and also a proper combustible subject offered to it; but,
   by the interposal of a divine power, it was hindered from exerting that
   burning quality upon that subject. So here, the law is in full force,
   and the person under it in a capacity to do the thing commanded by it;
   but the pope tells him, that he shall not be obliged to it, he will
   dispense with him; and so the labour of obeying is saved.

   But since bold encroachments seldom venture themselves without
   pretences, it concerns us to see what reason the pope assigns for his
   exercising such a power over the laws of Christ. Why his spiritual
   janizaries, the schoolmen and casuists, tell us, that where the
   observation of any command is impeditiva majoris boni, a stop and
   hinderance of a greater good than the non-observance of it would
   occasion, there the pope has power to dispense with the observation of
   that command, and to discharge men from it.

   As for instance: a man has bound himself with a lawful vow or oath, and
   accordingly proceeds to the execution of it; but the priest finds, that
   the greatness of their church would be considerably advantaged by this
   person's not observing his vow or oath, and accordingly persuades him
   to break it; but the man's conscience is solicitous and tender, and
   asks who shall warrant him in the breach of a lawful oath: hereupon the
   pope says that he will; and though the law of God and nature ties a man
   to the keeping of his oath, yet because the not keeping of it will
   minister to a greater good, namely, the advantage of the church, this
   is a sufficient reason for him to dispense with his oath: for answer to
   which, I would inquire, whether the command of keeping oaths and vows
   is not clear and express; and whether there can be any greater good,
   than to obey an express command of God. I demand also, supposing that
   the advancement of their church be indeed a greater good, yet, whether
   the intending of such a good can legitimate an action in its nature
   sinful? and whether the breach of a clear command be not such an one?
   When these questions receive a full and a satisfactory resolution, then
   may the conscience acquiesce in the pope's dispensation; but till then,
   it is safer to obey God in the precept, than man in the interpretation
   of it.

   And now, who is there that deserves the name of a Christian, whose
   heart does not rise against such horrid and impious usurpations upon
   the prerogative of Christ? such gross and open methods of promoting the
   course of sin? If a command of Christ thwart that which the pope, in
   the behalf of his own inter est, will judge a greater good, the command
   must stand back, and his dispensation take place. All such bands upon
   the conscience are like the withes, or the cords, upon Samson; they fly
   asunder like flax burnt with fire; they are of no force or efficacy at
   all. For as it is in the pope's power to dispense with a command, so it
   is also solely in his power to judge of the reason upon which he is to
   dispense with it; and we know that he is seldom the poorer for such
   dispensations.

   The truth is, he exposes the precepts of Christ to sale, and he that
   will bid most for the breach of a command shall carry it: which is such
   an intrenching upon all the offices of Christ, such an impudent
   defiance of that supremacy of which he pretends to be the vicar and
   substitute, that it is apparent that St. Peter's pretended successor
   sells Christ's power, as much as ever Judas did his person. Here is the
   making merchandise of religion, and with that of souls: here is the
   groundwork of indulgences, the quick market for pardons, by which the
   gospel, from the law of liberty, is turned into the instrument of
   licence; and the sure asylum for such as would live sinners, and yet
   die saints.

   And thus much for the doctrines that tend to the undermining of a pious
   life, by perverting the great rule of living, the law of Christ. I come
   now to the third sort, which,

   III. Are those that relate to repentance.

   This follows in order of nature; for after a law is broke, there is no
   recovery but by repentance; so that the depravation of the nature of
   this, is a sin against our last remedy; and he that, having
   transgressed the divine law, abuses his conscience with false rules of
   repentance, does like a man, that first by his intemperance brings
   himself into a disease, and then puts poison into his physic.

   Now the doctrine about repentance may be perverted in a double respect.

   1. In respect of the time of it.

   2. In respect of the measure.

   1. And first for the doctrine that states the time of repentance
   destructively to a pious life. And for this, it cannot but be very
   grievous and offensive to persons possessed with a real piety and sense
   of religion, to consider the assertions and positions of the Romish
   casuists touching this particular. Their answer to this question, When
   shall a sinner repent? is, in general, At any time whatsoever. Which
   indefinite assertion has by some been drawn out into particular
   determinate periods of time. As some affirm, that it is a man's duty to
   act repentance on the grand holydays, as Christmas, Whitsuntide, but
   especially at Easter. But others except against this as too severe, and
   say, that since God has not determined the time of repentance, we are
   to presume that the church also is so favourable as to leave it
   undetermined too: and therefore some blush not to state the matter
   thus; That the time in which a sinner is bound to repent, or to have
   contrition for his sins, is the article of imminent death, whether
   natural or violent. In a word, they say a man is bound to repent of his
   sins once; but when that once shall be, he may determine as he shall
   think fit.

   Before I come to examine these profane assertions, I shall carefully
   premise this observation; that in this whole matter we are by no means
   to confound the duty of repentance with the success or issue of
   repentance. For although it is not to be denied, that a man, having
   sinned, and afterwards defers his repentance for a long time, may yet,
   by the grace of God, repent savingly and effectually at last; yet this
   makes nothing for the proving that it was not that man's duty to have
   repented immediately upon the commission of his sin; and that every
   minute of such delay was not sinful. No man is to make the event of
   what he has done, the measure of what he ought to do. It is possible
   that a sinner may be converted, and turned to God, in the last year, or
   month, or perhaps day of his life; but, notwithstanding this, he
   sinned, in not being converted to God before.

   This premised by way of answer to the Romish casuists, I reply, that
   that sentence of the church, "At what time soever a sinner repenteth
   him of his sins, God will blot out his iniquities from before him,"
   speaks only of the consequent event and success of a true repentance,
   but determines nothing antecedently of the time in which that
   repentance is to be gin; which, in opposition to the foregoing
   blasphemies, we are undoubtedly to hold to be the very next instant
   after the commission of the sin: then is the time in which it is the
   duty of a sinner to repent; from that very moment there is an
   obligation upon him to recover himself by an hearty contrition and
   humiliation; and that I prove by this argument: Either a man is bound
   immediately to repent after he has sinned, or the impenitence remaining
   upon him in that subsequent portion of time is no sin; and if so, then,
   in case he should die in that time, he could not be chargeable before
   God for that impenitence. Chargeable indeed he would be for the sin he
   had committed; but for not repenting of that sin no charge could lie
   upon him. But this is an assertion of such barefaced, intolerable
   impiety, so directly contrary to the whole tenor of the gospel, that it
   can need no confutation.

   However, it is worth considering, to see upon what ground our
   adversaries have built their assertion. And it is briefly this, that
   God obliges a sinner to repentance, not properly as to a duty, but as
   to a punishment; and being so, from the strength of this maxim, that
   nobody is bound in conscience to undergo a punishment till he is
   condemned; and adding withal, that the day of danger, or approaching
   death, seems to be this arraignment and condemnation of a sinner; then
   they conclude, that, for his own security, it is incumbent upon him to
   submit to the penalty of repentance.

   But to this I answer, first, that this supposition, that repentance is
   properly a punishment, is, in a great measure, false. For repentance is
   properly the amendment of a man's life, and a passing from a state of
   sin to a state of holiness; but this is not a punishment, but a
   perfection and a privilege. It is indeed accompanied with afflictive
   actions, such as sorrow and remorse for past sins; but this is only by
   accident; because a man cannot recover himself to newness of life,
   without such sorrowful reflections upon what is past; otherwise, if
   amendment of life could be compassed without them, we should find that
   sorrow for sin was not the thing directly and chiefly intended in the
   precept of repentance.

   It is clear therefore, that repentance is not properly a punishment;
   but whether it were so or no, that which was argued before from the
   nature of it, and the sinfulness of impenitence, sufficiently evinces
   that the practice of it is to be immediate: no man can without sin
   defer it till the morrow, any more than to the year after, or to that,
   than to his death. For the words being indefinite, respect not one time
   more than another, and therefore the determination of the time must be
   fetched from the nature of the duty commanded in these words; which,
   since it determines for the present, it ought presently to be put in
   practice.

   Add to this, that every moment passing without repentance adds to the
   guilt and strength of sin unrepented of; which lies not idle or
   unactive, but fixes its possession deeper and deeper; the mind, by
   reflecting upon it with relish and complacency, grows into more
   intimate unions with it; so that, in effect, by the internal actions
   and approbations of the will, it is repeated and reacted without any
   external commission. There is nothing more absolutely destructive of
   the very designs of religion, than to stop a sinner in his return to
   God, by persuading his corrupt heart that he may prorogue that return
   with safety, and without any prejudice to his eternal concernments.
   Upon the best issue of things, it amounts to an exhortation to him to
   reap the pleasures of sin as long as he can; and then, at last, that he
   may not also reap the fruits of sin, to submit to repentance as a less
   evil, but not to choose it as a good. But whether he that has these
   notions of repentance is ever like to arrive to the truth of
   repentance, he alone knows, who knows whether he will give such an one
   another heart or no. The doctrine therefore of a deferred repentance is
   a mischievous and a devilish doctrine, and like to bring those that
   trust in it to the Devil.

   2. The next pernicious error about repentance relates to the measure of
   it. And here we will sup pose the Romish casuists to recede from the
   former error, and to be fully orthodox as to the time of repentance,
   and to enjoin it immediately. But then, what is the repentance that
   they enjoin? Is it such an one as changes the life and renews the
   heart? such an one as breaks the power and dominion of sin, and works
   an alteration in all the faculties and inclinations of the soul? No,
   this is too troublesome a task; they have a much shorter way: for
   unless they can put off their sins as easily as a man does his cloak,
   they had rather have them stay on. And therefore, placing the nature of
   repentance only in sorrow for sin, they distinguish this sorrow into
   two sorts: the first is contrition, which is a sorrow for sin conceived
   from the apprehension of its natural filth and contrariety to the pure
   nature of God; the other is attrition, which is any sorrow or remorse
   of the mind for sin conceived from the apprehension of the danger and
   misery like to be consequent upon it.

   Now, though they enjoin the former, and recommend it, yet not as
   absolutely necessary to the forgiveness of sins: for they hold, that a
   man dying with attrition, that is, a less sorrow, and commenced upon
   lower motives than the love of God, if attended with confession to the
   priest, and absolution from him, shall undoubtedly be saved. An
   assertion of such high venom and malignity, that it even opens the
   floodgates to all wickedness, and confirms men in a resolved pursuit of
   their sin, by securing them a passport to heaven and happiness upon
   those easy terms, that it is scarce possible for the vilest of sinners
   but they must come up to.

   For imagine a man, after threescore years' debauchery, laid at length
   upon his deathbed, without any hope of recovery, and then for the
   priest to ask him, whether he is not troubled for his sins, and whether
   he wishes not, that he had not committed those things that are like to
   pay him home with the wages of eternal death; the man, no doubt, under
   his present weariness of appetite and decay of body, can not be so much
   a stock, and unconcerned for himself, but that he can wish these things
   undone, of which he tastes no present pleasure, and for which he fears
   a future vengeance. Now if this, joined with their customary
   confession, shall be accounted by the priest a sufficient ground upon
   which to absolve him, and, upon his absolution, to warrant his
   salvation, I cannot see but that, upon this way of procedure, it is
   more difficult for a man to be damned than to be saved. For this whole
   act of attrition is not properly the sinner's being troubled that he
   has sinned, but that he is like to be damned for his sin; which for a
   man not to be troubled at, that carries human nature and sense about
   him, is impossible.

   This therefore is short of that which is itself short of repentance;
   that is, it is short of real sorrow for sin: and sorrow for sin
   (whatsoever some may imagine) is not repentance. It is indeed a part,
   or rather an adjunct of it, there being no true repentance without
   sorrow. But repentance is properly a man's engaging in a new course of
   life; not a weeping for sins past, but a vigorous resistance and
   mortification of sin for the future. The contrary opinion has
   undoubtedly deceived many, and betrayed them into that place, where
   they are repenting too late of the errors of their former repentance.
   Let no man account himself to have repented, who has not changed his
   life. And as the apostle says of circumcision and uncircumcision, so
   say I here, that neither mourning for sin, or confession of it, avail
   any thing, but a new creature. And truly, he that will hope for life
   upon other terms, must do it by a new gospel.

   And thus I have traversed those pestilential doctrines, that, like
   worms, He gnawing at the root of all godliness; doctrines, that only
   purvey for licentiousness. And I dare avouch, that, if these carry in
   them the true sense of Christian religion, a man may, with full and
   perfect compliance with the rules of Christianity, make as plentiful a
   provision for the gratification of his corrupt desires, as if he were a
   mere atheist or epicure. And therefore I wonder not that many pass from
   our church to the church of Rome; for being sick in conscience, and yet
   impatient to undergo the rigours of a thorough cure, they are willing
   to make up all with a skinning plaster, and to relieve their minds upon
   as easy terms as they can. And of this they cannot fail in the church
   of Rome, which has contrived her doctrine to a perfect agreement with
   all interests and dispositions: so that to frame and bend all
   discourses of divinity to the humours and corruptions of men, is with
   them religion, as with us it is, for the most part, accounted prudence.

   I have now finished the third and last conclusion drawn from the words;
   namely, That whatsoever does in itself or its direct consequences
   undermine the motives of a good life, is contrary to and destructive of
   Christian religion.

   The improvement of all that has been delivered shall lie in these two
   things.

   1. To convince us how highly it concerns all, but especially the most
   knowing, to try the doctrines that they believe, and to let inquiry
   usher in faith.

   It is noted of the Bereans, Acts xvii. 11, as a sign of a generous and
   noble spirit, that they would search and sift the nature of the things
   that were delivered to them; for it is sifting that separates the flour
   from the bran, the precious from the vile. Error is a thing that does
   not always discover itself to the first view; it is often fair as well
   as deceitful; and therefore that understanding that will sell its
   assent to first appearances is in danger of the snare, and to mistake
   an imposture for an oracle. An error may look speciously in a
   principle, which will betray ugliness enough in the consequences. It
   may be honey in the mouth, and wormwood in the belly; delicious to the
   first apprehensions, but found destructive upon after inquiry and
   experiment.

   He that embraces and believes a truth, if he does it without trial,
   owes the Tightness of his judgment not to understanding, but chance.
   But truth is too great a prize to be the reward of laziness. God never
   made it but for the trophy of a laborious and a searching intellect. No
   man can rationally build upon an implicit faith, that is, upon
   another's knowledge, but he that has given his name to that church,
   which allows a man to be saved by other men's righteousness. We are
   commanded to try all things; and therefore certainly that thing that is
   worth all the rest. In a word, since truth is the way to happiness, and
   since there is no promise of finding but to him that seeks; he that
   will not be at the trouble to seek out the way, does not deserve to
   attain the end.

   2. As what has been delivered convinces us of the necessity of trying
   all doctrines; so it suggests also the sure marks by which we may try
   them.

   1. As first negatively; it is not the pleasingness or suitableness of a
   doctrine to our tempers or interests, that can vouch it to be true. Men
   often times believe things to be so, because they would have them so;
   and the judgment is strangely induced to yield its assent to any
   assertion that shall gratify the affections. But my profit or my
   pleasure are very incompetent guides of my conscience; very unfit
   casuists to resolve questions. Truth is a thing that usually carries
   with it too great a severity to correspond with our pleasures. It lies
   in the rough paths of duty and difficulty, things wonderfully opposite
   to the delights of pleasure and sensuality, and made to please, not in
   themselves, but in their effects and consequences. No man thinks a
   thing too pleasant or too profitable; but many will hereafter find that
   some things are too true.

   2. The commonness, and the general or long reception of a doctrine, is
   not a sufficient argument of the truth of it. This relies upon the
   former consideration, that the suitableness of any doctrine does not
   evince it to be true; but it is certain, that doctrines are oftentimes
   generally received, because they are suitable, and serve an interest:
   witness most of those that are held in the church of Rome; they were
   introduced by fraud, and continued by force: for there is something of
   pleasure or profit in the bottom of almost every one of them.

   But falsity does not cease to be falsity, by having the good fortune to
   be generally believed a truth; any more than a plague ceases to be a
   plague, by spreading itself over all places. It is indeed the more
   dangerous and formidable, and so may be more hardly conquered, but for
   the very same cause it is to be the more earnestly opposed.

   Neither does long continuance sufficiently commend a doctrine; for it
   is possible that it may be no more than agedness of error, and no gray
   hairs can make that venerable. The impostures of Mahomet have lasted
   now a thousand years; and should they last a thousand more, they would
   be as false as they were at their first beginning. Age alters the
   circumstance, but not the nature of things.

   3. It is not the godliness or virtue of the preacher or asserter of any
   doctrine, that is a sure mark of the truth of it; for godliness makes
   no man infallible. It is possible that a man may think a principle true
   or pious, which, in its consequences, may be false or impious; because
   he has not force of reason enough to discern all the conclusions into
   which a proposition may be improved.

   It is the infelicity of truth, and the great hinderance both of science
   and religion, that the greatness or goodness of some persons should
   imprint the same authority upon their words. And error has never such
   an advantage to prevail and insinuate, as when it is propagated by a
   person of reputation for wisdom or piety. It has been observed, that
   most heretics have been such; by virtue whereof they have conveyed
   their poison to the world success fully. And our own schismatics took
   the same course; for had they not gained such an opinion for sanctity
   with the rout, they could not have countenanced and christened all
   those black villainies that were acted in the late rebellion.

   But a doctrine is to be tried by its consequences; as a way is to be
   chosen or shunned, according as the end is to which it leads. It
   concerns every man to preserve his reason from fallacy and deception;
   and it makes no alteration of his case, that he was deceived by an
   authentic hand, any more than it is a comfort to a man dying by an
   infection, that he caught it of a great and honourable person.

   But if a doctrine naturally tends to promote the fear of God in men's
   hearts, to engage them in the prosecution of virtuous courses, to
   persuade them to be sober, pious, temperate, charitable, and the like;
   it carries with it the mark and impress of the great eternal truth; and
   so is no more capable of being a lie, than a He is capable of being
   good; or than God, the fountain of truth and goodness, is capable of
   being contrary to himself.
     __________________________________________________________________

SERMON VII.

  PROVERBS xxix. 5.

   A man that flattereth his neighbour , spreadeth a net for his feet.

   HE that shall set himself to fight against a custom, will find that the
   match is not equal; and that by speaking against a generally received
   practice, he only treads the dry paths of duty, without any reward or
   recompence, but only to be slighted for his pains. But since neither
   custom nor credit must authorize a vice so far, as to set it out of the
   preacher's reach; surely an ill practice may be very safely and
   discreetly reprehended, while, in the mean time, persons are spared.

   That which the text here offers for the subject of this discourse, is
   flattery; a thing condemned by the mouth of one who could very well
   judge, as being a king, and therefore experimentally acquainted with
   the ways and arts of flatterers; a sort of cattle that usually herd in
   the courts of princes and the houses of great persons.

   The words of the text are so plain, that they can need no explication,
   and therefore I shall immediately fall upon the prosecution of the
   matter contained in them, which I shall manage under these three
   general heads.

   I. I shall shew what flattery is, and wherein it does consist.

   II. I shall shew the grounds and occasions of it on his part that is
   flattered.

   III. I shall shew the ends and designs of it on his part that flatters.

   I. And first for the first of these, what flattery is. It surely must
   be a very difficult thing to bring it under any certain description,
   the very nature and property of it being to put on all forms and
   shapes, according to the exigence of the occasion: as it is reported of
   a creature called a polypus, that it still assumes the exact colour of
   that thing to which it cleaves. And therefore he that would paint
   flattery must draw a picture of all colours, and frame an universal
   face, indifferent to any particular aspect whatsoever. But though we
   cannot reach all the varieties of it, we may yet endeavour to give some
   account of those general ways in which it does exercise and shew
   itself.

   1. The first is the concealing or dissembling of the defects or vices
   of any person. Indeed to publish a man's defects to others is malice,
   but to declare them to himself is friendship and sincerity; for it is
   to awake him out of his sleep when his house is afire, and to tell him
   that he is under a distemper that may prove mortal, if not prevented by
   timely applications: but flattery is like that devil mentioned in the
   gospel, that is both blind and dumb; it will pretend not to see faults,
   and if it does, it will be sure not to reprove them; a temper of all
   others the most base, cruel, and unchristian: for it declares a man
   unconcerned in the misery and calamity of his brother, such an one as
   will not put himself to the expense of a word, to recover a perishing
   soul from the mouth of ruin and damnation. It shews him to be void of
   compassion, the bond of converse and all society.

   It is indeed, in the estimation of the world, accounted a piece of
   prudence, to let things go as they will, without interposing to
   interrupt or alter their course: and no question but if a man,
   according to our modern politics, makes himself the sole centre of all
   his actions, and thinks upon nothing but the improving and securing his
   private interest, it is the safest and most prudential course to stand
   still and say nothing, though he sees never so many destroying
   themselves round about him. But had the world heretofore acted by those
   principles that pass for prudence nowadays, perhaps it would not have
   stood so long as it has; for had no man espoused the cause of the
   public, nor thought himself at all obliged, upon the common accounts of
   humanity, to contribute to the good and advantage of others, men could
   never have united or embodied; or being once embodied, and gathered
   into corporations, they must presently again have been scattered and
   dissolved; there being (upon supposition of that temper that we have
   been discoursing of) no common cement to bind and hold them together.

   Now this is the only ground upon which the flatterer's silence can be
   accounted prudence; but unless to be base is to be prudent, I suppose
   it will have another esteem with those who are the most competent
   judges of such things. It is indeed a pest and a disease, and so to be
   looked upon and detested by those minds that have the least tincture of
   virtue and generosity. It breeds only in narrow, paltry, self-serving
   spirits, that lie upon the catch, and make this their whole design, to
   enjoy the world, and to live to themselves.

   But now, as to be silent of men's defects and vices is a piece of
   flattery, and flattery a degenerous and unworthy thing; yet, that all
   people may not promiscuously think themselves called upon to reprove
   and declare against whatsoever they see amiss in others, and so mistake
   that for charity and duty, which is indeed nothing else but sauciness
   and impertinence, it will be convenient to shew,

   1. First, who they are that are concerned to speak in this case.

   2. The manner how they are to speak.

   And first for the persons: I conceive they may be brought under these
   three sorts:

   1. First such as are intrusted with the government of others. All
   government makes the actions and behaviour of him that is governed, in
   some sense, the actions and behaviour of him that governs: and
   consequently a governor is as really obliged to observe and regulate
   what is done by those that are under him, as what he does himself. And
   therefore as no man is to flatter himself, so neither is such an one to
   flatter others. No man is to be abused into a destructive persuasion,
   that his vices are virtues, and his faults perfections; which without
   an impartial discovery will certainly follow, from that opinion that
   self-love begets in every man of his own actions, though never so ugly
   and irregular. He that says nothing of the miscarriages of a person
   under his government betrays a trust, and forgets, that as every father
   is a governor, so every governor ought, in some respect, to be a
   father: and surely no father will suffer a son to perish, only for want
   of telling him that he is like to perish; if he does, God will require
   his blood at his hands, which will be but a sad reckoning, where the
   relation shall redouble the murder.

   2. The second sort of persons, to whom it belongs to tax and take
   notice of miscarriages, are those who are intrusted with the guidance
   and direction of others; such as are persons set apart to the work of
   the ministry. It may possibly be looked upon as a piece of presumption
   to say, that they are to guide or to direct, who of all men are
   accounted the most ignorant and impertinent; yet such is their
   unhappiness, that the sins of those that think themselves much wiser,
   if not reproved and testified against by them, will be charged by God
   upon their score. That preacher that shuts his eyes and his mouth where
   he sees a bold and a reigning vice, prevaricates with his profession,
   and deserves to be removed from it by some remarkable judgment from
   Heaven, for being too wise to discharge his duty.

   He is silent, it seems, for fear of interrupting a great sinner's
   repose. The galled conscience must not be touched, for fear the beast
   should kick, and do him a shrewd turn.

   And therefore there must not be a word cast out, that may so much as
   border upon a reprehension, or but hint his sin to his suspicion; for
   if that takes fire, so as to make him worry, and at length ruin the
   preacher, all the pity he shall find, for being faithful so much to his
   own disadvantage, shall be to be upbraided for want of experience, and
   for not knowing men. However this and a much sharper calamity cannot
   take off the obligation that Christ and Christianity has laid upon
   every preacher of the word. And it is to be feared, that God may, some
   time or other, silence those, who have in this manner first silenced
   themselves.

   3. The third sort of persons to whom this duty belongs are those that
   profess friendship. Every man is to challenge this as a debt from his
   friend, to be told impartially of his faults: and whosoever for bears
   to do it, fails in the highest office of kindness. For to what purpose
   does a man take another into that intimacy as to make him in a manner
   his second conscience, if he will not be bold and impartial, and do the
   office of conscience, by excusing or accusing, according as he has done
   well or ill? Two things are required in him that shall undertake to
   reprove another; a confidence in, and a kindness to the person whom he
   reproves: both which qualifications are eminently to be found in every
   real friend. For who should a man confide in, if not in himself? and
   who should he be kind to, if not to himself? and is it not a saying as
   true as it is common, that every friend is another self?

   But is it possible that that man should truly love me, that leaves me
   unguarded and unassisted, when the weakness and inadvertency of my own
   mind would expose me with all my indecencies and imperfections to the
   observation and derision of the world? No; it is the nature of love to
   cover a multitude of sins; which are by no way so effectually concealed
   and covered from the eyes of others, as by being faithfully discovered
   and laid open to him who commits them.

   It puts him upon his defence, and upon all the arts of securing
   himself, by watching and criticising upon his own behaviour: it arms
   him with caution and recollection, and so frees him from the great est
   evil in the world; which is confidence in the midst of folly: a quality
   that destroys wheresoever it abides; that unfits a man for
   conversation, deprives him of all respect; and, in a word, is the only
   thing that can make his enemies formidable, and, in all their attempts
   against him, successful.

   And thus I have shewn who the persons are to whom it belongs to
   discover and to reprove faults: but since, though the work is fitted to
   the person, there may still be a fault in the manner, we shall, in the
   next place, see how these reprehensions are to be managed: concerning
   which I shall set down these rules.

   1. First, let the reproof, if possible, be given in secret; for the
   design of it is not to blazon the crime, but to amend the person. Let
   it not be before malicious witnesses, such as shall more enjoy the
   man's shame, than hate his vice. The publication of a miscarriage,
   instead of reforming the offender, may possibly make him desperate or
   impudent; either to despond under the burden of his infamy, or to
   harden his forehead like a flint, and resolve to out face and outbrave
   it; neither of which are like to conduce any thing to the purposes of
   virtue, or to promote the person's recovery.

   Shame indeed is a notable instrument to deter a man from vicious and
   lewd practices, but then it is not shame as it is actually endured, but
   as it is yet feared; for the endurance of it puts an end to the fear;
   and if the man is of a bold and a daring temper, is like to make him
   ten times more a wretch and a villain than he was before: for now he
   thinks he has felt the worst of his crime, and so lies under no check,
   as to its further progress.

   But such is partly the malice, partly the unskilfulness of most
   persons, in their taxing the faults of others, that the man that is
   most concerned in the report perhaps comes to hear of it last; it being
   first communicated to another, and so, through many hands, is at length
   conveyed to him: or peradventure it is at the very first proclaimed
   upon the house top; so that the man, instead of being gradually
   reduced, is at once blown up and undone; and this is all the charity
   and discretion of some reprovers.

   But the method prescribed by Christ is very different. Has thy brother
   offended thee? first tell him his fault between him and thee; and if
   that prevail not, then take unto thee a witness; but if neither this
   will do any thing, then tell it him before two or three witnesses: and
   at last, upon contempt of all these, then bring it to the church. All
   which excellent proceeding consists of so many steps of prudence and
   humanity; of tenderness to our brother's reputation, as well as to his
   soul; and of his comforts in this world, as well as of his salvation in
   the next: a course worthy the imitation of all, but especially those
   who are to study the great wisdom of winning souls.

   The vices of most natures have in them this property of the dirt, that
   the sight of the sun hardens, but never dissolves them. When the crime
   is made public, the criminal thinks it not worth while to retreat. His
   ignominy is now in the mouths and memory of all men, and so not to be
   cancelled or brought into oblivion by any after-practices of virtue or
   regularity of living.

   The end of every reproof is remedy; but to shame a man is revenge; and
   such an one as the bitterest adversary in the world cannot act a
   sharper or a more remorseless: and therefore the church of Rome, which
   practises and requires confession of sins to the priest, thinks no
   penalty too severe to be inflicted upon that confessor that should
   disclose any thing revealed to him in confession. A practice most wise
   and charitable; and though used by them perhaps upon grounds of policy,
   yet to be enforced in the like instances upon the highest accounts of
   religion.

   For it is a piece of inhuman barbarity to afflict a man, but in order
   to his consequent good; and I have shewn, that the publication of a
   man's shame, that might otherwise be concealed, can contribute nothing
   to the making of him better. It may sink his spirit or exasperate his
   vice; but any other effect upon him it can have none. A sore is never
   to be ripped up, but in order to its cure.

   2. Let a reproof be managed with due respect to, and distinction of the
   condition of the person that is to be reproved. He that at any time
   comes under the unhappy necessity of reprehending his superior, ought
   so to behave himself, that he may appear to acknowledge him his
   superior no less in the reproof, than in the most solemn acts of
   reverence and sub mission; for religion teaches no man to be rude or
   uncivil, nor takes away the difference of persons and the inequality of
   states and conditions, but commands a proportion of respect suitable to
   all: and he that reproves a prince or a great person in the same manner
   that he would a peasant, or his equal and companion, shews that he is
   acted rather by the spirit of a Scotch presbytery, than of Christ. But
   such perhaps will defend themselves with the example of the prophet
   Elijah reviling Ahab and Jezebel, and so, baptizing the intemperance of
   their tongues with the name of zeal, bear themselves for persons of an
   heroic spirit comparable to the old prophets. But persons that pretend
   this, ought to satisfy the world that they act by the same
   extraordinary commission from heaven that Elijah did, and withal to do
   the miracles that Elijah did, for the proving of that commission;
   otherwise it will not be sufficient for them, that they shew wonders of
   incivility and ill behaviour.

   All persons called to the ministry are undoubtedly commissioned by
   Christ to bear witness to the truth, by testifying against the
   enormities of the greatest as well as of the meanest sinners; but no
   man's particular personal indiscretion is any part of his commission.
   It is possible indeed that it may, nay, very certain that it will make
   the execution of it very useless and ineffectual to most of the great
   purposes to which Christ designed it; for truth unseasonably and
   unmannerly proposed comes with a disadvantage, and is in danger to
   miscarry through the unskilfulness of the proposer: and as we say of
   some commentators and interpreters of scripture, that the text had been
   clearer, had they not expounded, or, indeed, rather exposed it; so it
   is like that some persons had not been so vicious and lewd, to the
   degree of incorrigible, had not their vice and lewdness been
   indiscreetly reproved; for that has made them bid defiance to virtue,
   and turn their backs upon the reproof; imputing (by an unjust in deed,
   but yet by an usual inference) the faults of the person upon the office
   and the religion; in which case the reprover shall, before God, share
   the of fender's guilt; for that finding him sinful, he made him
   obstinate and impenitent; and so confirmed the beginnings of sin into a
   resolved, settled impiety.

   I question not, but it had been very lawful for Abraham to have
   reproved his father's idolatry, and to have declared and represented
   the unreasonableness of such a worship to him. But yet while he was
   doing so, I cannot believe that he was in the least discharged from the
   eternal obligation of the law of nature, exacting a due honour to be
   paid to parents: for a true doctrine could never have excused an
   undutiful behaviour.

   With what humility, reverence, and distance did Daniel reprove
   Belshazzar! Though a most impious, insulting heathen, and one that had
   but newly, in a drunken revel, even spit in the face of the God of
   heaven, by a profanation of the sacred vessels of the temple amongst
   his unhallowed parasites and concubines; yet he did not fly in his
   face, or call him profane or sacrilegious prince, and tell him that
   divine vengeance would pay him home for his insolence and
   unthankfulness to God. No; Daniel did not speak as some, that nowadays
   pretend to interpret, utter themselves to princes. But after he had
   recounted the signal mercies and judgments of God upon his father
   Nebuchadnezzar, all the reproof he gives him runs in these gentle and
   sober words, chap. v. 22. And thou his son, O Belshazzar, hast not
   humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this. For undoubtedly, had
   he been sharp and peremptory, Belshazzar, a prince of that haughty and
   arrogant spirit, would never have sent him out of his presence clothed
   with scarlet, and with a gold chain about his neck. No; it is like he
   had been loaded with another kind of chain, and, perhaps, worn a
   scarlet died with his own blood. But prudence and submission made his
   reproof acceptable and his person honourable.

   Great ones, whose state and power makes their will absolute and
   formidable, must, for the most part, be pleased before they can be
   convinced; and therefore must be brought to love before they will obey
   the truth. Upon which account it is infinitely vain to cast the issue
   and success of persuasion upon the sole force of truth or virtue
   addressing itself to the mind, with all its severities bare and
   unqualified by a winning behaviour in him that is to persuade. He that
   presumes upon the mere efficacy of truth, forgets that men have
   affections to be caressed, as well as understandings to be informed;
   which is the reason, that a reprehension can never be grateful to
   persons of high place, but as it comes disguised with ceremony, and
   attended with all the expressions and demonstrations of honour and due
   respect; all which will be found little enough to keep them from
   thinking themselves affronted, while they are only faithfully
   admonished; and from throwing back an unpleasing truth in the teeth of
   him that brings it.

   What men's pride and ill-nature may carry them to, is not in the
   preacher's power to remedy or prevent; only it concerns him, that the
   reproof which men's sins have made necessary should not, by any failure
   of duty on his part, be made ineffectual. God has not made it a virtue
   in any man to have no respect of persons: and therefore let him that
   shall call upon princes and Caesars to give God his due, beware that he
   do it with that homage as not to bereave Caesar of his due;
   remembering, that if he that reproves is God's ambassador, yet he that
   is reproved is God's vicegerent; and that there is nothing in the world
   that more highly deserves reproof, than a pragmatical and absurd
   reprover.

   3. Let him that reproves a vice, as much as is possible, do it with
   words of meekness and commiseration. Let the reprehension come not as a
   dart shot at the offender's person, but at his crime. Let a man
   reprehend so, that it may appear that he wishes that he had no cause to
   reprehend. Let him behave himself in the sentence that he passes, as we
   may imagine a judge would behave himself, if he were to condemn his own
   son, brought as a criminal before him; that is, with the greatest
   reluctancy and trouble of mind imaginable, that he should be brought
   under the necessity of such a cruel accident, as to be forced to speak
   words of death to him, whose life he tenders more passionately than his
   own.

   Now this being the temper and disposition that is required in a
   reprover, it easily appears, that nothing can be more deformed and
   uncharitable than scoffs and bitter sarcasms thrown at a poor guilty
   person; than to insult over his calamity, and to seem, as it were, to
   taste and relish his distress. A jeering reprover is like a jeering
   judge, than which there cannot be imagined, either in nature or
   manners, a thing more odious and intolerable. And therefore the Roman
   orator, discoursing of sceptical urbanity, or jesting, how far it was
   allowable in speeches and pleadings, lays down an excellent rule, fit
   to be owned by the most Christian charity, that two things were by no
   means to be made the subject of jest; namely, great crimes and great
   miseries; for if these be made the matter of our mirth, what can be the
   argument of our sorrow? There is something in them at which nature
   shrinks and is aggrieved; so that it beholds them with horror and
   uneasiness: and nothing but a very ill mind, improved by a very ill
   custom, can frame itself to pleasant apprehensions upon such occasions;
   for that any man should be merry, because another has offended God, or
   undone himself, is certainly a thing very unnatural.

   But then further; as reproofs are not to be managed with bitter and
   scurrilous reflections upon the offender, so neither is the offence
   itself to be aggravated by higher and blacker expressions, than the
   nature of the thing or the necessity of the occasion requires. He that
   is to reprove is to remember, that his business is not to declaim and
   shew his parts, but to work a cure. And some actions are so confessedly
   lewd, that but to hint them to the offender is sufficient to cover him
   with shame and sad remembrances, without a morose and particular
   insisting upon the description of their vileness; which being to tell
   the guilty person no more than what he knew before, cannot properly
   serve to in form, but only to upbraid and afflict him; which is none of
   the works of charity, as every reprehension ought to be.

   David was not to be informed of the enormity of the sins of murder and
   adultery, and to have long harangues made before him, to aggravate and
   set forth their filthiness; and therefore, when the prophet Nathan was
   to bring him a reproof from heaven, and to call him to repentance, we
   see with what insinuations and arts of gentleness he does it; he
   represents the injustice and unreasonableness of what he had done in a
   parallel case, leaving him to make the application; by which, having
   brought him to the confession of his sin, he does not presently fill
   his ears with tragical exclamations about the impiety and grossness of
   it, both in respect of the person that committed it, and the persons
   upon whom it was committed; a work fitter for a schoolmaster than a
   prophet; but he answers his confession with a declaration of pardon,
   seconded only with a gentle item, or admonition; The Lord has done away
   thy sin; thou shalt not die: howbeit, by this deed thou hast given
   great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. Nothing could
   have been spoke more gently, and yet more forcibly, to melt him down
   into a penitential sorrow for, and an abhorrence of those two foul
   deviations from the law of God. But there is a sort of men in the
   world, pretending to a degree of purity and acquaintance with the mind
   of God above other mortals, that upon such an opportunity would have
   called up all their spleen and poison, and have reviled him at least
   two hours by the clock; and could no more have refrained doing so, than
   they could have held their breath so long.

   Before I pass from this rule of managing reproofs with words of
   meekness, candour, and compassion; I cannot but think this also
   necessary to be added, that they are to be managed without
   superciliousness, and a certain spiritual arrogance, by which the
   reprover looks upon the guilty person with disdain, in comparison of
   that higher measure of holiness and perfection, that upon this account
   he presumes to be in himself. But this is for pride to reprehend other
   vices, which perhaps, in the sight of God, carry a much less guilt.

   He that has a criminal and a vicious person under his reproof, should
   speak as one that thankfully ascribes it to God's mere grace, that he
   is not as bad himself, having the same nature, and the same natural
   corruptions, to betray him to all the evil and villainy that can be, if
   God should but desert and leave him to his own strength. By this means
   he treats the offender as his equal, his brother, and naturally
   standing upon the same ground, the vantage being entirely from divine
   favour; of which a man may have cause to be glad indeed, but no cause
   to boast.

   For let that proud pharisee that shall reprove a publican with words of
   insultation and boasting, that he is not such an one as he, tell me how
   he knows, that, had he been placed under the same circumstances and
   opportunities of sin, he should not have been prevailed upon to do the
   same for which, with so much arrogance, he reproves or rather baits
   another. Was it not the mercy of Providence, that cast the scene of his
   life out of the way of temptation? that placed the flax and the stubble
   out of the reach of the fire? And what cause has he then to be bitter
   and insolent upon him, that God thought fit to deny these advantages
   to, though otherwise of no worse mould or make, or less merit than
   himself?

   But this is not to be passed by, that, as God most peculiarly and
   directly hates such an arrogant disposition, as is apt to crow and
   insult over the failings and lapses of others; so it is ten to one but
   that, some time or other, he lets loose some fierce temptation upon
   such an one, and leaves him so far to himself, that he falls foully and
   scandalously, to the perpetual abasement of his pride, and the infamy
   of his person; in which case, all the daggers that he threw at others
   are, with greater force and sharpness, returned upon his own breast,
   where formerly there dwelt so little compassion to his offending
   brother.

   And therefore, surely, I should think it concerned every one, about to
   reprove any vicious persons what soever, first to allay his spirit, and
   to compose himself to mildness and moderation, with that excellent
   admonition of the apostle, Gal. vi. 1, If a man be overtaken in a
   fault, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness, considering
   thyself, lest thou also be tempted. And believe it, it will be but an
   uncomfortable revolution, when he that once bore himself high upon his
   innocence, and then shewed no mercy upon others, shall come to have the
   same need of mercy himself.

   4. The fourth and last rule that I shall mention, for the completing of
   our direction about this duty, is, that a reproof be not continued or
   repeated, after amendment of that which occasioned the reproof. For
   this is both malicious and useless; malicious, because it renews a
   man's torment, and revives his calamity; and then useless, because the
   man is al ready reformed.

   Pardon is still to be accompanied with oblivion; not that it is in our
   power to forget a thing when we will; but it is in our power to behave
   ourselves as if we had forgot it; with that friendliness of address,
   that unconcernment of speech, that openness and respect of carriage
   that we use to persons that never did those actions which others have
   only left off to do.

   But to be still sarcastically reminding of a penitent amended person of
   his former miscarriages, which perhaps stand cancelled in heaven, and
   even blotted out of the book of God's remembrance; it is like the
   breaking open of graves, to rake out bones and putrefaction, and argues
   not only an unchristian, but an inhuman, wolfish disposition.

   Let this suffice to render every such person inexcusable to himself,
   that he would not endure to wish that either God or man should deal so
   by him; and if so, there can be no such true and infallible
   demonstration of his baseness, as the impartial measure of this rule.

   And thus much for the first thing, wherein flattery does consist;
   namely, the concealing and not reproving the defects and faults of
   obnoxious persons; which, understood with those due limitations hither
   to laid down, will be able to keep him, whose place or condition may at
   any time call him to this work, both from a sordid, undutiful silence
   on one hand, and from a saucy, meddling, bitter impertinence on the
   other.
     __________________________________________________________________

SERMON VIII.

  PROVERBS xxix. 5.

   A man that flattereth his neighbour spreadeth a net for his feet.

   2. THE second thing wherein flattery consists is, the praising and
   defending the defects or vices of any person. This is a step much
   higher than the first, which was (as we may so call it) the negative
   part of flattery, as consisting only in silence, and a not reproving
   those things that both deserved and needed reproof. And as it goes
   higher, so it is much more inexcusable, and uncapable of those
   apologies that may be alleged, though not in justification, yet at
   least in mitigation of the former. For partly the timorousness, partly
   the bashfulness of some tempers, (affections not always at our
   command,) may silence the tongue, and seal up the lips from uttering
   those things which the mind and judgment frequently suggests upon these
   occasions. A man may be sometimes even dazzled and astonished into
   silence by the presence of some glistering sinners; so as to be at a
   loss both for words and confidence to vent those reproofs that fill the
   conscience, and are even struggling to break forth. Certain it is, that
   this or any other consideration can by no means warrant a silence
   there, where religion bids a man cry aloud; nor can any one plead his
   modesty in prejudice of his duty: yet surely there is something at
   least pleadable upon this account, for the bare not-reproof of a sin,
   that can with no face be urged for its defence.

   For pusillanimity must first pass into a prostitute impudence, before a
   man can arrive to that pitch as to vouch himself the encomiast of sin,
   and to speak panegyrics upon vice: many a man may favour a malefactor,
   and wish his crime concealed or passed over, who yet would never endure
   to be his advocate. It is one thing for a man to shut his eyes, and so
   resolve not to see that which is black; an other for him, with an open
   eye and a shameless front, to affirm black to be white; and to
   undertake to persuade the world so much.

   But so does he that attempts the commendation of any thing lewd or
   vicious: he transforms the Devil into an angel of light: he confounds
   the distinction of those things that God has set at an infinite
   distance: he outfaces the common judgment of sense and reason, and the
   natural, unforced apprehensions of mankind.

   And though one would think that there is that commanding majesty in
   truth, as even to awe men into an acknowledgment of things to be as
   really they are, and generally do appear; and withal that ingenuity
   bred in every breast, as not to own any broad defiance of the clearest
   evidence: yet experience shews, that there is a sort of men in the
   world, that have wrought themselves to that hardiness, as to venture to
   tell one that has done passionately and rashly, that he did
   courageously and discreetly; that shall applaud him in all his follies;
   assuring him, that if men speak amiss of his behaviour, it is rather
   upon the account of envy and malice to his person, than any real
   disapprobation of his actions; and that he is not to measure himself by
   the words of his adversaries, that speak their prejudice, not their
   judgment; oftentimes valuing that inwardly which they inveigh against
   outwardly, and cherishing that in themselves, that they tax and
   discommend in him.

   They shall tell him further, that though possibly such and such actions
   were faulty, and unbecoming in others, yet the difference of his
   condition alters the case, and changes the very quality of the action.
   For what should a great person have to do with humility? or the rich
   and the wealthy with temperance, industry, and sobriety? Why should a
   states man or politician restrain himself to the punctilios of truth
   and sincerity? These are the virtues of mean employments and lower
   minds; they may perhaps be commendable in country gentlemen and
   farmers, but persons that move in an higher sphere, must have a greater
   latitude and compass for their motion; and it were infinite weakness
   and inexperience to stick at a lie or an oath, or the taking away an
   innocent life, when reason of state requires it, and so unshackles its
   ministers from the bonds of those nice rules that are to hold and
   direct other mortals.

   And if these actions have a cleanly and a successful issue, they shall
   certainly find sycophants enough to extol them for the greatest
   prudence and wisdom that in such grand and difficult affairs could be
   shewn: they shall at least be vouched necessary, and consequently
   lawful, or as good; and the authors of such actions seldom seek for or
   desire any further warrant for them than necessity, though it be of
   their own making.

   But that people may not be wicked without some plea or pretence to
   cover and protect them from being thought so, there has a very
   serviceable distinction been found out and asserted by some, between a
   religious and a political conscience, in every one that is a governor;
   the former is to guide him as such a particular person, having a soul
   to save; the other to rule and direct him, as a person intrusted with
   the good, safety, and protection of those that are under his
   government, and consequently empowered to use all those courses that
   serve as means absolutely necessary to compass such an end: which two
   capacities, as they are very different, so it seems that they cannot
   both proceed by the same rule. Forasmuch as a governor, in many
   junctures and circumstances of affairs, cannot reach the ends of
   government, in protecting and se curing his people, but by sometimes
   having recourse to those ways and actions that perhaps are not
   allowable upon the strict rules and measures of religion, which, if
   rigidly and unseasonably adhered to in such instances, may possibly
   throw all into ruin and confusion.

   For answer to which: it is not for me to inter pose in what concerns
   government and governors; it has its mystery, and those that manage it
   are to be presumed best to understand it: but as for this distinction
   between a religious and a political conscience, I shall make bold to
   give it its due, in saying, that in all those cases in which it comes
   to be practised, it subverts religion. For to affirm that there is any
   capacity or condition of man, of which religion is not a competent
   rule, is to make it a rule infinitely short and insufficient, as to the
   guidance and direction of the manners and actions of man kind; the
   great end for which God designs it.

   Besides the gross absurdity of placing the same man under two contrary
   rules; which is to bring him under two contrary duties; and to make him
   at the same time obliged to do a thing, and yet upon another score
   discharged from that obligation; which is a ridiculous contradiction.

   Many things indeed are distinguished in speculation, that perfectly
   coincide, and are inseparably the same in practice. And though it is
   not to be denied, that the capacity of a man and of a governor differ
   in apprehension; forasmuch as to be a man and to be a governor are not
   the same thing: yet when we come to behold those two capacities, as
   they really exist in nature, we shall find, that what is done by one is
   also done by the other, and what befalls one consequentially befalls
   the other. If the governor sins, the man will not be innocent;. and if
   the man is sick, the governor will find himself but ill at ease. He
   that breaks the law under one capacity shall suffer under both, and
   then, set ting aside all the niceties of speculation, if God condemns
   king Ahab, I believe it will be hard to distinguish the man Ahab out of
   the same condemnation.

   But now, if to persuade men out of the acknowledgment of the evil and
   unlawfulness of their actions, be flattery; and further, to use
   arguments and acts to settle them in such a persuasion, be one of the
   grossest and most detestable sorts of it, especially if religion be
   abused to so base a purpose; then surely none are so deeply chargeable
   with flattery as these two sorts of men.

   1. Such as, upon principles of enthusiasm, assure persons of eminence
   and high place, that those transgressions of the divine law are
   allowable in them, that are absolutely prohibited and condemned in
   others. For thus they reason: That the divine laws and precepts were
   intended only for the ordinary rules of life; but such as are
   extraordinary persons, raised up by God for some extraordinary work,
   are exempted from those common obligations; as being directed by an
   higher rule, namely, the immediate dictates of the Spirit speaking and
   acting within them, which Spirit, being God, is able to dispense with
   his own laws, and accordingly does so, as the exigence of those works,
   that he calls such persons to, shall require. So that for them to rob
   and plunder is as justifiable as for the Israelites to rob the
   Egyptians; and to slay and murder, though it be princes, is but like
   Phinehas's standing up and executing justice; the inward motions of the
   Spirit countermanding the injunctions of the outward letter.

   But to raise in any such an opinion of themselves, is surely one of the
   vilest and most destructive pieces of flattery that can be used by one
   man to another: for it is to make religion minister the same scope and
   licence to the most impious actions that atheism itself can allow; and
   that with this advantage, that it does not trouble the mind with the
   same stings and remorses that the professed despiser of religion
   usually feels in the midst of all his extravagancies: for if a man is
   brought to believe that he breaks the divine law with as good a
   conscience as others keep and observe it, there is no doubt but such a
   belief will keep him at perfect peace with himself, notwithstanding the
   most enormous violations of it.

   I cannot believe that the authors of our late confusions could have
   ever acted in such a barefaced opposition to all laws, both human and
   divine, with so much satisfaction, serenity, and composure of mind, had
   not their seducing prophets throughly leavened them with this
   principle; that being the select people of God, and so stirred up and
   peculiarly called to serve him in their generation, (as the phrase then
   ran,) they were privileged from those ordinary rules and measures by
   which the lawfulness and morality of other men's actions were
   determined. The saints indeed might do the very same actions which in
   other men were sinful, but yet they in so doing could not sin; and this
   was that persuasion that still patched up their conscience, after all
   the blows and wounds it had received by dashing against the divine
   precepts.

   Such was the soul-destroying flattery by which those impostors
   encouraged many thousands in the way of damnation; like that lying
   prophet, that bid Ahab go and prosper, when he sent him to the battle
   in which he was to fall and perish.

   2. The other sort of persons chargeable with this kind of flattery are
   the Romish casuists, who have made it their greatest study and business
   to put a new face upon sin, and to persuade the world that many of
   those actions that have hitherto passed for impious and unlawful, are
   indeed nothing such, but admit of such qualifications as clear them of
   all guilt and irregularity.

   They are not indeed so absurdly impudent as to declare that murder is
   no sin; but they will order the matter so, that a man may be killed
   upon many punctilios of credit and reputation, and yet no murder be
   committed. They will not tell a man that it is allow able to steal; but
   they will teach that, in case a servant finds that his master will not
   afford him wages proportionable to what he judges his own service to be
   worth, he may take from him so much as will amount to a valuable
   compensation, and not be chargeable with the breach of that law that
   prohibits a man to steal. They will not deny many actions to be evil;
   but if a man have but the dexterity and art of directing his intention
   to some right end, or at least of not actually directing it to an ill,
   why then presently the whole action loses all its malignity, and
   becomes pure and innocent, by a wonderful, but a very easy
   transformation.

   It were infinite to draw forth all particulars; but these are some of
   the ways by which these religious sycophants have poisoned the
   fountains of morality, and flattered mankind with such doctrines and
   assertions as shall soothe them up, and embolden them in the most
   vicious and lewd courses imaginable. They have opened a well, not only
   for sinners, but even for sin itself to wash in, and to be clean. So
   that if there be any persons in the world who may be justly accused for
   calling good evil, and evil good, these are the men; and they do it
   too, diligently, co piously, and voluminously; and consequently have
   the fullest and the fairest claim to the curse that is joined to that
   accusation.

   But now this kind of flattery is so much the more to be abominated,
   because as it is of most mischievous consequence, so it is also of very
   easy effect, and meets with a strange success, seldom returning with
   out accomplishing the work of persuasion, or rather indeed of fallacy
   and delusion.

   Of which a double reason may be assigned.

   1. The first taken from the nature of man.

   2. The other from the very nature of vice itself.

   1. For the first of which; it is too apparent how fond and credulous
   most men are, and even desirous to be persuaded into a good estimation
   of whatsoever they do; and therefore as some people will buy and use
   flattering glasses, though they know them to be so, because they had
   rather please themselves with a false representation, than view their
   deformity by a true; so some will catch at any colour or dress, (though
   never so thin,) to give some varnish and better appearance to their
   vice.

   A perverted, disordered mind, if it cannot have arguments and solid
   reasons to allege for the legality of what it does, it will content and
   satisfy itself with flourishes and shows of probability; and that
   deceiver that shall labour to furnish it with such, shall be welcome
   and honourable; his dictates shall be received as oracles, and never
   sifted by questions and examinations; for people are naturally averse
   from inquiring after that which they are unwilling to know; and
   therefore such an one shall be even prevented by a willing, forward
   assent. But it is easy for a man to finish his visit, that is met three
   parts of his way.

   2. The other reason is from the very nature of vice itself, which
   oftentimes bears a great affinity to virtue, and so admits of the
   harder distinction. Upon which account, it is no difficult matter to
   persuade the prodigal person, that he is only very liberal; it being
   very hard to assign the precise point where liberality ceases, and
   prodigality begins. Upon the same ground, covetousness may easily pass
   for providence, and a proud mind be mistaken for an high and generous
   spirit; there being a great likeness in the actions respectively
   belonging to each of these, enough to impose upon unwary,
   undistinguishing minds, that are prone to receive every like for the
   same.

   Now from these two considerations we may easily gather, how open the
   hearts of most men lie to drink in the fawning suggestions of any
   sycophant that shall endeavour to relieve their disturbed consciences
   by gilding their villainies with the name of virtues, and so smoothing
   the broad way before them, that they may find no rub or let in their
   passage to dam nation. This therefore is the second thing wherein
   flattery consists.

   3. The third is, the perverse imitation of any one's defects or vices,
   which seems to carry it higher than the former, forasmuch as actions
   are much more considerable than words or discourses. A man, for many
   causes, may be brought to commend that which he will never be prevailed
   upon to follow: but for any one to transcribe and copy out in himself
   whatsoever he sees ridiculous or impious in another, this argues a
   temper made up of nothing but baseness and servility.

   And to any generous and free spirit it is really a very nauseous and a
   fulsome thing, to see some prostitute their tongues and their judgments
   by saying as others say, commending what they commend, dispraising
   whatsoever things or persons they dispraise, and framing themselves to
   any absurd gesture or motion that they observe in them; making them
   selves as it were an echo to their voice, and a shadow to their bodies.
   In a word, no man can be exact and perfect in this way of flattery,
   without being a monkey and a mimic, and a lump of wax for any fool to
   stamp his image upon.

   But surely few would be so sottish and servile, as to break a leg or an
   arm, or put out an eye, because they see the great person whom they
   depend upon and adore, deprived of any of these parts. And if so, do
   they not consider, that a man is to be more tender of his manners and
   the dignity of his soul, than of any thing that belongs to his body,
   which would give him but a small preeminence above the brutes, were it
   not animated and exalted by a principle of reason?

   Every kind of imitation speaks the person that imitates inferior to him
   whom he imitates, as the copy is to the original: but then to imitate
   that which is mean, base, and unworthy, is to do one of the lowest
   actions in a yet lower instance; it is to climb downwards, to employ
   art and industry to learn a defect and an imperfection; which is a
   direct reproach to reason, and a contradiction to the methods of
   nature.

   And so much the more intolerable is it, because such persons are seldom
   seen to imitate the excellencies and the virtues of him whom they
   flatter; these are looked upon with distance and lazy admiration: but
   if there be any vice that sullies and takes off from the lustre of his
   other good qualities, that shall be sure to be culled out, and writ
   upon their lives and behaviour. Alexander had enough to imitate him in
   his drunkenness and his passion, who never intended to be like him,
   either in his chastity, or his justice to his enemies, and his
   liberality to his friends. And it is reported of Plato, that being
   crookshouldered, his scholars, who so much admired him, would endeavour
   to be like him by bolstering out their garments on that side, that so
   they might appear crooked too. It is probable that many of these found
   it easier to imitate Plato's shoulders than his philosophy, and to
   stuff out their gowns than to furnish their understandings, or improve
   their minds.

   I am confident there is none that does not deride and condemn this
   silly piece of officiousness, as scarce to be reconciled to common
   sense; yet we may find as bad daily in the behaviour of most parasites,
   who think they can never honour their great masters, but by exposing
   themselves. Which practice, though it is most irrational, yet it has
   this to encourage and continue it, that such grandees are wonderfully
   pleased to see their vices and defects aped by their followers and
   retainers; indeed much more than to see their perfections drawn into
   imitation.

   And that, I conceive, for this reason; because vice, being weak and
   shameful, is glad to have any countenance and credit shewn it; which is
   done by no way so much as by having many followers. To be vicious alone
   is a great shame, and few natures are able to bear it; and therefore
   company gives a kind of authority to sin, and brings vice into fashion,
   which is able to commend and set off any thing. Nero's killing his
   mother could not but be looked upon as an hideous and unnatural thing,
   for all the senate's public thanking of him for it, and his courtiers
   applauding of the action; because in this, humanity was too strong for
   flattery, and suffered none of them to practise what their slavish
   disposition induced them to commend; which shews how much the greater
   number of flatterers speak against their conscience; for that which a
   man in the same condition would not do himself, he certainly dislikes
   in another.

   4. The fourth and last thing that I shall mention, wherein flattery
   consists, is an overvaluing those virtues and perfections that are
   really laudable in any person. This is a different sort from all the
   former, which had no foundation of good at all to work upon, but were
   wholly employed in giving appearances where there was no substance, in
   painting of rotten sepulchres, and belying vice into the reputation of
   virtue.

   But this is more modest and tolerable, there being some groundwork of
   desert, though much too narrow for those huge superstructures of
   commendation that some raise upon it; which therefore turn into
   flattery, which consists in a partial representation of any thing to be
   greater and better than indeed it is: for truth suffers as much by this
   as by the former; it being violated by any disproportion between the
   thing as it is expressed and as it does exist.

   The flatterer views every little virtue or good quality in him whom he
   resolves to extol, as it were, with a microscope; such an one as shall
   swell a gnat into an elephant, and an elephant into a mountain.
   Ordinary, plain, homespun sense shall be magnified for extraordinary
   wit and fancy; and good, honest, flat words shall pass for propriety
   and exactness of expression.

   But to go higher. Let a star be accounted, as in deed it is, a bright
   and a glorious thing; yet we are not therefore to persuade the world
   that it is a sun. Herod, no doubt, in Acts xii. 22, spoke like an
   eloquent man; yet that was short of speaking with the voice of a god,
   as his flatterers told him in that their impious and profuse
   acclamation. He that should celebrate a captain that had the good
   fortune to worst the enemy in a skirmish, to the degree of a Caesar or
   an Alexander, would wonderfully stretch and overdo, and render the poor
   man ridiculous, instead of glorious: and every one that measures his
   actions by any elogies given him by the flatterer, sets his reputation
   upon stilts, which is not the surest way of standing; and when he comes
   to be weighed in the balance of the impartial and the judicious, will
   be found wanting.

   For look, as the detracter represents the perfections of him whom he
   hates, lessened and diminished from what they really are, partly by a
   malicious concealment, partly by calumny and direct slander; so the
   flatterer, whose design is managed by a contrary way, (though perhaps
   in itself the same,) greatens and advances every thing beyond the
   bounds of its real worth; describing all in hyperboles, high strains,
   and words of wonder, till he has puffed up that little thing that he
   commends, as we see men do a bladder, which owes all its bulk only to
   air and wind, upon the letting out of which, it returns and shrinks
   into a pitiful nothing.

   And just so must the opinion, that a man conceives of himself from the
   delusions of flattery, vanish and have its end: for, like a feather, it
   was raised by a breath, and therefore, when that breath ceases, it must
   fall to the ground again.

   And thus I have finished the first general head under which I cast the
   prosecution of the words; namely, to shew what flattery was, and
   wherein it did consist. I do not profess myself so skilful and
   experienced in it, or desirous to be so, as to affirm that I have
   recounted all the ways and methods, all the turnings and meanders,
   through which this various thing uses to wind and carry itself.

   But these are enough to serve as a rule by which both to direct our own
   actions, and to judge of the actions and behaviour of other men. They
   may convince us how vast a difference there is between flattery and
   friendship, and between the crafty, low mind of a flatterer, and the
   generous disposition of a friend. But when I have said all of the
   baseness of this art, yet so long as men find it beneficial, and withal
   see the world full of those that are willing to be made fools of by it,
   I believe all that I shall persuade men of will be this, that they are
   like to get more by practising of it, than any one else shall get by
   speaking against it.
     __________________________________________________________________

SERMON IX.

  PROVERBS xxix. 5.

   A man that flattereth his neighbour spreadeth a net for his feet.

   II. THE second general head proposed for the prosecution of these
   words, was to shew what were the grounds and occasions of flattery on
   his part that is flattered. I shall mention three.

   1. Greatness of place or condition. There is no thing that secures a
   man from flattery more than the confident and free access of ingenuous
   persons. But confidence and freedom are seldom found but where there is
   a parity of conditions: reproof being of the nature of those things
   that seldom ascend and move upwards; but it either passes to an equal,
   or descends upon an inferior. He that is great and potent casts an awe
   and a terror round about him, and, as it were, shuts and barricadoes
   himself in from all approaches, like mount Sinai, where the fire
   burning, and the voice thundering, would suffer none to come near it;
   so that such an one is still treated with silence and distance; his
   faults are whispered behind his back; he is scoffed at in little rooms
   and merry meetings, and never hears the severe, healing truths that are
   spoke of him; but lives muffled and blind fold, unacquainted with
   himself and the judgments of men concerning him.

   Upon which account, great persons, unless their understandings are very
   great too, and withal unprejudiced with self-love, so as to be their
   own monitors, and impartial exactors of themselves, are of all others
   the most miserable. For though a reproof might open their eyes and
   correct their behaviour, and though there are not wanting those that
   are concerned for their good, yet they fright away all these remedies,
   and live and die strangers to their cure.

   For in this case men consider, first, the great danger of speaking
   freely to great persons what they are not willing to hear: it may
   enrage, and make them their mortal enemies. It may render them as great
   in malice as they are in power and condition. It is at best a very bold
   venture, and greatness is not so tractable a thing, as to lay itself
   quietly open to the reprehender and the faithful admonisher, who speak
   for the man's advantage more than for his pleasure, and bring him
   physic instead of sweetmeats. The experience men have in the world
   usually makes them fearful to engage in unpleasing offices. Especially
   when they consider further, how easy it is to be safe and silent; and
   how little it concerns them to court a trouble, a danger, and a potent
   displeasure, by endeavouring to do a man good against his will. They
   think it a great folly to put themselves upon an harsh, and the same
   also a thankless employment; to lose an interest, and a great friend,
   only for doing that which they could with much more ease have let
   alone.

   Men see also how ill it has fared with such as have presumed to be free
   with the grandees of the world, in point of reproof and animadversion:
   they have been rewarded with frowns, sharpness, and disdain, and sent
   away with dejected countenances; as if the reprovers themselves had
   been the persons in fault. Majesty and power usually think virtue and
   happiness itself bought at too dear a rate, if it be at the price of an
   admonition.

   For all which causes, persons of evil or low minds, which make up much
   the greater part of the world, are willing to follow their game, and to
   cajole and flatter a vicious greatness, since it turns so much to their
   profit and reputation; while the great one, that is abused according to
   his own heart's desire, bids the flatterer sit at his right hand; in
   the mean time making his impartial friend and reprover his foot stool,
   slighting him for his upright dealing, and sending him to his own
   virtue for a reward.

   2. The second ground of flattery, on his part that is flattered, is an
   angry, passionate disposition, and impatient of reproof. This also
   frights and deters men from doing the office of friends in a faithful
   reprehension. For some minds are more raging and tumultuous than the
   sea itself; so that if Christ himself should rebuke them, instead of
   being calm, they would rage and roar so much the louder. That
   admonition that would reclaim others, does but chafe and provoke them;
   as the same breath of wind that cools some things, kindles and inflames
   others. No sooner do some hear their behaviour taxed, though with the
   greatest tenderness and moderation, but their choler begins to boil,
   and their breast is scarce able to contain and keep it from running
   over into the heights and furies of bitterness and impatience. The man,
   instead of correcting his fault, will redouble it with a greater; add
   fierceness to his folly, affronting and reviling him that would unbesot
   and reform him.

   Now it requires a person not only of friendship and fidelity, but also
   of courage and valour, to under take to be a reprover here; forasmuch
   as to reprove such an one, is, in effect, to give him battle: he must
   be able to bear, and, what is more, to slight and tame his rage; he
   must not sneak and fly back at every great word, nor suffer himself to
   be talked and vapoured out of countenance.

   But few people are able, and fewer willing, to put themselves to so
   great an inconvenience for another's good, and to raise a storm about
   their own ears, to do an odious, ungrateful piece of service for an
   ungrateful person; and therefore men usually deal with such currish,
   sharp natures as they do with mastiffs, they are fain to stroke them,
   though they deserve to be cudgelled. They flatter and commend them, to
   keep them quiet, and to compose the unruly humour which is ready to
   grow and improve upon the least check or opposition.

   From the consideration of which we easily see the great misery and
   disadvantage of passionate, angry persons; their passion does not only
   bereave them of their own eyes, but also of the benefit of other men's;
   which he that is of a gentle and a tractable nature enjoys in the midst
   of all his errors: for his friend sees, and judges, and chooses for
   him, when the present precipitation of his mind hurries him besides the
   steady use of his reason. He is reduced by counsel, rectified and
   recalled by one that sees his fault, and dares tell him of it; so that
   the cure is almost as early as the distemper.

   We may observe of brambles, that they always grow crooked; for by
   reason of their briers and thorns no hand can touch them, so as to bend
   them straight. And so it is with some dispositions; they grow into a
   confirmed, settled obliquity, because their sharpness makes them unfit
   to be handled by discipline and admonition. They are a terror and a
   grievance to those that they converse with: and to attempt to advise
   them out of their irregularities, is as if a chirurgeon should offer to
   dress a wounded lion; he must look to perish in the address, and to be
   torn in pieces for his pains.

   It was surely of very great importance to Nabal, mentioned in 1 Sam.
   xxv. to have been admonished of the rough, unadvised answer that he
   returned to David's soldiers; for it was like to have brought a ruin
   upon him and his family and his whole estate; yet none would do him
   that seasonable kindness, because of the rudeness and churlishness of
   his manners: for in the 17th verse that character is given of him, that
   he was such a son of Belial, that a man could not speak to him.

   Many would be willing to recover a person from his follies, but they
   are not willing to be snapt and railed at for so doing; they would be
   ready enough to pluck a brand out of the fire, might they do it without
   burning their fingers. But to be foolish and to be angry too, is for a
   man first to cast himself into a pit, and then to hinder others from
   pulling him out.

   3. The third and last ground of flattery, on his part that is
   flattered, is a proud and vainglorious disposition. To tell a proud
   person of his faults, is to tell infallibility that it is in an error,
   and to spy out something amiss in perfection. Such an one looks upon
   himself as above all defects, and privileged from doing any thing mean,
   low, or obnoxious. There is no quality that more estranges a man from
   the free addresses of his friends, and their hearty communications of
   their thoughts concerning him, than an high conceit and opinion of
   himself: for this makes him rate all other men's judgments by his own
   measures, and set that price upon himself and his actions, that he
   thinks all the world must come up to: and therefore he that taxes or
   reprehends him, must expect the same credit and success that he is like
   to find, that should accuse an only son to his fond mother: he would
   quickly experiment that love is wonderfully blind, but especially about
   those things that it has no mind to see.

   A proud person, who, with the worst kind of idolatry, adores himself,
   and what is more, the worst part of himself, his defects and vices,
   thinks that his doing of any action is sufficient to stamp it decent
   and virtuous. As it is reported of Cato being drunk, that one should
   say of him, by reason of his reputation, so much too great for any
   slander, that it would be easier to prove that drunkenness was no vice,
   than that Cato could be vicious; so some people, though they spoil
   every thing by an undue management of it, lose opportunities, and
   overlook occasions, yet they must be thought to be still carrying on
   designs of policy, to err and mistake prudentially; the world must
   persuade itself out of its own experience, and believe surmises, though
   contradicted by effects. It must be willing to be sunk by the hands of
   such skilful pilots, and judge the foolishness of some to be wiser than
   the wisdom of others.

   Now those that would have the world maintain such an opinion of them,
   are the fairest and the broadest mark for the flatterer to shoot at
   that can be, the fittest persons to be made buffoons of: for do but
   commend and praise them to their face, and you may pick their pockets,
   cut their throats, and cheat them of their estates. Nor need the
   flatterer fear that they will look through his design, and so discover
   and loathe all his feigned encomiums; for let them be never so gross
   and palpable, let him lay it on never so thick, yet pride and
   conceitedness will swallow all, and look upon itself obliged too, for
   being so kindly abused.

   And it has been sometimes seen, that a man, while he has been
   flattering and extolling an opinionative fool, (who has with much
   pleasure heard and embraced him, for the glorious things he so
   liberally spoke of him,) he has now and then turned his head aside, and
   flouted and laughed at him to his companions, for suffering himself to
   be held by the nose by such pitiful arts, so easily discerned and
   detested by any person of discretion.

   Upon an easy observation we shall find, that there is nothing that
   renders a man more ridiculous, in most of the passages of his life,
   than much credulity; there is nothing that more certainly makes him a
   prey to the deceiver and the cheat: but now this is the inseparable
   property of pride and self-estimation. Every such person carries a
   belief about him so strong and so great, that it is impossible to
   overwork it: he will turn every romance into a real history, and even
   believe contradictions in his own behalf.

   Which being so, if a man be great and potent as well as proud, it is no
   wonder if he is always plied with flatterers, and if they resort to him
   as the crows do to a carcass, always fluttering and chattering about
   him; for alas! he thinks they are only doing him right, and admiring
   him for that which he himself admires much more. Pride makes him lift
   his eyes upward, which is the reason that he never turns them inward;
   and so being unknown to himself, he must believe the deceiver upon his
   own word.

   Now the deduction that I shall make from all this is, that of the many
   arguments and signs of real friendship, none is so sure and infallible,
   as a readiness to reprehend impartially and seasonably whatsoever needs
   reprehension. For it is clear, that he that does so, prefers the good
   of him whom he reprehends before his own interest. He knows not but his
   proud and impatient humour may make him disgust and persecute him for
   giving him so free and true a view of himself; but yet he ventures all
   to redeem him from shame and disorder: in a word, he resolves to do the
   part of a friend, though his very doing so makes him forfeit his being
   thought so. He that carries on no design for his own advantage in what
   he does, gives an unfailing demonstration of his sincerity; and he that
   tells a man what he knows, will find but a small acceptance with him,
   (as the story of his faults is like to do,) hazards his friend's
   favour, and with that his own emolument; and really makes himself and
   his hopes a sacrifice to the other's reputation.

   Having thus finished the second general head, and shewn the grounds and
   occasions of flattery on his part that is flattered, I proceed now to
   the

   Third and last, which is, to shew the ends and designs of it on his
   part that flatters: and those are briefly comprised in these words of
   the text, He spreads a net for his neighbour's feet.

   It is a metaphor borrowed from the practice of hunters or fowlers: and
   now, as there is no man that spreads a net, but does it with this
   double intention, first to catch and destroy the thing for which he
   spreads it, and then, by so doing, to advantage himself, as either in
   his pleasure or his profit; so accordingly every flatterer, in all his
   fawnings and dissimulations, is acted and influenced by these two grand
   purposes.

   1. To serve himself.

   2. To undermine him whom he flatters, and there by to effect his ruin.

   1. And first, he designs to benefit and serve himself. In all that
   artificial scene that he lays, by adoring and commending this or that
   great person, he intends not so much to praise as to be what the other
   is. He would be great, rich, and honourable; and that puts him upon the
   dissembler's drudgery to enslave himself to all his humours, to extol
   his impertinences, and adore his very villainies. It is not for want of
   wit or apprehension, that the flatterer speaks such paradoxes; for he
   sees through that great and glorious bauble that he so cringes to; he
   despises him heartily, while he harangues him magnificently; his
   thoughts and his words are at a perpetual jar and distance; he thinks
   satires, while he speaks panegyrics.

   Nay, and perhaps he hates and abhors his own ill fate too, that should
   force him to take such a sordid course to advance himself; that should
   make him fall down before such an image, and worship such an
   illustrious piece of emptiness. But profit reconciles evil minds to the
   coarsest and lowest services; and men are willing to bow their bodies,
   and stoop down to take up a jewel or a piece of gold, though it be from
   a dunghill.

   But it is evident, that every flatterer designs only his own advantage,
   whether there be or be not any real foundation of worth in him whom he
   pretends to admire; and that, from this one consideration, that the
   same person, in case he falls from his greatness and power, is
   presently deserted, and finds all his parasites' encomiums turned into
   scoffs and invectives. The man's virtue, if he had any, remains
   untouched, and perhaps by his calamity improved. He can be as valiant,
   as just, and temperate, as he was before: but what is that to the
   purpose? He cannot reward or prefer; he cannot frown an enemy into
   ruin, or smile a friend or a dependent into a fair fortune. And if so,
   the flatterer thinks he should but lose his time and his breath to
   declaim and be eloquent upon so dry a subject. No; his game lies
   another way; he bids good night to the setting, and reserves his
   devotion for the rising sun. Men may be both wise and virtuous; but it
   is their power that makes them commended for being so.

   And from this it is also that we may observe in flatterers such great
   difference in the behaviour of the same person at one time, from what
   it is at another. While he is yet upon the chase, and a get ting, none
   so humble, so abject, so full of all servile compliances; but when his
   nest is feathered, and his bags full, he can be insolent and haughty,
   he can bend his knee as stiffly, and keep his distance as magisterially
   as another. For, like Saul, after he comes to a crown and a kingdom, he
   then presently finds in himself another spirit, and disdains to look
   after those asses that he used formerly so much to follow. Let his old,
   rich patrons now commend themselves; he has served his turn of them,
   caught the fish, and he cares for no more. After the young one is grown
   up and well thriven, it follows the dam no longer; but instead of
   following it, if occasion serves, it can kick it. No man uses flattery
   as his employment, but as his instrument; and consequently, when it has
   done his work, he lays it aside. And thus much for the flatterer's
   first design, which is to serve and advantage himself.

   2. His second is to undermine and ruin him whom he flatters. He finds
   his interest and affairs cast so, that he is not like to be
   considerable without the downfall of such or such a person, who yet is
   so great and powerful, that he despairs to shake him by violence and
   direct force, and therefore he endeavours to circumvent him by art; to
   which purpose, he pretends himself an admirer of his extraordinary
   parts and virtues, tickles his ears with perpetual applauses of all his
   words and actions; and by this means he gets the esteem of a friend,
   and with that an opportunity of working under ground. But all this
   while he is big with a design of mischief; he is only taking aim where
   he may shoot him surely and mortally; so that all the fair speeches and
   fine flowers that he strews in the other's way, are only to cover and
   conceal the fatal gin and trap that he has placed, to catch and bring
   him into the hands of the destroyer. And it is very frequent, that the
   flatterer, by taking this course, makes his design effectual, and
   compasses the ruin of him whom he flatters; and that upon these several
   accounts.

   1. First, By this means he deceives him, and grossly abuses and
   perverts his judgment, which should be the guide and director of all
   his actions. A right judgment is to the soul what a strong and an
   healthful constitution is to the body; it will, by its own force, work
   off all lesser inconveniences and distempers. Though a man be sometimes
   driven aside by his passions and his irregular appetites, yet so long
   as his mind and understanding has an habitually true notion and
   apprehension of things, it will recover the man, and prevent the error
   from being in finite. And therefore, according to that advice given to
   the soldier, te`n kephale`n pephu'laxo, secure your head; so is every
   one to be careful to preserve his judging faculties entire, that he may
   not be abused into false choices, and imposed upon by undue and
   fallacious conclusions: for a flaw in these leaves the soul like an
   army without conduct, exposed to all the miseries of dispersion and
   confusion.

   He that is thoroughly deceived, is in the very next disposition to be
   ruined; for cast but a mist before a man's eyes, and whither may you
   not lead him? He marches on with as much confidence into a slough or a
   pitfall, as he would tread the direct paths that lead to his own house.
   None plays the fool confidently, but he that verily believes he does
   wisely. He is flattered into mistakes and false measures of his
   actions, and views all the passages of his behaviour by a false light,
   the consequences of which must needs be destructive and miserable.

   And therefore every flatterer who endeavours to delude and blind the
   judgment of a man, properly gives him a fatal wound in the head; and if
   that be crazed and giddy, it is not the absolute, entire perfection of
   all the other parts of the body, that can suffice to regulate and
   direct so much as any one action of life. The whole tenor of a man's
   behaviour in this case is like the motion of a watch that has a fault
   in the spring; he is rendered utterly use less, as to all great and
   considerable purposes.

   2. The flatterer undermines, and perhaps, in the issue, ruins him whom
   he flatters, by bringing him to shame and a general contempt; for he
   deals with him like one that pins some ridiculous thing upon another's
   back, and then sends him with it into the market-place, where he finds
   himself hooted and laughed at by all, but walks on wholly ignorant of
   the cause. The flatterer tells an impertinent, talking grandee, that
   his discourse wonderfully becomes him; that he utters himself with
   extraordinary grace and exactness of speech: he accordingly believes
   him, and gives his tongue no rest, but is still proclaiming his
   emptiness and indiscretion in all companies. He tells another
   passionate furioso, that it argues height and gallantry of spirit, not
   to endure the least under valuing word, the least shadow of an affront;
   and he accordingly, upon every trivial occasion, takes fire, and flames
   out into all the expressions of rage and revenge; and, for his pains,
   is despised by some, hated by others, and opposed by all; and these are
   the effects and favours of flattery.

   In a word, the flatterer deals with the flattered person as the
   Philistines did with Samson, first put ting out his eyes, and then
   making him a mock and a sport to all that had a mind to divert
   themselves with his calamity. Shame, of itself, is indeed a great
   misery; but then we are to consider further, that as to the real
   advantages of the world, it is to be reckoned amongst the surest and
   speediest causes of a man's ruin. For who will employ, who will prefer
   or recommend a despised person? Kindness and contempt seldom lodge upon
   the same object. But suppose that a man had a kindness for such an one,
   yet he would not be able to own the effects of such a kindness, against
   the general envy and derision and censures of the world; bad
   certificates to vouch a man's fitness for any place or preferment.

   Shame and contempt casts a man under the feet of those whom he
   converses with; in which case, we cannot presume upon any such
   redundancy of compassion and good nature amongst men, as to imagine
   that any one can be under foot without being trampled upon. He that
   slights me himself cannot possibly be my friend; but he that endeavours
   to make others slight me too, must needs be my mortal enemy.

   3. The flatterer undermines and effects the ruin of him whom he
   flatters; forasmuch as by this means he renders his recovery and
   amendment impossible. Every fault in a man shuts the door upon virtue,
   but flattery is the thing that seals it. Solomon gives his judgment in
   the case fully and unanswerably, Prov. xxvi. 12, Seest thou a man wise
   in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of that man. A
   man's way out of error lies through the paths of conviction; and he
   that recovers a fool must first unbefool him to that degree, as to
   persuade him of his folly: for it is a thing against nature and reason
   for a man to think of amendment, who at the same time thinks himself
   perfect. No man surely prepares himself for travel, while he supposes
   himself at his journey's end.

   He that makes another sick, and brings him under a distemper, does not
   presently destroy him, because there is still a remedy in physic; but
   he that persuades a sick, distempered person that he is well, and so
   keeps him from the use of physic, he certainly is preparing a coffin
   for him, and designs no thing but to bring him to his grave.

   Every flatterer, by infusing into a man a good opinion of his defects
   and vices, endeavours to fasten and rivet them into his behaviour for
   ever; for no man leaves what he cannot dislike. Persuade a prisoner, or
   a captive, that his prison is a paradise, and you shall never hear him
   petition for a release. Vice indeed captivates and enslaves wheresoever
   it prevails; but flattery strives to make the mind in love with its
   slavery, and so to render that slavery perpetual and unalterable; it
   would fain intoxicate and charm a man into a kind of stupidity and
   impotence to help himself. In short, it uses him as Jael did Sisera; it
   pretends to refresh and entertain him kindly, but it designs only to
   nail his head to the ground.

   And thus I have endeavoured to lay open the flatterer's ends and
   purposes. Where, upon the result of all, it is perhaps a disputable
   case, whether of the two is a worse thing, to flatter or to be
   flattered; to be so sordid, and withal mischievous, as to practise the
   one, or so blind and sottishly easy as to suffer the other. But the
   truth is, this latter is the object of pity, as the former is of the
   justest hatred and detestation. In fine, it must be the harmlessness of
   the dove that must keep a man from doing one, and the wisdom of the
   serpent that must preserve him from being abused by the other; neither
   of which virtues can be had in any perfection, but from the grace and
   bounty of him who is the author and giver of every good and perfect
   gift.
     __________________________________________________________________

SERMON X.

  PSALM xix. 13. FIRST PART.

   Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have
   dominion over me.

   THESE words, running in the form of a prayer or petition, may suggest
   these three things to our consideration.

   1. The thing prayed against; presumptuous sins.

   2. The person making this prayer; king David; one adorned with the
   highest elogies for his piety, even by God himself.

   3. The means that he engages for his deliverance from the thing he
   prays against; namely, the divine grace and assistance: Keep back thy
   servant from presumptuous sins.

   All these things lie naturally and evidently in the text; and there is
   no doubt, but that it may be most pertinently handled in a distinct
   prosecution of them. But I shall choose rather to frame my thoughts
   into another method, and designing to take in and comprehend all these
   in the progress of the following discourse, I shall cast the discussion
   of the words under these two general heads.

   I. To shew what these presumptuous sins are.

   II. To shew the reason of this so holy and excellent person's so
   earnestly praying against them.

   As for the first of these, what presumptuous sins are. In the handling
   of this, I shall do these three things.

   1. I shall shew in general what it is to presume.

   2. 1 shall assign some of the most notable kinds of presumptuous sins.

   3. I shall prescribe some remedies against them.

   And first for the first; what it is in general to presume: where,
   before we proceed to any strict and positive definition of it, we may
   briefly take notice of the description it lies under in the word of
   God, which sets forth this sin by various, and those very significant
   expressions. It calls it a man's hardening of his heart: hardening his
   neck, hardening his face, and, in a word, hardening himself against
   God. It calls it a walking frowardly, and a walking contrary to God; as
   also a resisting of the Holy Ghost; and a grieving and doing despite to
   the Spirit of grace. It is likewise expressed by a man's going on in
   his own ways, and refusing to be reformed, with the like: that is, all
   the several evils and provoking malignities that are in obstinacy,
   stubbornness, impudence, and direct contempt of God, like so many lines
   in their centre, meet and concur for the making up of the character of
   presumption.

   But that we may yet view the nature of it more closely, and define what
   it is: to presume, or to commit a presumptuous sin, is for a man, in
   the doing of any unlawful or suspicious action, to expect and promise
   himself impunity upon those grounds that indeed afford no reason for
   any such expectation.

   So that, to the making up of such a sin, these three integral parts are
   required.

   1. That a man undertake an action, known by him to be unlawful, or at
   least doubtful.

   2. That notwithstanding this, he promise to himself security from any
   punishment of right consequent upon it.

   3. And lastly, that he do this upon motives utterly groundless and
   unreasonable.

   In this order therefore does presumption accomplish its course of
   acting in the heart of the presuming sinner. For, as for the thing that
   he is about to do; he either doubts whether it be lawful or no; or he
   certainly knows that it is unlawful: whereupon, if on either hand he
   proceeds to the doing of it, he infallibly bolts upon a sin, because he
   certainly acts against conscience, either doubtful or knowing; both of
   which will involve him in sin: for to act against a knowing conscience
   is apparently sinful; and to act also against the doubting, from the
   mouth of the apostle receives the express sentence of condemnation; He
   that doubteth is damned if he eat, Rom. xiv. last verse.

   Now the presuming sinner, knowing the action he is attempting to be
   unlawful, or at the best suspecting it as doubtful, proceeds,
   notwithstanding this dissatisfaction, to deliberate and advise with
   himself, whether he should undertake it or no; he argues the case with
   himself on both sides. On one side he pleads the unlawfulness, or at
   least the suspiciousness of it, and the great danger that may follow
   upon either: on the other, he thinks of the pleasure, the profit, and
   the advantage of the thing under debate, together with a supposed
   probability of escape and impunity, though he does commit it. And
   hereupon, as the result and upshot of his deliberation, he comes to
   fix, and to resolve that he will do it, be the consequence what it
   will; though yet he believes he shall carry the matter so, as to bring
   himself off clear and harmless after all: and thus from suspence he
   proceeds to resolution, and from resolution passes into action; and so
   stands a perfect, complete, presumptuous sinner before God, as having
   brought his sin to maturity and actual commission, through all the
   by-traces, all the rubs and impediments that either conscience or
   Providence laid in its way.

   From what has been said, we may here observe, that the presumptuous
   sinner is utterly divested of those two only pleas that can be alleged
   for the extenuation of sin, as, 1. Ignorance. 2. Surprise.

   And first, as for ignorance. Though the case is such in the rules of
   morality, that no ignorance of things, lying under necessary practice,
   can be totally inculpable, and so cannot wholly excuse the guilt of the
   action occasioned by it; yet as to an extenuation of the degree, we
   find the plea of it frequently admitted in scripture; as the servant
   that knew not his lord's will, and did things worthy of stripes, was
   therefore beaten but with few stripes, Luke xii. 48. And our Saviour
   himself grounds his prayer for his murderers upon their ignorance of
   what they did; Luke xxiii. 34, Father, for give them; for they know not
   what they do. And St. Paul gives the same account of his obtaining
   mercy after his blasphemies and persecutions; 1 Tim. i. 13. I obtained
   mercy, says he, because I did it ignorantly and in unbelief. So that
   ignorance, we see, though not by any virtue in itself, but by the mere
   mercy, and goodness, and condescension of God, has prevailed and been
   effectual for the covering of a multitude of sins, not yet grown too
   big for pardon.

   But now the presumptuous sinner cuts himself off from all such plea;
   for he sins with an high hand, with an open and a seeing eye. His
   conscience is all the time awake, like a thief that breaks open an
   house in the face of the sun, and amidst the resorts of a market. The
   motto of a presuming sinner may be, Veni, vidi, et peccavi. The Devil
   told Eve, that her and her husband's eyes should be opened, upon their
   eating of the forbidden fruit; and accordingly most of their posterity
   have since inherited the power of sinning knowingly and seeingly, of
   offending their Maker with counsel and deliberation. Their eyes are
   opened indeed with a mischief: but for that very cause their sin is
   heightened; and it were better for them that they were blind; for then,
   as said our Saviour to the pharisees, they would have had no sin; that
   is, no sin in comparison: their sin would not have borne so deep a
   tincture, and been set off with such crimson aggravations.

   As sin leaves the soul, so presumption leaves sin itself naked, by
   drawing from it its covering; and also helpless, by taking away its
   last asylum and retreat. In both of which it had a fair accommodation
   from ignorance, which, like darkness, invites sleep; and so is the
   parent of a little rest and transient quiet to sick, guilty, and
   disturbed consciences.

   Ignorance is looked upon as so plausible a defence, that I have heard
   and read of those that have studiously been ignorant of the evil of an
   action, where they have passionately desired the pleasure of it: they
   have endeavoured to shift off the light, and to convey themselves from
   the inspection of their own consciences, that so their sinful delights
   might proceed with the greater relish and the less interruption. A
   pretty art for men to befool and damn themselves withal.

   But such must know, that ignorance affected, and voluntarily procured,
   is so far from giving any mitigation or excuse to other actions, that
   it is not able to excuse itself. For who can defend an action, by
   pleading that he did it ignorantly, when it was in his power not to
   have been ignorant, when the means of knowledge were before him, and
   the neglect of them was his choice? Presumption and such an ignorance
   may walk hand in hand, forasmuch as it may be resolved into
   presumption. It is a blindness brought upon a man, because he would not
   see; otherwise all ignorance, that is merely negative and inculpable
   presumption, is utterly inconsistent with, and makes absolutely
   unpleadable.

   2. Presumption excludes all plea from surprise: a plea admitted in
   human courts for the diminution of the malignity of many crimes. An
   action not being perfectly evil, but as committed by perfect choice,
   which is much weakened and disturbed by the hurry of a surprise. And
   there is no doubt but the mercies of the court of Heaven also have some
   grains of allowance for those actions that men are thus, in a manner,
   thrown headlong into. But now where there is deliberation, there can be
   no surprise; forasmuch as a surprise prevents and takes a man off from
   all previous deliberation: and presumption is still accompanied with
   deliberation; it is a sin that proceeds gradually, it destroys the soul
   soberly, and with design.

   But before I go any further, when I say that surprise takes off from
   the nature of presumption, so that every presumptuous sin must be
   supposed to be committed with deliberation; I conceive that, for the
   preventing of mistakes, this may need some further explication. We must
   know therefore, that a sin may be said to be committed deliberately,
   either formally and immediately, or only virtually and remotely. Of the
   former there can be no doubt; for in that sense a man sins
   deliberately, when he sins with foregoing thought, as well as with
   present purpose of mind. But for the latter, we may take those terms
   more at large thus: when a man is brought into a sudden heat of passion
   and confusion of spirit, in which he proceeds to blaspheme God, or to
   revile his prince, or the like; this blasphemy and treason of his must
   not think presently to take sanctuary in this pretence, that it was
   done only in a surprise of passion, and so ought not to be accounted
   presumptuous, upon this ground, that it cannot pass for deliberate:
   this, I say, is not to be allowed, because if the man knowingly and
   deliberately put himself under those circumstances that raised him to
   that fury of passion, every action done under that passion is virtually
   deliberate, and follows the nature and quality of the first action, as
   the leading, principal cause of all that directly ensued upon it.

   A man drinks himself into a present rage, or distraction of mind; in
   which condition he is perhaps carried to commit a rape or a murder,
   which action is indeed in itself sudden and indeliberate: but, since
   the man at first engaged in drinking with full choice and deliberation
   of mind, his passion being caused by that drink, and the murder being
   caused by that passion, are both of them virtually deliberate, as being
   resolvable into a foregoing choice: upon which score they contract the
   guilt and foulness of presumptuous sins, and so stand rated in the
   accounts of Heaven.

   But here, because there is much and frequent discourse in divinity, of
   a distinction between sins of presumption and sins of infirmity; and
   since very much depends upon the right or the wrong apprehending of it
   in a casuistical theology, as also in the daily practices of men; it
   will not be amiss to inquire into the ground or reason of this
   distinction.

   What a sin of presumption is, we have declared already; so that the
   whole business will lie in this, to see what that is hat makes a sin to
   be a sin of infirmity.

   Three opinions there are in this matter.

   1. The first derives the nature of it from the condition of the agent,
   or him that commits it.

   2. The second derives it from the matter of the action.

   3. The third and last, from the principle producing it.

   We shall consider each of them in their order.

   1. First of all then, there are some who derive the nature of a sin of
   infirmity from the quality or condition of him that commits it;
   affirming every sin committed by a believer, or a person truly
   regenerate, to be a sin of infirmity; partly, because they say, that
   there is not that absolute and full concurrence of the inward principle
   in such a one to the commission of the sin; but chiefly because such
   persons, being supposed to be fixed in an unchangeable possession of
   the divine favour, so that they cannot possibly fall from it, no sins
   can be able to alter their estate; whereupon their sins lose their full
   effect, and become only lapses and infirmities.

   For answer to this; it is not necessary here, either to assert or to
   deny the perpetuity and unalterable tenor of a regenerate man's estate:
   but this I affirm, that to take the nature of his actions merely from
   the condition of his person, is hugely absurd; for that can only infer
   the pardon of his sins upon another account: but surely a sin changes
   nothing of its nature by this, that in one man it is pardoned, in
   another not.

   This indeed has been eagerly asserted by some; and in this assertion
   they laid a foundation for all licentiousness; for, according to the
   tenor of their doctrine, it was but for them, first to put on a bold
   front, and to persuade themselves and others that they were of the
   number of the converted and the regenerate; and then, whatsoever sins
   were after wards committed by them, sunk to a wonderful low degree of
   guilt, as being chargeable with no higher than what arises from
   infirmity. In the strength of this doctrine, some would hold David's
   murder and adultery to have been only sins of infirmity; though each of
   them complicated, and made up of so many several base sins, and ripened
   with such deliberate contrivances, that it is hard to commit, or indeed
   to imagine, sins of a blacker hue.

   But, for a fuller vindication of the truth, I shall, even upon the
   supposition and grant of this principle, that a regenerate person never
   so loses his ground by any sin, as to be cut off from his interest in
   the favour of God, and his title to heaven; I shall, I say, yet shew
   the falseness and unreasonableness of the doctrine perversely built
   upon it; and that by these following arguments.

   1. First: whereas it is said, that persons regenerate sin not with such
   a plenary and entire consent of will as others; for which cause their
   sin loses many degrees of its malignity; I demand, whether by this they
   understand not, (as in all reason they must,) that such persons find in
   their conscience a greater reluctancy to be brought to the commission
   of sin than others? And if so, what is their excuse but an higher
   aggravation of their sin? that it is committed more against the light
   and dictates of conscience struggling and contending against it, than
   the sins of persons wholly unsanctified.

   2. But in the second place, I demand further, whether this estate of
   regeneration does not, according to their own supposition, raise the
   persons so qualified to the privilege of being the sons of God? And if
   so, I would fain know, whether the unworthy behaviour of a son is not
   of a more provoking nature than the same deportment from a stranger? A
   son is capable more of presuming upon his father than a slave or
   servant upon his master; for one of fends only against authority, the
   other against authority mixed with love, and endeared with the nearest
   relation. I conclude therefore, that this is so far from degrading a
   sin to the smallness of an infirmity, that it stamps it ten times a
   greater presumption than it would be, if committed by another person.

   3. And lastly, If the sins of persons regenerate must all pass for
   infirmities, then how comes David here (who surely was not the last or
   meanest of this number) to pray so earnestly to be kept from sins of
   presumption? If the nature of his condition secured him from all
   possibility of falling into them, where was the danger? And if no
   danger, where was the necessity of praying to be rescued from an
   impossibility? But it seems David steered his actions by a different
   divinity, and looked upon this as the most dangerous presumption of
   all, to call sins of presumption sins of infirmity. And thus much in
   answer to the first opinion.

   2. Some derive the nature of sins of infirmity from the matter of them;
   as that they are committed only in thought or desire, or sometimes in
   word, but pass not into outward and gross action.

   But this also is most false and pernicious, and directly opens a gate
   to the encouragement of the vilest impieties. For though it must be
   granted, that our thoughts and desires, and sometimes our words, are
   less under command than our outward actions; yet to affirm, therefore,
   that whatsoever is sinfully transacted in these, must presently be
   baptized but an infirmity, is an assertion no ways to be endured.

   And for answer to it, I affirm,

   1. First, that there is no act producible by the soul of man, that
   either is or ever was under the power and command of man's will, but is
   capable of receiving all the poison and guilt, that the will (which is
   itself the fountain of all sin) is able to infuse into it; and
   consequently of being a sin of presumption. But now both thoughts,
   words, and desires are controllable by the will, which is able to make
   the soul cease thinking and desiring of any particular thing, by
   diverting and applying it to other objects. And if the will has now
   lost some of the absoluteness of its primitive dominion, yet when we
   come to state the morality of actions, we are to consider the power it
   had naturally, and in man's innocency, and has since lost by its own
   fault; but stands therefore no less accountable for it to God, than if
   it were not lost.

   2. But secondly, let us hear the voice of God in the scriptures
   concerning this matter. There, I am sure, are loud complaints of the
   sins of men's thoughts. Esa. lv. 7. Let the unrighteous man forsake his
   thoughts, says God; and Jeremy iv. 14, How long shall vain thoughts
   lodge within thee? And in Matt. xv. 19, From the heart, says our
   Saviour, proceed evil thoughts, murders, and adulteries. We see here
   evil thoughts put into the same catalogue with murders and adulteries;
   and these surely are not sins of infirmity. But above all, take that
   place in Acts viii. 22, where St. Peter bids Simon Magus pray to God,
   if peradventure the thought of his heart might be forgiven him.

   And then for desires; we know that in God's account they stand for
   actions. In Matt. v. 28, Christ calls the unlawful desire of a woman
   adultery. And God still complained of his people, that their heart went
   after idols: and in Psalm lxxviii. 18 it is said of them, that they
   tempted God in their heart.

   But that evil desires carry so high a guilt with them, is no less
   evident from mere reason: for if the evil of the thoughts lies under so
   great a condemnation before God, that of the desires must needs lie
   under a greater; forasmuch as desire is a further step and advance of
   the soul into sin; and is indeed the very pulse of the soul, naturally
   showing the temper and inclination of it.

   And so much for the second opinion.

   3dly and lastly. The difference of a sin of presumption and of
   infirmity may be drawn from the principle immediately producing the
   action; as namely, that the will is carried to the one by malice, to
   the other by inadvertency. And this is that, that reason will force us
   to pitch upon. For there is no doubt, but an evil choice (the thing
   here meant by malice) is that which greatens the impiety and guilt of
   an action into the nature of presumption; which action, done out of a
   sudden incogitancy, might pass for but a weakness, and so stand rated
   at a much lower pitch of guilt.

   Certain it is therefore, that malice is that that constitutes the
   nature of presumption, and inadvertency that makes a sin to be but an
   infirmity. But then to draw this down a thesi ad hypothesin, and to
   determine the bounds of each, by showing exactly where malice ceases,
   and where a faultless inadvertency begins; this, I confess, is most
   difficult, and perhaps, by any one common rule, constantly and
   universally appliable to every particular action, not to be effected.

   But for our better conduct in a case of such importance, I shall shew
   first negatively, what is not a sin of infirmity; 2dly, what positively
   is.

   As for the negative part, we are to observe,

   1. That whensoever a man ventures and designs to commit a sin upon this
   ground, that he judges it a sin of infirmity; that sin, by such
   antecedent thought and design beforehand, is changed from a sin of
   infirmity into a sin of presumption. For though an infirmity be
   comparatively but a little sin, yet it is far from an infirmity to
   account any sin little, and much more upon that ground to commit it.
   Men are apt to say, (in their hearts at least,) that such or such a
   thing is no great matter; and therefore, surely, they need not so much
   scruple the doing of it. But such must know, that this argues a cursed
   undervaluing of the evil of sin, and a desire to take any advantage to
   commit it; than which there can not be a greater proof of a corrupt,
   rotten, and unsanctified heart.

   2. That sin, though in itself never so small, that a man after the
   committing of it is desirous to excuse or extenuate, by charging it
   upon surprise, passion, weakness, company, or the like, does by such
   excuse cease to be an infirmity: for when a man comes to defend his
   sin, it shews that he has an hearty kindness for it, and dislikes
   nothing in it but the consequent danger; than which temper of mind few
   actual sins are more loathsome and provoking in the sight of God.

   But in the next place, to pass from negatives, and to shew positively
   what a sin of infirmity is; I conceive it may not unfitly be defined, a
   sin committed out of mere, sudden inadvertency, that inadvertency not
   being directly caused by any deliberate sin immediately going before
   it. The reason of this has been given already, viz. that the consequent
   actions follow the guilt and nature of the antecedent action that
   caused them. But for the better clearing of the thing discoursed of to
   our apprehensions, that I may also give an instance of this kind of
   sin; I suppose, when a man, being suddenly urged and provoked
   vehemently, conceives an angry thought, or utters an hasty word, that
   that thought and that word may be reckoned for infirmities. And when an
   unlawful desire suddenly strikes the mind, but a man's heart
   immediately smites him for it, so that he presently checks that desire,
   this also, 1 conceive, may be reputed a sin of infirmity. But, God
   knows, few sins pass from us thus. Sin is scarce ever acted by us, but
   with the full force and power of all our faculties. And it is seldom
   that we do any thing faintly, when it is to dishonour God, or to ruin
   ourselves.

   And thus I have finished the first branch of the first general head;
   which was to shew, what it was in general to presume, and wherein the
   nature of a presumptuous sin did consist.

   Now to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, be ascribed
   all honour, might, majesty, and dominion, now and for ever. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

SERMON XI.

  PSALM xix. 13. SECOND PART.

   Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins.

   II. I COME now to the second, which is to as sign some of the most
   notable kinds of presumptuous sins.

   Concerning which, I shall premise this in general; That there is no sin
   committible by man, as to the kind of it, but by circumstances is
   capable of being made a sin of presumption. Upon which account it would
   be infinite to set down all the several kinds; and therefore I shall
   only insist upon some of the greatest remark for their malignity, and
   such as it most concerns the souls of men to be clear and se cure from.

   For a man to sin upon hopes or confidence of pardon or mercy, I cannot
   reckon as a particular kind of presumptuous sin; this being the general
   nature of presumption running through all the respective kinds and
   species of it. For he that presumes to offend, promises himself pardon
   from God's mercy, without any warrant from God's word.

   The particular kinds therefore of presumptuous sin, that I shall cull
   out and insist upon, are these that follow.

   1. The first is, to sin against the goodness of God, manifesting itself
   to a man in great prosperity. Every beam of God's favour to a sinner in
   these outward enjoyments, is a call to repentance upon the stock of
   ingenuity. And the apostle's expostulation in Rom. ii. 4 lies full
   against the neglecter of it; Despisest thou the riches of his goodness
   and forbearance and longsuffermg; not knowing that the goodness of God
   leadeth thee to repentance? Every breath of air that the sinner takes
   in, is a respite given him by mercy from sin-revenging justice. Every
   morsel he eats, and every drop that he drinks, is an alms, and a
   largess, and a repast, that he has no claim to.

   But when mercy shall rise higher, and from the benefit of a bare
   subsistence serve his convenience, and, what is more, his abundance;
   when Providence shall make his increase bigger than his barns, and his
   incomes to upbraid the narrowness of his coffers; when it shall add a
   lustre to his person, and at the same time multiply and advance his
   family; when it shall appoint angels for his guardians, and, in a word,
   set an hedge about all that he has: for such a one to rise up and spurn
   against his Maker, to make all his plenty and greatness the drudge of
   his luxury and ambition; so that his sins shall outvie his substance,
   and the very effects of mercy be made the weapons of unrighteousness;
   for him therefore to sin, because he is great, and rich, and powerful,
   that is, because Providence has by all this obliged him not to sin; is
   not this the height of ingratitude, as ingratitude is the height of
   baseness?

   Samuel upbraided David for his two great sins, by recounting what God
   had done for him, and how openhanded Providence had been to him, in
   heaping upon him all external blessings, even to the anticipation and
   exceeding of his desires. Behold, says the prophet, in the name of God,
   2 Sam. xii. 8, I had given thee suck and such things: and certainly
   these things are mercies; those, I am sure, that enjoy them, would
   confess them so in the want of them. For let such a one reflect upon
   the thousands and the ten thousands of calamitous persons round about
   him, and tell me a reason why he should stand exempted from the same
   lot; why Providence should be so fond of him, as to make him swim in
   pleasure, while others are sinking under their necessities? When he
   sees this man roaring under pain, that man languishing under sickness,
   another hauled to prison for poverty and debt, another starving with
   cold and hunger; let him tell us what obligation he has laid upon God,
   that he should be healthful in his person, flourishing in his
   condition, full in his revenues, and sit down to a table, the very
   scraps of which were a feast for many persons much more holy and
   virtuous than himself.

   But to go a little further: while he is thus provided for, (as we have
   observed,) not only as to convenience, but also supplied as to
   affluence; can he tell me, why he is all this time permitted to live,
   and to tread the earth? why he is not in hell, roaring in the flames,
   and bemoaning himself in the regions of the damned? whether his sins
   have not long since deserved it, and whether both the mercy and justice
   of God might not be glorified in his destruction? and whether many,
   whose sins were fewer and smaller than his, have not been cut off from
   the earth in wrath, and disposed of into that remediless estate of
   torment? Can he ascribe this reprieve to any thing but to mercy, to
   mere undeserved mercy, that places the marks of its favour absolutely
   and irrespectively upon whom it pleases?

   But now is there any gross sin, that such a one can commit, that is not
   a direct defiance to the designs of this mercy? There is not any
   temporal blessing that a man enjoys, that shall not be reckoned upon
   his eternal account. That sentence shall appear fresh and fierce
   against him, Son, thou receivedst thy good things. And it is not so
   much his having sinned that shall condemn him, as his having sinned in
   pomp, in plenty, and magnificence. His having sinned against the
   bounties and endearments of Providence; this is that, that shall rank
   him with those leading sinners, whose portion lies deeper in the
   bottomless pit than that of ordinary offenders.

   2. A second sort of presumptuous sins, are sins committed under God's
   judging and afflicting hand; than which there cannot be a more open and
   professed declaring of an opposition to God; it being little short of
   sending a challenge to Heaven. It is a striking of God, while God is
   striking us; and so, as it were, a contention who should have the last
   blow. For a child to commit that fault under the rod, for which the rod
   is upon him, shews an incorrigible disposition, and a malice too great
   to be chastised into amendment.

   What does God send forth his arrows for, and shoot this man with
   sickness, another with poverty, and a third with shame, but to reclaim
   and to recover them? to embitter the sweet morsels of sensuality to
   them, and to knock off their affections from sinful pleasures? For God
   makes not the miseries of men his recreation; it is no delight to him
   to hear the groans and the sighs of a distressed person. It can be no
   diversion to the chirurgeon to hear the shrieks and the cries of him
   whom he is cutting for the stone; but yet he goes on with his work, for
   he designs nothing but ease and cure to the person whom he afflicts.

   God would make men better by soft and persuasive means, he would draw
   them with the cords of a man; but when these prevail not, he is drove
   to the use of his whips and his scorpions: but if these prove
   ineffectual too, the man is too great a sinner to be corrected, and
   consequently to be saved. When a man comes three or four times out of
   God's furnace with his dross about him, it is a sign of a reprobate and
   a castaway. God complains of the house of Israel, Ezek. xxii. 18, that
   they were dross in the midst of the furnace. When the flesh is so
   proud, that it scorns all the powers of a corrosive, it is an argument
   that it is incurable, and fit for no thing but to be cut off. God
   speaks it with a certain pathos and expostulation, and as if he were
   even brought to a nonplus, Esa. i. 5, Why should ye be stricken any
   more? ye will revolt still more and more. Some are so obstinately bad,
   and confirmed in their vice, that judgments and afflictions are but
   thrown away upon them; and God's shooting at them is but like shooting
   at a mark, which indeed receives the arrow, but does not at all feel
   it.

   But such persons must know that their sins are rendered infinitely more
   daring and provoking by the distress of their condition. God throws
   them upon the ground, and they, instead of being humbled, rage and
   rave, and throw the dirt in his face. This is properly a man's
   hardening himself against God. The Holy Ghost speaking of a wicked
   prince of Judah, sets forth the height of his wickedness by this
   character, 2 Chron. xxviii. 22, In the time of his distress did he
   trespass yet more against the Lord: this is that king Ahaz. What a
   brand does he give him! as if he had said, This is that monster of men,
   that spot of nature, that prodigy of impiety. It is the property of
   dogs to snarl under the whip, and to fly in the face of him that
   strikes them.

   There is never an affliction that befalls any man, but it comes with
   this motto written upon it by the finger of God himself; Go, sin no
   more, lest a worse evil come unto thee. Has any man felt the hand of
   God upon his body, his estate, or his family, or any concernment that
   is dear unto him? Why let him hear his voice also; his admonishing, his
   counselling voice, Sin no more, lest a worse evil happen unto thee. Has
   God snatched away a man's child? God can snatch away his estate too.
   Has God took away his estate? he can take away his friends also. Has he
   bereaved him of his friends? he can likewise bereave him of his
   reputation. Has he blasted his reputation? he can proceed to touch him
   in his health, and with the most miserable of distempers to smite him
   with madness, phrensy, and distraction. And after all this, God has
   more ways to plague his rebel creature, than our poor, short
   apprehensions can reach unto.

   But now for a man to sin against all this; to laugh at all these
   warning periods of Heaven; what is it but a kind of waging war with
   God? Well may every serious person be still putting up this prayer,
   Lord, keep me from this kind of presumption: for certainly, wheresoever
   it is, it places a man but a finger's breadth from destruction.

   3. A third sort of presumption is, to commit a sin clearly discovered
   and directly pointed at by the word of God, either written or preached.
   The word sometimes meets the sinner with that power and clearness, that
   his conscience even forces him to cry out and arraign himself; This is
   my sin, and I am that sinner that is preached against. He finds it not
   in the power of his invention, by any art or evasion, to elude or shift
   off the charge, it comes so home and close to his condition. It is to
   his sin, as a looking-glass to his face; it represents it in every
   shadow, lineament, and proportion: so that the preacher might be even
   thought to have had a correspondent in the man's breast, and to have
   held intelligence with his heart: he gives him so exact and particular
   an account of the several ways, methods, and actings of his sin.

   Now for a man to turn his back upon all these bright discoveries of his
   sin, to commit it, as it were, with the word yet sounding in his ears,
   and full and quick in his memory; it is like a man's offending, not
   only against a law, but a law rubbed up, renewed, and set afresh before
   men's eyes, by the king's proclamation.

   It is but too usual to see some persons, who at church feel their
   consciences searched and lanced, and the word even lashing their sin
   over the face; yet presently, like Samson after the Philistines had
   been upon him, to go out and shake themselves a little, and forthwith
   become the very same men that they were before. They are as ready for
   their cups, for their rotten, obscene, and profane discourse; and, in a
   word, for all kind of lewdness; as if the preacher had not reproved
   their vice, but produced new arguments to encourage it; and exhorted
   them to persevere diligently in those blessed paths, in which they are
   sure to have the Devil for their leader, and their lust for their
   companion.

   But the word of God will not be baffled and put off so: where it finds
   no reception, it will be sure to leave a guilt, and no man can despise
   it securely: the more clearly it informs, being rejected, the more
   fiercely it condemns. For surely we cannot imagine that the great God
   of heaven is so cheap in his addresses to men's souls, as, according to
   his own expressions, to wait, to rise up early, and all the day long to
   stretch forth his hands to the sons of men, in setting out the nature
   and danger of sin before them; only that they may have opportunity to
   shew how little these things change and move them; how hardy and
   obstinate they can be in holding fast their vice, as it were, in spite
   of Heaven, and maugre all the divine warnings, threats, and
   admonitions.

   This is none of the least degrees of presumption: for supposing that
   the sinner has not shook off the first principle of self-preservation;
   while he ventures and proceeds confidently in a sin marked out for
   vengeance by the voice of God himself, he must needs question either
   his truth, that he will not, or his power, that he cannot, make good
   what he says, by punishing as severely as he threatens.

   4. A fourth sort of presumption is, to commit a sin against certain
   passages of Providence, particularly thwarting, and, as it were, lying
   cross to the commission of it. God is so merciful to and careful of
   some men's souls, that when his words make no impression, he is pleased
   in a manner to put forth his hand, and, by some kind of force, to
   withhold a man from the perpetration of his intended villainy, as by
   dashing the opportunities of sinning with some unlooked-for accident,
   so that the thread and chain of all his fine contrivances is, for the
   present, broke.

   It were infinite to recount particulars; each man may collect enough
   from his own observation. The drunkard's merry meetings are put off and
   defeated by the interposal of emergent, unexpected business; the
   designs of the revengeful person, by the intervention of company,
   perhaps by sickness, or some other misfortune disabling him for the
   execution of his malicious purposes: nay, and sometimes the frustration
   and disappointment shall be so repeated, and withal so strange, that
   the sinner's conscience can not but tell him that the finger of God is
   in the whole affair, and that the Almighty himself with stands him: in
   which case, for him still to hold on his wicked design, and to look for
   new opportunities to bring it to birth; to make fresh attempts, and to
   try other courses; it argues a man furiously and invincibly set upon
   offending God, and pursuing the satisfaction of his sin over all those
   mountains of opposition that Heaven has raised in his way.

   Thus we see nothing could withhold Pharaoh and his host from following
   the Israelites; for in Exod. xiv. 24, 25, it is said first, that God
   troubled them; then, that he took off their chariot wheels, so that
   they drove heavily; and lastly, such a terror seized them, that they
   cried out, Let us flee from the face of Israel; for the Lord fighteth
   for them against the Egyptians: yet nothing could recall Pharaoh, till
   Moses stretched out his rod upon the sea, and it returned and swallowed
   up him and his whole army, so that they sunk like lead in the mighty
   waters.

   And then for Balaam, whose story we have in the 22d of Numbers: his
   heart was all that time upon the rich, enticing offers of the king of
   Moab; yet how many rubs and repulses did God cast in his way, and with
   what difficulty did he go after the ways of unrighteousness: yet go
   after them he did, and upon that score stands recorded in scripture for
   as presumptuous and resolved a sinner as any is mentioned in the sacred
   story.

   Those who break through all those mounds and hinderances that God has
   laid between them and the gratification of their vice, imitate Balaam's
   sin, and may expect to inherit his damnation.

   5. A fifth kind of presumptuous sins are, sins against the inward
   checks and warnings of conscience about the evil of any course or
   action. We may call them the checks of conscience, though I doubt not
   but that sometimes they are the immediate whispers of God's Spirit in
   the soul; but it matters not much which they are, it coming all to one
   result; whether God speaks immediately by himself, or by his
   interpreter, for so is the conscience littering every thing in the name
   and authority of God: that there are such inward checks and startings
   of the soul at the attempt of any great sin is most certain; and I
   appeal to the mind of every particular person that hears me, whether
   lie has not often found a struggle within himself, and a kind of
   pull-back from the sin that he has been about to engage in, raising
   such questions in his heart as Joseph put to himself, How shall I do
   this great wickedness, and sin against God, and how shall I answer it
   at the last day? and, What if I should die before I repented of it?
   and, May it not, for all its present promises of pleasure, be
   bitterness in the latter end? I know every one (none excepted) feels
   something like this within himself: it is a thing of universal
   experience, and no man can deny it.

   Now from whence and for what can all these suggestions be sent into the
   heart? What is the reason that there is such a kind of thing within us,
   ready, as it were, to catch us by the arm, and to bid us hold our hand
   when we are putting it forth to the commission of any sin? Surely they
   are the spiritual engines of God, planted by him in the soul to wield
   it this way and that way, to the prosecution of virtuous, and from the
   pursuit of vicious courses: they are the characters of every man's duty
   drawn and engraven upon his heart; they are the expositors and faithful
   reporters of the mind of God to a man concerning the quality of every
   action that he is about to do.

   And to thwart and trample upon them, is to presume upon God to that
   degree that is called a resisting of his Spirit. It is to extinguish
   the eternal light; and to shut our eyes, that we may the more boldly
   leap down this dismal precipice into the arms and embraces of our sin.
   However, such presumers must learn, that he who now warns us from sin
   in a still voice, when he comes to reprove and judge for sin will do it
   in thunder. And there is not one of these inward, gentle, and (as they
   think,) inconsiderable movings and endeavours of the conscience against
   sin, but shall one day come into account, and be reckoned in the
   catalogue of its aggravations.

   So that if we should imagine a sinner pleading the excuse of his sin
   before God, that he was pushed on to the acting of it by a clamorous,
   furious principle within him, his violent affections, his mouth would
   quickly be stopped, and all his plea cut off by this one demand;
   Whether he did not find another principle within him, as much
   protesting against that sin, as passionately dissuading and drawing him
   off from it, painting the evil of it before his eyes, and laying the
   sad consequents of it home to his heart. All this will and must be
   granted; and therefore he that sins against these inward checks,
   presumes, and, what is more, he presumes inexcusably.

   6. A sixth sort of presumptuous sins are, sins against that inward
   taste, relish, and complacency that men have found in their attempts to
   walk with God, and comply with the precepts of the gospel. The former
   are sins against the sight, these against the taste of God's favour.
   For the explication of which we must observe, that some persons,
   wrought up and warmed by the word into good resolutions, set forth for
   heaven, and intend with themselves a dereliction of the world, and a
   living up to those divine rules of piety taught and proposed by the
   Saviour of the world, the great instructor of souls. Hereupon, by
   reason of the native suitableness of those excellent things taught by
   him to the generous principles of virtue, naturally planted in every
   mind, a man, upon the least compliance with them, finds a strange,
   exalting pleasure and satisfaction arising from thence, much superior
   to all the poor delights of sensuality. This is called, in Matt. xiii.
   20, a receiving the word with joy: and it is said of Herod, in Mark vi.
   20, that upon the Baptist's preaching he did many things, and heard him
   gladly: and there is mention of some, in Heb. vi. 4, that had tasted of
   the heavenly gift.

   Now this is that relish and inward complacency that I spoke of, and
   which I said might be sinned against. For I doubt not but God gratifies
   new beginners in the ways of piety with certain strictures and tastes
   of spiritual pleasure, in vain to be sought for any where else: they
   are transient discoveries of himself; the very glimpses of heaven, and
   drops of an overflowing bounty.

   And I doubt not also, but many, who have been admitted to a
   participation and experience of these privileges, have yet, through the
   force of temptation, the entanglements of the flesh, and the
   deceitfulness of their own hearts, been so far turned aside, as to have
   all these impressions worn off their minds, and in the issue prove
   wretched apostates. For these are not the peculiar mercies of the
   elect, who are loved with an everlasting love, but kindness of a lower
   degree. God may drop such manna upon those that shall never enter into
   Canaan: many, like Moses, may have a short view of that which they
   shall never enjoy.

   But this is that that we drive at, that every apostasy and sinful
   backsliding after the soul has been thus treated by God, is thereby
   inflamed to the nature of a great unkindness and a vast presumption.
   For can a man do any thing more heinous than this? After God has met
   him in his prayers, embraced him in sacraments, and given him hope of
   the pardon of his sins; after all this, to turn rebel? to hear the
   Baptist gladly, and within a while to behead him? Can there be a viler
   and blacker presumption? He that only has a cordial by him, and balks
   the use of it, dies without remedy; but he that also tastes it, and
   then spits it out again, dies without pity.

   And let this be observed, that if such persons, who, like Agrippa, were
   almost Christians, and have been, as it were, in the skirts and
   out-courts of heaven, chance to apostatize finally, and to perish, the
   consideration of this will make the worm of conscience bite much more
   terribly, and the everlasting flame burn ten times more violently, than
   if they had gone to hell at the common rate of sinning, with such as
   never thought of any other god but their belly, nor any religion beside
   their sensuality.

   7. The seventh and last sort of presumptuous sins that I shall mention
   is, the returning to and repeated commission of the same sin; which
   surely is the greatest demonstration of a bold, stiff, resolved sinner
   that can be. Flies are accounted bold creatures, and that for a very
   good reason; for drive them off from a place as often as you will, yet
   presently they will be there again. It is not a thing so clear, but it
   has been disputed by divines, whether a relapse into the same sin, if a
   gross one, be pardonable. There is great cause to conclude, that it may
   and is: the contrary assertion being a limitation of mercy, where the
   word sets no limits to it: yet surely the case is dangerous, and those
   two things may be very well consistent, that a disease is curable, and
   yet not one of five hundred ever cured of it.

   And if one, of so many sinning presumptuously in this nature, has been,
   by the singular grace of God, recovered, and in the end saved, I should
   think it would be but a small encouragement to any, to presume that he
   shall be the one picked out of so great a number. David presumed upon
   the goodness and justice of God broadly and foully enough in those his
   two great sins; and so did Peter in denying his master. But we read of
   no more murders or adulteries in David, or denials of Christ in Peter:
   and God knows, if there had, what would have been the issue of such a
   presumption in either of them.

   This is a sinning against the common methods of nature, as well as the
   obligations of grace. For it is natural to all men, nay, even to most
   brute animals, to avoid that thing or place where they have met with
   some notable mischief or disaster. There is a lasting horror of it
   imprinted upon the spirits, that presently works and shews itself upon
   the sight of the hurtful thing. Some stomachs never can abide a liquor
   or meat wonderfully grateful to them before, after they have had some
   loathsome physic conveyed to them in it: now there can no reason be
   assigned why men should not be thus affected also as to spirituals.

   A man commits a gross sin, and by it makes a great breach upon the
   peace of his conscience, loses all present sense and feeling of the
   favour of God, and perhaps, over and above, finds some outward, fierce
   expressions of his wrath in the discomposure of his worldly affairs, so
   that both within and with out the man is distempered and disordered,
   and in finitely at a loss how to resettle himself in his former calm
   condition. But at length, by divine favour, he does regain his former
   ground; and perhaps, within a while, his former sin also presents
   itself to him with fresh enticements and little renewed arts of
   persuasion; What will the man do now? Will he let the old, stale cheat,
   new dressed, be acted over upon him the second time? Will he venture
   the loss of God's favour once more? and try whether his pardoning mercy
   will hold out as long as he is pleased to abuse it? Will he have his
   conscience about his ears again, and break his leg, because once, by
   much pain and misery, he got it set in the like case?

   If he does, let him know that he is incorrigibly presumptuous, he
   crucifies the Son of God afresh, is a professed despiser of mercy, and
   by this daring return to his former sin, that had so fearfully mauled
   and shattered him, has, to say no more, put his repentance, his
   recovery, and salvation, under a very great improbability. And thus
   much for the second branch of the first general head, which was, to
   assign some of the most notable kinds of presumption.
     __________________________________________________________________

SERMON XII.

  PSALM xix. 13.

   Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins, lest they get the
   dominion over me.

   THE prosecution of these words was first disposed under these two
   general heads.

   I. To shew what these presumptuous sins was.

   II. To shew the reason of this so excellent and holy person, the
   Psalmist's, so earnest praying against them.

   The first of these I proposed to be handled under these three
   particulars.

   1. To shew what it was in general to presume.

   2. To shew and assign some of the most remarkable kinds of presumption.

   3. To propose some remedies against these sins.

   The two first of which being despatched, I proceed now to the third and
   last.

   The grand and general remedy against presumptuous sins surely must be,
   to arm the understanding, and to check the exorbitance of the will, by
   consideration: for the employment of which, with matter in reference to
   the sins we are treating of, these three things offer themselves to be
   considered.

   1. Let a man endeavour to fix in his heart a deep apprehension and
   persuasion of the transcendent evil of the nature of sin in general:
   which is no less than a direct affront to our Creator and Governor in a
   breach of that law that he values as a transcript of his own holiness,
   and enforces by the penalty of eternal death threatened to the
   violators and transgress ors of the least iota of it. The foundation of
   men's apostasy from God seems to be laid in the under valuing thoughts
   they have of sin. It is but as a mote in their eye, not for any trouble
   that it gives them, but for their opinion of its smallness. The
   easiness of the commission of it hides the monstrous greatness of the
   provocation: and men can sport away a soul so quickly and so easily,
   that they can scarce be brought to think themselves any poorer for the
   loss.

   But since it is difficult to view the nature of a thing immediately in
   itself, let men read the nature of sin in the dismal history of the
   effects and consequents of it. And for this, let them first see the
   ruin of a whole species, and the fall, not of man only, but of mankind,
   effected by it. Let them view Adam tumbled out of paradise, embased in
   his nature, and cursed in his actions, with a perpetual toil and misery
   entailed upon his descending posterity. Let them also see a deluge
   breaking in upon the earth, and the whole world lying under the
   destroying element; and they shall find that it was sin that opened the
   sluices of heaven, and brake up the fountains of the great deep. Sin
   was the thing that made God almost unravel the works of an whole
   creation, and deface the draughts of his own hand.

   He that shall read the several captivities, bondages, dispersions, and
   massacres of the Israelites, reads so many comments upon sins, so many
   lively descriptions of the destructive force of a mighty guilt. But he
   that would bring the matter to a compendium, and see all in one, let
   him see the only Son of God fetched out of the bosom of his Father, to
   bleed and suffer, and die upon the cross; that is, to die a vile,
   cursed, ignominious death. Let him see his very Father his executioner,
   and preparing him a cup full of the dregs of an infinite, flaming fury,
   to be drunk off by him. And all this, not for any personal sin of his
   own, but for the sins of others, took upon himself merely by
   imputation: so that being found under this, neither the dignity nor
   innocence of his person could secure it against the nails and the
   spear, the scoffs and the flouts, the gall and the vinegar, that our
   sins had prepared and infused for him.

   And lastly, to add a later, since there can be no greater instance of
   the malignity of sin: when we shall have the fabric of this beautiful
   frame of all things unfixed and torn down about us, the elements
   melting with fervent heat, and the heavens passing away with a noise;
   when the universe shall be reduced to its first principles, and time
   shall be no more; when the judgment shall be set, and the books opened;
   then we shall understand that it was sin that made all these
   desolations, that kindled these fires, and will be yet kindling much
   greater.

   Now let a sinner consider all these passages, and when he has
   considered them, let him know, that there is unspeakably more evil in
   sin than in all these. For God can destroy and confound a world, but he
   cannot sin: and Christ could submit to all the violences of cruelty,
   all the loads of contumely; but he who could do all this, could not be
   brought to commit the least sin.

   Nor is this to be wondered at; for as every quality flows much more
   plentifully in the cause than in the effect; so sin, that causes and
   produces all these evils, must needs contain a much more redundant evil
   in itself. But now, after all this, the presuming sinner must yet
   further consider, that all the evil he has hitherto heard of is but the
   evil of sin considered barely as sin: and then let him collect, that
   presumption is the very poison and gall of sin itself, the highest
   degree of it. Sin then reigns and sits in its throne, when it is once
   advanced to the nature of being presumptuous: so that presumption is a
   sin (if it were possible) something more than sinful.

   2. Let a man most seriously consider and reflect upon God's justice.
   The hands of justice are not so tied up by mercy, but that they are
   loose enough upon those who have no title to mercy: and such the
   greatest part of the world are, who may possibly, by a redundant
   bounty, enjoy, but they cannot claim it; for as God deals with men upon
   a double account, either of the gospel or of the law, the tenor of the
   former of which is, that there is no condemnation to such as are in
   Christ Jesus; that is, to such as believe and repent, and become new
   creatures: and the tenor and voice of the latter is, Cursed be every
   one that continueth not in all things written in the law to do them; so
   these two dispensations divide and comprehend all mankind; whereupon
   those who are not under one are certainly ranged under the other. Those
   who have not, by sincere repentance and the fruits of it, reached the
   conditions of the gospel, are under the lash and dint of the law. In
   the execution of whose sentence the divine justice reigns and shews
   itself, as the other is the proper scene of mercy.

   But now, while a sinner presumes and sins confidently, upon what
   grounds of certainty, or indeed of rational probability, can he
   conclude himself to be within the verge and compass of the second
   covenant? There is not a greater and a more dangerous symptom of a
   person wholly estranged from all right to the evangelical privileges.
   For none can be entitled to these but the penitent; and can any man
   evidence his penitence by his presumption? his sorrow for sin by a
   resolved progress and continuance in it? And if he can make out no
   title here, let him consider, and tremble under the consideration, that
   he lives every minute obnoxious to the arrests of that fierce attribute
   of God, his justice: he is absolutely under the power of the law, that
   law that cries for wrath and revenge upon the violators of it.

   So that, as presumptuous, he is the proper object for wrath and justice
   to discharge itself upon. Mercy indeed wards off all these dreadful
   blows; but it does not this universally and promiscuously for all, but
   for those only who by certain conditions are qualified for the proper
   subjects of mercy, as others are of justice. Where we may observe, that
   each of these attributes confine their working within their proper
   object, and encroach not upon the respective bounds of each other. He
   that is a vessel of mercy is out of the reach of justice; and he whom
   the law consigns over to justice, so long can have no protection from
   mercy.

   The impartial thought of which, surely, should be sufficient to
   disabuse the confidence of the presumptuous, and to rectify his wild,
   unlimited apprehensions of that pardoning grace, which speaks pardon to
   none while they presume upon it.

   3. Let a man correct his presumptuous humour, by considering how much
   such offences would exasperate even men. It is well, if some men can
   pardon once. But when they see that an offender grows upon them, takes
   heart, and reiterates the provocation over and over, their patience is
   out of breath, tires, and can hold out no longer. Peter thought,
   according to the rate of the world's pardoning, that he extended
   charity to a vast compass, when he discoursed of pardoning his brother
   seven times. He thought that then surely the acts of pardon were in
   their number of perfection.

   No man of spirit will endure that his clemency should prostitute his
   honour to the saucy invasions of a bold and a growing impudence. No
   father will endure that his son should abuse his goodness, as if it
   served for nothing else but only to suffer and for give. And this is a
   thing so known to men, so implanted in them by nature, that such as
   have not wholly shook off all modesty, dread the very sight of a man
   whom they have much presumed upon: and though they fear no punishment
   from him, yet they find those rejolts from humanity, that deject their
   countenance, and make them sneak, and fly the presence of an affronted
   person.

   Which being so, has not every presumptuous sinner reason thus to school
   and upbraid himself: Shall I fear to deal thus and thus with a man, a
   sinful man like myself; a worm, a piece of living dirt; one whose
   breath and life are in his nostrils? and shall I venture to pass the
   same and greater affronts upon the omnipotent Creator of the world,
   that can crush me to nothing, that can frown me into hell, and even
   look me into endless destruction? Shall I fear an anger that lasts but
   a moment, and can do but little while it lasts; an anger that is but as
   the spleen of a wasp, a short fester, and huff of passion: and shall I
   provoke such a displeasure as the very angels tremble at; a displeasure
   that for its duration is eternal, and for its weight intolerable?

   Men see and converse with that every day, in the ordinary passages of
   common life, that might invincibly argue them into a better behaviour
   towards their Maker. Could we but treat God as a king, as a magistrate,
   or a master, of all sins those of presumption would be the fewest. For
   in the courts of men people seldom expect to be pardoned the second
   time. But as for God, his mercy, they say, is infinite; and therefore
   they resolve that their rebel lions shall be so too, since there is no
   exhausting, no coming to the bottom of an infinite: and thus they
   presume to be pardoned so often, that in the issue they fall short of
   being pardoned once.

   And thus much for the third and last branch of the first general head;
   which was, to prescribe remedies against sins of presumption.

   II. I proceed now to the other general head proposed at first for the
   handling of the words; which is, to shew the reason of this holy and
   excellent person's, the Psalmist's, so earnest praying against these
   sins.

   I suppose the prosecution of the first head, which was to declare to us
   what presumptuous sins were, might be argument enough to declare to us
   the second also, in shewing the cause why the Psalmist so fervently
   prays against them. He prays against them, as against so many pests, so
   many direful causes of God's wrath, so many devourers of souls; and
   every prayer made against such things carries its reason too visibly
   writ upon it to be long inquired after.

   But yet, for a more full and explicit discussion of the point in hand,
   I shall endeavour to give some more particular account of the reasons
   inducing this holy person with so much zeal to engage his prayers
   against presumptuous sins. And I conceive the principal of them may be
   brought under these two heads.

   1. The danger of falling into these sins.

   2. The sad consequences of them, if fallen into.

   And first for the danger of falling into them; this appears in several
   respects.

   1. In respect of the nature of man, which is generally apt to be
   confident, and to measure its belief by its desires; still presaging
   the best, flattering itself, and building broad superstructures upon
   narrow foundations. Few men feel their conditions so bad, but they find
   room for hope: and that which is hope in some cases, will rise into
   arrogance and presumption in others.

   Most men are of a debonair, sanguine, jolly disposition, which never
   fails to supply those builders with materials, who are apt to rear
   castles in the air: so that we may well avouch, that where despair has
   slain its thousands, presumption has slain its ten thousands.

   For despair seldom breeds but in the melancholy temper, that inclines
   men to be thoughtful and suspicious, or in such breasts as have been
   forced into a preternatural melancholy by conversing with unskilful
   spiritual guides, of an indiscreet severity, and pinning their faith
   upon ill-managed discourses about predestination. But these are but a
   very small portion of mankind, in comparison of the other: these go in
   handfuls, the other in herds, thronging into the broad way, where mirth
   and confidence carry them, hop ping and laughing into perdition. Let
   this therefore be the first reason of the danger of men's falling into
   presumptuous sins.

   2. The second reason is from the object of presumption, God's mercy:
   which though I shew was limited, and not as boundless and absurd as
   some men's imaginations; yet there is no doubt but, according to the
   present economy of God's actings, the exercise of it is of much more
   latitude and extent than the exercise of his justice. The time of this
   life is a time of mercy, and God delights to make the experiments of it
   splendid and illustrious.

   Hereupon presumption strikes in, and advances it into endless and
   irrational; and uses it not only as an argument for repenting of past
   sins, (the sole proper use of it,) but as an antecedent inducement to
   warrant sin for the future. The largeness of mercy has made it apt to
   be abused by the corruption of man's heart, which is ready to suck
   poison out of the fairest flowers of God's garden; and to make the most
   amiable of his attributes serve the interest of its vilest affections.

   Let both law and gospel denounce death against the commission of such
   or such a sin; and presumption shall interpose, and tell the sinner in
   the Devil's own words, Thou shalt not surely die; and then mercy shall
   be alleged for a proof of this assertion: that shall be brought for an
   encouragement, that God intended only for a cure of sin.

   3. Thirdly and lastly. A third reason of the danger of falling into
   presumptuous sins is from the tempter, who chiefly busies and concerns
   himself to engage men in this kind of sin. It is said of David,
   concerning his sin in numbering the people, which put the sword in the
   hand of the destroying angel, to give his whole kingdom such a blow,
   that Satan stood up and provoked David to number Israel, 1 Chron. xxi.
   1. And of Judas it is most particularly remarked, in Luke xxii. 3, that
   Satan entered into Judas; and so by a kind of immediate possession
   acted him to the betraying of his master. And for Ananias who
   prevaricated about the price of his lands, and so endeavoured, as it
   were, to put a trick upon the Spirit of God, the apostle Peter tells
   him, in Acts v. 3, that it was Satan that filled his heart to lie to
   the Holy Ghost. Nay, and in that notable temptation in which he
   accosted our Saviour himself, the sin he drove at was a high
   presumption, namely, that Christ should cast himself headlong from a
   pinnacle of the temple; because God had charged his angels to keep him
   in all his ways; that is, that he should presume to promise himself the
   divine protection in an action wholly uncommanded, and consequently
   unwarranted, because God had engaged to secure and guard him in the
   commanded instances of duty and obedience.

   It is clear therefore, that the Devil lays a more than ordinary stress
   upon this; and if so, he will be sure to employ all his engines to push
   his design forward; for he knows that one great sin does his work
   compendiously, and destroys at a blow. He knows also, that his design,
   like a twoedged sword, may chance to cut both ways. For first he will
   make a man presume to commit a sin, and then, if possible, he will make
   him despair for having committed it. Wherefore, if all the arts and
   stratagems of our mortal enemy can endanger us, we are in danger of
   being entangled in this sin; this fatal, destructive sin, which is the
   very masterpiece of the Devil, and the gate of hell; and consequently
   have cause, with bended knees and bowed hearts, night and day to invoke
   the almighty assistances of Heaven for our rescue from that sin; in the
   commission of which every man so really proves the murderer of his own
   soul.

   And thus much for the first reason of David's so earnest praying
   against presumptuous sins, namely, the danger of falling into them; as
   also the several causes from whence that danger does arise.

   I proceed now to the other reason, which is, the sad consequences of
   these sins, if once fallen into: amongst which we may reckon these that
   follow.

   1. This kind of sin is marvellously apt to grow and prevail upon him
   that gives way to it; which ill consequence of it is deservedly
   mentioned by me, in the first place, it being that great and only one
   that David mentions instead of all the rest; Keep, says he, thy servant
   from presumptuous sins, lest they get the dominion over me. Every
   presumption is properly an encroachment, and all encroachment carries
   in it still a further and a further invasion upon the person encroached
   upon. It enters into the soul as a gangrene does into the body, which
   spreads as well as infects, and, with a running progress, carries a
   venom and a contagion over all the members. Presumption never stops in
   its first attempt. If Caesar comes once to pass Rubicon, he will be
   sure to march further on, even till he enters the very bowels of Rome,
   and break open the capitol itself. He that wades so far as to wet and
   foul himself, cares not how much he trashes further.

   When the tenderness of the soul is lost, and its first awe of God and
   religion broke by a bold sin, it grows venturous, and ready to throw
   itself upon all sorts of outrages and enormities. It does not demur and
   tremble as it used to do, when any thing gross and foul was proposed to
   it; but it closes with it readily, and steps undauntedly into that
   stream that is like to carry it away, and swallow it up for ever.

   This growing, encroaching mischief perhaps first fastens but upon the
   thoughts, and they take the liberty to settle upon some unlawful, base
   thing, like flies upon a carcass; from these it advances a step
   further, and seizes the desires, which presently are carried out with a
   restless eagerness after the same vile object; and these at length meet
   with some friendly opportunity, by the help of which they break forth
   into actual commission; which actual commission grows from one into
   many, and comes to be frequent and repeated, till it settles into a
   custom, and fixes itself immoveably and for ever in a man's behaviour.

   This is the nature and quality of presumption; much like what our
   Saviour says of the mustard seed, which at first is the least of all
   seeds, but being grown up is greater than all herbs, so that the birds
   of the air lodge in the branches of it. In like manner presumption
   first sows itself in a thought, the least of all sins for the matter of
   it; but from thence shooting up into a custom and an habitual practice,
   it grows mighty and wide, opens its arms, and spreads out its branches
   for every unclean bird, every sinful action and abomination to come and
   lodge and rest upon.

   No man can assign the limits, the ne plus ultra of presumption, where
   it will stay, and with what pitch of villainy it will be contented: it
   is as unruly as power, as boundless as rebellion; and therefore, he
   that would preserve his conscience, and the peace of it, has cause to
   keep a perpetual guard upon his heart, to stave it off from a first
   admission.

   2. The second ill consequence of presumptuous sins is, that of all
   others they prove the most difficult in their cure, forasmuch as they
   take away that which is the proper disposition to it, tenderness of
   conscience; leaving the heart fixed and hardened, and not easily
   capable of any healing impression. It is impossible for any man to be
   brought off from sin, but by the sense and feeling of sin: which sense,
   every presumption does by degrees weaken and dull, and in the issue
   utterly extinguish.

   For I shew before, that the proper effect of such sins w^as custom in
   sinning; and with what difficulty that is removed we are told in
   Jeremiah xiii. 23. Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard
   his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.
   The Ethiopian's blackness and the leopard's spots are natural to them;
   and there is no washing away nature, no purging off the essential
   properties of things; and therefore this is mentioned as a difficulty
   but one remove from an impossibility.

   Custom and frequency in sin breeds a familiarity with it that produces
   an affection to it, and ends in a resolved continuance in it. And as it
   is said by the apostle upon another occasion, that perfect lone casts
   out fear; so, where custom has fastened a man's love upon sin, the awe
   and the dread of it vanishes; and the sinner can break a precept under
   the very eye of sin-revenging justice, without trembling; without
   feeling any inward wound or blow upon his heart: which is a frame of
   spirit, leaving a man not far from a reprobate mind and a seared
   conscience; a disease that laughs at all the applications of the
   spiritual physician; Jerem. li. 9, We would have healed Babylon, but
   she is not healed. And the truth is, he who comes recovered out of a
   course of presumptuous sinning, has plucked his foot out of a mortal
   snare, a deliverance never vouchsafed but to the favourites of mercy,
   supplying the defect and weakness of the means by an invincible grace.
   And we may say of such an one very properly, as of a man rising from a
   swoon, and the very neighbourhoods of death, that he is come to
   himself.

   3. As sins of presumption are more difficultly cured, so they waste the
   conscience infinitely more than any other sins. As really as blows and
   wounds and bruises weaken the body, and by degrees dispose it to its
   final dissolution; so certainly do some sins shake, and batter, and
   tear down the constitution of the soul. Guilt upon the conscience, like
   rust upon iron, both defiles and consumes it, by degrees gnawing and
   creeping into it; as that does, till at length it has eat out the very
   heart and substance of the metal. The inward as well as the outward man
   has his proper health, strength, and soundness naturally belonging to
   him; and in proportion, has also his diseases and distemper, arising
   from an irregular course of living. And every act of presumption is to
   him as a spiritual debauch or surfeit: things that bring a present
   disorder, and entail a future decay upon nature.

   David was a sufficient example of this, who complained in Psalm
   xxxviii. that there was neither soundness in his flesh, nor rest in his
   bones, by reason of his sin: and that his wounds even festered and grew
   noisome because of his foolishness, so that he became as a man in whom
   there was no strength. He lost that vigorous, athletic habit of soul,
   which before made him eminent and mighty in the ways of God; and now he
   began to droop and languish like a man that had drank a poisonous
   draught, that ever after wasted and consumed his spirits; so that in
   Psalm xxxix. and the last verse, he prays to God to spare him a little,
   that he might recover strength, before he went hence, and was seen no
   more. He that would see what desperate stabs and gashes the guilt of
   presumptuous sinning gives the conscience, should do well to acquaint
   himself with the case of David, as he himself (dolefully enough)
   expresses it all along in his Psalms; and if that does not warn him of
   his danger, he is like to learn it too late by the woful instructions
   of smart and experience.

   4. Fourthly and lastly. These sins have been always followed by God
   with greater and fiercer judgments than any others; and for this also
   we need go no further than David for an eminent in stance and
   demonstration: for after those two horrid sins committed by him, did
   not God raise up a rebel against him, not only out of his own house,
   but also out of his own loins? one that defied him both in the relation
   of a father and of a king, that trampled upon his authority, and abused
   his wives in the face of all Israel? Did not God also punish his
   adultery with an infamous lewd action in his family? his son committing
   incest with his own sis ter: and moreover the sword was never to depart
   from his house. To all which may be added the ignominy, the scoffs and
   reproaches that were in whole volleys discharged at him from all sides:
   hard usage for majesty and sovereignty to be treated with: yet by all
   this, God was pleased to give him some taste of the poison of his
   presumptions.

   And to proceed to other instances: Did not the villainy and lewdness of
   a few Benjamites, set and resolved upon their sin against all
   admonition, almost consume and reap down an whole tribe? Did not the
   violence and uncleanness of Hophni and Phinehas, bring a disaster and a
   defeat upon the armies of Israel? and withal perpetuate an hideous
   destructive curse upon their father's house? Did not the apostasy and
   ingratitude of Solomon against that God that made him shine like a star
   of the first magnitude amongst all the neighbouring princes, rend away
   ten tribes from his son at once?

   But above all, take that notable instance of Manasses, whose sins
   indeed were of that high strain, that they seemed to surpass all those
   of the kings of Israel and Judah, that were either before or after him;
   yet, notwithstanding this, both he himself proved a penitent and a
   convert at the last; and as for his son and successor Josiah, he was as
   eminently transcendent for his piety, as his father had been for his
   sin; and extended a reformation every way as large and wide as the
   former's corruption. So that one would have imagined that he had
   cleansed the land, and even atoned his father's abominations: whereupon
   the Spirit of God gives him this bright and glorious character; 2 Kings
   xxiii. 25, 26, That like unto Josiah there was no king before him that
   turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with
   all his might, according to all the law of Moses, neither afterwards
   arose any like unto him. And now what follows after all this? Why in
   the next verse, Notwithstanding this, the Lord turned not from the
   fierceness of his great wrath, wherewith his anger was kindled against
   Judah, because of all the provocations that Manasses had provoked him
   withal. Josiah's goodness could not expiate Manasses sin. The son's
   penitential tears could not wash away the father's guilt.

   And now for the sinner that we have been hitherto discoursing of; if
   all the former considerations will not move him, yet let him at least
   arrest his presumption with this last. Perhaps the growing, contagious
   nature of his sin moves him not; the difficult cure of it,
   peradventure, prevails upon him as little; and it is like, that its
   aptness to waste, and harden, and debauch the conscience may make but
   small impression upon him; yet shall not the effects of it, the
   confusion, the disaster, and the curse that it is big with, the curse
   that will descend like rottenness into his bones, and strike like a
   dart through his liver; shall not all this terrify him into caution and
   prayer, into reformation and amendment?

   It is the concernment of God's justice and his honour, to meet and
   confound an audacious sinner in his course with some remarkable
   instance of his vengeance. It is a clearing of his Providence to the
   rational world. Men surely have cause to pray against the commission of
   that sin, which, if once committed, may leave a guilt that no
   repentance can so wipe off as to discharge the sinner wholly from all
   punishment in this world. God, upon the intercession of Moses, was
   reconciled to the Israelites after their making of the golden calf; yet
   the pardon was mingled with a bitter allay; Exod. xxxii. 34,
   Nevertheless, saith God, in the day when I visit I will visit their sin
   upon them. And it was an usual saying of the Jewish rabbies, that there
   was no affliction or judgment that ever befell the children of Israel
   but had an ounce of the golden calf in it.

   And no sinner can assure himself but that, after all his prayers, and
   tears, and humiliations, nay, and what is more, his reconcilement with
   God, as to his eternal estate, yet, as to his temporal, the anger of
   the same God may, for the guilt of some gross, presumptuous sin, stick
   in his skirts, and never cease to pursue and dog him to his grave,
   sealing his offence with that dreadful sentence in Isaiah xxii. 14,
   Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till you die. Which
   sentence as every presumption will deserve, so it is only in his power
   that pronounces it to prevent.

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

SERMON XIII.

  PSALM cxxxix. 3.

   Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all
   my ways.

   IN this Psalm David endeavours to possess himself with an holy
   admiration of the excellency of God's knowledge, which is one of those
   divine perfections which we call attributes; all of which, though they
   are so many expressions of God condescending to our capacities, yet
   they are so exceeding glorious in themselves, that when we study to
   search them out, we must needs conclude, that they are objects much
   fitter for our admiration than our understanding. And one of the
   greatest of these is that which we are now about, to wit, God's
   knowledge.

   It is such a knowledge as sees and comprehends all things, but is
   comprehended by none; and the best of human knowledge is so far from
   equalling of it, that it is its greatest perfection to be able to
   express it. But when we have said all concerning it that we can, when
   we have spent our inventions and our words, we must set down and
   confess with David, that such knowledge is too wonderful for us; since
   our highest and most devout expressions of God rather testify our
   reverential desires of honouring him, than at all express his nature.
   Now the knowledge of God is chiefly wonderful, in respect of the extent
   and latitude of its object, as it takes in all things knowable. But
   here the prophet considers it in a more restrained sense, as it is
   conversant about the secret and hidden things of man, and in this
   respect it is admirable. It was no small testimony of the divinity of
   our Saviour's knowledge, that he knew what was in man, and needed not
   that any one should tell him, John ii. 25. Certainly none can find out
   those many windings and turnings, those strange intricacies of the
   mind, but the great artificer that framed them. From the 1st verse to
   the 17th we have many rare, full, and elegant expressions setting forth
   God's accurate discernment of the most hidden contrivances of men; who,
   by one cast of his eye, looks through the whole scene of our lives.
   Whether rising up or lying down; waking or discoursing; thinking, yea,
   before we think; yet unborn and enclosed in the womb, he clearly sees
   and beholds us. The words that I have read unto you seem to be a
   metaphor, taken from soldiers surrounding the ways with an ambush, or
   placing scouts and spies in every corner, to discover the enemy in his
   march: thou compassest my path; thou hast, as it were, thy spies over
   me, wheresoever I go. By path is meant the outward actions and carriage
   of his ordinary conversation. By lying down is signified to us the
   private and close actions of his life; such as were attended only by
   darkness and solitude. In the 36th Psalm, verse 4, it is said of the
   wicked, that he deviseth mischief upon his bed, to denote, not only his
   perverse diligence, but also his secrecy in it: and God is said to hide
   his children in the secret of his pavilion. So that these places of
   rest and lying down are designed for secrecy and withdrawing. When a
   man retires into his chamber, he does, in a manner, for a while, shut
   himself out of the world. And that this is the fine sense of that
   expression of lying down, appears from the next words, Thou art
   acquainted with all my ways; where he collects in one word, what he had
   before said in two; or it may come in by way of inference and deduction
   from the former. As if he should say, Thou knowest what I do in my
   ordinary converse with men, and also how I behave myself when I am
   retired from them; therefore thou knowest all my actions, since a man's
   actions may be reduced either to his public or private deportment. By
   the other expression of my ways is here meant the total of a man's
   behaviour before God, whether in thoughts, words, or deeds, as is
   manifest by comparing this with other verses. In the 2d verse it is
   said, Thou understandest my thought afar off; and in the 4th verse it
   is said, There is not a word in my mouth, but thou knowest it
   altogether. And thus we see, that it was David's scope to shew, that
   the most dark counsels of men are exposed to God's view, and this he
   does by a distinct enumeration of all the particulars: Thou knowest my
   down-sitting and my uprising; thou understandest my thoughts; thou
   compassest my path and my lying down; there is not a word in my mouth,
   but thou knowest it; thou hast beset me before and behind; thou
   coverest me in my mother's womb, and seest my substance being yet
   imperfect. He might have comprised all this in short, as in some such
   like expression; Lord, there is nothing in the life of man so
   concealed, but it is open and manifest to thy discernment. But he chose
   rather to dilate himself; because a distinct and particular mention of
   each several passage shews not only God's bare knowledge, but also his
   observance of these things. From hence therefore I shall gather this
   doctrinal observation, viz.

   That God knows and takes strict and accurate notice of the most secret
   and retired passages of a man's life.

   In the prosecution of this doctrine I shall only prove it by some
   reasons, and afterwards make application, which I chiefly intend.

   The reasons shall be of two sorts.

   I. Such as prove that it is so, that God knows the most secret passages
   of our lives.

   II. Such as shew whence it is, that he takes such notice of them.

   The first reason proving that God does observe the secret passages of
   man's life is, because he rules and governs them. Government is such a
   thing, as requires the highest and most perfect endowments of
   knowledge: the very wheel and hinge even of human government is
   intelligence. Can a man deprived of his sight manage a chariot through
   by and dark ways with a steady hand? Can God that carries the rule of
   all things in so constant and fixed a course, and yet not observe those
   things? Certainly he could not govern the world by his power, unless he
   governed his power by his knowledge. In Ezek. i. 18, God's providence
   in the administration of all things here below is expressed by a wheel
   full of eyes, to signify God's quicksighted knowledge in his
   government, and to express also, that those eyes were always in motion.

   The Spirit of God attributes the like knowledge to Christ in his
   providential ruling the church; Zech. iii. 9, Upon one stone shall be
   seven eyes. By the stone is here meant Christ, to whom is ascribed
   perfect knowledge; by eyes is signified knowledge, and the number
   denotes perfection. Now there are three ways by which God governs the
   most secret projects of man, to all of which there is required a
   distinct knowledge.

   1. He governs them by discovering of them. Now how is it possible for
   any one to make that known to another which he does not know himself.
   God prudently overrules most plots by a seasonable revealment of them,
   as the sun may be said to rule the day, as it is in Gen. i. 16, because
   of his universal sight, by which he discovers all things. In Matt. ii.
   13, God disappointed Herod's design of killing Christ, by making it
   known to Joseph: and God made ineffectual the treacherous intentions of
   the men of Keilah, in delivering David to Saul, 1 Sam. xxiii. 12, by
   discovering to David what they intended against him: wherefore it must
   needs follow, that since God makes hidden things open to men, they must
   of necessity be much more open and manifest to himself.

   2. He governs the most secret intentions by preventing of them. For
   assuredly, if God should permit all the sin that men conceive in their
   thoughts to break forth into action, the world would not be able to
   continue, by reason of the overflowing sinfulness of men. God does
   therefore prevent and hinder it, and as it were stifles it in the very
   birth. Now to be able to prevent an evil, argues a clear knowledge of
   its approach. How many secret villainies, thought of and intended, and
   even ready for execution, have been turned aside, by God's interposing
   providence! In Gen. xx. 6, God says of Abimelech, that he withheld him
   from sinning against him, and suffered him not to touch Sarah.
   Adultery, in all likelihood, would have followed, had not God stepped
   in between the intentions and commission of it; and does not this argue
   God to be a strict discerner of our most private actions? Wisely to
   prevent, is an act of the highest prudence and experience: that
   watchman must have his eyes open, that discerns an enemy coining while
   he is yet afar off.

   3. God governs the secret designs of men, by directing them to other
   ends than for which they were intended. Man may resolve, but God often
   secretly blows upon his counsels, and scatters all his resolutions. In
   vain do the Syrians take counsel to invade Judah, when God says, in
   Isaiah vii. 7, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass. If
   God can turn the designs of men which way soever he pleases, he cannot
   but also see and observe them. To be able to divert a river in the
   midst of its most violent course from its native channel, shews more
   than ordinary skill. When a sinner in the full career of his intentions
   is rushing into sin, like a horse into the battle, then for God to wind
   him to his own purposes, it shews him to be of an infinite wisdom, and
   withal to have his eye continually fixed upon that man's ways. How
   privately did Joseph's brethren carry on their plot against him, with
   an evil and malicious intent; yet God observes their treachery; and
   what they intended for his misery, God turns to be a miraculous means
   of their own preservation, Gen. xlv. 5. And thus did Judas plot in
   secret with the rulers of the Jews to betray his Master; God sees his
   design, and withal orders the most cursed intention that ever was, to
   the best and most glorious end: most excellent therefore must the
   knowledge of God be, that describes the most hidden, sinful actions of
   men, so as to manage them contrary to their natural tendency: the
   sinner shoots the arrow, but God takes the aim, and directs it to his
   own marks. Let a man sin as secretly as he can, yet he shall not be
   able to avoid God's knowledge, nor to contradict his will, I mean his
   efficacious and hidden will; which, by a secret influence, controls all
   actions, even the most wicked, to the glory of God. From hence we may
   be assured, that God is both privy to and observant of our most
   concealed iniquities, since he is able to see further into them, than
   the sinner himself that commits them. And thus much concerning the
   first reason, proving that God observes the most secret passages of our
   lives, because he governs them, and that both by discovering, by
   preventing, and by directing them to his own ends.

   The second reason proving the same is, because he gives laws to
   regulate the most secret passages of our lives, and therefore he must
   needs know and observe them. It is absurd for any governor to impose
   laws upon men in respect of those actions which cannot come under his
   knowledge. Hereupon all human laws tend only to the regulation of the
   outward man, and proceeds no further. But God extends his law to the
   most secret behaviour of men, even to the thoughts. Hence our Saviour
   interprets the lust of the heart, and the first motions thereof to
   uncleanness, to be adultery, Matt. v. 28. Hence also the word, or law,
   of God, is said, in Heb. iv. 12, to be quick and powerful, and a
   discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And in Heb. iii.
   12, the Spirit of God commands them not to entertain an evil heart of
   unbelief, nor so much as in their desires to depart from the living
   God. If God took no notice of secret unbelief, if he did not know or
   regard all the private excursions of the mind to sin, it were vain and
   fruitless to limit them by a law. But since he has set a law even to
   these also, since he does not only restrain our secret actions, but
   even our thoughts and desires, we may very well collect that all these
   are in his view, that he evidently beholds and searches them out, and
   that his knowledge is not shorter than his commands.

   The third reason is, because he will judge the most secret passages of
   our lives, therefore they are manifest to him. Knowledge is so
   requisite to judgment, that our earthly judges cannot judge rightly in
   matters that they do not know: hence Job, to shew how uprightly he
   judged, said, that he searched out the cause that he knew not, Job
   xxix. 16, implying that it was impossible for him other wise to award a
   righteous sentence. Justice indeed is pictured blind, not because it is
   to be without the eye of knowledge, but the eye of partiality. Now
   shall not God, that is the judge of ah 1 the earth, do right? Shall he
   condemn and punish men for such sins as he knows not whether they have
   committed or not? Certain it is, that he judges men for secret sin;
   therefore it is also certain that he knows them. In Eccles. xi. 9,
   Solomon says of the voluptuous man, that for the ways of his heart,
   which are his secret and his hidden ways, God will bring him to
   judgment; and in Eccles. xii. 14 it is said, that God shall bring every
   work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good, or
   whether it be evil; and no wonder, since there is not so much as the
   least rising of the heart to sin but he views it; no circumstance so
   inconsiderable to our apprehensions, but he ponders it: he does, as it
   were, severely winnow every action, and discerns that which is good in
   it, from that which is vile and sinful. Now there are two seasons
   wherein God will judge men for their secret sins. First, in this life,
   wherein he often gives sinners a foretaste of what he intends to do in
   the future: and though he does reserve the whole weight of his judgment
   till after death, yet he frequently dispenses some strokes of it by way
   of earnest before. Because not only men's desires, but also their
   belief, is chiefly satisfied by things present; wherefore God sometimes
   follows secret sins with present judgment. When Moses declared the law
   of God to Israel, and withal denounced punishments to the disobedient,
   he applies himself especially to those that were guilty of secret
   disobedience; and lest they should rid themselves of the fear of those
   punishments, by looking upon them as future and remote, he shews how
   dreadfully God intends to deal with such sinners even in this life:
   Deut. xxix. 18-21. Here we see sin was very secret, shut up in the
   private reasonings and debates of the mind; but God fetches the sinner
   out, and purges him, with present temporal judgment; for, as it appears
   from the foregoing chapter, the curses here mentioned were chiefly such
   as touched men in their life, their estate, and outward relations. Such
   is the irrational atheism of most men, that although they have no
   thought, and consequently no fears, of hell, yet they accordingly dread
   temporal affliction. Like a child, that does not so much fear the loss
   of his life, as the loss of his apple. Let such men know, that it is
   very probable that by their secret sins they may bring down the curse
   of God upon themselves in this world; and although their hell be
   completed hereafter, they may begin it here. Whence is it that some men
   are so strangely blasted in their parts and preferment, but from some
   hidden sin, that rots and destroys all: whence is it that many large
   estates do undiscernedly shrivel away and come to nothing, but perhaps
   from the guilt of some secret extortion, perjury, or the like, that
   lies fretting and eating out the very bowels of them. I do not speak
   this universally, nor affirm that this is always the cause of these
   miseries, but it is to be feared that it is very often so.

   2. The second season wherein God judges the secret passages of our sins
   is at the day of judgment. In respect of which our Saviour says, that
   there is nothing hid but shall be made manifest, Luke xii. 2. A thief
   or a murderer may carry on his villainy undisclosed for many years, but
   the day of his trial will discover all: in Daniel vii. 10, it is said,
   the judgment was set, and the books were opened. By the books is meant
   the knowledge of God, in which all things are kept as durably and
   distinctly as if they were registered in a book. Then God will open
   this book of his knowledge, and read all those hidden passages that are
   writ in it in the audience of all the world. And this is one reason why
   he permits so many heinous impieties to be concealed here on earth,
   because he intends to dignify that day with the revealment of them.

   And thus much concerning the first sort of reasons, which prove that it
   is so, that God knows and observes the secret passages of our lives. I
   proceed now to the second sort of reasons, that prove whence it is that
   God thus knows them. Now these proofs are very different: for the first
   proves, that God knows these things by way of connection, that is, by
   those acts of God which are always enjoined with knowledge, as his
   governing, giving laws, and judging: but now these latter reasons
   prove, that he observes all hidden things from that which is the cause
   of such observations.

   1. And the first reason shall be drawn from God's omniscience, or his
   power of knowing all things: from whence it follows, that nothing can
   be hid from him; and this is that light which no man can keep off, any
   more than he can in the opening hinder the day from shining upon him;
   it is a light shining in every dark place: as it has no obscurity
   itself, so it permits nothing else to lie obscure: and that it is
   universal and infinite, appears from this, because otherwise it would
   not bear a full proportion to the rest of God's perfections. Now in
   respect of this, it is said in Prov. xv. 3, The eyes of the Lord are in
   every place, beholding the evil and the good: and in 2 Chron. xvi. 9,
   The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth: and in
   Job xxviii. 24, it is said of God, that he looketh to the ends of the
   earth, and seeth under the whole heavens. How vain therefore is the
   thought of these men that attempt sin upon confidence of privacy, that
   do, as it were, dig deep to hide their counsel from the Lord. O that
   such would but read and consider that text in Heb. iv. 13, All things
   are naked and open before the eyes of him with whom we have to do. Now
   to behold a thing as naked, implies the greatest evidence and
   discovery. It is also said, that secret things belong unto the Lord,
   Deut. xxix. 29; which, as also the forementioned places, are only so
   many expressions of God's infinitely comprehensive knowledge: from
   hence therefore we may clearly deduce what we do intend. If the
   perfection of God's nature engages him to know all things, he must also
   actually know all things; and if he actually discerns all things, he
   must also discern all secret things; and if he is acquainted with all
   secrets, he must also behold and observe the secret passages of our
   lives, which of all other secret things are the most considerable.

   2. The second reason may be drawn from God's intimate presence to the
   nature and being of all things, from whence is also inferred his
   knowledge of them: for since there is no real distinction between the
   being and knowledge of God, but only in the manner of our conceptions,
   it follows, that where he is present in respect of his being, he must
   be also present in respect of his knowledge. But now the being of God
   is diffused through the whole and every part of the universe, as the
   soul insinuates itself into all the members of the body: not that God
   is thus present to all the world by way of identity with it, (as some
   profane philosophers have affirmed, who, in a literal sense, may be
   said to have known no God but the world;) but he is present with it by
   way of nearness and inward proximity to it. Without which, the creature
   could not derive continual influence from him for the upholding of its
   being, but must of necessity fall back into its first nothing. From
   this universal presence of God the scripture often proves the
   universality of his knowledge: in the twenty-third of Jeremiah, ver.
   24, God thus argues himself, Can any hide himself in secret places that
   I should not see him? saith the Lord. Why? whence is it so impossible
   to avoid God's sight? That which follows proves it; Do not I fill
   heaven and earth? saith the Lord. God's filling heaven and earth, that
   is, his being present everywhere, proves also, that there can be no
   place hidden from him, but that he like wise sees everywhere. David
   also, in this hundred and thirty-ninth Psalm, where the text is, proves
   God's infinite discernment of all things by the same argument. He had
   said, that God compassed his paths, and knows all his ways: but what
   was the reason that convinced him of this? He sets it down in the
   seventh and eighth verses, Whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I
   ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell,
   behold, thou art there. He that always stands by us must needs see and
   observe what we do: wherefore, if the sinner would act his sin out of
   God's knowledge, let him first endeavour to go out of his presence;
   which he is no more able to do, than to go out of his own being. And
   thus much concerning the reasons proving the point; I now proceed to
   application.

   If it is thus certain that God takes strict notice of the most secret
   passages of our lives, both because he overrules them, and prescribes
   laws to them, and judges them; and also because that his omniscience
   and omnipotence, then, in the first place, it may afford, [Sic in ed.
   1744.]

   1. A use of conviction, to convince all presumptuous sinners of the
   atheism of their hearts. I know the proof of this point, that God sees
   in secret, may seem to have been superfluous; since the general vogue
   of the world is ready, not only to meet, but even to prevent us in
   their acknowledgment of God's all-seeing eye: but if we look through
   men's professions, and trace their lives, we shall find that they do
   not really believe any such thing. For were we fully convinced that the
   just God, that declares himself a most certain punisher of sin, did
   also most certainly know sin, we should not dare to commit it
   presumptuously before him. Experience, the strong est argument, shews
   us the contrary in the ordinary passages of our lives. A very child
   will forbear to offend not only before his father, but before such an
   one from whom his father may come to know it. The reason is, because
   all persuasions, if real, do naturally engage a man to actions suitable
   to those persuasions. As for example, had you a thorough persuasion
   upon your heart that God saw you when you were attempting any vile sin,
   the very thought of this would beget such a reverence and a dread upon
   your spirits, as you could not venture to commit, if to gain a world:
   for we see such thoughts cast an awe upon us, even in our deportment
   before men. Hence the fool, that is, the wicked man, is said to say in
   his heart, that there is no God, because he does act in his life as if
   he thought there was none. In like manner the presuming sinner may be
   said to deny that God sees and observes all his actions, be cause he
   behaves himself so, as if he were really persuaded that God did not
   observe them: therefore, whosoever thou art that art a presumptuous
   offender, setting aside all thy spurious words, when thou dost resolve
   upon any sin, thou dost either believe that God sees thee, or that he
   does not. To believe he does not, is to deny him to be God: to believe
   he sees thee, and yet to commit the sin, is to affront him to his face,
   to bid open defiance to him, and to cast that unwisely contempt upon
   him, that the most audacious and impudent offender dares not offer to
   his earthly magistrate: wherefore, if from thy heart thou dost
   acknowledge God's all-seeing eye, cease from sin; otherwise, to any
   reasonable judgment thou dost really deny it, and in spite of all thy
   fair speeches art truly an atheist. For deeds always over balance
   words, and downright practice speaks the mind more plainly than the
   fairest profession.

   Second use. It speaks terror to all secret sinners: God sees and
   observes them in all their secrecies; he spies out all their private
   haunts and their sly recourses to their beloved sin. Let such men
   consider how unwilling they would be that men should know of their
   concealed villainies, of what they act by themselves: surely they would
   rather forfeit their lives, and all that was near unto them, than their
   secret sins should be divulged; and then let them know that God sees
   them, and that it was better that they were known to all the world that
   they so fear, than to him. For he sees more filth in them, than one of
   the most discerning and carping judgment can find in the faults of his
   adversary; and he does more detest them, than the most holy and up
   right man can do the most grossest and notorious sin. Let them also
   consider, that the greatest ground of all their sins, which is secrecy,
   is by God's all-seeing eye taken away. For assuredly the confidence of
   concealment is the greatest inducement for an hypocrite to commit the
   vilest sins. Psalm lxiv. 5, They encourage themselves in an evil
   matter: they say, Who shall see them? And thus confidence of secrecy
   gave them confidence in sin. But certainly it is an ill argument,
   because sinners do not see God, to conclude therefore, that God does
   not see them; like the foolish bird hiding his head in a hole, thinks
   himself secure from the view of the fowler, because the fowler is not
   in his view. O how miserably are such sinners deceived in the vain prop
   of a false confidence! in Psalm xc. 8, Thou hast set our iniquities
   before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance. As God
   lifts up the light of his countenance upon the godly, to refresh and
   comfort them, so he does also upon secret sinners, to discover and to
   amaze them. It is said of the secret adulterers, in Job xxiv. 16, 17,
   They know not the light: for the morning is to them as the shadow of
   death. How then will they bear the light of God's countenance, which
   will cast the shadow of death in their faces in a much more dreadful
   manner? In the same verse it is said, If one know them, they are in the
   terrors of the shadow of death: but the all-seeing God knows them: O
   the fear, the shame, and confusion that is in the mind of a discovered
   sinner! And let such an unclean person know, that he had better act his
   impurity in the sight of his reverend parents, and of a severe
   magistrate, than under the observing eye of a just and holy God, before
   whom secret sins are not secret, but open and revealed. Yet such as are
   secret to men we may rank into two sorts, both of which God perfectly
   knows.

   1. Such as are wholly transacted in the mind, without the service and
   ministration of the body; and these are the sins of our thoughts and
   desires, which are locked up from the knowledge of men or angels. No
   court of human judicature pretends to judge or punish the thoughts and
   intentions: they are in a peculiar manner reserved for the jurisdiction
   of the court of Heaven, which alone is able to examine and find them
   out. Now there is no act of man so quick as his thoughts; which in this
   resembles the angelical nature, that they are swift and invisible. Let
   the gross acting sinner act as fast as he can, yet the thinking sinner
   will have the start and advantage of him, and sin an hundred thoughts
   before he shall perform one sinful action. O the infinite multitudes of
   impure thoughts in a polluted mind, like swarms of flies upon a
   carcass, continually sucking and drawing in corruption. Now God has a
   more than ordinary respect to men's thoughts; hence God cries out of
   his people, Jer. iv. 4, How long shall vain thoughts lodge within thee?
   The greatest wickedness, and that which is the most odious to God, is
   the wickedness of the heart; and this consists in pollution of the
   thoughts and desires. Nay, God does so much hate the sinfulness of
   these, that sometimes he expresses the whole work of conversion by the
   renovation and change of the thoughts: in Isaiah Iv. 7, Let the wicked
   forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him
   return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him. But was it God's
   intention only to restrain these, and in the mean time to give him
   liberty in his sinful actions? No: but the forsaking of one implies the
   leaving of the other, as the greater duty includes the less. He that
   will not so much as indulge himself in an evil thought, will much less
   venture upon the gross commission of sin. Now God often times judges of
   the state and condition of a man from the purity or impurity of his
   thoughts; and that upon these reasons.

   1. Because the sin of the thoughts and desires is most spiritual, and
   consequently most opposite to the nature of God: spiritual wickedness
   is properly contrary to spiritual holiness, and it is that by virtue
   whereof Satan has strongest possession of the soul, as being that
   wherein most men resemble him, who being destitute of a body is not
   capable of corporal, fleshly sins: hence, in Ephes. vi. 12, we have the
   vileness of his nature expressed by spiritual wickedness in heavenly
   places. Now, as there is nothing almost so evident in itself, as by the
   advantage of contraries, so we may see how odious spiritual sin is to
   God, in that spiritual duty is so acceptable. God does not so much
   command us to serve him, as to serve him in spirit and in truth. In all
   religious duties the voice of God is, Son, give me thy heart. To find a
   sacrifice without an heart, was always accounted a thing prodigious. To
   bring our bodies to church, and leave our thoughts at home; this is
   most detestable before God. To lift up our eyes to heaven in prayer,
   and yet to fix our desires upon the earth, O this his soul hates. As
   God drew a resemblance of himself upon the whole man, so, in a more
   lively manner, he imprinted it on the mind. Now one sinful thought is
   able to slur this image of God upon the soul: one corrupt desire is
   able to divest the soul of all its native innocence and purity. This
   certainly must be true, that that which tends to corrupt the best and
   most worthy part of man, must needs be the worst and greatest
   corruption. But all, even the heathens, will acknowledge, that a man's
   mind is his better part: and scripture and experience tell us, that
   evil thoughts and desires defile the mind: therefore we should
   endeavour, in the first place, the sanctification and regulation of
   these. Moral philosophy tells us, that external actions are not morally
   good or evil of themselves, but by participation of the good and evil
   that is in the acts of the will, by which they are commanded. We are
   not angry with the hand that strikes us, but with the evil intention
   that guided the hand: nor with the tongue that curses us, but with the
   vile disposition of the mind that bid it curse. God commanded David to
   cut off the sin of Saul, in 2 Sam. xxi. 1, and he commanded Jehu to
   slay the posterity of Ahab. The outward action is here the same: whence
   then was David's action pleasing to God, and Jehu's reputed murder,
   Hosea i. 4, but from the difference of their thoughts and intentions?
   David did it with an intent to obey God, and Jehu with a design of
   private revenge. It is most just therefore that God should judge of the
   whole man by his thoughts and desires, since from these are the issues
   of life and death.

   2. He judges a man by these, because his actions and practice may be
   overruled, but thoughts and desires are the natural and genuine
   offspring of the soul. Experience tells us, that we have not that
   command and dominion over our thoughts that we have over our actions;
   they admit neither of order nor limitation, but are the continual,
   incessant bubbling up of sin out of the mind: for we may observe, that
   those acts that may immediately result from the faculty, without the
   interceding command of the will, are scarcely controlled by it. How
   will the unruly imaginations of a vain fancy range and wander, in spite
   of all the dictates and commands of reason. There is nothing more easy
   or usual than for one to counterfeit his behaviour. A man may cause,
   that nothing but love and kindness shall appear in his actions, when in
   his thoughts he breathes cruelty and murder. The hypocrite, in the
   outward part of the most holy duty, may make as fine and specious a
   shew as the best, when there is nothing but sin and rottenness in his
   heart; Ezekiel xxxiii. 31, They sit before thee as my people, and they
   hear thy words, but they will not do them; for with their mouth they
   shew much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness. Here we
   see they had nothing so frequent in their words and outward services as
   the worship of God, and nothing so remote from their desires. But now
   in the thoughts there is no dissimulation: what a man is in these, that
   he is in truth and reality: the soul is in its thoughts, as in its
   retiring room, laying aside the garb and dress in which it appeared
   upon the stage of the world. Nay, although a man had a full rule over
   his thoughts, yet they must needs be free from dissimulations, as not
   being capable of the causes of it. That which makes men dissemble, is a
   fear of and a desire to please the eyes of men; which we know cannot
   reach to the thoughts. It is therefore clear, that sincerity does only
   reside, and consequently is only to be found in these: hence we may
   observe, that Christ, in all his replies to the Jews and the pharisees,
   did rather answer the in ward reasonings and thoughts of their mind,
   than the questions they did propose. In Ezek. xiv. 3, 4, we have men
   addressing themselves to God in the greatest shew of salvation that
   might be; yet he professes that he will not answer them according to
   those pretences, but according to the idols they had set up in their
   hearts. A man, by reason of his concernments and interest in the world,
   what for fear of this punishment, and hope of that preferment, will
   cast himself into such a mould, as he shall be really nothing less than
   what he does appear to be; his words, actions, and outward carriage
   shall bear no correspondence with his intentions. The covetous man, in
   his mind, can lay heap upon heap; and what he cannot gain by his
   endeavours, he will make up by his thoughts. The ambitious man will
   think over all the applauses and greatness of the world, and in the
   closet of his mind erect to himself the idol of his own excellencies,
   and fall down and worship it. The revengeful person, though fear will
   not let him act his revenge, yet in his thoughts he will stab and
   trample upon his brother. The lascivious wretch, though shame will not
   let him execute his sin, yet he will feed his corrupt fancy with
   unclean imaginations. In all these passages men, being secure from the
   view of others, behave themselves according to the free genius and
   inclination of their nature. But God knows all these silent workings:
   he knows them, and abhors them: and that he does know them, he will
   make it appear at that day, when he shall also make others know them,
   and when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed. O what black
   stories will be told at the day of judgment of men's thoughts!

   2. The second sort of secret sins are such as are not only transacted
   in the mind, but also by the body, yet are covered and kept close from
   the view of men. Such was David's sin in the matter of Uriah, 2 Sam.
   xii. 12. God says to him, Thou didst this thing secretly. Such was
   Cain's murder of his brother. Such was the theft of Achan: there were
   no standers by, conscious to it; it was not done before spectators. Now
   certainly a sinner should thus argue; If I cannot hide my secret sinful
   thoughts and desires from God, how much less shall I be able to conceal
   my actions, be they ever so private. When Satan, secrecy, and
   opportunity, all of them great tempters, shall tempt you to sin,
   consider that you have still this company with you, a conscience that
   will accuse you, and a God that will judge you. And is there any man so
   irrational as to commit a robbery in the sight of his accuser? to do a
   felony before his judge? What reason will not suffer us to do before
   men, shall not reason and religion keep us from committing before God?
   Thou mayest wrong and defraud thy neighbour in secret, Habakkuk ii. 11,
   but the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber
   shall accuse thee. Thou mayest kill and murder, and none behold thee,
   but the voice of thy brother's blood shall cry to God from the ground
   that receives it, Gen. iv. 10. I may here speak to the secret sinner in
   the words of an holy author; Let him but find some corner where God may
   not see him, and then let him sin as he pleases. The adulterer, in the
   forementioned place of Job, is said to wait for the twilight: but here
   we find in this Psalm, that the darkness and light are both alike to
   God. The drunkard will presume to be drunk in the night; 1 Thess. v. 7.
   but here we read, that the darkness hideth not from God, but the night
   shineth as the day. No sins can be covered, but such as God himself
   shall be pleased to cover within the righteousness of his own son: he
   that can see in secret, and when thou shuttest thy door behold thee
   praying in thy closet, can as easily see thee when thou art sinning
   there; and as for private duty he will reward, so for secret sin he
   will punish thee openly, either in this world or in another. And
   therefore it were good for such kind of sinners to consider, that while
   their door is thus shut, the gates of hell stand open.

   3. As it speaks terror to all secret sinners, so it speaks no less
   comfort to all sincere-hearted Christians. The same sunrising and break
   of day that terrifies the robber, is a comfort to the honest traveller.
   Thou that art sincere, God sees that sincerity in thee that others
   cannot discern; yea, he often sees more sincerity in thy heart, than
   thou canst discern thyself. This may uphold the drooping spirits of a
   disconsolate soul, when the black mouths of men, steeled with ignorance
   and prejudice, shall be opened in hard speeches against him. For indeed
   nowadays, when a man cannot find fault with his brother's outward
   conversation, which only he can behold, he will censure him in respect
   of spirituals, which no man can discern, any more than I can know what
   is in a man's mind by the colour of his clothes. Such men speak as if
   God did not only make them partake of his mercies, but also of his
   prerogative. And when it should be their work to resemble God in
   holiness, they arrogantly pretend to be like him in omniscience. How
   severely, though blindly, do they judge of men's hearts! Such a man is
   profane; another is carnal, and a mere moralist; another proud, and as
   to the bent and frame of his spirit, a contemner of religion. But here
   the sincere soul may comfort itself, when with one eye it can reflect
   upon its own integrity, and with the other upon God's infinite,
   infallible knowledge, and say, indeed, Men charge me thus and thus, as
   false-hearted and an hypocrite, but my God knows otherwise. This, I
   say, may set thee above the calumnies of unreasonable men, and make
   thee ride upon the necks of thy accusers. And as Daniel, by trusting in
   his God, was secure from the mouths of the lions; so thou, by acting
   faith upon, and drawing comfort from God's omniscience, mayest defy the
   more cruel mouths of thy reproachers. When a man is accused of treason
   to his prince, and knows that his prince is fully assured of his
   innocence, he will laugh all such accusations to scorn. It is thus with
   God and a sincere heart: in the midst of all slanders, he will own thee
   for innocent; as he did Job, when his friends, with much specious
   piety, charged him with hypocrisy. Wherefore commit thy way to the
   all-seeing God, to that God that is acquainted with all thy ways; that
   sees thy goings out and thy comings in, and continually goes in and out
   before thee, and will one day testify and set his seal to thy
   integrity. Comfort thyself in the consideration of his omni science,
   from whence it is, that God judgeth not as man judgeth, but judges
   righteous judgment. And hold fast thy integrity, that lies secret in
   the heart, whose praise is of God, and not of man.
     __________________________________________________________________

SERMON XIV.

  ECCLESIASTES vii. 10.

   Say not thou. What Is the cause that the former days were better than
   these? for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this.

   IN the days of Solomon, when Jerusalem was the glory of the whole
   earth; when it flourished as the metropolis, not only of religion, but
   of the riches of the world; when gold was made as common as silver, and
   silver as the stones of the street, (so that its in habitants might
   even tread and trample upon that which so much commanded the hearts of
   others;) when their exchequer was full, and their fleets at Ophir; when
   religion was established, and the changing, ambulatory tabernacle fixed
   into a standing temple, and all crowned with a peace under Solomon
   after the afflictions and wars of David; when they flowed with plenty,
   and were governed with wisdom; yet, after all, the text here gives us a
   clear intimation, that plenty passed into surfeit, fulness into
   loathing, loathing into discontent, and that (as it always happens)
   into complaints of the times, viz. that former days were better than
   these.

   When yet, upon a small reflection backward, we have the calendar of the
   former times red with the bloody house of Saul, with the slaughter of
   the priests, and with the rebellions of Sheba and Absalom; nothing but
   tumults, changes, and vicissitudes; and yet, in the verdict of folly
   and faction, present enjoyments did so far endear former calamities, as
   to give them the preeminence in the comparison.

   But we see there may be folly even in Israel; and, if they were all of
   this mind, Solomon may justly seem to have monopolized all the wisdom
   to himself. We have him here chastising the sottishness of this
   inquiry: indeed the fittest person to encounter this exception, as
   being a king, and so able to control; being a preacher, and so able to
   confute it; furnished with power for the one, and with wisdom for the
   other.

   This is therefore the design of the words, either to satisfy or silence
   this malecontented inquiry: and supposing it to carry in it its own
   confutation, he confutes it, not by argument, but reproof; not as a
   doubtful problem, but as a foolish question: and certainly the case
   must needs be carried, where the fool makes the question, and the
   wisest of men gives the answer.

   The matter in controversy is the preeminence of the former times above
   the present; when we must observe, that though the words run in the
   form of a question, yet they include a positive assertion, and a
   downright censure.

   The inquiry being determined before it was proposed, now the charge of
   folly here laid upon it may relate to the supposition upon which it is
   founded in a threefold respect, viz.

   I. Of a peremptory negation, as a thing absolutely to be denied, that
   former times are better than the following.

   II. As of a case very disputable, whether they are so or no.

   III. As admitting the supposition for true, that really they are
   better, and so bear away the preeminence.

   Yet in every one of these three most different respects, this inquiry
   ought to be exploded as absurd, impertinent, and irrational.

   1. And first of all, that it is ridiculous to ask why former times are
   better than the present, if really they are not better, and so the very
   supposition it self proves false; this is too apparently manifest to be
   matter of dispute, and that it is false we shall endeavour to prove and
   evince in the ensuing discourse: but before I enter upon the proof of
   it, this one observation must be premised.

   That time is said to be good or bad, not from any such quality inherent
   in itself, but by external denomination from the nature of those things
   that are and do subsist in such a space of time. Time is the great
   vehicle of nature, not only for its swift passage and career, but
   because it carries in it the system of the world, from one stage and
   period of duration to another.

   Now the world may be considered either in its natural or moral
   perfections. Some hold, that for the former, there is a continual
   diminution and an in sensible decay in nature, things growing less and
   less, the very powers and faculties of them being weakened and shrunk;
   and the vital spirit, or humidum radicale, that God and nature first
   infused into the great body of the universe, being much exhausted, so
   that now, in every following age, the lamps of heaven burn dimmer and
   dimmer, till at length they dwindle into nothing, and so go out of
   themselves.

   But that this cannot be so, is clear from these reasons. 1st, Because
   the ancientest histories generally describe things in the same posture
   heretofore that we find them now. 2d, That admitting the least and most
   undiscernible degree of diminution, even to but one remove from none at
   all, the world, in the space of six thousand years, which date it al
   most now bears, by the continuance but of that small proportion of
   change, would have sunk even to no thing, or the smallness of an atom.
   3d, This will make the final annihilation of the world a mere effect of
   nature, and not of God's supernatural power; and so the consequent of
   it is irreligious.

   Wherefore it being sure that the whole fabric of the world stands in
   the same vigour and perfection of nature which it had at first, we come
   next to that in which we are now most concerned, to see whether or no
   it be impaired and sunk in its moral perfections, and what is the
   consequent of that in political.

   We have here an aphorism of Horace much inculcated. Terra mulos homines
   nunc educat atque pusillos. But poetry never yet went for argument: and
   perhaps he might speak this, being conscious of his own manners, and
   reflecting upon his own stature. But that in the descent of succeeding
   generations, the following are not still the worse, I thus evince.

   1. By reason: because there were the same objects to work upon men, and
   the same dispositions and inclinations in men to be wrought upon,
   before, that there are now. All the affairs of the world are the births
   and issue of men's actions; and all actions come from the meeting and
   collision of faculties with suitable objects. There were then the same
   incentives of desire on the one side, the same attractiveness in
   riches, the same relish in sovereignty, the same temptation in beauty,
   the same delicacy in meats, and taste in wines; and, on the other side,
   there were the same appetites of covetousness and ambition, the same
   fuel of lust and intemperance.

   And these are the wheels upon which the whole visible scene of affairs,
   ethic and politic, turns and depends. The business of the world is
   imitation, and that which we call novelty is nothing but repetition.
   The figure and motion of the world is circular, and experience no less
   than mathematics will evince, that, as it turns round, the same part
   must be often in the same place: one age indeed goes before another,
   but precedency is not always preeminence; and it is not unusual for a
   worse to go before a better, and for the servant to ride before and
   lead the way to his master.

   2. But 2dly, the same may be proved by history and the records of
   antiquity; and he who would give it the utmost proof that it is capable
   of from this topic, must speak volumes and preach libraries, bring a
   century within a line, and an age into every period. But what need we
   go any further than the noblest and yet the nearest piece of antiquity,
   the book of Moses.

   Is the wickedness of the old world forgot, that we do so aggravate the
   tempest of this? Was it destroyed with waters of oblivion? and has the
   deluge clean overwhelmed and sunk itself? In those days there were
   giants in sin, as well as sinners of the first magnitude, and of the
   largest size and proportion.

   And to take the world in a lower epocha, what after-age could exceed
   the lust of the Sodomites, the idolatry and tyranny of the Egyptians,
   the fickle levity of the Grecians? and that monstrous mixture of all
   baseness in the Roman Neros, Caligulas, and Domitians, emperors of the
   world, and slaves to their vice?

   And for the very state of Israel, in which this envious inquiry was
   first commenced, was that worse in Canaan, under the shadow and
   protection of a native royalty, than under the old servitude and
   tyranny of Egypt? Was their present condition so bad, that while
   Solomon was courting Pharaoh's daughter, they should again court his
   yoke? woo their old slavery, and solicit a match with their former
   bondage? Was it so delightful a condition to feed Pharaoh's cattle, and
   to want straw themselves? instead of one prince, to have many
   taskmasters? and to pay excise with their backs to maintain the
   tyrant's janizaries, and to feed their tormentors? But it seems, being
   in a land flowing with honey, they were cloyed with that, and so,
   loathing the honey, they grew in love with the sting.

   But to bring the subject to our own doors; if we would be convinced
   that former ages are not always better than the following, I suppose we
   need not much rack our memories for a proof from experience.

   I conceive the state of the Christian church also may come within the
   compass of our present discourse. Take it in its infancy, and with the
   properties of infancy; it was weak and naked, vexed with poverty, torn
   with persecution, and infested with heresy. It began the breach with
   Simon Magus, continued it with Arius, Nestorius, Eutyches, Aerius, some
   rending her doctrine, some her discipline; and what are the heresies
   that now trouble it, but new editions of the old with further gloss and
   enlargement? What is Socinus, but Photinus and Pelagius blended and
   joined together in a third composition? What are our separatists and
   purity-pretending schismatics, but the tame brood and successors of the
   Donatists? only with this difference, that they had their headquarters
   in meridie, in the southern parts of the world, whereas ours seem to be
   derived to us from the north. These, I thought, had put it out of
   dispute, that no succeeding age of the church could have been worse:
   and, I think, the assertion might have stood firm, had not some late
   instances of our own age made it disputable.

   But as for those who clamour of the corruptions of our present church,
   and are so earnest to reduce us to the primitive model; if they mean
   the primitive truth, and not rather the primitive nakedness of it only,
   we know this, for doctrine and discipline, it is the very transcript of
   antiquity. But if their design be to make us like the primitive
   Christians, by driving us into caves, and holes, and rocks; to tear
   down temples, and to make the sanctuary itself fly for refuge; to bring
   beasts into churches, and to send churchmen into dens; at the same time
   to make men beggars, and to take away hospitals; it is but reason to
   desire, that they would first begin and exemplify this reformation in
   themselves; and, like the old Christians, with want and poverty, wander
   about in sheepskins and goatskins: though, if they should, that is not
   presently a sheep that wears the skin, nor would the sheep's clothing
   change the nature of the wolf.

   I conclude therefore, that all these pompous declamations against the
   evil of the present times, set off by odious comparisons with the
   former, are the voice of error and envy, of the worst of judges, malice
   and mistake: though I cannot wonder if those assert affairs to be out
   of order, whose interest and desire it is to be once more a reforming.

   And thus much for the first consideration of the suppositions: as a
   thing false, and to be denied. I shall now,

   II. In the second place, remit a little of this, and take it in a lower
   respect; as a case disputable, whether the preceding or succeeding
   generations are to be preferred: and here I shall dispute the matter on
   both sides.

   1. And first for antiquity, and the former ages, we may plead thus.
   Certainly every thing is purest in the fountain, and most untainted in
   the original. The dregs are still the most likely to settle in the
   bottom, and to sink into the last ages. The world cannot but be the
   worse for wearing; and it must needs have contracted much dross, when
   at the last it cannot be purged but by an universal fire.

   Things are most fresh and fragrant in their beginning. The first-born
   is the most honourable, and it is primogeniture that entitles to the
   inheritance: it is not present possessions, but an early pedigree, that
   gives nobility.

   The older the world grows, the more decrepit it must be: for age bows
   the body, and so causes an obliquity: every course of time leaves its
   mark be hind it; and every century adds a wrinkle to the face of
   nature.

   As for knowledge, the former age still teaches the latter; and which is
   likely to be most knowing, he that teaches, or he that is taught? The
   best and most compendious way of attaining wisdom is the reading of
   histories; but history speaks not of the present time, but of the
   former.

   Besides, it was only the beginning of time that saw men innocent. Sin,
   like other things, receives growth by time, and improves by
   continuance: and every succeeding age has the bad example of one age
   more than the former. The same candle that refreshes when it is first
   light, smells and offends when it is going out.

   In the alphabet of nature, it is only the first letter that is
   flourished. In short, there is as much difference between the present
   and former times, as there is between a copy and an original; that
   indeed may be fair, but this only is authentic. And be a copy never so
   exact, yet still it shines with a borrowed perfection, and has but the
   low praise of an imitation: and this may be said in behalf of the
   former times.

   2. But secondly, for the preeminence of the succeeding ages above the
   former, it may be disputed thus.

   If the honour be due to antiquity, then certainly the present age must
   claim it; for the world is now oldest, and therefore upon the very
   right of seniority may challenge the precedency: for certainly the
   longer the world lasts, the older it grows. And if wisdom ought to be
   respected, we know that it is the offspring of experience, and
   experience the child of age and continuance.

   In every thing and action, it is not the beginning, but the end that is
   regarded: it is still the issue that crowns the work, and the amen that
   seals the petition: the plaudite is given to the last act: and Christ
   reserved the best wine to conclude the feast: nay, a fair beginning
   would be but the aggravation of a bad end.

   And if we plead original, we know that sin is strongest in its
   original; and we are taught whence to date that. The lightest things
   float at the top of time; but if there be such a thing as a golden age,
   its mass and weight must needs sink it to the bottom and concluding
   ages of the world.

   By having the histories of former ages, we have all their advantages by
   way of overplus, besides the proper advantages of our own; and so
   standing upon their shoulders, or rather upon their heads, cannot but
   have the further prospect.

   Though the flourish begins the line, yet it is the period that makes
   the sense. As for the infirmities of age, we confess that men grow
   decrepit by time, but mankind does not. Policy, arts, and manufactures
   improve; and nature itself, as well as others, cannot be an artist,
   till it has served its time.

   And, in religious matters, for the church, we know that it is Christ's
   body, and therefore its most natural, commending property is growth:
   but growth is the effect of duration, and if it had had its greatest
   perfection at the first, growth would have been impossible.

   Besides, we confess that prophecy was a thing appropriate to the first
   days of the church: but then it is not prophecy spoken, but fulfilled;
   not the promise made, but performed, which conveys the blessing; and
   though the giving of prophecies were the glory of the first times, yet
   their completion is the privilege of the latter.

   But do we not see all this while, that by thus ascribing the
   preeminence to former ages, we tacitly reflect a reproach upon the
   great Maker and Governor of the universe? For can Omnipotence be at a
   stand? Is God exhausted? And is nature the only thing which makes no
   progress? God has made all things in motion, and the design of motion
   is a further perfection.

   In sum, it was the fulness of time which brought Christ into the world;
   Christianity was a reserve for the last: and it was the beginning of
   time which was infamous for man's fall and ruin: so in scripture they
   are called the last days, and the ends of the world, which are ennobled
   with his redemption.

   But lastly, if the following ages were not the best, whence is it, that
   the older men grow, the more still they desire to live?--Now such
   things as these may be disputed in favour of the latter times beyond
   the former.

   Having here brought the matter to this poise, to this equilibrium, that
   reflexive inquiry in the text concerning the worth of former times
   above the present, is eminently unreasonable in these two respects.

   1. In respect of the nature of the thing itself; which we have seen is
   equally propendent to both parts, and not discernible which way the
   balance inclines: and nothing can be more irrational, than to be
   dogmatical in things doubtful; and to deter mine, where wise men only
   dispute.

   2. In respect of the incompetence of any man living to be judge in this
   controversy; and he that is unfit to judge, I am sure is unable to
   decide. Now that incompetence arises from this: that no man can judge
   rightly of two things, but by comparing them together; and compare them
   he cannot, unless he exactly knew them both. But how can he know former
   ages, unless, according to the opinion of Plato or Pythagoras, he might
   exist and be alive so many centuries before he was born?

   But you will reply, that he may know them by the histories of those
   that writ of their own times.

   To this I answer, that history may be justly suspected partial; and
   that historians report the virtues of their own age, selected and
   abstracted from the vices and defects; and if sometimes they mention
   the vices also, (as they do,) yet they only report the smaller, that
   they may with less suspicion conceal the greater. Now it is an unequal
   comparison to compare the select virtues of one age, with both the
   virtues and the vices of another.

   History, stripped of partiality, would be a poor, thin, meager thing,
   and the volume would shrink into the index. I conclude therefore, that
   he who would decide this controversy, whether the former or latter
   times ought to have the preeminence, by the historians of those times,
   he properly does this; he first calls a man into question, and then
   makes him judge in his own cause, and at the best sees only by
   another's eyes.

   Come we now to the third and last ground.

   3. That admitting this supposition as true, that the former ages are
   really the best, and to be preferred; yet still this querulous
   reflection upon the evil of the present times stands obnoxious to the
   same charge of folly; and if it be condemned also upon this
   supposition, I see not where it can take sanctuary: now that it ought
   to be so, I demonstrate by these reasons.

   1. Because such complaints have no efficacy to alter or remove the
   cause of them. Thoughts and words alter not the state of things. The
   rage and expostulations of discontent are like thunder with out a
   thunderbolt, they vanish and expire into noise and nothing; and, like a
   woman, are only loud and weak.

   States are not altered, nor governments changed, because such an one is
   discontented, and tells us so in a sermon, or writes it in a book, and
   so prints himself a fool. Sad, undoubtedly, were our case, should God
   be angry with a nation as often as a preacher is pleased to be
   passionate, and to call his distemper the word of God.

   A quill is but a weak thing to contest with a sceptre, and a satirical
   remonstrance to stand before a sword of justice. The laws will not be
   worded out of their course. The wheel will go on, though the fly sits
   and flutters and buzzes upon it.

   It would be well if such persons would take Luther's advice to
   Melancthon, and be persuaded to leave off to govern the world, and not
   to frame new politic ideas; not to raise models of state, and holy
   commonwealths, in their little discontented closets; nor to arraign a
   council before a conventicle; and being stripped of their arms, to fly
   to revelation; and when they cannot effect, at least prophesy a change.

   Though there be a lion, a bull, a venomous ser pent, and a fiery
   scorpion in the zodiac; yet still the sun holds on his way, goes
   through them all, brings the year about, finishes his course, shines,
   and is glorious in spite of such opposition. The maunderings of
   discontent are like the voice and behaviour of a swine, who, when he
   feels it rain, runs grumbling about, and by that indeed discovers his
   nature, but does not avoid the storm.

   2. Such complaints of the evil of the times are irrational, because
   they only quicken the smart, and add to the pressure. Such querulous
   invectives against a standing government, are like a stone flung at a
   marble pillar, which not only makes no impression upon that, but
   rebounds, and hits the flinger in the face. Discontent burns only that
   breast in which it boils; and when it is not contented to be hot with
   in, but must boil over in unruly, unwarrantable expressions, to avoid
   the heat, it wisely takes refuge in the fire: hence, when the sea
   swells and rages, we say not improperly, that the sea itself is
   troubled.

   Submission is that which either removes or lightens the burden. Giving
   way either avoids or eludes the blow; and where an enemy or an
   affliction is too strong, patience is the best defiance.

   And herein does the admirable wisdom of God appear, in modelling the
   great economy of the world, so uniting public and private advantages,
   that those affections and dispositions of mind, that are most
   conducible to the safety of government and society, are also most
   advantageous to every man in his own personal capacity: for does not an
   humble, compliant subjection at the same time strengthen the hands of
   the magistrate, and bless the person that has it with the privileges of
   quiet and content? He who has content, has that for which others would
   be great; he both secures and enjoys himself: but, on the contrary, he
   that frets, and fumes, and is angry, he raises tumults abroad, and
   feels the same within: as he that cries, and roars, and makes a noise,
   first hinders his own sleep, before he breaks the rest of others: and
   it is not unusual to see a fire sometimes stifled and extinguished in
   its own smoke.

   In short, discontent is as laborious as useless: and he who will rebel
   must reckon upon the cost and conduct of an army; and endure the
   trouble of watching, as well as use the dissimulation of praying.

   3. Thirdly and lastly, these censorious complaints of the evil of the
   times are irrational, because the just cause of them is resolvable into
   ourselves. It is not the times that debauch men, but men that derive
   and rabb a contagion upon the time: and it is still the liquor that
   first taints and infects the vessel.

   Time is harmless; it passes on, and meddles with none: the sun rises,
   the year proceeds, and the sea sons return, according to the decrees of
   nature, and the inviolate constancy of a perpetual course. And is it
   not irrational for a man to cast the errors of his choice upon the
   necessity of fate? or to complain that men speak low, because his
   hearing is decayed? and to utter satires and declamations against those
   times which his own vice has made bad? and, like Amnon, defile his
   sister, and then loathe her for the wrong he did her?

   Thus we use to say, it is the room that smokes, when indeed it is the
   fire which is in the room: and it is still the fault of the common
   banter or way of speaking, to disjoin the accusation and the crime, and
   to charge a land with the vices of its inhabitants.

   But I should think, that it might not be so difficult a thing to find
   out a way both to remedy the complaint, and to remove the cause of it.
   For let but the prodigal confine himself, and measure his expenses by
   his own abilities, and not by another's books; let him trust himself
   more, and others less; let ministers cease to call faction religion, to
   lift up their voice too much like a trumpet, and in petitions for peace
   declare for war; and let not others think themselves wronged, if they
   be not revenged: let no man be forced to buy what he has already
   earned; to pay for his wages, and to lay down new sums for the price of
   his blood, and the just merit of his service: and then, certainly,
   there will be no cause to prefer former ages before the present. But if
   men will extravagantly plunge themselves in debt, and then rail and cry
   out of bad times, because they are arrested; if the gallant will put
   all upon his back, and then exclaim against the government be cause he
   has nothing for his belly; if men will think themselves bound to preach
   the nation all on fire, and being stopped in their attempt, cry out of
   persecution; if the public peace must be sacrificed to private revenge,
   certainly the complaint is impudent and brutish, and deserves to be
   sent to the law for an answer, and to the gaol for satisfaction.

   But it is a sure, though no new observation, that the most obnoxious
   are still the most querulous: that discontent, and the cause of it, are
   generally from the same person: and that, when once the remorses of
   guilt and villainy improve into discontent, it is not less difficult to
   make such persons contented, than to make them innocent.

   Rigour and contempt are the best correctors of this distemper. And he
   who thinks that such persons may be pacified, may as well attempt to
   satisfy the bottomless pit, the cravings of hell, or the appetites of
   the grave, which may sooner be filled (as impossible as that is) than
   be satisfied.

   For where interests are contradictory, (as in all societies or
   companies of men some must needs be,) there an universal satisfaction
   is just in the same measure possible, in which contradictions are
   reconcileable. And doubtless there have been those, who have heartily
   cursed that rain or sunshine, for which others have as heartily prayed.

   Even our blessed Saviour himself, we read, in Heb. xii. 3, endured the
   contradiction of sinners: and (be it spoke with reverence) it would put
   Providence itself to a kind of nonplus, to attemper any dispensation of
   it to an universal acceptance; any more than that glorious fountain of
   light, the sun, can shine upon all the corners of the earth at once.
   Wherefore, since the distemper we speak of is incorrigible, and the
   remedy deplorable; let not bare power attempt to outdo Omnipotence, nor
   the gods of the earth, as they are called, think to do that which the
   God of heaven has never yet thought fit to effect.

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

SERMON XV.

  A FUNERAL DISCOURSE.

  MATTHEW v. 25, 26.

   Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with
   him: lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the
   judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.

   Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till
   thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.

   IN these words Christ endeavours to enforce that high and noble duty of
   an amicable concord and agreement betwixt brethren; the greatest bond
   of society, and the most becoming ornament of religion: and since it is
   to be supposed that men's frailty and passion will sometimes carry them
   out to a violation and breach of it, and, if not prevented, settle in a
   fixed and lasting rancour; he prescribes the antidote of a speedy
   reconcilement, as the only sovereign and certain remedy against the
   poisonous ferment of so working a distemper. If an injury be once done,
   Christ will have the repentance almost as early as the provocation; the
   rupture drawn up as soon as made; the angry word eaten as soon as
   uttered, and in a manner disowned before it is quite spoke; that so
   men's quickness in the one may in some measure answer and compound for
   their hastiness in the other.

   And since those are always the strongest and most effectual addresses
   to the mind of man, that press a duty not only by the proposal of
   rewards to such as perform, but also of punishments to such as neglect
   it, Christ therefore shews us the necessity of immediately making peace
   with our injured brother, from the unavoidable misery of those
   obstinate wretches that persist in and (as much as in them lies)
   perpetuate an injury; and being mortal them selves, yet affect a kind
   of immortality in their mutual hatreds and animosities.

   As for the words, some understand them in a literal, and some in a
   figurative sense.

   Those who take them literally affirm, that Christ intended no parable
   in them at all, but by adversary meant any man whom we had injured, any
   one that has an action against us; and by way, a way, properly so
   taken; and by a judge, officer, and prison, an earthly judge, officer,
   and prison. And thus Chrysostom understands them, according to the
   strict acceptation of the letter, affirming that Christ's whole scope
   and intent was to terrify men from being injurious to their brethren,
   by shewing what severe, inexorable usage would attend such as should
   offend in this kind.

   Others will have the whole scheme of the text figurative, and to be
   understood only in a spiritual sense: according to which opinion, it
   will be requisite to give some short account of the several terms
   contained therein, and to shew briefly and distinctly what may
   spiritually be meant by each of them.

   1. And first for the word adversary. Not to traverse the various and
   differing opinions of commentators; if the form of the words should be
   only tropical and figurative, I conceive it most rational to understand
   here by adversary, either the divine law, or a man's own conscience as
   commissionated by that law to accuse, charge, and arraign him before
   the great and dreadful tribunal of God. For to make either God himself
   the adversary, who in this case must of necessity be supposed to be the
   judge; or Satan the adversary, who upon the same account must needs be
   the officer or executioner; or lastly, to make a man's own sin the
   adversary, which, how soever it may cry out for justice against him,
   yet can with no tolerable sense be said to be that which he is here
   commanded to agree with; these, I say, all and every one of them, are
   such unnatural assertions, and the grounds of them so weak, and the
   consequences of them so absurd, that any ordinary reason may soon
   discern the falseness and unfitness of such an exposition of the word,
   which, how tropical so ever the scheme of the text may be, still ought
   to maintain that due analogy and relation, that the things signified by
   those words naturally bear to one another.

   2. By the way is meant the time of this life; or rather the present
   opportunities of repentance, which last not always as long as life
   lasts. These are the happy seasons of making up all differences with a
   threatening law and an accusing conscience; the great pathway of peace,
   in which we may meet and join hands with our angry adversary, and so
   close up all those fatal breaches through which the wrath of an ireful
   judge may hereafter break in upon us.

   3. By judge is meant, as we have intimated al ready, the great God of
   heaven, who at the last and great day shall judge the world. We may
   behold him, in Psalm 50, as it were advanced upon his throne of
   justice, and from thence summoning all flesh before him to receive
   sentence according to the merit of their ways; and it is emphatically
   added, in the sixth verse of that Psalm, for God is judge himself.

   4. By officer, as we also hinted before, is to be meant the Devil, the
   great gaoler of souls, the cruel and remorseless executioner of that
   last and terrible sentence, which the righteous Judge of heaven and
   earth shall award to all impenitent sinners.

   5. By prison, no doubt, is meant hell, that vast, wide, comprehensive
   receptacle of damned spirits, from whence there is no redemption or
   return. As for that larger signification that some would fasten upon
   the word here, there is no solid ground for it, either in the context
   or the reason of the thing itself. Hell is a prison large enough
   already, and we need not enlarge it by our expositions.

   6. And lastly, by paying the uttermost farthing must be signified the
   guilty person's being dealt with according to the utmost rigour and
   extremity of justice. For when the sinner is once lodged in that sad
   place, his punishment can have neither remission nor extenuation: but
   there must be an exact commensuration between the guilt and the
   penalty; which must be adjusted according to the strictest measures of
   the law. For mercy has no more to do, when justice is once commanded to
   do its office.

   All these things are very easy and obvious, and I cannot but think it
   needless to insist any longer upon them.

   And thus I have given you both the literal and the figurative sense of
   the words; and if it be now asked, which of them is to take place, I
   answer, that the words are parabolical, and include them both. For the
   better understanding of which, we are to observe these two things
   concerning parables.

   First, that every parable is made up of two parts.

   1. The material, literal part, which is contained in those bare words
   and expressions in which it is set down.

   2. The formal, spiritual part, or application of the parable; which
   consists of those things that are further signified to us under those
   literal expressions.

   The other thing to be observed is, that this spiritual part, or
   application of the parable, is some times expressed and positively set
   down in terminis: as in St. Matth. xiii. where Christ speaks of the
   seed and of the ground. He afterwards explains himself, and says, that
   by the seed is meant the word, and by the ground, the hearers. And
   sometimes again this spiritual part is not expressed, but only implied
   or understood, as in Matth. xxv. where Christ sets down the parable of
   the wise and foolish virgins, yet does not in express words set down
   the spiritual meaning and design of it, but leaves us to comment upon
   that in our own meditations. And so he does here; we have the literal
   part or outside of the parable expressed, but the spiritual sense of it
   under stood.

   Now these two rules thus premised, we are to observe further, that in
   the application of the parable, and bringing the two parts of it
   together, the literal and the spiritual, we are not to search after a
   nice and exact agreement between them in every particular; but to
   attend only to their correspondence in the design, drift, and purpose
   of the parable. Which design doubtless in these words is no other than
   to set forth the severity of God's proceedings against all impenitent,
   unreconciled sinners, by shewing that strict and unrelenting severity
   that a man not reconciled to his adversary meets with even before the
   tribunals of men; so that we are not now anxiously to strain the
   parable, and to fit every member of the literal expression to the
   spiritual meaning; as that, because in judicial processes amongst men
   there is an adversary, a judge, and an officer, and all these three
   distinct persons, there must therefore be such an economy in the
   tribunal of Heaven. No; all these things belong only to the material
   part, the dress and ornament of the parable; but the sense and purpose
   that Christ drives at, is that only which we are here to insist upon.
   As if Christ should say,

   You know that in matters between man and man, when one has trespassed
   against another, if the party offending, while he has opportunity to
   make his peace with the party offended, shall neglect it, so that the
   matter comes at length to be brought before the judge, he is then to
   look for nothing but the most rigorous penalty of the law without
   mitigation. Just so it is between God and man: if any one sins against
   God, whether by offending his brother, or by any other kind of sin
   whatsoever, if he does not speedily and prudently lay hold on the
   opportunity of reconciling himself to God in this life, when God shall
   enter into judgment with him in the next, there will then be no mercy
   for him, but, according to the exact tenor of a righteous,
   indispensable law, he must abide the woful, irreversible sentence of
   eternal death. This is a compendious paraphrase upon the text, setting
   forth the full meaning of our Saviour in it. So that from what has been
   laid down, I shall now present you with the sense of the words, under
   these three conclusions.

   1. That the time of this life is the only time for a sinner to make his
   peace with, and to reconcile himself to God.

   2. That the consideration, that the time of this life is the only time
   for a sinner to reconcile himself to God in, ought to be a prevailing,
   unanswerable argument to engage and quicken his repentance.

   3. That if a sinner lets pass this season of making his peace with God,
   he irrecoverably falls into an estate of utter perdition.

   I shall single out the second for the subject of the present discourse,
   and take in the rest under the arguments by which I shall prove it.

   The proposition therefore to be handled is this, That the
   consideration, &c. Now this shall be made appear these three ways.

   I. By comparing the shortness of life with the difficulty of this work.

   II. By comparing the uncertainty of life with the necessity of it. And,

   III. and lastly, by considering the sad and fatal doom that will
   infallibly attend the neglect of it.

   I. And for the first of these. Let us compare the shortness of life
   with the greatness and difficulty of the work here set before us. What
   is a man's whole life, but the inconsiderable measure of a span? and
   yet the vast business of eternity is crowded into this poor compass. It
   is a transitory puff of wind; while it breathes, it expires. The years
   of our life are but too fitly styled in holy writ the days of our life.
   Man takes his breath but short, and that is an argument that it is
   always departing. Our days (says the royal prophet) are but as a
   shadow. Every day added to our life sets us so much nearer to death; as
   the longer the shadow grows, the day is so much the nearer spent. Few
   and evil have the days of my life been, says Jacob in Genesis xlvii. 9.
   The number of our calamities far exceeds the number of our days. It is
   a pilgrimage, (as it is expressed in the same verse;) it is a going
   through the world, not a dwelling in it. We do not use to make any long
   stay in the journey, nor to take up our habitation at an inn. As Lot
   said of Zoar, the city of life, so we may say of the time and space of
   life, Is it not a little one? How is it passing away continually! how
   is it stealing from us, while we are eating, sleeping, talking! how is
   it shortened even while we are complaining of its shortness! There is
   nothing that we can either think, speak, or do, but it takes up some
   time. We cannot purchase so much as a thought or a word, without the
   expense of some of our precious moments. God has shut us up within the
   boundaries of a contracted age, so that we cannot attempt, much less
   achieve, any thing great or considerable. Our time is too scant and
   narrow for our designs. Our thoughts perish before they can ripen into
   action; the space of life being like the bed mentioned in Isaiah
   xxviii. 20, it is shorter than a man can well stretch himself upon it.
   For how do we hear the saints complaining of this in scripture!
   Sometimes it is termed a vapour, James iv. 14, a thing that appears and
   disappears almost in the same instant. Sometimes it is likened to a
   tale that is told, Psalm xc. 9. a frivolous thing, and after a few
   words speaking, quickly at an end. And sometimes, again, it is
   resembled to a watch in the night. We are presently called off our
   station, and another generation comes in our room. This is the best
   that can be said of life; and what shall we do to make it other wise?
   Stretch or draw it out we cannot beyond the fatal line; it is not in
   our power to add one cubit to the measure of our days. We cannot
   slacken the pace of one of our posting minutes. But time will have its
   uncontrolled course and career, bringing age and death along with it,
   and, like the Parthian, shooting its killing arrows, while it flies
   from us. This is our condition here, this the lot of nature and
   mortality.

   And now, if upon this transient survey of the shortness of life we
   could find that our business were as small as our age is short, it
   would be some relief to us however. But on the contrary, the work of
   our lives is long, difficult, tedious, and comprehensive, such as could
   easily exhaust and take up the utmost period of the most extended age,
   and still cry out for more. And if so, then certainly, to have a large
   task enjoined, and but a poor pittance of time to discharge it in, to
   have a large tale of brick required, and a small allowance of straw to
   prepare it with, cannot but be a great and heart-discouraging
   disadvantage. Yet this is our case; our sin has cut short our time, and
   enlarged our work: as it is with a man going up an hill, and falling
   backwards; his journey is thereby made longer, and his strength weaker.
   Seneca, speaking of the shortness of life, says, that we did not first
   receive it short, but have made it so. But by his favour, nature gave
   it but short; and we, by ill husbanding it, have made it much shorter;
   spending vainly and lavishly upon a small stock, so many of our
   precious hours being cast away upon idle discourse, intemperate sleep,
   unnecessary recreations, if not also heinous sins; all which have set
   us backward in the accounts of eternity, and are now to be reckoned
   amongst the things that are not: while in the mean time the business
   incumbent on us, is to recover our lost souls, to return and reconcile
   ourselves to a provoked God, to get our natures renewed, and reinformed
   with an holy and divine principle; and in a word, to regain our title
   to heaven. All these are great, high, and amazing works, beyond our
   strength, nay our very apprehensions, if an overpowering grace from
   heaven does not assist and carry us above ourselves. It is a miracle to
   consider, that such a pitiful thing as this life is, even upon the
   longest extent and the best improvement of it, should afford time
   enough to compass so vast a business, as the working out of a man's
   salvation.

   Now the difficulty of this business will appear from these
   considerations.

   1st, Because in this business thou art to clear thy self of an injury
   done to an infinite, offended justice, to appease an infinite wrath,
   and an infinite, provoked majesty. And this must needs be no small or
   ordinary work; for who can stand before them! Wherefore it is the
   highest prudence to engage in it betimes, and to take up injuries
   between God and thy soul as speedily as may be. For if God should go to
   law with thee, or thou with him, thou wert undone for ever. He who goes
   to law with this king, is like to have but bad success. No flesh living
   (says the Psalmist) shall in thy sight be justified. Certainly the
   consideration of thy debts should take up thy thoughts, even by night
   as well as day, hold thy eyes waking, and make thee take every step
   with terror, lest divine justice should arrest thee of a sudden. For, O
   man! whosoever thou art, according as the party is whom thou hast
   offended, the difficulty of the reconcilement will be proportionable.
   If thou hast offended a friend, the Spirit of God says, that it is
   easier to win a castle, than to regain such an one. If thou hast
   offended thy sovereign, the anger of a king is as the roaring of a
   lion. Now thy business is to make thy peace, both with an offended
   friend, and with an affronted sovereign. Thy debts are many thousand
   talents; and as for thee to pay them is impossible, so to get a surety
   for so much will be very difficult. When a creditor is urgent for his
   money, or for thy body, there is no demur, no delay then to be made.
   God has a writ out against thee, and is ready to arrest thee either for
   the debt, or for thy soul. And it will cost thee many prayers, many an
   hard fight and combat with thy sin, many mortifying duties and bitter
   pangs of repentance, before Christ will come in and pay the debt, and
   set thee free: and when this is done, how difficult will it be to get
   the Spirit to set his seal to thy pardon, and to keep the evidences of
   it for thee clear and entire. For without thy justification thou canst
   have no security, and without thy evidences thou canst have no comfort.
   It requires the most strict and accurate walking before God that can
   be, with a frequent and thorough examination of all thy experiences;
   and yet perhaps when all this is done, thou mayest fall short of it at
   last. For sometimes one great sin, one dangerous false step in the ways
   of God, may so blot thy evidences, that thou shalt even think the love
   of God is gone from thee; that he has shut up his tender bowels in
   anger, and that he has forgotten to be gracious: so that thou mayest go
   mourning all thy days, and die doubtful whether thou hast made a
   thorough peace with God or no. And is not the overcoming of this
   difficulty worth the spending of thy best time and thy choicest
   endeavours? Can it be done in a moment? Is it, think you, the easy
   performance of a few hours? No; God has rated these acquirements at the
   price of our greatest, severest, and longest labours. And to shew yet
   further, how difficult it is to make thy peace with the great God,
   consider how hard it is to make thy peace with thy own conscience. And
   shall a bare witness (for conscience is no more) prosecute the suit so
   hard against thee, and shall not the adversary himself be much more
   violent and hard to be taken off? When thy own heart shall so bitterly
   charge thee with thy guilt, and the black roll of thy most provoking
   sins shall be read against thee by an angry conscience, will a small
   matter, think you, give it satisfaction? Will a few broken sighs, and
   tears, and mournful words, make it compound the matter with thee, and
   let the suit fall? No certainly, the time of thy whole life, upon the
   best and strictest improvement of it, is but little enough to clear up
   and settle all differences between thee and thy conscience; and how
   much less then can it be to pacify, and make all even with thy offended
   God!

   2dly, The other cause of the difficulty of making thy peace with God
   appears from this, that thou art utterly unable of thyself to give him
   any thing by way of just compensation or satisfaction. We have a large
   instance of something offered that way in Micah vi. 7, Will the Lord be
   pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
   shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body
   for the sin of my soul? Alas! all this is but an impossible
   supposition; but yet shews, that all and the very utmost that the
   creature does, or can do, or give, is but debt and duty, and that
   surely is not meritorious.

   Can a man pay his old debts by discharging his present? Can the
   creature oblige God by any good duty, when it is God himself that
   enables him to perform that duty? It may be said, that Christ has
   engaged to make the soul's peace, to clear off his debts to God. True:
   but then the soul engages in a new debt of faith and obedience to
   Christ. And here all the stress of the business lies, how the soul will
   be able to pay off this, and to secure itself a well-grounded interest
   and confidence in Christ; to take him in respect of all his offices;
   not only to be saved, but also to be ruled by him; not only as a
   priest, but also as a king. This will drink up and engross all that the
   soul can do and endeavour: all the strength and time allotted in this
   world is little enough to do such works as may prove the sincerity of
   its faith. For whatsoever relation faith may have to works, whether as
   to a part, or to a consequent to it; it is certainly such a thing as
   indispensably obliges the whole of a man's following life to a strict,
   constant, and universal obedience to the laws of Christ. But that which
   ought chiefly to quicken the soul to a sudden improvement of the
   perishing time of this life, in making its peace with God, is this,
   that as Christ will not undertake for it without faith and repentance,
   so the offer of these does not last always. The consideration of this
   made the apostle quicken the Hebrews to present duty: To-day if you
   will hear his voice, Heb. iii. 15. There may be those offers of mercy
   made to thee to-day, that thou mayest not enjoy again for ever. The
   things of thy peace may be freely held forth to thee now, which for the
   future may be set out of thy reach. Consider therefore upon what terms
   thou standest with God, and lose no time: the work is difficult, and
   the delay dangerous, and the time short. The Spirit, that to-day stands
   at thy door and knocks, may be gone before to-morrow; and when it is
   once sent away, no man can assure himself that it will ever return.

   And thus much concerning the first argument to prove the doctrine,
   drawn from our comparing the shortness of life with the greatness and
   difficulty of the work.

   II. The second argument is taken from our comparing the uncertainty of
   life with the necessity of the work. Life, as it is short, so it is
   dubious; like a problematical question, concise, but doubtful. None can
   promise beyond the present. Who can secure to himself the enjoyment of
   a year, nay of one day, one hour? Thou fool, this night shall thy soul
   be taken from thee, Luke xii. 20. A man is in this contracted life as
   in a narrow sea, ever and anon ready to be cast away. Strength and
   health of body can make thee no absolute promise of life, although the
   surest grounds we can build upon. For may we not take up the complaint
   of David, and mourn over the immature death of the strong; How are the
   mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished! How are the strong and
   healthful become a prey to an untimely death! Count not, therefore, how
   many hours thou hast to live in the world; look not upon thy
   hour-glass; do not build upon the sand. Death may snatch thee away of a
   sudden. As it is always terrible, so it is often unexpected. Thou
   flourishest at present like a flower, but the wind bloweth where and
   when it listeth. It passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place
   thereof shall know it no more, Psalm ciii. 16.

   Now this being considered and duly pondered in one scale of the
   balance, and the necessity of making our peace in the other, how should
   it incite us to a serious, present endeavour for the accomplishment of
   this work! Can two walk together, unless they be agreed? says the
   prophet Amos, iii. 3. Canst thou walk quietly with God, while he is thy
   adversary? Will not the consideration of this, that thou art going to
   the judge, and the way is short, and thy adversary ready to give in an
   accusation against thee, whet thy importunity to make an agreement with
   him? Thy endeavours are not serious and rational, unless they are
   present and immediate. That endeavour is only rational, which is
   according to the exigency of the thing. Now the business of thy soul is
   the matter thou art to engage in, and thou art only sure of the present
   time to manage it in. Unless this be laid hold of, thou dost really
   trifle in the business of eternity, and dost only embrace a pretence,
   instead of a serious intention. Things that are earnestly desired, and
   withal not to be delayed, are effected with an immediate expedition. If
   I am uncertain when my enemy will invade me, I will imagine that he
   will do it suddenly, and therefore my preparations shall be sudden. In
   things that concern our temporal interest, we are so wise as to make
   present provision, and not to suspend all upon contingent futurities.
   He that is sick to-day, will not defer sending for a physician till
   to-morrow. He that waits for the fall of some preferment puts himself
   in a present preparedness. But, alas! upon all these things the most we
   can write, it is convenience, not necessity. There is one thing, and
   but one that is necessary. It is not necessary that thou shouldest be
   healthful, nor that thou shouldest be honourable: but it is necessary
   for thee to be saved; to be at peace with God; to have the hand-writing
   that is against thee, by reason of the law, blotted out; to be friends
   with an almighty adversary. It was the note of a merry epicure, but may
   be refined into a voice becoming a Christian, To` se'meron me'lei moi,
   to` d' auri'on ti's oide; I will take care for to-day, who knows
   to-morrow? Let the Christian lay hold of the present occasion; and if
   he would live for ever, let him look upon himself as living but to-day:
   let this be secured, and whatsoever comes afterwards, let him reckon it
   as an overplus, and an unexpected gain. If to-day it be thy business to
   gain a peace, all the rest of thy days it is thy only business to enjoy
   it. Reason is impatient of delay in things necessary, and Christianity
   elevates reason, and makes it more impatient. Are we not bid to watch,
   to be ready, to have our loins girt and our lamps prepared? Now the
   persuasive force of this is grounded upon the uncertainty of Christ's
   coming: although his coming be but once, yet if it is uncertain, the
   expectation of it must be continual. As indefinite commands do
   universally engage, so indefinite, uncertain dangers are the just
   arguments of perpetual caution. O that men would be but wise, and
   consider, and lay aside their sins, and stand upon their guard!
   Wouldest thou be willing that a sudden judgment should stop thy breath
   while thou art a swearing or a lying? Wouldest thou have God break in
   upon thee, while thou art in the loathsome embraces of a filthy whore?
   Wouldest thou have death come and arrest thee in the name of God, while
   thou art in thy cups and in thy drunkenness? Now since these sudden
   soul-disasters may fall out, what manner of persons ought we to be in
   all holy conversation and godliness? Who knows but within a few days a
   noisome disease may stop thy breath? It did so to Herod. Or perhaps an
   unfortunate stab send thee packing? It did so to Abner. Or perhaps a
   stone from the house dash out thy brains, and prove both thy death and
   thy sepulchre? It did so to Abimelech. These small, inconsiderable
   things, commissioned by a Deity, are able to snap asunder the rotten
   thread of a weak life, and waft thee into eternity. And if thou hast
   not prepared a way beforehand, by concluding a solid peace with God,
   thou wilt find but sad welcome in the other world. Thou art indeed
   taken from the prison of thy body; but it is because thou art led to
   thy eternal execution.

   And thus much concerning the second argument drawn from the uncertainty
   of life, compared with he necessity of the work.

   III. The third argument to prove that the consideration, that the time
   of life is the only time of making peace with God, ought to quicken us
   to a speedy repentance, may be taken from considering the dismal doom
   that does attend those who go out of the world before their peace is
   made.

   Now the misery and terror of this doom consists in two things.

   1. That it is inevitable, it cannot be avoided.

   2. That it is irreversible, it cannot be revoked. And this takes in the
   substance of the third doctrine, viz. That if a soul let pass this
   season of making its peace with God, it immediately falls into a state
   of irrecoverable perdition.

   1. This doom is inevitable, it cannot be avoided. When we have to do
   with a strong enemy, if we cannot fly from him, we must of necessity
   fall by him. If we cannot outrun vengeance, we must endure it. The poor
   soul is now fallen into an ocean of endless misery, and if it cannot
   swim, or bear up itself, must sink. The place of torment is before
   thee, and an infinite power behind thee, to drive thee into it;
   therefore in thou must, there is no remedy; no ways to escape, unless
   thou canst either outwit God or overpower him. All possibility of
   escaping an evil must be either by hiding one's self from it, and so
   keeping ourselves from that; or by repulsing it, and so keeping that
   from us. But either of these are impossible for thee to do, when thou
   art environed on this side by an omniscience, on the other by an
   omnipotence. We read of those that shall cry unto the mountains to fall
   upon them, and to the rocks to cover them from the face of the Lamb,
   and of him that sitteth upon the throne, Revel. vi. 16. But, alas! what
   poor asylums are these, when God, by his all-seeing eye, can look
   through the mountains, and by his hand can remove them! A condemned
   malefactor may break the prison, and fly, and escape the punishment.
   But canst thou break the gates of hell? Canst thou, like a stronger
   Samson, carry away the door of the infernal pit? Oh! who can be strong
   in the day that the Lord shall thus deal with him! Admit thou couldest
   unfetter thyself, and break thy prison, yet thou wert not able to run
   from God: God has his arrows of vengeance, and canst thou outfly an
   arrow? To speak after the manner of men, thou hast a severe judge, and
   a watchful gaoler. As he that keeps Israel, so he that imprisons thee,
   does neither slumber nor sleep. He has an eagle's eye to observe, and
   an eagle's wing to overtake thee: there is no way to avoid him. If thou
   canst find the way out of the midst of utter darkness, break asunder
   the everlasting chains, break through the Devil and his angels, and
   those armies of eternal woes, then mayest thou wring thyself out of
   God's hands.

   2. This doom is irreversible, it cannot be revoked. It is proper to any
   word, when once spoken, to fly away beyond all possibility of a recall;
   but much more to every decretory word of God, which the deliberate
   resolutions of an infinitely wise judge have made unchangeable. The
   word is gone out of God's mouth in righteousness; it shall not return:
   God's condemning sentence admits of no repeal. The Strength of Israel
   is not a man, or the son of man, that he should repent, 1 Sam. xv. 29.
   The outcries of a miserable, perishing man may often prevail with a man
   like himself, who is of the same mould, the same affections, so far as
   to cause an act of passion and commiseration to revoke an act of
   justice. But, alas! all the cravings and the wailings of a justly
   condemned sinner shall be answered of God with, I know you not. All
   such lamentations cannot at all move a resolved Deity; they are like a
   vanishing voice echoing back from a marble pillar, without making the
   least impression. As the tree falls, so it lies.

   If the sinner falls into destruction, there he must lie for ever
   without recovery. I sink, says David, in the mire, where there is no
   standing, Psal. lxix. 2. What he says of his affliction, a lost soul
   may say of its perdition; that it sinks deeper and deeper, it cannot so
   much as arrive to a stand, much less to a return. A man, while he is
   yet falling from some high place, is not able to stop or to recover
   himself, much less can he be able, when he is actually fallen. Even the
   heathen poet, from those imperfect notions that the heathens had of the
   future misery of lost sinners, could acknowledge the descent to hell
   easy, but the return impossible: Facilis descensus Averni: sed revocare
   gradum, &c. It is a rule in philosophy, that from a total privation to
   the habit, there can be no regress. So after a total loss of God's love
   and presence, there is no possibility of reobtaining it. For put the
   case that it were possible, yet who should solicit and seek out thy
   pardon, and get thy sentence reversed? It must be either God, or
   angels, or men. First, it cannot be God the Father; for he is thy angry
   judge, and therefore cannot be thy advocate. Nor God the Son, for him
   thou hast crucified afresh, and his offers of redemption are only upon
   the scene of this life. He prays not for the world, John xvii. 9, that
   is, for the wicked world; then much less for the condemned world. The
   Spirit will not intercede for thee; for him thou hast often grieved,
   and frustrated all the methods of his workings. Now good angels cannot
   present a petition for thee; for it is as much their work and business
   to glorify God in the destruction of the wicked, as in the salvation of
   the righteous. The devils are the instruments of thy misery, and thy
   tormentors will never prove thy intercessors. As for men, those that
   are saved are the approvers, and those that are condemned are the
   companions of thy misery; but neither can be thy helpers. Perpetual
   therefore must thy perdition needs be, when both the Creator and all
   his creatures are concerned either to advance, or at least to rejoice
   over thy destruction. O let every sinner, that is yet on this side the
   pit, carry this in his more serious thoughts, Psalm xlix. 8, The
   redemption of the soul is precious, and it ceaseth for ever. The loss
   of time, and the loss of a soul, is irrecoverable.

   All the application I shall make shall be to urge over the same duty
   enjoined in the text upon the score of another argument, and that also
   couched in the words, Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou
   art in the way; yea, for this very reason, because thou art in the way.
   As long as there is life, there is hope, we say; and so, as long as
   there is the enjoyment of a temporal life, there may be just hope of an
   eternal. These days of thy respite, they are golden days: every hour
   presents thee with salvation; every day lays heaven and happiness at
   thy door. Wherefore go forth, and meet thy adversary; do not fly off
   and say, There is a lion in the way; that he is austere, and hard to be
   appeased. No, he does not come clothed with thunder and terror, but
   with all the sweetness and inviting tenderness that mercy itself can
   put on. Thou hast a friendly enemy, one whose bowels yearn over thee;
   for although, of all others, he is, if unreconciled, the most terrible;
   so to be reconciled, he is the most willing. While with one hand he
   shakes his rod at thee for departing from him, with the other he
   graciously beckons to thee to return. And if thou canst so far relent
   as to endeavour it, believe it, he is ready to meet thee half way: he
   did so to the prodigal.

   O consider then this thy inestimable advantage, that thou art yet in
   the way, yet in a possibility, nay in a probability of reconcilement.
   Thou art not put to sue for terms of peace, but only to accept of those
   that are freely offered and prepared to thy hand. Close in with such a
   potent adversary; it is thy wisdom, thy eternal interest, thy life;
   thou mayest so carry the business, as to turn thy enemy into thy
   Saviour. Wherefore take that excellent advice of the Spirit, with which
   I shall conclude, Psalm ii. ult. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and so
   ye perish from the way.
     __________________________________________________________________

SERMON XVI.

  MATTHEW xxiii. 5.

   But all their works they do for to be seen of men.

   IT is strange to consider the great difference both of the principle
   and quality of most of those actions that in the world carry the same
   reputation. Of this we have here a notable instance in a sect of men
   amongst the Jews called the pharisees; who made as glorious an
   appearance, and had as high a vogue for piety, as the best. Their
   righteousness and good works so glistered, that they even dashed the
   judging faculties of those who judged more by seeing than by weighing:
   and doubtless they were in shew so exactly good, that no argument from
   appearance could decide the difference.

   And yet, like those trees which are fair and flourishing at the top
   from the dung that lies at the root, the principle of all these good
   works was a sinful appetite, an appetite of glory, an ambitious desire;
   sinful perhaps in itself, but certainly so in its application to such a
   design. Yet, however sinful it was in the nature of an appetite, we see
   it was very strong and operative in the nature of a principle; and such
   an one as wrought men to great heights in the outward and splendid side
   of religion.

   My design at this time is from these words to inquire into the force of
   this principle in reference to a virtuous and religious life; and to
   shew how far it is able to engage men in it.

   And this I shall do under these four heads.

   I. I shall shew that a love of glory is sufficient to produce all those
   virtuous actions that are visible in the lives of those that profess
   religion.

   II. I shall shew whence this affection comes to have such an influence
   upon our actions.

   III. I shall shew the inability of it to be a sufficient motive to
   engage mankind in virtuous actions, without the assistance of religion.

   IV. I shall shew that even those actions that it does produce are yet
   of no value at all in the sight of God.

   For the first of these, that the love of glory is able to produce all
   those virtuous actions that are visible in the lives of those that
   profess religion.

   This I prove first from this, that it actually has produced them, and
   therefore it is able to produce them: for this, let the noblest and
   most virtuous of the heathens be an instance; whose outward virtues few
   Christians equal, but none transcend: yet they were acted in all by a
   thirst of that glory that followed those performances. For into what
   will you resolve the industry of the philosophers, the chastity of
   Scipio and Alexander, the liberality of Augustus, the severity of Cato,
   the integrity of Fabricius, but into a desire of being famous for each
   of these perfections? See what a round and open profession of this
   Tully makes in his defence of Archias the poet! We know he had behaved
   himself with great virtue and resolution in the behalf of his country
   against Clodius and Catiline; but what induced him? Was it either love
   of the virtuous action itself, or hopes to gain by it a better place in
   their Elysium? Nor he nor any of the wiser sort believed any such
   thing. Juvenal tells you, vix pueri credunt. But what was it then? Why
   he tells you, that if he had not grown up in persuasion from his youth,
   that nothing was earnestly to be desired in this life but praise and
   honour, he would never have exposed himself to those enmities, dangers,
   and oppositions, that he underwent in the prosecution of his country's
   defence.

   And after that he had proved that other great men acted upon the same
   principle; for how came they else to be so fond of poets and
   historians, the great instruments and propagators of their fame? he
   then gathers up all into this general conclusion; Nullam virtus aliam
   mercedem laborum periculorumque desiderat praeter hanc laudis et
   gloriae: qua quidem detracta, quid est quod in hoc tam exiguo vitae
   curriculo, et tam brevi, tantis nos in laboribus exerceamus? You see
   now the springhead from whence streamed all the splendid and renowned
   moral actions of these persons.

   Nay, in persons of a much inferior rank and apprehension, we have the
   same principle working them to a degree of abstinence equal to the
   greatest austerities and instances of mortification seen nowadays in
   persons religious. Those that used to run and wrestle in the public
   games, what strange abridgments did they suffer both as to the kind and
   measure of their food! what abstinence from wine and women, and all
   other luxury, did they constantly tie themselves up to! The apostle
   Paul gives them this testimony in 1 Cor. ix. 25, Every man that
   striveth for mastery is temperate in all things: and that with such a
   strict and rigorous exactness, that many who nowadays profess
   Christianity, would not deny their appetites half so much to gain a
   kingdom in this world, or the world to come, as the apostle says those
   persons did to gain a corruptible crown; that is, some pitiful garland,
   ready to wither and to be blasted by the breath of those applauses that
   attended the putting of it on.

   But further, that even in those that profess religion, religion is not
   always the commanding, producing principle of their best actions, the
   very example of the pharisees will demonstrate. For what almost could
   be outwardly done, which these men did not do with great advantage,
   pomp, and solemnity of performance? They were frequent in prayer, they
   gave alms, they were exact in their tithings even to mint and cummin;
   they sat in the seat of Moses, and taught sometimes so well, that
   Christ, in Matt. xxiii. 3, charges his disciples, that whatsoever they
   bid them, they should observe and do: and for their zeal, they would
   undertake the expense and toil of compassing sea and land, to gain one
   proselyte to their religion. In a word, they had gained such a
   reputation for their piety, that it was a common saying amongst the
   Jews, "That if but two men in the world should be saved, one of them
   would be a pharisee." Now, let any one shew me, where amongst us there
   is such a face of religion and concernment for it. You will say,
   perhaps, that the truth and body of it may be among us; but certainly
   it is a strange thing to see a body without a face, and reality without
   any shew. There is a difference in deed between the substance and the
   shadow, yet there is seldom a substance without the shadow. But this by
   digression.

   We have seen what the pharisees did; but what was the first moving
   cause that bore them up to such a pitch of acting? Why, that they might
   be talked of and admired; in a word, that they might be seen of men.
   They gave alms indeed, but it was with trumpets and proclamations. They
   prayed; but it was standing in the streets, with a design more to be
   seen here below, than to be heard above. They fasted; but then they
   disfigured themselves, wore a sad countenance and a drooping head, that
   they might gain notice and observation, and so feed their ambition.
   They pretended great zeal to the law; but carried it more in their
   phylacteries than their hearts, and in the borders of their garments
   more than their lives. All their teaching was in order to be called
   rabbi; to be treated with public and pompous salutations; to be cringed
   to in solemn meetings; to be at the top of every public feast and
   assembly. The whole design of all that pageantry and show of piety that
   they amused the world withal, was nothing but noise, and vogue, and
   popularity: this was the breath that blew up their devotion to such an
   high and a blazing flame.

   And are not many Christians, though differing from them in religion,
   yet the very same men; and owe all those shows and forms of godliness,
   which they have clothed themselves withal, to the influence of the same
   spurious principle? How many appear devout, and zealous, and frequent
   in the service of God, only to court the esteem of the world, or
   perhaps to acquit themselves to the eye of a superior!

   How vast a distance is there between their inside and their outside;
   between the same men as they open themselves in private, and as they
   sustain an artificial dress or person in public! The reason is,
   because, though they have not goodness enough to be religious, yet they
   have pride enough to appear so.

   2. That the love of glory is sufficient to produce all those virtuous
   actions, that are visible in the lives of those that profess religion,
   appears further from hence; that there is nothing visible in the very
   best actions, but what may proceed from the most depraved principles,
   if acted by prudence, caution, and design. And if piety be not
   requisite to their production, I am sure the next principle, for
   influence and activity, is a man's concernment for his reputation.

   Now that a principle, short of piety, is able to exert the fairest
   performances that bear the name of pious, is clear from this, that
   there is no external discrimination of the hypocrite from the sincere
   person: what one does, the same is done by the ot