i-branp of  1ub  ulngtli   Bibtneto,
UNDER TLIE EDITORIAL SUPERVISION OF
WILLIAM G. T. SHEDD, D.D.,
PROFESSOR IN UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, NEW YORK.
SERMONS OF ROBERT SOUTH.
VOL. L








SERMONS
PREACHED UPON
SEVERAL OCCASIONS
BY
ROBERT SOUTH, D. D.,
PREBENDARY OF WESTMINSTER, AND CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORDI
IN FIVE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY HURD AND HOUGHTON.
1866.




RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:
STEREOTYPED AN D. PRIN.TED BY
I. 0. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.




PUBLISHERS' PREFACE.
IT is proposed to reprint the works of the most distinguished
theologians and preachers of England, previous to the middle
of the eighteenth century, under the title of " Library of Old English Divines." The object is, to place within reach of American
readers an edition of the principal theological writers of Great
Britain during the golden age of both secular and sacred literature, in a style equal to that of the best English editions, and at
a much smaller price. The complete writings of such authors as
Hooker and Jeremy Taylor, Baxter and Howe, are now inaccessible
to many, because of the great expense involved in the importation of
foreign books. Only inferior reprints, and imperfect selections, represent these and other- great lights of Engiish theology in many of
the private libraries of the land; and very many of them are wholly
unrepresented. It is believed that the opportunity of obtaining complete editions of these authors, in the best style of the printer's art,
and at a cost even less than that which was paid previous to the present enormous rise in all foreign productions, will be welcome to a
great number of students and general readers both lay and clerical.
For it is, probably more than ever, the conviction amongst thoroughly
educated men, that the foundations of a profound and powerful
culture in theology must be laid in the study of the Old Divines of
England.
It is with this conviction that the publishers venture upon an
enterprise that must involve a large outlay, and result in a great number of volumes. They have in contemplation the republication of the
writings of ANDREWES, BARROWs BATES, BAXTER, BULL, BVNYAN,
BUTLER, CHARNOCK, CHILLINGWORTH, CLARKE, CUDWORTH, DAVENANT, DONNE, FIELD, FLAVEL, HALL, HOOKER, HOPKINS, HOWL,
JACKSON, LATIMER, LEIGHTON, MORE, OWEN, PEARSON, SANDERSON, STILLINGFLEET, SIBBS, SMiTII, SOUTH, TAYLOR, TILLOTSON,




vi                   Puzblshers' Preface.
USHER, and WATERLAND. TO these names others may be added,
and some of these may, possibly, be dropped; but they are here mentioned as indicative of the general cast and tone of the "Library."
The aim will be, to bring into one solid and comprehensive collection
the theological wisdom of England in its elder period.
The reprints will be made from the latest and best English editions, and will be accompanied with concise yet full biographical
memoirs, and copious indexes. The memoirs, so far as possible, will
be selected from existing materials, and preference will in every
instance be given to those biographers who from intimate personal
acquaintance were in sympathy with the subject of the biography.
It is proposed to publish only complete editions of an author. This
is the preference of the publishers. But if, owing to very great
voluminousness, and the lack of a popular demand, in any particular
instance, this rule should be varied from, entire treatises will invariably be given. There will be no compilations, alterations, or mutilations; but each author, even in case he should not appear in all his
works, will be represented by entire treatises in the exact form in
which he has come down to us.
The prosecution of the enterprise to its completion must, of course,
depend upon the public. Should the publishers find that they have
presumed too much upon the popular demand, the publication of the
first author in the series will disclose the fact, and put a stop to further advance. But should the success of the first be apparent, the
second will follow, and the others in their course. Each author will
be sold separately as well as collectively, so that all classes of buyers
may suit their convenience or preferences.




MEMOIR OF DR. ROBERT SOUTH.
ROBERT SOUTH was born at Hackney, in 1633. His father
was an eminent London merchant, and his mother, whose
maiden name was Berry, belonged to a good Kentish family. In
1647, after distinguishing himself by his progress in the preliminary
studies, he was admitted a king's scholar at Westminster, where he
remained for four years under the tuition of the celebrated Dr. Busby.
Even so early as 1649 he gave a decided indication of that attachment to an established form of government in Church and State,:for which he was conspicuous through life, by praying for Charles
I. by name, while reading the Latin prayers in the school on the
day of that monarch's execution.
In 1651, he was elected, at the same time with John Locke, -a
student of Christ Church, Oxford, where he soon attracted attention
by his attainments. He took his degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1655,
and in the same year published a panegyric in Latin verse, on Oliver
Cromwell, on the occasion of his conclusion of the peace with the
Dutch,-a circumstanice which did not escape the opponents of Dr.
South in after years, who ascribed to unsteadiness of principle what
perhaps was the mere exercise of scholarship upon a theme imposed
by his superiors in the University, and as to which he had himself
no choice.  It was certainly the last compliment'he ever paid to
Cromwell. By his adherence to the liturgy and ritual of the Church
of England, South appears to have given offense to'the members of
the dominant political party, who then held the control of the University, and Dr. John Owen, who was Vice-Chancellor at the time, opposed his obtaining the degree of Master of Arts; but fortunately
for South, a majority of those with whom the power of conferring the
degree lay was in his favor, and he received it in 1657. In 1658 he
was admitted to holy orders by a deprived bishop.
The Restoration greatly improved his ecclesiastical position. In
August, 1660, he was elected public orator to the University of
Oxford, and some time after this he was appointed chaplain to the
Chancellor Clarendon, whose attention had been directed to him
by an oration delivered in hi's capacity of public orator, upon the




viii           Memoir.of Dr. Robert South.
occasion of.Clarendon's: installation —as:Chancellor of the University.
This opened the door for his advancement, and he was installed Prebendary of Saint Peter's, Westminster, on 30th March, 1663. He
obtained his degree of Doctor of Divinity, in the October of that year,
after some- opposition on the ground of his being a Master of Arts
of only six years' standing. This difficulty was overruled, doubtless,
from a regard to the.high attainments of South.; These were universally. recognized, and. in 1670 he was installed a canon of Christ
Church, Oxford.
In 1667 he committed to the press a Latin poem, written in 1655,
entitled, "Musica Inconstans, sive Poema exprimens Iusice vires, Juvenem in Insaniam adigentis, et Mfusici inde Periculum." This juvenile
effusion was highly applauded at the time, says a contemporary
biographer, "for the beauty of its language, and the quickness of its
turns," —a species of encomium, which seems to imply that it belonged to the metaphysical school of poetry. The work, which has
now become extremely rare, has, no doubt, deservedly passed into
oblivion. South himself regretted its publication "as a juvenile and.
momentary performance."
In June, 1677, South accompanied Mr. Lawrence Hyde, the son
of the Earl of Clarendon, and afterwards Lord Rochester, to Poland,
on an embassy with which that gentleman was intrusted, to. congratulate John Sobieski on his election to the Crown of Poland, and
to carry presents to his daughter, the Princess Teresa, afterwards
Electress of Bavaria, to whom Charles II. had some time before
stood godfather by proxy. Mr. Hyde, whose tutor Dr. South had'
been, in which capacity he had greatly endeared himself to him, proposed that he should accompany the embassy as chaplain, to which
the doctor readily agreed. It is easy to imagine that he should have
gladly embraced this opportunity of becoming personally acquainted:
with a countryto which the eyes of all Europe were then earnestly
directed, and of seeing Sobieski, who was certainly the most remarkable man of his time. Sobieski had, only two years before, upon the
death of the feeble and worthless Michael Wiezsnowiezky, been
elected king by the unanimous voice of the Polish diet, and he had,
since that period, signalized himself by beating back, with comparatively a handful of men, the overwhelming armies of Mahomet IV.,
which threatened destruction to the faith and liberties of Europe..
Thie decisive struggle, which was to crush forever the hopes of the
Moslem, did not take place for seven years afterwards; but Sobieski's
achievements had even then been such, as to be regarded by Europe
more as miracles than as ordinary conquests, and to earn him, from
the terrors of Turk and Tartar, the title of " The Wizard King."




Memoir of Dr. Robert South.               ix
South has recorded his observations during his visit to Poland in
a long and elaborate letter from Dantzic, dated 16th December, 1677,'to Dr. Edward Pococke, then' Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford,
and one of the Canons of Christ Church. This letter, which is distinguished by his usual shrewdness of observation, forms a very curious and interesting historical document.
Soon after South's return to England, he was presented by the
Dean and Chapter of the Collegiate- Church- of Westminster, to the
Rectory of Islip in Oxfordshire. It is recorded of him, that he applied
the' whole revenues of the benefice, which amounted to ~200 per
annum, after setting aside one half to his curate, in educating and
apprenticing the poorer children of his'parish.  He repaired the
chancel, which had fallen into disrepair, at his own cost, as appears
from a Latin inscription over the entrance. The parsonage house
having also fallen into decay, besides being unsuitable to a living of
such importance, South purchased a piece of ground,- and built a
handsome mansion-house upon it, which he settled upon himself
and his successors in the cure.:.
In 1685, Dr. South, who was by this time one of his majesty's
chaplains in ordinary, preached his: sermon entitled, —"All contingencies under the direction of God's providence," in presence of the
king. Speaking of the train of mischievous consequences which often
spring from trivial beginnings, and the unexpected advancement of
persons of the lowest grade to fortune and power, South illustrates
his argument by the following passage, which is little creditable to
his temper or taste, considering the circumstances in which it was
spoken,-" Who," he says,* "that had beheld such a bankrupt, beggarly fellow as Cromwell, first entering the parliament-house with
a threadbare torn cloak, and a greasy hat, (and perhaps neither of
them paid for,) could have suspected that in the space of a few years,
he should, by the murder of one king, and the banishment of another,
ascend the throne, be invested in the royal robes, and want nothing
of the state of' a king, but the changing of his hat into a crown?"
On heaijng this, the king is said to have burst into a violent fit of
laughter, and turning to Lord Rochester, to have exclaimed, "Ods
fish, Lory, your chaplain must be a bishop; therefore put me in mind
of him at the next death."  It was from no sycophantish motive,
however, that South indulged in such intemperate and misplaced
railing at the protector and his party; for although a bishopric was
repeatedly offered to him during the remaining part of Charles's
reign, he uniformly declined these offers, saying, that he was amply
provided with the means for maintaining the dignities which he
* See Sermon VIII.
VOL. I.




x              Memoir of Dr. Robert South.
already held in the church, and for upholding the charities which
he had already settled, or had in contemplation.
Similar offers were made to him during James's reign, and in like
manner declined. South was a determined enemy to the Roman
Catholic religion, and strongly disapproved of the measures adopted
by James for its restoration.  He is said to have assisted by his
advice in a controversy conducted in presence of the king between
Fathers Giffard and Tilden on the one side, and Drs. Jane and Patrick on the other, which ended in the defeat of the advocates of
the Romish church, who were dismissed by the king with the remark,
" that he could say more in behalf of his religion than they could;
and that he never heard a good cause managed so ill, nor a bad one
so well." Dr. South had originally been proposed as the party to.conduct this controversy on the part of the church of England along
with Dr. Jane, but he was objected to by the king, to whom his
invectives from the pulpit against the Papists had made him unacceptable.
Notwithstanding his opposition to the king in matters of religion,
his loyalty, which was based upon extreme notions of the right divine of kings, remained unshaken. During Monmouth's rebellion,
he professed himself ready, if occasion required, to change his black
gown for a buff-coat; and when the archbishop of Canterbury, and
the bishops who subscribed the invitation to the Prince of Orange
to come over, applied to him for his signature, his answer was, that
"his religion had taught him to bear all things; and howsoever it
should please God that he should suffer, he would, by the divine
assistance, continue to abide by his allegiance, and use no other
weapons but his prayers and tears for the recovery of his sovereign
from the wicked and- unadvised counsels wherewith he was entangled.'
It was some time before South gave in his adherence to the new
government; but after the abdication of James, and the settlement
of the crown on the Prince and Princess of Orange, he considered
that James's desertion of his kingdom put an end to his claims upon
the allegiance of his subjects. He therefore withdrew his opposition, and acknowledged the legality of the Revolution settlement.
Offers were made to promote him to one of the episcopal sees vacated by the non-juring bishops, but these he declined, declaring with
a noble spirit," that notwithstanding he himself saw nothing contrary
to the laws of God, and the common practice of all nations, to submit to princes in possession of the throne, yet others might have
their reasons for a contrary opinion; and he blessed God, that he
was -neither so ambitious, nor in want of preferment, as, for the sake




Memoir of Dr. Robert South.                xi
of it, to build his rise upon the ruins of any one father of the church,
who for piety, good morals, and strictness of life, which every one
of the deprived bishops was famed for, might be said not to have
left their equals."
South, who was extremely jealous of all encroachments upon the
power and dignities, as well as upon the ritual, of the Established
Church, was by no means friendly to the Act of Toleration. He had
used his most vigorous efforts on behalf of the Liturgy and forms
of prayer, with the Commissioners appointed by the king in 1689,
with the view to an union with dissenting Protestants, anxiously
maintaining that they should not part with any of its ceremonies,
lest the whole might be endangered. He also preached with the
utmost ardor against the admission of dissenters into the revenues
of the church, dwelling on their insufficiency and want of all fit knowledge and preparation for the great work of the ministry. In pursuing this theme he leveled against them all the learning and pointed
ridicule which he had so readily at command. For example, he thus
speaks of them in a sermon preached in the Abbey Church of Westminster, in 1692, upon 1 Cor. xii. 4. "Now there are diversities of
gifts, but the same Spirit." " Amongst those of the late reforming age,
all learning was utterly cried down; so that with them the best
preachers were such as could not read, and the ablest divines such
as could hardly spell the letter. To be blind was with them the
proper qualification of a spiritual guide; and to be book-learned, as
they called it, and to be irreligious, were almost terms convertible.
None were thought fit for the ministry but tradesmen and mechanics,
because none else were allowed to have the Spirit. Those only were
accounted like Saint Paul, who could work with their hands, and, in
a literal sense, drive the nail home, and be able to make a pulpit
before they preached in it." *
In the year 1693, South became involved in a controversy with
Dr. Sherlock, then Dean of Saint Paul's, which originated in a work
written by the latter, on the subject of the Socinian heresy, entitled,'"A Vindication of the Holy and Ever Blessed Trinity." t The controversy was conducted with great skill and power of argument on
both sides, but, like most controversies, it was mingled with more
personality and bitterness than befitted the solemnity of the subject.
South was generally admitted to have had the best of the discussion.
It was only terminated, however, by the interposition of the royal
authority, in a direction to the archbishops and bishops, that no
* See Sermon XXXV.           the grave heresy of Tritheism. It was
t Sherlock, in prosecuting his argu- to combat this doctrine that South enment, however, had himself fallen into tered the lists.




xii             Memoir of Dr. Robert Souith.
preacher whatsoever, should, in his sermon or lecture, deliver any
other, doctrine concerning the Trinity, than what was contained in
the Holy Scriptures, and was agreeable to the three creeds, and the
thirty-nine: articles. The controversy attracted much attention at the
time, and the wit and ingenuity in which it was conducted led many
to.take an interest in it.who:certainly would not have been induced
to do so by the abstract question which was involved in -it.. But in
this strife of wits the interests of religion seem: to have been endangered, as they ever must be, when its most sacred'mysteries become
the familiar themes for the exercise of intellectual ingenuity, and. are
mingled with passions purely secular.. South was of too ardent'a temperament to conduct a controversy
with prudence, as well as power. Wherever his sword fell, it carried
the whole vigor of his arm, and in this matter he was too much in
earnest, and indeed it was at no time his practice, to cast about for
holiday terms in speaking of. his opponent. "Surely," he says,- writing some years after. the controversy was closed, " surely it would be
thought a very:odd way of ridding a man of the plague, by running
him through with a sword-; or of a lethargy, by casting him into: a
calenture, -a disease of a contrary nature indeed, but no less fatal
to the patient, -who equally dies, whether his sickness, or his physic,
the malignity of his distemper, or the method of his cure, dispatches
him. And in like manner must it fare with a church, which, feeling
itself struck with the poison of Socinianism, flies to Tritheism for' an
antidote." 
During the latter years of South's life his health was completely
broken. His ailments were of a painful and irritating kind, but he
preserved his sprightliness and vivacity in- his intercourse with his.friends, who were: few and well chosen. By. many he was charged
with moroseness and sullenness of temper, the necessary fate of a
man of:earnest habits of thought,' gifted with keen observation of
life, and a natural play of witty expression. So far was he, however,
from deserving:the character thus attributed to him, says a contemporary biographer, who knew him well, "that whosoever was once.in
his company, went off with.such a relish of his wit and good humor,
as to. covet the coming into it, though at the expense of bearing a
part in the subject of his raillery. So that what was said of Horace,
might, on as just grounds, be worked into his character,-'Ridentem Flaccus amicum
Tangit, et admissus circum prsecordia ludit.'" 
During the greater part of Queen Anne's reign he was in a state
of inactivity, the infirmities of age growing fast upon him, and almost preventing him from performing the duties of his ministerial.




2 enmoir of: Dr. Robert South.            xiii
office. So early as 1709, his- infirmities' were such, that-the eyes of
eager expectants were turned to: him in hopes of a speedy vacancy
in his prebend's stall, and rectory. Swift, in a letter to the Eari of
Halifax, dated the 13th January of that year,* in which he presses
his suit for preferment, adds in a postscript, " Pray, my Lord, desire
Dr. South to die about the fall of the leaf,: for he has a prebend of
Westminster, which will make me your neighbor, and a sinecure in
the country, both in the queen's gift, which my friends have often
told me would fit me extremely."- Halifax, answering this letter on
6th October, 170.9, says, "Dr. South: holds..out still, but he cannot
be immortal."  South continued, however, to hold out longer. than
Swift's patience, and on the 13th of November, in the same year,
the latter again wrote Lord Halifax, "If you think this gentle winter
will not carry off Dr. South, or that his reversion is not to be compassed, your lordship would please to use your credit that, as my
Lord Somers thought of me, last year, for. the bishopric of Waterford, so my Lord President may now think of me for that of Cork,
if the incumbent dies of the spotted feverhe -is now under."  The
infirm old man weathered the " gentle winter," -and even outlived by
a year the Earl of Halifax himself, who died in 1715.
To the last, South refused to be' made a bishop, although the
honor was repeatedly pressed upon' him, during Queen Anne's:reign.
When the see of Rochester and deanery of. Westminster, vacant by
the death of Dr. Sprat, were offered to him, his answer was,'that
such a chair would be too uneasy for an old infirm man to sit in, and
he held himself much better satisfied with living upon the eavesdroppings of the church, than:: to fare sumptuously by being placed
at the pinnacle of it," - alluding to.his house, which adjoined the
Abbey.:His zeal for the welfare of his beloved church lost none
of its ardor, and we are not surprised to find: that among the: last
acts of his public life was his interesting himself on behalf of the
notorious Dr. Sacheverell.
South continued to enjoy his mental faculties to the last amid the
increasing infirmities of advanced age, and ended his long and useful
life on the 8th of July, 1716, at the age of eighty-three. He was
buried in Westminster:Abbey,'near the grave of his old master, Dr.
Busby, where- the inscription on his tombstone records he had desired
that his remains should be laid. A monument, with his figure in a
recumbent posture, marks the spot, and fixes the attention by the
peculiar uneasiness of the position in which the sculptor has chosen
to place his subject, as if to prevent the natural exclamation of the
* See Original Letters of Eminent Literary Men, p. 840.  London,: 1843.
Printed by the Camden Society.




xiv             Memoir of Dr. Robert South.
thoughtful passer-by, - "after life's fitful fever he sleeps well!"  An
elaborate epitaph records the virtues of him that sleeps beneath. It
is too long; but it possesses this rarer characteristic of such records,
that it is true.
Throughout life South showed himself a man of warm  attachments; his friendships were firm and lasting; his dislikes the same.
He was conspicuous for his charities, for the simplicity and integrity
of his life, and for his energetic devotion to the duties of his high
calling. His sincerity cannot be doubted, less because he uniformly
declined preferment, than because he feared not to stigmatize vice,
and to preach the high duties of Christianity to an unprincipled monarch and a dissolute court, whom his theories of political government
led him to look up to with feelings of reverence. He was of a frank,
fearless nature, and what he felt strongly, he gave utterance to without reserve.
The same characteristics are conspicuous in his sermons.  He
speaks from his heart. He has no reserves; his thoughts, feelings,
animosities, and predilections animate his words with the warmth
of the source that nursed them. In the ardor of his own sentiments he often forgets to make allowance for those of other men,
and in matters of political faith or ecclesiastical rule, we find him
intolerant and bigoted beyond all measure. He was an enthusiastic
advocate of passive obedience and the divine right of kings, and
maintained them by arguments, enforced with the hot-headed warmth
by which these principles have ever been maintained. He regarded
the Church of England royalists as "the best Christians, and the
most meritorious subjects in the world." With these views it was
to be expected that his fiercest opposition should be directed against
the sectarians, with which the country was overrun- the preachers
of the tub and the barn, who held all human learning in contempt,
and placed at defiance all decency and propriety of language. "Never
had man," it has been well said,* "a subject to exert his ingenuity
on, more congenial to his temper, and never were poor heretics so
assailed with invective and ridicule. He dwelt with delight on theirmeagre, mortified faces, their droning and snuffling whine, their sanctimonious hypocritical demeanor; but in the midst of his pleasantry,
he shot some shafts dipped in the bitterest gall, and pointed by the:most inveterate hatred. With a proud consciousness of superior
learning, and perhaps a pharisaical conceit of superior integrity;
with the keenest sarcasm and the most undisguised contempt, he
held up to the detestation of mankind these impudent pretenders
to the gifts of the Spirit."  " We have thus a picture of a singular
* Retrospective Review, vol. ix. page 295.




Memoir of Dr. Robert South.                xv
race of men exhibited in the most striking, but yet the darkest colors, by the hand of a master; for the painter himself was a bigot,
and a declared foe to those whom he portrayed. It is, however, useful
to have the portrait drawn even by an enemy: we must look elsewhere for the more pleasing lights and colors."
As matters of history, and with reference to our estimate of the
man himself, those parts of his sermons which relate to these topics
are not devoid of interest. But they form the smallest part of the
attraction which these noble monuments of intellect and piety present. South knew mankind well. There is no "pleasant vice," no
self-gratulating hypocrisy, no evasion of duty under a complacent
admission of its claims, that can escape his searching glance. He
strips vice and folly of their frippery, scatters the delusions of pride
and passion, and lays down the rules of Christian faith and practice
with a precision, which satisfies the intellect, while it leaves the transgressor without an excuse.  "Not diffuse, not learned," says Mr.
Hallam,* "not formal in argument like Barrow, with a more natural
structure of sentences, a more pointed, though by no means a more
fair and satisfactory turn of reasoning, with a style clear and English, and free from all pedantry, but abounding with those colloquial
novelties of idiom, which, though now vulgar and offensive, the age
of Charles II. affected, sparing no personal or temporary sarcasm,
but, if he seems for a moment to tread on the verge of buffoonery,
recovering himself by some stroke of vigorous sense and language;
such was the worthy Dr. South, whom the courtiers delighted to hear.
His sermons want all that is called unction, and sometimes even earnestness, which is owing, in a great measure, to a tone of perpetual
gibing at rebels and fanatics; but there is a masculine spirit about
them, which, combined with their peculiar characteristics, would naturally fill the churches where he might be heard." It is this masculine spirit which gives to the pages of South an interest which never
flags, and we never turn from them without feeling that some weakness has been overthrown, some principle placed in a clearer light,
and a healthy tone of thought communicated to the mind. His place
among divines may not be with the highest, but it is not far beneath
them. As a clear and original thinker, and as a master of a manly
and forcible style, he is surpassed by none.
" As a judge of men and manners," says the writer in the " Retrospective Review," "and a careful observer of human life, South
deserves the highest praise. He seldom attempts the subtleties of
metaphysical disquisition, in which he did not excel; his business
was with the broad realities of life. To show that the low and con* Literature of Europe, iv. 177.
YoUo LX           b




xvi             Memoir of Dr. Robert South.
temptible things of the earth often govern the great and exalted,
to teach man reasonable diffidence and modesty, to discourage unbounded hopes and. expectations, to cherish noble and honorable
aspirations, and to make his fellow-creatures wiser and better; to
do this was the useful and honorable object of this excellent teacher.
He thought, no doubt, he had said a witty thing, who called South's
discourses not'Sunday, but week-day sermons;' his meaning was,
we presume, if he had any, that they were written too much for
worldly every-day affairs; a charge, which a very numerous class of
sermon-makers have no cause to fear, who write for no day at all.
South's sermons are adapted to all readers and all days; they contain
innumerable thoughts and reflections which are true and striking,
though not always the most obvious to a common thinker; and this
is an unequivocal mark of a good writer. From him we might form
a collection of useful maxims, in which sentiments the most profound
and just are delivered in language the most expressive and correct.
"His faults, like his virtues, are many and great. His intolerant
and persecuting spirit we have before had occasion to notice; words
were the only weapons his profession allowed him to use, but he
wielded them with a terrible vigor and effect. Doubtless he would
have fought with the same spirit that he wrote; for during Monmouth's rebellion, he declared he was ready, if there should be occasion, to change his black gown for a buff-coat. To his detested
enemies, the Papists and Puritans, he could show no mercy, and
allow'no virtue. Milton, with him, is' the blind adder, who spit venom
on the king's person;' Cromwell is'Baal,' a' bankrupt beggary fellow, who entered the parliament-house with a threadbare, torn cloak,
and greasy hat, and perhaps neither of them paid for;' and Sir Henry
Vane,' that worthy knight, who was executed on Tower Hill.' His
crying sin was the contrivance of the covenant; and for this South
could triumph over his unjust condemnation.
"Satire, ridicule, and invective, he poured forth in a copious and
continuous stream; but he was often carried away by the violence of
the torrent, which he could neither direct nor restrain. He would
always step aside to have a blow at the schismatics, to slyly insinuate
some article of his political creed, something about prerogative, or
occasionally relieve himself by a discharge from his inexhaustible
fund of wit and humor. This humor often bordered on grossness
and indelicacy, and his wit certainly betrayed him into expressions
certainly improper, if not profane. What he could not confute by
argument, he would overcome by ridicule. He well knew the value
of Horace's maxim -'Ridiculum acri
Fortius et melius magnas plerumque secat res.'




Memoir of Dr. Robert South.              xvii
"It may perhaps be objected to some of his sermons that they
contain too many divisions and subdivisions, and that order leads to
confusion: but all the heads of his discourse are fully examined and
discussed; and the infinite variety and fullness of the man's understanding and imagination led him often to crowd into one short
sermon what a modern bookmaker would diffuse over a folio.
"His sermons, to be properly appreciated, ought to be carefully
studied; and we may venture to say that the labor will not be unprofitable: they bear the unequivocal stamp, which a peculiar turn
of mind and a great genius cannot fail to impress. The copious
and energetic language of South might serve to invigorate the wellturned and rounded sentences of many a modern scribbler, which
fall softly on the ear, but have not strength to penetrate farther.
The man of business and active life, who has occasion to state to
others what he knows himself, might be supplied from this storehouse
with all the necessary stock of words and all the clearness of express
sion; and, if inclination prompted, or circumstances required, he
might from the same magazine arm himself with the weapons of
ridicule, sarcasm, invective, and abuse. It is no pedantry to say that
we observe considerable resemblance between the style of South and
the manner of the great Athenian orator; and it is not surprising
that there should be a similarity between two men of ardent temperament, who on all subjects thought clearly and expressed themselves forcibly; both were men of strong common sense, who were
deeply interested in the business in which they were engaged; both
waged a long and continued warfare with enemies whom they hated,
and both had, to support them, the command of a mighty and powerful language."








THE CHIEF HEADS OF THE SERMONS.
VOL. I.
SERMON I.
THE WAYS OF WISDOM ARE WAYS OF PLEASANTNESS.
Prov. iii 17. —Her ways are ways ofpleasantness. Page 2.
Some objections against this truth are removed, 3, and the duty of repentance
represented under a mixture of sweetness, 7.
The excellencies of the pleasure of wisdom are enumerated:
I. As it is the pleasure of the mind, 9, in reference, 1. To speculation, 10,
on the account of the greatness, 10, and newness of the objects, 12. 2. To
practice, 12.
II. As it never satiates and wearies, 13. The comparison of other pleasures
with it; such as that of an epicure, 13, that of ambition, 15, that of friendship
and conversation, 16.
III. As it is in nobody's power, but only in his that has it, 17, which property
and perpetuity is not to be found in worldly enjoyments, 17.
A consequence is drawn against the absurd austerities of the Romish profess
sion, 18.
A short description of the religious pleasure, 19.
SERMON II.
OF THE CREATION OF MAN IN THE IMAGE OF GOD.
Genesis i. 27. - So God created man in his own image, in the image of CGod created he
him. P. 23.
The several false opinions of the heathen philosophers concerning the original
of the world, 23.
The image of God in man considered, 24.
I. Wherein it does not consist, adequately and formally; not in power and
dominion, as the Socinians erroneously assert, 24.
II. Wherein it does consist: 1. In the universal rectitude of all the faculties
of the soul, 25, viz. of his understanding, 26, both speculative, 26, and practical,
28. Of his will, 30. Concerning the freedom of it, 30. Of his passions, 31;
love, 32, hatred, 33, anger, 33, joy, 33, sorrow, 34, hope, 34, fear, 34. 2. In
those characters of majesty that God imprinted upon his body, 35.
The consideration of the irreparable loss sustained in the fall of our first parents, 37, and of the excellency of Christian religion, designed by God to repair
the breaches of our humanity, 38.




xx         The Chief Heads of the Sermons in  Vol. L
SERMON III.
INTEREST DEPOSED, AND TRUTH RESTORED.
Matthew x. 88.- But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before
my Father which is in heaven. P. 42.
The occasion of those words inquired into, 42, and their explication, by being
compared with other parallel scriptures, 44, and some observations deduced from
them, 44.
The explication of them, by showing,
I. How many ways Christ and his truths may be denied, 45. 1. By an heretical judgment, 46. 2. By oral expressions, 47. 8. By our actions, 48.
What denial is intended by these words, 49.
II. The causes inducing men to deny Christ in his truths, 50. 1. The seeming absurdity of many truths, 50. 2. Their unprofitableness, 51. 3. Their apparent danger, 53.
III. How far a man may consult his safety in time of persecution, without
denying Christ, 54. 1. By withdrawing his person, 54. 2. By concealing his
judgment, 55.
When those ways of securing ourselves are not lawful, 55.
IV. What is meant by Christ's denial of us, 57, with reference, 1. To the
action itself, 57. 2. To its circumstances, 58.
V. How many uses may be drawn from the words, 59. 1. An exhortation
chiefly to persons in authority,' to defend Christ in his truth, 59, and in his members, 60. 2. An information, to show us the danger as well as baseness of denying Christ, 61.
SERMON IV.
RELIGION THE BEST REASON OF STATE.
1 Kings xiii. 33, 34.- After this thing king Jeroboam returned not from his evil way,
but made again of the lowest of the people priests of the high places: whosoever would,
he consecrated him, and he became one of the priests of the high places. And this
thing became sin unto the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off, and to destroy it from
off theface of the earth. P. 63.
Jeroboam's history and practice, 63. Some observations from it, 66. An
explication of the words high places, 66, and consecration, 67.
The sense of the words drawn into two propositions, 67.
I. The means to strengthen or to ruin the civil power, is either to establish
or destroy the right worship of God, 67. Of which proposition the truth, is
proved by all records of divine and profane history, 68, and the reason is drawn
from the judicial proceeding of God; and from the dependence of the principles
of government upon religion, 68.
From which may be inferred, 1. The pestilential design of disjoining the civil
and ecclesiastical interest, 73. 2. The danger of any thing that may make even
the true religion suspected to be false, 75.
II. The way to destroy religion is to embase the dispensers of it, 76, which is
done, 1. By divesting them  of all temporal privileges and advantages, 76.
2. By admitting unworthy persons to this function, 79. By which means,




The Chief Heads of the Sermons in  Vol. L                  xxi
1st, ministers are brought under contempt, 82. 2dly, Men of fit parts and abilities are discouraged from undertaking the ministry, 84.
A brief recapitulation of the whole, 86.
SERMON V.
THE DUTIES OF THE EPISCOPAL FUNCTIONS.
Titus ii. 15.- These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no
man despise thee. P. 89.
Titus supposed to be a bishop in all this epistle, 89. The duties of which
place are,
I. To teach, 91, either immediately by himself, 93, or mediately by the subordinate ministration of others, 94.
II. To rule, 94, by an exaction of duty from persons under him, 95, by a
protection of the persons under the discharge of their duty, 96, and by animadversion upon such as neglect it, 96.
And the means better to execute those duties is, not to be despised, 90, 98, in
the handling of which prescription these things may be observed:
1. The ill effects that contempt has upon government, 98.  2. The causes
upon which church rulers are frequently despised, 100. And they are
Either groundless; such as their very profession itself, 101, loss of their former grandeur and privilege, 102.
Or just; such as ignorance, 103, viciousness, 103, fearfulness, 104, and a
proneness to despise others, 105.
The character of a clergyman, 106.
SERMON VI.
WHY CHRIST'S DOCTRINE WAS REJECTED BY THE JEWS.
John vii. 17. - If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be
of God, or whether I speak of myself. P. 107.
An account of the Jewish and Christian economy, 107.
The gospel must meet with a rightly disposed will, before it can gain the
assent of the understanding, 108, which will appear from the following considerations:
I. What Christ's doctrine is, with relation to matters of belief, 109, and to
matters of practice, 109.
II. That men's unbelief of that doctrine was from no defect in the arguments,
111, whose strength was sufficient, from the completion of all the predictions,
111, and the authority of miracles, 112. And whose insufficiency (if there
could have been any) was not the cause of the unbelief of the Jews, 113, who
assented to things less evident, 113, neither evident nor certain, but only probable, 114, neither evident, not certain, nor probable, but false and fallacious, 114.
III. That the Jewish unbelief proceeded from the pravity of the will influencing the understanding to a disbelief of Christianity, 115, the last being prepossessed with other notions, and the first being wholly governed by covetousness
and ambition, 115.
IV. That a well-disposed mind, with a readiness to obey the will of God, is




xxii      The Chief Heads of the Sermons in  Vol. L
the best means to enlighten the understanding to a belief of Christianity, 117,
upon the account both of God's goodness, 117, and of a natural efficiency, 119,
arising from a right disposition of the will, which will engage the understanding
in the search of the truth through diligence, 119, and impartiality, 120.
From which particulars may be learned, 1. The true cause of atheism and
skepticism, 122. 2. The most effectual means of becoming good Christians, 124.
SERMON VII.
GOD'S PECULIAR REGARD TO PLACES SET' APART FOR DIVINE WORSHIP.
Psalm lxxxvii. 2.- God hath loved the gates of Sion more than all the dwellings of
Jacob. P. 128.
All comparisons import, in the superior part of them, difference and premhninence, 128, and so from the comparison of this text arise these propositions:
I. That God bears a different respect to consecrated places, from what he
bears to all others, 128, which difference he shows, 1. By the interposals of his
providence for the erecting and preserving of them, 128. 2. By his punishments
upon the violators of them, 131. 3. Not upon the account of any inherent sanctity. in the things themselves, but because he has the sole property of them, 136,
by appropriating them to his peculiar use, 136, and by deed of gift made by surrender on man's part, 137, and by acceptance on his, 138.
II. That God prefers the worship paid to him in such places above that in
all others, 141, because, 1. Such places are naturally apt to excite a greater devotion, 141. 2. In them our worship is a more direct service and homage to
him, 143.
From all which we are taught to have these three ingredients in our devotion: desire, reverence, and confidence, 145.
SERMON VIII.
ALL CONTINGENCIES UNDER THE DIRECTION OF GOD'S PROVIDENCE.
Prov. xvi. 33. - The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing of it is of the
Lord. P. 147.
God's providence has its influence upon all things, even the most fortuitous,
such as the casting of lots, 147. Which things, implying in themselves somewhat future and somewhat contingent, are,
I. In reference to men, out of the reach of their knowledge and of their power,
148.
II. In reference to God, comprehended by a certain knowledge, 149, and
governed by as certain a providence, 150, and by him directed to both certain,
150, and great ends, 152; in reference,
1. To societies, or united bodies of men, 152. 2. To particular persons,
whether public, as princes, 157, or private, touching their lives, 158, health,
159, reputation, 159, friendships, 161, employments, 162.
Therefore we ought to rely on divine Providence; and be neither too.confident in prosperity, 164, nor too despondent in adversity, 166; but carry a conscience clear towards God, who is the sole and absolute disposer of all things,
166.




The Chief Heads of the Sermons in  Vol. I.               xxiii
SERMON IX.
THE WISDOM OF THIS WORLD.
1 Cor. iii. 19. -For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. P. 168.
Worldly wisdom, in scripture, is taken sometimes for philosophy, 168, sometimes, as here, for policy, 168, which,
I. Governs its actions generally by these rules, 169. 1. By a constant dissimulation; not a bare concealment of one's mind; but a man's positive professing what he is not, and resolves not to be, 170. 2. By submitting conscience
and religion to one's interest, 172. 3. By making one's self the sole end of all
actions, 174. 4. By having no respect to friendship, gratitude, or sense of
honor, 175.
Which rules and principles are,
II. Foolish and absurd in reference to God, 177, because in the pursuit of them
man pitches, 1. Upon an end, unproportionable, 177, to the measure of his duration, 177, or to the vastness of his desires, 178. 2. Upon means in themselves
insufficient for, 180, and frequently contrary to the attaining of such ends, 181,
which is proved to happen in the four foregoing rules of the worldly politician,
182.
Therefore we ought to be sincere, 186, and commit our persons and concerns
to the wise and good providence of God, 187.
SERMON X.
GOOD INCLINATIONS NO EXCUSE FOR BAD ACTIONS.
2 Cor. viii. 12. - For ff there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a
man hath, and not according to that he hath not. P. 188.
Men are apt to abuse the world and themselves in some general principles of
action; and particularly in this, That God accepts the will for the deed, 188.
The delusion of which is laid open in these words, 189, expressing, that where
there is no power, God accepts the will; but implying, that where there is, he
does not. So there is nothing of so fatal an import as the plea of a good intention, and of a good will, 190; for God requires the obedience of the whole man,
and never accepts the will but as such, 192. Thence we may understand how
far it holds good, that God accepts the will for the deed, 194; a rule whose
I. Ground is founded upon that eternal truth, that God requires of man nothing impossible, 194; and consequently whose
II. Bounds are determined by what power man naturally hath, 194; but whose
III. Misapplication consists in these, 194. 1. That men often mistake for an
act of the will what really is not so, 194; as a bare approbation, 194, wishing,
195, mere inclination, 197.  2. That men mistake for impossibilities things
which are not truly so, 198; as in duties of very great labor, 198, danger, 199,
cost, 203, in conquering an inveterate habit, 207.
Therefore there is not a weightier case of conscience than to know how far
God accepts the will, and when men truly will a thing, and have really no
power, 209.




xxiv       The Chief Heads of the Sermons in  Vol. I.
SERMON XL
OF THE ODIOUS SIX OF INGRATITUDE.
Judges viii. 34, 35. - And the children of Israel remembered not the Lord their God,
who had delivered them out of the hands of all their enemies on every side: neither
shewed they kindness to the house of Jerubbaal, namely Gideon, according to all the
goodness which he had shewed unto Israel. P. 210.
The history of Gideon, and the Israelites' behavior towards him, 210, are the
subject and occasion of these words, which treat of their ingratitude both towards
God and man, 212. This vice in this latter sense is described, 212, by showing,
I. What gratitude is, 212; what are its parts, 213; what grounds it hath in
the law of nature, 213. Of God's word, 216. Of man, 216.
II. The nature and baseness of ingratitude, 218.
III. That ingratitude proceeds from a proneness to do ill turns with a complacency upon the sight of any mischief befalling another; and from an utter
insensibility of all kindnesses, 221.
IV. That it is always attended with many other ill qualities, 222; pride, 222,
hard-heartedness, 224, and falsehood, 226. Therefore,
V. What consequences may be drawn from the premises, 226. 1. Never to
enter into a league of friendship with an ungrateful person, 226, because, 2. he
cannot be altered by any acts of kindness, 227, and, 3. he has no true sense of
religion, 228. Exhortation to gratitude as a debt to God, 229.
SERMON  XII.
OF THE BASE SINS OF FALSEHOOD AND LYING.
Prov. xii. 22. - Lying lips are abomination to the Lord. P. 230.
The universality of lying is described, 230. And this vice is further prosecuted, by showing,
I. The nature of it, 232; wherein it consists, 232; and the unlawfulness of all
sorts of lies, whether pernicious, officious, or jocose, 233.
II. The effects of it, 236: all sins that came into the world, 236; all miseries
that befall mankind, 237; an utter dissolution of all society, 240; an indisposition
to the impressions of religion, 242.
III. The punishments of it: the loss of all credit, 244; the hatred of all whom
the liar has or would have deceived, 245; and an eternal separation from God,
248.
All which particulars are briefly summed up, 249.
SERMON XIII.
THE PRACTICE OF RELIGION ENFORCED BY REASON.
Prov. x. 9.- He that walketh uprightly walketh surely. P. 254.
The life of man is in scripture expressed by walking; which to do surely,
great caution must be taken not to lay down false principles, or mistake in consequences from right ones, 254; but to walk uprightly, under the notion of an
infinite mind governing the world, and an expectation of another state hereafter,




The Chief Heads of the Sermons in  Vol. I.                 xxv
255. Which two principles will secure us in all our actions, whether they be
considered,
I. As true, 255, the folly of a sinner presuming upon God's mercy, 257, or
relying upon a future repentance, 259; or whether supposed,
II. As only probable, 260. No man, in most temporal concerns, acts upon
surer grounds than of probability, 261. And self-preservation will oblige a man
-to undergo a lesser evil to secure himself from the probability of a greater, 262.
Probability supposes that a thing may or may not be; both which are examined
with relation to a future state, 263.
III. As false, 265. Under this supposition the virtuous walketh more surely
than the wicked, with reference to temporal enjoyments: reputation, 265, quietness, 267, health, 268. Answer to an objection, that many sinners enjoy all
these, 270.
Thence we may perceive the folly of atheistical persons, 271, and learn to
walk uprightly, as the best ground-for our present and future happiness, 274.
SERMON XIV.
OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST TO HIS DISCIPLES.
John xv. 15. - Henceforth 1 call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what
his lord doeth: but I have called you ftiends; for all things that I have heard of my
Father have I made known unto you. P. 275.
The superlative love of Christ appears in the several degrees of his kindness'to man, before he was created, 275, when created, 276, when fallen, 276; whom
even he not only spared, but, from the number of subjects, took into the retinue
of his servants, and further advanced to the privilege of a friend, 277. The difference between which two appellations is this:
I. That a servant is, for the most part, 1. unacquainted with his master's
designs, 278; 2. restrained with a degenerous awe of mind, 279; 3. endued
with a mercenary disposition, 279.
II. That a friend is blessed with many privileges; as, 1. Freedom of access,
280. 2. Favorable construction of all passages, 281. 3. Sympathy in joy and
grief, 284. 4. Communication of secrets, 285. 5. Counsel and advice, 287.
6. Constancy and perpetuity, 289.
In every one of which particulars, the excellency of Christ's friendship shining
forth, 291, we may learn the high advantage of true piety, 292.
SERMONS XV. XVI.
AGAOINST LONG EXTEMPORE PRAYERS.
ECCLES. V. 2. - Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter
any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy
words be few. P. 295.
Solomon having been spoken to by God himself, and so the fittest to teach us
how to speak to God, here observes to us, that when we are in God's house, we
are more especially in his presence; that this ought to create a reverence in
our addresses to him, and that this reverence consists in the preparation of our
thoughts and the government of our expressions, 295, the two great joint ingredients of prayer, 302. Of which,




xxvi      The  Chief Heads of the Sermons in  Vol. L
The first is premeditation of thought, 296, 302,: 303.
The second is, ordering of our words by pertinence and brevity of expression,
~296.
Because prayer prevails upon God,
Not, as it does with men, by way of information, 296, persuasion, 296, importunity, 297. An objection to this last is answered, 301.
But as it is the fulfilling of that condition upon which God dispenseth his
blessings to mankind, 298. An'objection to this is removed, 298.
As it is most properly an act of dependence upon God, 300, a dependence
not natural, but moral; for else it would belong indifferently to the wicked as
well as to the just, 300.
I. Premeditation ought to respect: 1. The object of our prayers: God and his
divine perfections, 303. 2. The matter of our prayers, 305: either things of
absolute necessity, as the virtues of a pious life; or of unquestionable charity,
as the innocent comforts of it, 305. 3. The order and disposition of our prayers,
806: by excluding every thing which may seem irreverent, incoherent, and impertinent; absurd and irrational, 307; rude, slight, and careless, 307.
Therefore all Christian churches have governed their public worship by a
liturgy, or set form of prayer, 308. Which way of praying is truly,
To pray by the Spirit; that is, with the heart, not hypocritically; and according to the rules prescribed by God's holy Spirit, not unwarrantably, or by a pretense to immediate inspiration, 309.
Not to stint, but help and enlarge the spirit of prayer, 311; for the soul being
of a limited nature, can not at the same time supply two distinct faculties to the
same height of operation; words are the work of the brain; and devotion,
properly the business of the heart, indispensably required in prayer, 311.
Whereas, on the contrary,
Extempore prayers stint the spirit, by calling off the faculties of the soul
from dealing with the heart both in the minister and in the people, 311, 312.
And besides,
They are prone to encourage pride and ostentation, 313, faction and sedition,
314.
II. Brevity of expression, the greatest perfection of speech, 316; authorized
by both divine, 317, and human examples, 317; suited best to the modesty, 320,
discretion, 320, and respect required in all suppliants, 321; is still further enforced in our addresses to God by these arguments, 321. 1. That all the reasons
for prolixity of speech with men cease to be so when we pray to God, 322. 2.
That there are but few things necessary to be prayed for, 326. 3. That the person who prays can not keep up the same fervor and attention in a long as in a
short prayer, 327. 4. That shortness of speech is the most natural and lively
way of expressing the utmost agonies of the soul, 329. 5. That we have examples in scripture, both of brevity and prolixity of speech in prayer, as of brevity
in the Lord's Prayer, 330; the practice of it in our Saviour himself, 330; the
success of it in several instances; as of the leper, of the blind man, and of the
publican, 331. Whereas the heathens and the pharisees, the grand instances of
idolatry and hypocrisy, are noted for prolixity, 332.
By these rules we may judge, 1. of our church's excellent liturgy; for its
brevity and fullness, for the frequent opportunity of mentioning the name and
some great attribute of God; for its alternate responses, which thing properly
denominates it a Book of Common-Prayer, 334; for appointing even a form of
prayer before sermons, 334. 2. Of the dissenters' prayers, always notable for
length and tautology, incoherence and confusion, 335;




The Chief Heads of the Sermons in  Vol. L               xxvii
And, after this comparison, pronounce our liturgy the greatest treasure of
rational devotion; and pray God would vouchsafe long to continue to us the
use of it, 837.
SERMONS XVII. XVIII.
OF THE HEINOUS GUILT OF TAKING PLEASURE IN OTHER MEN'S SINS.
Romans i. 32. - Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things
are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them'that do them.
Pp. 338, 358.
The sin of taking pleasure in other men's sins is not only distinct from, but
also much greater than all those others mentioned in the foregoing catalogue,
388. To arrive at which pitch of sinning there is a considerable difficulty,
842, because every man has naturally a distinguishing sense of good and evil,
and an inward satisfaction or dissatisfaction after the doing of either, and can
not quickly or easily extinguish this principle, but by another inferior principle
gratified with objects contrary to the former, 340. And consequently no man is
quickly or easily brought to take pleasure in his own, much less in other men's
sins, 341. Of which sin,
I. The causes are: 1. The commission of the same sins in one's own person,
842. 2. The commission of them against the full conviction of conscience, 344.
8. The continuance in them, 346. 4. The inseparable poor-spiritedness of guilt,
which is less uneasy in company, 348. 6. A peculiar unaccountable malignity
of nature, 349.
II. The reasons why the guilt of that sin is so great, are: 1. That there is
naturally no motive to tempt men to it, 352. 2. That the nature of this sin is
boundless and unlimited, 355. 3. That this sin includes in it the guilt of many
preceding ones, 356.
III. The persons guilty of that sin are generally such as draw others to it,
858; particularly, 1. who teach doctrines, 358, which represent sinful actions
either as not sinful, 359, or as less sinful, than they really are, 361. Censure of
some modern casuists, 362. 2. Who allure men to sin through formal persuasion
or inflaming objects, 363. 3. Who affect the company of vicious persons, 365.
4. Who encourage others in their sins by commendation, 366, or preferment,
867.
Lastly, the effects of this sin are: Upon particular persons; that it quite depraves the natural frame of the, heart, 368: it indisposes a man to repent of it,
869; it grows the more as a man lives longer, 370; it will damn more surely,
because many are damned who never arrived to this pitch, 372. 2. Upon communities of men; that it propagates the practice, of any sin till it becomes national, 372; especially where great sinners make their dependants their proselytes, 373, and the follies of the young carry with them the approbation of the
old, 374. This the reason of the late increase of vice, 3874.
SERMON XIX.
NATURAL RELIGION WITHOUT REVELATION, SUFFICIENT TO RENDER A SINNER
INEXCUSABLE.
Romans i. 20.-  So that they are without excuse. P. 876.
The apostle in this epistle addresses himself chiefly to the Jews; but in this
first chapter he deals with the Greeks and Gentiles, 376, whom he charges with




~xviii    The Chief Heads of the Sermons in  Vol. I.
an inexcusable sinfulness, 376. And the charge contains in this, and in the
precedent and subsequent verses,
I. The sin; [that knowing God, they did not glorify him as God, ver. 21;] idolatry; not that kind of one which worships that for God which is not God; but
the other, which worships the true God by the mediation of corporeal resemblances, 377.
II. The persons guilty of this sin; [such as professed themselves wise, ver. 22;]
not the Gnostics, but the old heathen philosophers, 379.
III. The cause of that sin, [holding the truth in unrighteousness, ver. 18;] 381,
that the truths which they were accountable for, viz. 1. The being of a God,
881. 2. That he is the maker and governor of the world, 381. 3. That he is
to be worshiped, 382. 4. That he is to be worshiped by pious practices, 382.
6. That every deviation from duty is to be repernted of, 382. 6. That every
guilty person is obnoxious to punishment, 382,
Were by them held in unrighteousness, 1. By not acting up to what they
knew, 383. 2. By not improving those known principles into proper consequences, 384. 3. By concealing what they knew, 385.
IV. The judgment passed upon them, [that they were without excuse, ver. 20,]
888, that they were unfit not only for a pardon, but even for a plea, 389. Because,
1. The freedom of the will, which they generally asserted, excluded them
from the plea of unwillingness, 390. 2. The knowledge of their understanding
excluded them from the plea of ignorance, 390.
From all these we may consider,
1. The great mercy of God in the revelation of the gospel, 392.
2. The deplorable condition of obstinate sinners under it, 393.
SERMON XX.
OF SACRAMENTAL PREPARATION.
Matthew xxii. 12. -And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou zn hither, not
having a wedding-gar7nent? P. 395.
The design of this parable, under the circumstantial passages of a wedding's
royal solemnity, is to set forth the free offer of the gospel to the Jews first, andupon their refusal, to the Gentiles, 396. But it may be more peculiarly applied
to the holy eucharist; which not only by analogy, but with propriety of speech,
and from the very ceremony of breaking bread, may very well be called a wedding-supper, 397; to the worthy participation whereof there is indispensably
required a suitable and sufficient preparation, 398. In which these conditions
are required:
I. That the preparation be habitual, 402.
II. That it be also actual, 404; of which the principal ingredients are: 1.
Self-examination, 406. 2. Repentance, 408. 3. Prayer, 409. 4. Fasting, 410.
5. Almsgiving, 411. 6. Charitable temper of mind, 412. 7. Reading and meditation, 414.'The reverend author seemed to have designed another discourse upon this
text, because in this sermon he only dispatches the first part, viz. the necessity
of preparation; but proceeds not to the second, viz. that God is a severe animadverter upon such as partake without such a preparation, 398.




The Chief Heads of the Sermons in  Vol. L.               xxix
SERMON XXI.
OF THE FATAL IMPOSTURE AND FORCE OF WORDS.
Isaiah v. 20.- Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil. P. 416.
Here a woe is denounced against those, not only in particular, who judicially
pronounce the guilty innocent, and the innocent guilty; but in general, who
by abusing men's minds with false notions, make evil pass for good, and good
for evil, 416. And in the examination of this vile practice it will be necessary,
I. To examine the nature of good and evil, what they are, and upon what
they are founded, viz. upon the conformity or unconformity to right reason, 418.
Not upon the opinion, 419, or laws of men, 419; because then, 1. The same
action under the same circumstances might be both morally good and morally
evil, 419. 2. The laws could neither be morally good nor evil, 423. The same
action might be in respect of the divine law commanding it, morally good;
and of an human, forbidding it, morally evil, 423.
But that the nature of good and evil is founded upon a jus naturale, antecedent
to all jus positivum, may be exemplified in those two moral duties, towards God
and towards one's neighbor, 424.
II. To show the way how good and evil operate upon men's minds, viz. by
their respective names or appellations, 425.
III. To show the mischief arising from the misapplication of names, 426.
For since, 1. the generality of men are absolutely governed by words and names,
426, and 2. chiefly in matters of good and evil, 431, which are commonly taken
upon trust, by reason of the frequent affinity between vice and virtue, 431, and
of most men's inability to judge exactly of things, 432. Thence may be inferred the comprehensive mischief of this misapplication, by which man is
either, 1. deceived, 434, or 2. misrepresented, 435.
SERMON XXII.
PREVENTION OF SIN AN INVALUABLE MERCY.
1 Samuel xxv. 32, 33.-And David said to Abigail, Blessed be the Lord God of israd,
which sent thee this day to meet me: and blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou,
which hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself
with my own hand. P. 438.
This is David's retractation of his revenge resolved upon an insolent wealthy'
rustic, who had most unthankfully rejected his request with railing at his person
and messengers, 438. From which we may,
I. Observe the greatness of sin-preventing mercy, 440. Which appears, 1.
From the deplorable condition of the sinner, before that mercy prevents him,
440. 2. From the cause of that mercy, which is God's free grace, 443. 3.
From the danger of sin unprevented, which will then be certainly committed;
and in such deliberate commission there is a greater probability that it will
not, than that it will be pardoned, 445, because every commission hardens the
soul in that sin, and disposes the soul to proceed further, and it is not in the
sinner's power to repent, 445. 4. From the advantages of the prevention of sin
above those of the pardon of it, 447, which are the clearness of a man's condition, 447, and the satisfaction of his mind, 448.




xxx       The Chief Heads of the Sermons in  Vol. L
II. Make several useful applications, 449. As, 1. To learn how vastly greater
the pleasure is upon the forbearance, than in the commission of sin, 449. 2.
To find out the disposition of one's heart by this sure criterion, with what
ecstasy he receives a spiritual blessing, 450. 3. To be content, and thankfully
to acquiesce in any condition, and under the severest passages of Providence,
452, with relation to health, 452, reputation, 452, and wealth, 453.
SERMONS XXIII. XXIV.
OF THE NATURE AND MEASURE OF CONSCIENCE.
1 John iii. 21. - Bdoved, if our heart condemn us not, we have confidence towards God.
Pp. 456, 479.
It is of great moment and difficulty to be rationally satisfied about the estate
of one's soul, 456: in which weighty concern we ought not to rely upon such
uncertain rules, 457, as these: 1. The general esteem of the world, 457. 2.
The judgment of any casuist, 458. 3. The absolution of any priest, 460. 4.
The external profession even of a true religion, 461.
But a man's own heart and conscience, above all other things, is able to give
him confidence towards God, 464. In order to which we must know,
I. How the heart or conscience ought to be informed, 464, viz. by right reason
and scripture, 464, and endeavoring to employ the utmost of our ability to get
the clearest knowledge of our duty; and thus to come to that confidence, which,
though it amounts not to an infallible demonstration, yet is a rational, wellgrounded hope, 466.
II. By what means we may get our heart thus informed, 467, viz.: 1. By a
careful attention to the dictates of reason and natural morality, 467. 2. By a
tender regard to every pious motion of God's Spirit, 469. 3. By a study of
the revealed word of God, 471. 4. By keeping a frequent and impartial account
with our conscience, 473.
With this caution, lest either, on the one side, every doubting may overthrow
our confidence, 475, or, on the other, a bare silence of conscience raise it too
much, 476.
III. Whence the testimony of conscience is so authentic, 479, viz.: 1. Because it is commissioned to this office by God himself, 481. And there is examined the absurdity and impertinence, 482, the impudence and impiety of
false pretenses of conscience, 488; such particularly as those of schismatical
dissenters, 484, 489, who oppose the solemn usages of our churchl; the necessity
of which is founded upon sound reason, 486. 2. Because it is quick-sighted,
492, tender and sensible, 493, exactly and severely impartial, 494.
IV. Some particular instances wherein this confidence suggested by conscience exerts itself, 496, viz. 1. In our addresses to God by prayer, 494. 2. At
the time of some notable sharp trial, 497, as poverty, 498, calumny and disgrace, 499. 3. Above all others at the time of death, 500.




SERMONSO
SERMON I.
PREACHED BEFORE THE COURT AT CHRIST CHURCH
CHAPEL IN OXFORD.
TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE EDWARD EARL OF CLARENDON, LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND, AND CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXON, AND
ONE OF HIS MAJESTY'S MOST HONORABLE PRIVY COUNCIL.
5MY LORD,
T  HOUGH to prefix so great a name to so mean a piece seems like
enlarging the entrance of an house that affords no reception;
yet since there is nothing can warrant the publication of it, but what
can also command it, the work must think of no other patronage than
the same that adorns and protects its author. Some indeed vouch
great names, because they think they deserve; but I, because I need
such: and had I not more occasion than many others to see and
converse with your lordship's candor andv proneness to pardon, there
is none had greater cause to dread your judgment; and thereby in
some part I venture to commend my own. For all know, who know
your lordship, that in a nobler respect, than either that of government or patronage, you represent and head the best of universities;
and have traveled over too many nations and authors to encourage
any one that understands himself, to appear an author in your hands,
who seldom read any books to inform yourself, but only to countenance and credit them. But, my lord, what is here published pretends no instruction, but only homage; while it teaches many of the
world, it only describes your lordship, who have made the ways of
labor and virtue, of doing, and doing good, your business and your
recreation, your meat and your drink, and, I may add also, your sleep.
My lord, the subject here treated of is of that nature, that it would
seem but a chimera, and a bold paradox, did it not in the very front
VOL. I.           1




2                  TLe Ways of Wisdom                [SERM. 1.
carry an instance to exemplify it; and so by the dedication convince
the world, that the discourse itself was not impracticable. For such
ever was, and is, and will be the temper of the generality of mankind,
that, while I send men for pleasure to religion, I can not but expect,
that they will look upon me as only having a mind to bie pleasant
with them myself: nor are men to be worded into new tempers or
constitutions: and he that thinks that any one can persuade, but He
that made the world, will find that he does not well understand it.
My lord, I have obeyed your command, for such must I account
your desire; and thereby design, not so much the publication of my
sermon, as of my obedience: for, next to the supreme pleasure described in the ensuing discourse, I enjoy none greater, than in having
any opportunity to declare myself,
Your lordship's very humble servant,
and obliged chaplain,
ROBERT SOUTH.PROV. iii. 17.- Her ways are ways of pleasantness.
THE text relating to something going before, must carry
our eye back to the thirteenth verse, where we shall find,
that the thing, of which these words are affirmed, is wisdom:
a name by which the Spirit of God was here pleased to express
to us religion, and thereby to tell the world, what before it
was not aware of, and perhaps will not yet believe, that those
two great things that so engross the desires and designs of
both the nobler and ignobler sort of mankind, are to be found
in religion; namely, wisdom and pleasure; and that the former is the direct way to the latter, as religion is to both.
That pleasure is man's chiefest good, (because indeed it is
the perception of good that is properly pleasure,) is an assertion most certainly true, though under the common acceptance of it, not only false, but odious: for according to this,
pleasure and sensuality pass for terms equivalent; and therefore he that takes it in this sense, alters the subject of the
discourse.  Sensuality is indeed a part, or rather one kind
of pleasure, such an one as it is: for pleasure in general is
the consequent apprehension of a suitable object, suitably
applied to a rightly disposed faculty; and so must be conversant both about the faculties of the body and of the soul




PRov. iii. 17.]  are Ways of Pleasantness.             3
respectively; as being the result of the fruitions belonging to
both.
Now amongst those many arguments used to press upon
men the exercise of religion, I know none that are like to be
so successful as those that answer and remove the prejudices
that generally possess and bar up the hearts of men against
it: amongst which, there is none so prevalent in truth,
though so little owned in pretense, as that it is an enemy to
men's pleasures, that it bereaves them of all the sweets of
converse, dooms them to an absurd and perpetual melancholy,
designing to make the world nothing else but a great monastery.  With which notion of religion, nature and reason
seems to have great cause to be dissatisfied. For since God
never created any faculty, either in soul or body, but withal
prepared for it a suitable object, and that in order to its gratification; can we think that religion was designed only for
a contradiction to nature P and with the greatest and most
irrational tyranny in the world to tantalize and tie men up
from enjoyment, in the midst of all the opportunities of enjoyment P To place men with the furious affections of hunger
and thirst in the very bosom of plenty; and then to tell them,
that the envy of providence has sealed up every thing that is
suitable under the character of unlawful P For certainly, first
to frame appetites fit to receive pleasure, and then to interdict them with a touch not, taste not, can be nothing else, than
only to give them occasion to devour and prey upon themselves; and so to keep men under the perpetual torment of
an unsatisfied desire: a thing hugely contrary to the natural
felicity of the creature, and consequently to the wisdom and
goodness of the great Creator.
He therefore that would persuade men to religion, both
with art and efficacy, must found the persuasion of it upon
this, that it interferes not with any rational pleasure, that it
bids nobody quit the enjoyment of any one thing that his
reason call prove to him ought to be enjoyed. It is confessed,
when, through the cross circumstances of a man's temper or
condition, the enjoyment of a pleasure would certainly expose
him to a greater inconvenience, then religion bids him quit
it; that is, it bids him prefer the endurance of a lesser evil
before a greater, and nature itself does no less. Religion




4                 The Ways of Wisdo-m            [SERr. I.
therefore intrenches upon none of our privileges, invades
none of our pleasures; it may indeed sometimes command us
to change, but never totally to abjure them.
But it is easily foreseen, that this discourse will in the very
beginning of it be encountered by an argument from experience, and therefore not more obvious than strong; namely,
that it can not but be the greatest trouble in the world for a
man thus (as it were) even to shake off himself, and to defy
his nature, by a perpetual thwarting of his innate. appetites
and desires; which yet is absolutely necessary to a severe and
impartial prosecutidn of a course of piety.: nay, and we have
this asserted also, by the verdict of Christ himself, who still
makes the disciplines of self-denial and the cross, those terrible blows to flesh and blood, the indispensable requisites to
the being of his disciples. All which being so, would not he
that should be so hardy as to attempt to persuade men to
piety from the pleasures of it, be liable to that invective taunt
from all mankind, that the Israelites gave to Moses; Wilt
thou put out the eyes of this people? Wilt thou persuade us out
of our first notions? Wilt thou demonstrate, that there is
any delight in a cross, any comfort in violent abridgments,
and, which is the greatest paradox of all, that the highest
pleasure is to abstain from it?
For answer to which, it must be confessed, that all arguments whatsoever against experience are fallacious; and
therefore, in order to the clearing of the assertion laid down,
I shall premise these two considerations:
I. That pleasure is in the nature of it a relative thing, and
so imports a peculiar relation and correspondence to the state
and condition of the person to whom it is a pleasure. For as
those who discourse of atoms, affirm, that there are atoms of
all forms, some round, some triangular, some square, and the
like; all which are continually in motion, and never settle till
they fall into a fit circumscription or place of the same figure:
so there are the like great diversities of minds and objects.
Whence it is, that this object striking upon a mind thus or
thus disposed, flies off, and rebounds without making any impression; but the same luckily happening upon another, of a
disposition as it were framed for it, is presently catched at,
and greedily clasped into the nearest unions and embraces.




PROv. iii. 17.]  are Ways of Pleasantness.             5....2. The other thing to be considered is this: that the estate
of all men by nature is more or less different from that estate,
into which the same persons do or may pass, by the exercise
of that which the philosophers called virtue, and into which
men are much more effectually and sublimely translated by
that which we call grace; that is, by the supernatural, overpowering operation of God's Spirit. The difference of which
two estates consists in this: that in the former the sensitive
appetites rule and domineer; in the latter, the supreme faculty of the soul, called reason, sways the sceptre, and acts the
whole man above the irregular demands of appetite and
affection.
That the distinction between these two is not a mere figment, framed only to serve an hypothesis in divinity, and
that there is no man but is really under one, before he is
under the other, I shall prove, by showing a reason why it is
so, or rather indeed why it can not but be so. And it is this:
because every man in the beginning of his life, for several
years is capable only of exercising his sensitive faculties and
desires, the use of reason not showing itself till about the
seventh year of his age; and then at length but (as it were)
dawning in very imperfect essays and discoveries. Now it
being most undeniably evident, that every faculty and power
grows stronger and stronger by exercise; is it any wonder at
all, when a man for the space of his first six years, and those
the years of ductility and impression, has been wholly ruled
by the propensions of sense, at that age very eager and impetuous, that then after all, his reason beginning to exert and
put forth itself, finds the man prepossessed, and under another
power P So that it has much ado, by many little steps and
gradual conquests, to recover its prerogative from the usurpations of appetite, and so to subject the whole man to its
dictates: the difficulty of which is not conquered by some
men all their days.  And this is one true ground of the
difference between a state of nature and a state of grace,
which some are pleased to scoff at in divinity, who think that
they confute all that they laugh at, not knowing that it may
be solidly evinced by mere reason and philosophy.
These two considerations being premised, namely, that
pleasure implies a proportion and agreement to the respective




6               - The Ways of Wisdom            [SERM. I.
states and conditions of men; and that the state of men by
nature is vastly different from the estate into which grace or
virtue transplants them; all that objection leveled against
the foregoing assertion is very easily resolvable.
For there is no doubt, but a man, while he resigns himself
up to the brutish guidance of sense and appetite, has no relish
at all for the spiritual, refined delights of a soul clarified by
grace and virtue. The pleasures of an angel can never be
the pleasures of a hog. But this is the thing that we contend for; that a man having once advanced himself to a state
of superiority over the control of his inferior appetites, finds
an infinitely more solid and sublime pleasure in the delights
proper to his reason, than the same person had ever conveyed
to him  by the bare ministry of his senses.  His taste is
absolutely changed, and therefore that which pleased him
formerly, becomes flat and insipid to his appetite, now grown
more masculine and severe. For as age and maturity passes a
real and a marvelous change upon the diet and recreations of
the same person; so that no man at the years and vigor of
thirty is either fond of sugar-plums or rattles: in like manner, when reason, by the assistance of grace, has prevailed
over, and outgrown the encroachments of sense, the delights
of sensuality are to such an one but as an hobby-horse would
be to a counselor of state, or as tasteless as a bundle of hay
to an hungry lion.  Every alteration of a man's condition
infallibly infers an alteration of his pleasures.
The Athenians laughed the physiognoimist to scorn, who,
pretending to read men's minds in their foreheads, described
Socrates for a crabbed, lustful, proud, ill-natured person;
they knowing how directly contrary he was to that dirty
character. But Socrates bid them forbear laughing at the
man, for that he had given them a most exact account of his
nature; but what they saw in him so contrary at the present,
was from  the conquest that he had got over his natural
disposition by philosophy. And now let any one consider,
whether that anger, that revenge, that wantonness and ambition, that were the proper pleasures of Socrates, under his
natural temper of crabbed, lustful, and proud, could have at
all affected oi enamored the mind of the same Socrates,:made gentle, chaste, and humble by philosophy.




PROV. iii. 17.]  are Ways of Pleasantness.             7
Aristotle says, that were it possible to put a young man's
eye into an old man's head, he would see as plainly and clearly
as the other: so could we infuse the inclinations and principles of a virtuous person into him  that prosecutes his
debauches with the greatest keenness of desire and sense of
delight, he would loathe and reject them as heartily as he
now pursues them. Diogenes, being asked at a feast, why he
did not continue eating as the rest did, answered him that
asked him with another question, Pray why do you eat?
Why, says he, for my pleasure. Why so, says Diogenes, do I
abstain for my pleasure. And therefore the vain, the vicious,
and luxurious person argues at an high rate of inconsequence,
when he makes his particular desires the general measure of
other men's delights. But the case is so plain, that I shall
not upbraid any man's understanding, by endeavoring to give
it any further illustration.
But still, after all, I must not deny, that the change and
passage from a state of nature to a state of virtue is laborious,
and consequently irksome and unpleasant: and to this it is,
that all the forementioned expressions of our Saviour do
allude. But surely the baseness of one condition, and the
generous excellency of the other, is a sufficient argument to
induce any one to a change. For as no man would think it
a desirable thing, to preserve the itch upon himself, only for
the pleasure of scratching, that attends that loathsome distemper: so neither can any man, that would be faithful to
his reason, yield his ear to be bored through by his domineering appetites, and so choose to serve them forever, only for
those poor, thin gratifications of sensuality that they are able
to reward him with. The ascent up the hill is hard and
tedious, but the serenity and fair prospect at the top is sufficient to incite the labor of undertaking it, and to reward
it, being undertook. But the difference of these two conditions of men, as the foundation of their different pleasures,
being thus made out, to press men with arguments to pass
from one to the other, is not directly in the way or design of
this discourse.
Yet before I come to declare positively the pleasures that
are to be found in the ways of religion,:one of the grand
duties of which is stated upon repentance, a thing expressed




8                 The Ways of Wisdom              [SERM. I.
to us by the grim names of mortification, crucifixion, and the
like; and that I may not proceed only upon absolute negations, without some concessions; we will see, whether this
so harsh, dismal, and aftrighting duty of repentance is so
entirely gall, as to admit of no mixture, no allay of sweetness,
to reconcile it to the apprehensions of reason and nature.
Now repentance consists properly of two things:
1. Sorrow for sin.
2. Change of life.
A word briefly of them both.
1. And first for sorrow for sin: usually, the sting of sorrow
is this, that it neither removes nor alters the thing we sorrow
for; and so is but a kind of reproach to our reason, which
will be sure to accost us with this dilemma. Either the thing
we sorrow for is to be remedied, or it is not: if it is, why
then do we spend the time in mourning, which should be
spent in an active applying of remediesP But if it is not,
then is our sorrow vain and superfluous, as tending to no real
effect. For no man can weep his father or his friend out of
the grave, or mourn himself out of a bankrupt condition.
But this spiritual sorrow is effectual to one of the greatest
and highest purposes that mankind can be concerned in. It
is a means to avert an impendent wrath, to disarm  an offended omnipotence, and even to fetch a soul out of the very
jaws of hell. So that the end and consequence of this sorrow
sweetens the sorrow itself: and as Solomon says, In the midst
of laughter, the heart is sorrouful; so in the midst of sorrow
here, the heart may rejoice: for while it mrourns, it reads,
that those that mourn shall be comforted; and so while the penitent weeps with one eye, he views his deliverance with the
other. But then for the external expressions, and vent of
sorrow; we know that there is a certain pleasure in weeping;
it is the discharge of a big and a swelling grief; of a full
and a strangling discontent; and therefore, he that never
had such a burden upon his heart, as to give him opportunity
thus to ease it, has one pleasure in this world yet to come.
2. As for the other part of repentance, which is change
of life, this indeed may be troublesome in the entrance; but
it is but the first bold onset, the first resolute violence and
invasion upon a vicious habit, that is so sharp and afflicting.




Plov. iii. 17.]  are'Ways of Pleasantness.            9
Every impression of the lancet cuts, but it is the first only
that smarts. Besides, it is an argument hugely unreasonable,
to plead the pain of passing from a vicious estate, unless it
were proved, that there was none in the continuance under
it: but surely, when we read of the service, the bondage, and
the captivity of sinners, we are not entertained only with the
air of words and metaphors, and, instead of truth, put off with
similitudes. Let him that says it is a trouble to refrain from
a debauch, convince us, that it is not a greater to undergo
one; and that the confessor did not impose a shrewd penance
upon the drunken man, by bidding him go and be drunk
again; and that lisping, raging, redness of eyes, and what is
not fit to be named in such an audience, is not more toilsome,
than to be clean, and quiet, and discreet, and respected for
being so. All the trouble that is in it, is the trouble of being
sound, being cured, and being recovered. But if there be
great arguments for health, then certainly there are the same
for the obtaining of it; and so keeping a due proportion
between spirituals and temporals, we neither have, nor pretend to greater arguments for repentance.
Having thus now cleared off all, that by way of objection
can lie against the truth asserted, by showing the proper
qualification of the subject, to whom only the ways of wisdom
can be ways of pleasantness; for the further prosecution of
the matter in hand, I shall show what are those properties
that so peculiarly set off and enhance the excellency of this
pleasure.
I. The first is, That it is the proper pleasure of that part
of man, which is the largest and most comprehensive of pleasure, and that is his mind: a substance of a boundless comprehension. The mind of man is an image, not only of God's
spirituality, but of his infinity. It is not like any of the
senses, limited to this or that kind of object: as the sight
intermeddles not with that which affects the smell; but with
an universal superintendence, it arbitrates upon and takes
them in all. It is (as I may so say) an ocean, into which all
the little rivulets of sensation, both external and internal,
discharge themselves. It is framed by God to receive all,
and more than nature can afford it; and so to be its own
motive to seek for something above nature. Now this is that




10                The Ways of Wisdomn            [SERR. I.
part of man to which the pleasures of religion properly belong: and that in a double respect.
1. In reference to speculation, as it sustains the name of
understanding.
2. In reference to practice, as it sustains the name of conscience.
1. And first for speculation: the pleasures of which have
been sometimes so great, so intense, so engrossing of all the
powers of the soul, that there has been no room left for any
other pleasure. It has so called together all the spirits to
that one work, that there has been no supply to carry on the
inferior operations of nature. Contemplation feels no hunger,
nor is sensible of any thirst, but of that after knowledge.
How frequent and exalted a pleasure did David find from his
meditation in the divine law! All the day long it was the
-theme of his thoughts. The affairs of state, the government
of his kingdom, might indeed employ, but it was this only
that refreshed his mind.
How short of this are the delights of the epicure! How
vastly disproportionate are the pleasures of the eating and
of the thinking man! Indeed as different as the silence of an
Archimedes in the study of a problem, and the stillness of a
sow at her wash. Nothing is comparable to the pleasure of
an active and a prevailing thought: a thought prevailing over
the difficulty and obscurity of the object, and refreshing the
soul with new discoveries and images of things; and thereby
extending the bounds of apprehension, and (as it were) enlarging the territories of reason.
Now this pleasure of the speculation of divine things is
advanced upon a double account:
(1.) The greatness.
(2.) The newness of the object.
(1.) And first for the greatness of it. It is no less than the
great God himself, and that both in his nature and his works.
For the eye of reason, like that of the eagle, directs itself
chiefly to the sun, to a glory that neither admits of a superior
nor an equal. Religion carries the soul to the study of every
divine attribute.
It poses it with the amazing thoughts of omnipotence; of
a power able to fetch up such a glorious fabric, as this of the




PRov. iii. 17.]  are Ways of Pleasantness.           11
world, out of the abyss of vanity and nothing, and able to
throw it back into the same original nothing again. It
drowns us in the speculation of the divine omniscience; that
can maintain a steady infallible comprehension of all events
in themselves contingent and accidental; and certainly know
that, which does not certainly exist. It confounds the greatest subtilties of speculation, with the riddles of God's omnipresence; that can spread a single individual substance
through all spaces; and yet without any commensuration of
parts to any, or circumscription within any, though totally
in every one. And then for his eternity; which nonpluses
the strongest and clearest conception, to comprehend how
one single act of duration should measure all periods and
portions of time, without any of the distinguishing parts of
succession. Likewise for his justice; which shall prey upon
the sinner forever, satisfying itself by a perpetual miracle,
rendering the creature immortal in the midst of the flames;
always consuming, but never consumed. With the like wonders we may entertain our speculations from his mercy; his
beloved, his triumphant attribute, an attribute, if it were possible, something more than infinite; for even his justice is so,
and his mercy transcends that. Lastly, we may contemplate
upon his supernatural, astonishing works: particularly in the
resurrection, and reparation of the same numerical body, by
a reunion of all the scattered parts, to be at length disposed
of into an estate of eternal woe or bliss; as also the greatness
and strangeness of the beatific vision; how a created eye
should be so fortified, as to bear all those glories that stream
from the fountain of uncreated light, the meanest expression
of which light is, that it is unexpressible. Now what great
and high objects are these for a rational contemplation to
busy itself upon! Heights that scorn the reach of our prospect; and depths in which the tallest reason will never touch
the bottom: yet surely the pleasure arising from thence is
great and noble; forasmuch as they afford perpetual matter
and employment to the inquisitiveness of human reason, and
so are large enough for it to take its full scope and range in:
which when it has sucked and drained the utmost of an
object, naturally lays it aside, and neglects it as a dry and an
empty thing.




12                The Ways of Wisdom             [SERM. I.
(2.) As the things belonging to religion entertain our
speculation with great objects, so they entertain it also with
new: and novelty, we know, is the great parent of pleasure;
upon which account it is that men are so much pleased with
variety, and variety is nothing else but a continued novelty.
The Athenians, who were the professed and most diligent
improvers of their reason, made it their whole business to hear
or to tell some new thing: for the truth is, newness especially
in great matters, was a worthy entertainment for a searching
mind; it was (as I may so say) an high taste, fit for the relish
of an Athenian reason. And thereupon the mere unheardof strangeness of Jesus and the resurrection, made them
desirous to hear it discoursed of to them again, Acts xvii. 32.
But how would it have employed their searching faculties,
had the mystery of the Trinity, and the incarnation of the
Son of God, and the whole economy of man's redemption been
explained to them!'For how could it ever enter into the
thoughts of reason, that a satisfaction could be paid to an
infinite justice P Or, that two natures so unconceivably different as the human and divine, could unite into one person?
The knowledge of these things could derive from nothing else
but pure revelation, and consequently must be purely new to
the highest discourses of mere nature. Now that the newness of an object so exceedingly pleases and strikes the mind,
appears from this one consideration; that every thing pleases
more in expectation than fruition: and expectation supposes
a thing as yet new, the hoped-for discovery of which is the
pleasure that entertains the expecting and inquiring mind:
whereas actual discovery (as it were) rifles and deflowers the
newness and freshness of the object, and so for the most part
makes it cheap, familiar, and contemptible.
It is clear therefore, that, if there be any pleasure to the
mind from speculation, and if this pleasure of speculation
be advanced by the greatness and newness of the things
contemplated upon, all this is to be found in the ways of
religion.
2. In the next place, religion is a pleasure to the mind,
as it respects practice, and so sustains the name of conscience.
And conscience undoubtedly is the great repository and magazine of all those pleasures that can afford any solid refresh



PRO. iii. 17.]  are Ways of Pleasantness.             13
ment to the soul. For when this is calm, and serene, and
absolving, then properly a man enjoys all things, and what
is more, himself; for that he must do, before he can enjoy
any thing else. But it is only a pious life, led exactly by the
rules of a severe religion, that can authorize a man's conscience to speak comfortably to him: it is this that must word
the sentence, before the conscience can pronounce it, and
then it will do it with majesty and authority: it will not
whisper, but proclaim a jubilee to the mind; it will not drop,
but pour in oil upon the wounded heart. And is there any
pleasure comparable to that which springs from hence? The
pleasure of conscience is not only greater than all other pleasures, but may also serve instead of them: for they only please
and affect the mind in transitu, in the pitiful narrow. compass
of actual fruition; whereas that of conscience entertains and
feeds it a long time after with durable, lasting reflections.
And thus much for the first ennobling property of the pleasure belonging to religion; namely, That it is the pleasure of
the mind, and that both as it relates to speculation, and is
called the understanding, and as it relates to practice, and is
called the conscience.
II. The second ennobling property of it is, That it is such
a pleasure as never satiates or wearies: for it properly affects
the spirit, and a spirit feels no weariness, as being privileged
from the causes of it. But can the epicure say so of any of
the pleasures that he so much dotes upon? Do they not
expire, while they satisfy P And after a few minutes' refrieshment, determine in loathing and unquietness?  How short is
the interval between a pleasure and a burden! How undiscernible the transition from one to the other! Pleasure dwells
no longer upon the appetite, than the necessities of nature,
which are quickly and easily provided for; and then all that
follows is a load and an oppression.  Every morsel to a
satisfied hunger, is only a new labor to a tired digestion.
Every draught to him that has quenched his thirst, is but
a further quenching of nature; a provision for rheum and
diseases, a drowning of the quickness and activity of the
spirits.
He that prolongs his meals, and sacrifices his time, as well
as his other conveniences, to his luxury, how quickly does he




14                The Ways of Wisdo~m           [SERM. I.
out-sit his pleasure! And then, how is all the following time
bestowed upon ceremony and surfeit! till at length, after a
long fatigue of eating, and drinking, and babbling, he concludes the great work of dining genteelly, and so makes a shift
to rise from table, that he may lie down upon his bed: where,
after he has slept himself into some use of himself, by much
ado he staggers to his table again, and there acts over the
same brutish scene: so that he passes his whole life in a dozed
condition between sleeping and waking, with a kind of drowsiness and confusion upon his senses; which, what pleasure
it can be, is hard to conceive; all that is of it, dwells upon the
tip of his tongue, and within the compass of his palate: a
worthy prize for a mall to purchase with the loss of his time,
his reason, and himself.
Nor is that man less deceived, that thinks to maintain a
constant tenure of pleasure, by a continual pursuit of sports
and recreations: for it is most certainly true of all these
things, that as they refresh a man when he is weary, so they
weary him when he is refreshed; which is an evident demonstration that God never designed the use of them to be continual, by putting such an emptiness in them, as should so
quickly fail and lurch expectation.
The most voluptuous and loose person breathing, were he
but tied to follow his hawks and his hounds, his dice and his
courtships every day, would find it the greatest torment and
calamity that could befall him; he would fly to the mines
and the galleys for his recreation, and to the spade and the
mattock for a diversion from the misery of a continual unintermitted pleasure.
But on the contrary, the providence of God has so ordered
the course of things, that there is no action, the usefulness
of which has made it the matter of duty, and of a profession,
but a man may bear the continual pursuit of it, without
loathing or satiety. The same shop and trade that employs
a man in his youth, employs him also in his age. Every
morning he rises fresh to his hammer and his anvil; he
passes the day singing:'custom has naturalized his labor to
him: his shop is his element, and he can not with any enjoyment of himself live out of it. Whereas no custom can make
the painfulness of a debauch easy or pleasing to a man; since




PRov. iii. 17.]  are Ways of Pleasantness.           15
nothing can be pleasant that is unnatural. But now, if God
has interwoven such a pleasure with the works of our ordinary calling; how much superior and more refined must that
be, that arises from the survey of a pious and well-governed
life! Surely, as much as Christianity is nobler than a trade.
And then, for the constant freshness of it; it is such a
pleasure as can never cloy or overwork the mind: for surely
no man was ever weary of thinking, much less of thinking
that he had done well or virtuously, that he had conquered
such and such a temptation, or offered violence to any of his
exorbitant desires. This is a delight that grows and improves
under thought and reflection: and while it exercises, does also
endear itself to the mind; at the same time employing and
inflaming the meditations. All pleasures that affect the body
must needs weary, because they transport; and all transportation is a violence; and no violence can be lasting, but determines upon the falling of the spirits, which are not able
to keep up that height of motion that the pleasure of the
senses raises them to: and therefore how inevitably does an
immoderate laughter end in a sigh! which is only nature's
recovering itself after a force done to it. But the religious
pleasure of a well-disposed mind moves gently, and therefore
constantly: it does not affect by rapture and ecstasy; but is
like the pleasure of health, which is still and sober, yet
greater and stronger than those that call up the senses with
grosser and more affecting impressions. God has given no
man a body as strong as his appetites; but has corrected
the boundlessness of his voluptuous desires, by stinting his
strengths, and contracting his capacities.
But to look upon those pleasures also that have an higher
object than the body; as those that spring from honor and
grandeur of condition; yet we shall find, that even these are
not so fresh and constant, but the mind can nauseate them,
and quickly feel the thinness of a popular breath. Those
that are so fond of applause while they pursue it, how little
do they taste it when they have it! Like lightning, it only
flashes upon the face, and is gone; and it is well if it does
not hurt the man. But for greatness of place, though it is
fit and necessary that some persons in the world should be in
love with a splendid servitude; yet certainly they must be




16                The Ways of Wisdom            [SEMR. I
much beholding to their own fancy, that they can be pleased
at it. For he that rises up early, and goes to bed late, only
to receive addresses, to read and answer petitions, is really as
much tied and abridged in his freedom, as he that waits all
that time to present one. And what pleasure can it be to be
incumbered with dependences, thronged and surrounded with
petitioners P And those perhaps sometimes all suitors for the
same thing: whereupon all but one will be sure to depart
grumbling, because they miss of what they think their due:
and even that one scarce thankful, because he thinks he has
no more than his due. In a word, if it is a pleasure to be
envied and shot at, to be maligned standing, and to be despised falling, to endeavor that which is impossible, which is
to please all, and to suffer for not doing it; then is it a pleasure to be great, and to be able to dispose of men's fortunes
and preferments.
But further, to proceed from hence to yet an higher degree
of pleasure, indeed the highest on this side that of religion;
which is the pleasure of friendship and conversation. Friendship must confessedly be allowed the top, the flower, and
crown of all temporal enjoyments. Yet has not this also its
flaws and its dark side? For is not my friend a man; and is
not friendship subject to the same mortality and change that
men are? And in case a man loves, and is not loved again,
does he not think that he has cause to hate as heartily, and
tell times more eagerly than ever he loved P And then to be
an enemy, and once to have been a friend, does it not embitter
the rupture, and aggravate the calamity  But admitting
that my friend continues so to the end; yet in the mean time,
is he all perfection, all virtue and discretion   Has he not
humors to be endured, as well as kindnesses to be enjoyed?
And am I sure to smell the rose, without sometimes feeling
the thorn P
And then lastly for company; though it may reprieve a man
from his melancholy, yet it cannot secure him from his conscience, nor from sometimes being alone. And what is all
that a man enjoys, from a week's, a month's, or a year's converse, comparable to what he feels for one hour, when his
conscience shall take him aside, and rate him by himself?
In short, run over the whole circle of all earthly pleasures,




PROY. iii. 17.]  are Ways of Pleasantness.           17
and I dare affirm, that had not God secured a man a solid
pleasure from his own actions, after he had rolled from one
to another, and enjoyed them all, he would be forced to complain, that either they were not indeed pleasures, or that
pleasure was not satisfaction.
III. The third ennobling property of the pleasure that
accrues to a man fromi religion, is, that it is such an one as is
in nobody's power, but only in his that has it; so that he that
has the property may be also sure of the perpetuity. And tell
me so of any outward enjoyment that mortality is capable of.
We are generally at the mercy of men's rapine, avarice, and
violence, whether we shall be happy or no. For if I build
my felicity upon my estate or reputation, I am happy as long
as the tyrant or the railer will give me leave to be so. But
when my concernment takes up no more room or compass
than myself; then so long as I know where to breathe and to
exist, I know also where to be happy: for I know I may be
so in my own breast, in the court of my own conscience;
where, if I can but prevail with myself to be innocent, I need
bribe neither judge nor officer to be pronounced so. The
pleasure of the religious man is an easy and a portable pleasure, such an one as he carries about in his bosom, without
alarming either the eye or envy of the world. A man putting
all his pleasures into this one, is like a traveler's putting all
his goods into one jewel; the value is the same, and the convenience greater.
There is nothing that can raise a man to that generous
absoluteness of condition, as neither to cringe, to fawn, or to
depend meanly, but that which gives him  that happiness
within himself, for which men depend upon others. For
surely I need salute no great man's threshold, sneak to none
of his friends or servants, to speak a good word for me to my
conscience. It is a noble and a sure defiance of a great
malice, backed with a great interest; which yet can have:no
advantage of a man, but from his own expectations of something that is without himself. But if I can make my duty
my delight; if I can feast, and please, and caress my mind
with the pleasures of worthy speculations or virtuous practices; let greatness and malice vex and abridge me if they
canll: my pleasures are as free as my will; no more to be
VOL. I.         2




18                The Ways of Wisdom             [SERM. I
controlled than my choice, or the unlimited range of my
thoughts and my desires.
Nor is this kind of pleasure only out of the reach of any
outward violence, but even those things also that make a
much closer impression upon us, which are the irresistible
decays of nature, have yet no influence at all upon this. For
when age itself, which of all things in the world will not be
baffled or defied, shall begin to arrest, seize, and remind us
of our mortality, by pains, aches, deadness of limbs, and dullness of senses; yet then the pleasure of the mind shall be in
its full youth, vigor, and freshness. A palsy may as well
shake an oak, or a fever dry up a fountain, as either of them
shake, dry up, or impair the delight of conscience. For it
lies within, it centres in the heart, it grows into the very
substance of the soul, so that it accompanies a man to his
grave; he never outlives it, and that for this cause only, because he can not outlive himself.
And thus I have endeavored to describe the excellency of
that pleasure that is to be found in the ways of a religious
wisdom, by those excellent properties that do attend it; which,
whether they reach the description that has been given them,
or no, every man may convince himself, by the best of demonstrations, which is his own trial.
Now from  all this discourse, this 1 am sure is a most
natural and direct consequence, that if the ways of religion
are ways of pleasantness, then such as are not ways of pleasantness- are not truly and properly ways of religion. Upon
which ground, it is easy to see what judgment is to be passed
upon all those affected, uncommanded, absurd austerities, so
much prized and exercised by some of the Romish profession.
Pilgrimages, going barefoot, hair shirts, and whips, with
other such gospel artillery, are their only helps to devotion:
things never enjoined, either by the prophets under the Jewish, or by the apostles under the Christian economy; who yet
surely understood the proper and the most efficacious instruments of piety, as well as any confessor or friar of all the
order of St. Francis, or any casuist whatsoever.
It seems, that with them a man sometimes can not be a
penitent, unless he also turns vagabond, and foots it to Jerusalem; or wanders over this or that part of the world to visit




PROV. iii. 17./  are Ways of Pleasantness.            19
the shrine of such or such a pretended saint; though perhaps,
in his life, ten times more ridiculous than themselves: thus,
that which was Cain's curse is become their religion. He
that thinks to expiate a sin by going barefoot, does the penance of a goose, and only makes one folly the atonement of
another. Paul indeed was scourged and beaten by the Jews,
but we never read that he beat or scourged himself: and if
they think that his keeping under of his body imports so much,
they must first prove that the body can not be kept under by
a virtuous mind, and that the mind can not be made virtuous
but by a scourge; and consequently, that thongs and whipcord are means of grace, and things necessary to salvation.
The truth is, if men's religion lies no deeper than their skin,
it is possible that they may scourge themselves into very
great improvements.
But they will find that bodily exercise touches not the soul;
and that neither pride, nor lust, nor covetousness, nor any
other vice, was ever mortified by corporal disciplines: it is
not the back, but the heart that must bleed for sin: and consequently, that in this whole course they are like men out of
their way; let them lash on never so fast, they are not at all
the nearer to their journey's end: and howsoever they deceive
themselves and others, they may as well expect to bring a
cart as a soul to heaven by such means. What arguments
they have to beguile poor, simple, unstable souls with, I know
not; but surely the practical, casuistical, that is, the principal,
vital part of their religion savors very little of spirituality.
And now upon the result of all, I suppose, that to exhort
men to be religious is only in other words to exhort them
to take their pleasure. A pleasure, high, rational, and angelical; a pleasure embased with no appendant sting, no consequent loathing, no remorses or bitter farewells: but such
an one, as being honey in the mouth, never turns to gall or
gravel in the belly. A pleasure made for the soul, and the
soul for that; suitable to its spirituality, and equal to all its
capacities. Such an one as grows fresher upon enjoyment,
and though continually fed upon, yet is never devoured. A
pleasure that a man may call as properly his own, as his soul
and his conscience; neither liable to accident, nor exposed
to injury. It is the foretaste of heaven, and the earnest of




20    The Ways of Wisdom are Ways of Pleasantness. [SERM. I.
eternity.  In a word, it is such an one, as being begun in
grace, passes into glory, blessedness, and immortality, and
those pleasures that neither eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor
has it entered into the heart of man to conceive.
To which God of his mercy vouchsafe to bring 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 II.
PREACHED AT THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. PAUL'S,
NOVEMBER THE 9TH, 1662.
TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE THE LORD MAYOR AND ALDERMEN OF THE CITY
OF LONDON.
RIGHT HONORABLE,
W' HEN I consider how impossible it is for a person of my condition to produce, and consequently how imprudent to attempt,
any thing in proportion either to the ampleness of the body you represent, or of the places you bear, I should be kept from venturing
so poor a piece, designed to live but all hour, in so lasting a publication; did not what your civility calls a request, your greatness render a command. The truth is, in things not unlawful, great persons
can not be properly said to request; because, all things considered,
they must not be denied. To me it was honor enough to have your
audience, enjoyment enough to behold your happy change, and to
see the same city, the metropolis of loyalty and of the kingdom, to
behold the glory of English churches reformed, that is, delivered
from the reformers; and to find at least the service of the church
repaired, though not the building; to see St. Paul's delivered from
beasts here, as well as St. Paul at Ephesus; and to view the church
thronged only with troops of auditors, not of horse. This I could
fully have acquiesced in, and received a large personal reward in my
particular share of the public joy; but since you are further pleased,
I will not say by your judgment to approve, but by your acceptance
to encourage the raw endeavors of a young divine, I shall take it for
an opportunity, not as others in their sage prudence use to do, to
quote three or four texts of scripture, and to tell you how you are to
rule the city out of a concordance; no, I bring not instructions, but
what much better befits both you and myself, your commendations.
For I look upon your city as the great and magnificent stage of
business, and by consequence the best place of improvement; for
from the school we go to the university, but from the universities to




22                The Epistle Dedicatory.
London. And therefore as in your city meetings you must be
esteemed the most considerable body of the nation; so, met in the
church, I look upon you as an auditory fit to be waited on, as you
are, by both universities. And when I remember how instrumental
you have been to recover this universal settlement, and to retrieve
the old spirit of loyalty to kings, (as an ancient testimony of which
you bear not the sword in vain;) I seem in a manner deputed from
Oxford, not so much a preachers to supply a course, as orator to present her thanks. As for the ensuing discourse, which (lest I chance
to be traduced for a plagiary by him who has played the thief) I
think fit to tell the world by the way, was one of those that by a
worthy hand were stolen from me in the king's chapel, and are still
detained; and to which now accidentally published by your honor's
order, your patronage must give both value and protection. You
will find me in it not to have pitched upon any subject, that men's
guilt, and the consequent of guilt, their concernment might render
liable to exception; nor to have rubbed up the memory of what
some heretofore in the city did, which more and better now detest,
and therefore expiate: but my subject is inoffensive, harmless, and
innocent as the state of innocence itself, and (I hope) suitable to
the present design and genius of this nation; which is, or should be,
to return to that innocence, which it lost long since the fall. Briefly,
my business is, by describing what man was in his first estate, to upbraid him with what he is in his present: between whom, innocent
and fallen, (that in a word I may suit the subject to the place of my
discourse,) there is as great an unlikeness, as between St. Paul's a
cathedral, and St. Paul's a stable. But I must not forestall myself,
nor transcribe the work into the dedication. I shall now only desire
you to accept the issue of your own requests; the gratification of
which I have here consulted so much before my own reputation;
while like the poor widow I endeavor to show my officiousness by an
offering, though I betray my poverty by the measure; not so much
caring, though I appear neither preacher nor scholar, (which terms
we have been taught upon good reason to distinguish,) so I may in
this but show myself
Your honors'
very humble servant,
ROBERT SOUTH.
WORCESTER-HOUSE.
Nov. 24, 1662.




GEN. i. 27.]   On the Creation of Han, &c.            23
GENEsIS i. 27. - So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created
he him.
H OW hard it is for natural reason to discover a creation
before revealed, or being revealed to believe it, the
strange opinions of the old philosophers, and the infidelity
of modern atheists, is too sad a demonstration. To run the
world back to its first original and infancy, and (as it were)
to view nature in its cradle, to trace the outgoings of the
Ancient of days in the first instance and specimen of his
creative power, is a research too great for any mortal inquiry: and we might continue our scrutiny to the end of the
world, before natural reason would be able to find out when
it begun.
Epicurus's discourse concerning the original of the world
is so fabulous and ridiculously merry, that we may well judge
the design of his philosophy to have been pleasure, and not
instruction.
Aristotle held, that it streamed by connatural result and
emanation from God, the infinite and eternal mind, as the
light issues from the sun; so that there was no instant of
duration assignable of God's eternal existence, in which the
world did not also coexist.
Others held a fortuitous concourse of atoms; but all seem
jointly to explode a creation; still beating upon this ground,
that to produce something out of nothing is impossible and
incomprehensible: incomprehensible indeed I grant, but not
therefore impossible. There is not the least transaction of
sense and motion in the whole man, but philosophers are at
a loss to comprehend, I am sure they are to explain it.
Wherefore it is not always rational to measure the truth of
an assertion by the standard of our apprehension.
But to bring things even to the bare perceptions of reason,
I appeal to any one, who shall impartially reflect upon the
ideas and conceptions of his own mind, whether he doth not
find it as easy and suitable to his natural notions, to conceive
that an infinite almighty power might produce a thing out
of nothing, and make that to exist de novo, which did not exist before; as to conceive the world to have had no beginning,




24               On the Creation of Man         [SERM. II.
but to have existed from eternity: which, were it so proper
for this place and exercise, I could easily demonstrate to be
attended with no small train of absurdities. But then, besides that the acknowledging of a creation is safe, and the
denial of it dangerous and irreligious, and yet not more (perhaps much less) demonstrable than the affirmative; so, over
and above, it gives me this advantage, that, let it seem never
so strange, uncouth, and impossible, the nonplus of my reason will yield a fairer opportunity to my faith.
In this chapter, we have God surveying the works of the
creation, and leaving this general impress or character upon
them, that they were exceeding good. What an omnipotence
wrought, we have an omniscience to approve. But as it is
reasonable to imagine that there is more of design, and consequently more of perfection, in the last work, we have God
here giving his last stroke, and summing up all into man, the
whole into a part, the universe into an individual: so that,
whereas in other creatures we have but the trace of his footsteps, in man we have the draught of his hand. In him
were united all the scattered perfections of the creature; all
the graces and ornaments, all the airs and, features of being,
were abridged into this small, yet full system of nature and
divinity: as we might well imagine that the great artificer
would be more than ordinarily exact in drawing his own picture.
The work that I shall undertake from these words, shall
be to show what this image of God in man is, and wherein it
doth consist. Which I shall do these two ways: 1. Negatively, by showing wherein it doth not consist. 2. Positively,
by showing wherein it does.
For the first of these, we are to remove the erroneous
opinion of the Socinians.  They deny that the image of
God consisted in any habitual perfections that adorned the
soul of Adam: but as to his understanding bring him in
void of all notion, a rude unwritten blank; making him to
be created as much an infant as others are born; sent into
the world only to read and spell out a God in the works of
creation, to learn by degrees, till at length his understanding
grew up to the stature of his body. Also without any inherent habits of virtue in his will; thus divesting him of all, and




GEN. i. 27.]     rn the Image of God.               25
stripping him to his bare essence; so that all the perfection
they allowed his understanding was aptness and docility; and
all that they attributed to his will was a possibility to be virtuous.
But wherein then, according to their opinion, did this
image of God consistP Why, in that power and dominion
that God gave Adam over the creatures: in that he was
vouched his immediate deputy upon earth, the viceroy of the
creation, and lord - lieutenant of the world. But that this
power and dominion is not adequately and formally the image
of God, but only a part of it, is clear from hence; because
then he that had most of this, would have most of God's image: and consequently Nimrod had more of it than Noah,
Saul than Samuel, the persecutors than the martyrs, and
Caesar than Christ himself, which to assert is a blasphemous
paradox. And if the image of God is only grandeur, power,
and sovereignty, certainly we have been hitherto much mistaken in our duty: and hereafter are by all means to beware
of making ourselves unlike God, by too much self-denial and
humility. ILam not ignorant that some may distinguish between $ouo-cl and 8v'vapts, between a lawful authority and an
actual power: and affirm, that God's image consists only in
the former; which wicked princes, such as Saul and Nimrod,
have not, though they possess the latter. But to this I
answer,
1. That the scripture neither makes nor owns such a distinction: nor anywhere asserts, that when princes begin to
be wicked, they cease of right to be governors. And to this,
that when God renewed this charter of man's sovereignty
over the creatures to Noah and his family, we find no exception at all, but that Cham stood as fully invested with this
right as any of his brethren.
2. But secondly; this savors of something ranker than
Socinianism, even the tenents of the fifth monarchy, and of
sovereignty founded only upon saintship; and therefore fitter to be answered by the judge, than by the divine; and to
receive its confutation at the bar of justice, than from the
pulpit.
Having now made our way through this false opinion, we
are in the next place to lay down positively what this image




26               On the Creation of Man            [SERM. IT.
of God. in manl is. It is, in short, that universal rectitude of
all the faculties of the soul, by which they stand apt and disposed to their respective offices and operations: which will be
more fully set forth, by taking a distinct survey of it, in the
several faculties belonging to the soul.
I. In the understanding.
II. In the will.
III. In the passions or affections.
I. And first for its noblest faculty, the understanding:
it was then sublime, clear, and aspiring, and, as it were, the
soul's upper region, lofty and serene, free from the vapors
and disturbances of the  inferior affections.  It was the
leading, controlling faculty; all the passions wore the colors
of reason; it did not so much persuade, as command; it was
not consul, but dictator. Discourse was then almost as quick
as intuition; it was nimble in proposing, firm in concluding;
it could sooner determine than now it can dispute. Like the
sun, it had both light and agility; it knew no rest, but in
motion; no quiet, but in activity. It did not so properly
apprehend, as irradiate the object; not so much find, as make
things intelligible. It did arbitrate upon the several reports
of sense, and all the varieties of imagination; not like a
drowsy judge, only hearing, but also directing their verdict.
In sum, it was vegete, quick, and lively; open as the day,
untainted as the morning, full of the innocence and sprightliness of youth; it gave the soul a bright and a full view into
all things; and was not only a window, but itself the prospect. Briefly, there is as much difference between the clear
representations of the understanding then, and the obscure
discoveries that it makes now, as there is between the prospect of a casement and of a key-hole.
Now as there are two great functions of the soul, contemplation and practice, according to that general division of objects, some of which only entertain our speculation, others
also employ our actions; so the understanding with relation
to these, not because of any distinction in the faculty itself,
is accordingly divided into speculative and practic; in both
of which the image of God was then apparent.
1. For the understanding speculative.  There are some
general maxims and notions in the mind of man, which are




GEN. i. 27.]     in the Image of God.                27
the rules of discourse, and the basis of all philosophy. As,
that the same thing cannot at the same time be, and not be;
that the whole is bigger than a part; that two proportions
equal to a third, must also be equal to one another. Aristotle, indeed, affirms the mind to be at first a mere rasa
tabula; and that these notions are not ingenite, and imprinted by the finger of nature, but by the latter and more
languid impressions of sense; being only the reports of observation, and the result of so many repeated experiments.
But to this I answer two things:
(1.) That these notions are universal; and what is universal
must needs proceed friom some universal, constant principle,
the same in all particulars, which here'can be nothing else.but human nature.
(2.) These can not be infused by observation, because they
are the rules by which men take their first apprehensions and
observations of things, and therefore in order of nature must
needs precede them: as the being of the rule must be before
its application to the thing directed by it. From whence it
follows, that these were notions, not descending from us, but
born with us; not our offspring, but our brethren: and (as
I may so say) such as we were taught without the help of a
teacher.
Now it was Adam's happiness in the state of innocence to
have these clear and unsullied. He came into the world a
philosopher, which sufficiently appeared by his writing the
nature of things upon their names; he could view essences
in themselves, and read forms without the comment of their
respective properties: he could see consequents yet dormant
in their principles, and effects yet unborn, and in the womb
of their causes: his understanding could almost pierce into
future contingents, his conjectures improving even to proph.
ecy, or the certainties of prediction; till his fall, it was
ignorant of nothing but of sin; or at least it rested in the
notion, without the smart of the experiment. Could any
difficulty have been proposed, the resolution would have been
as early as the proposal; it could not have had time to settle
into doubt. Like a better Archimedes, the issue of all his
inquirieswas an Evp'lKa, an eplqKa, the offspring of his brain
without the sweat of his brow. Study was not then a duty,




28              On the Creatton o] Man          [SERM. Ir.
night-watchings were needless; the light of reason wanted
not the assistance of a candle. This is the doom of fallen
man, to labor in the fire, to seek truth in profundo, to exhaust his time and impair his health, and perhaps to spin
out his days, and himself, into one pitiful, controverted conclusion. There was then no poring, no struggling with
memory, no straining for invention: his faculties were quick
and expedite; they answered without knocking, they were
ready upon the first summons, there was freedom and firmness in all thei' operations. I confess, it is difficult for us,
who date our ignorance from our first being, and were still
bred up with the same infirmities about us with which we
were born, to raise our thoughts and imagination to those
intellectual perfections that attended our nature in the time
of innocence; as it is for a peasant bred up in the obscurities of a cottage, to fancy in his mind the unseen splendors
of a court. But by rating positives by their privatives, and
other arts of reason, by which discourse supplies the want
of the reports of sense, we may collect the excellency of the
understanding then, by the glorious remainders of it now,
and guess at the stateliness of the building, by the magnificence of its ruins. All those arts, rarities, and inventions,
which vulgar minds gaze at, the ingenious pursue, and all
admire, are but the relics of an intellect defaced with sin
and time. We admire it now, only as antiquaries do a piece
of old coin, for the stamp it once bore, and not for. those
vanishing lineaments and disappearing draughts that remain
upon it at present. And certainly that must needs have been
very glorious, the decays of which are so admirable. He
that is comely, when old and decrepit, surely was very beautiful when he was young. An Aristotle was but the rubbish
of an Adam, and Athens but the rudiments of Paradise.
2. The image of God was no less resplendent in that which
we call man's practical understanding; namely, that storehouse of the soul, in which are treasured up the rules of
action and.the seeds of morality. Where, we must observe,
that many who deny all connate notions in the speculative
intellect, do yet admit them in this. Now of this sort are
these maxims; that God is to be worshiped; that parents
are to be honored; that a man's word is to be kept, and the




GEr. i. 27.]      in the Image of God.                29
like: which, being of universal influence, as to the regulation
of the behavior and converse of mankind, are the ground of
all virtue and civility, and the foundation of religion.
It was the privilege of Adam innocent, to have these notions
also firm and untainted, to carry his monitor in his bosom,
his law in his heart, and to have such a conscience as might
be its own casuist: and certainly those actions must needs
be regular, where there is an identity between the rule and
the faculty. His own mind taught him a due dependence
upon God, and chalked out to him the just proportions and
measures of behavior to his fellow-creatures. He had no
catechism but the creation, needed no study but reflection,
read no book, but the volume of the world, and that too, not
for rules to work by, but for objects to work upon. Reason
was his tutor, and first principles his magna noralia. The
decalogue of Moses was but a transcript, not an original.
All the laws of nations, and wise decrees of states, the statutes of Solon, and the twelve tables, were but a paraphrase
upon this standing rectitude of nature, this fruitful principle
of justice, that was ready to run out, and enlarge itself into
suitable determinations, upon all emergent objects and occations. Justice then was neither blind to discern, nor lame
to execute. It was not subject to be imposed upon by a deluded fancy, nor yet to be bribed by a glozing appetite, for
an utile or jucundum to turn the balance to a false and.dishonest sentence. In all its directions of the inferior faculties, it conveyed its suggestions with clearness, and enjoined'them with power; it had the passions in perfect subjection;
and though its command over them was but suasive and political, yet it had the force of coaction, and despotical. It
was not then, as it is now, where the conscience has only
power to disapprove, and to protest against the exorbitances
of the passions; and rather to wish, than make them otherwise. The voice of conscience now is low and weak, chastising the passions, as old Eli did his lustful, domineering sons;
Not so, my sons, not so; but the voice of conscience then was
not, This should, or This ought to be done; but, This must,
This shall be done. It spoke like a legislator; the thing
spoke was a law; and the manner of speaking it a new obligation. In short, there was as great a disparity between the




30              On the Creation of Man         [SERM. II.
practical dictates of the understanding then and now, as there
is between empire and advice, counsel and command, between
a companion and a governor.
And thus much for the image of God, as it shone in man's
understanding.
II. Let us in the next place take a view of it, as it was
stamped upon the will. It is much disputed by divines concerning the power of man's will to good and evil in the state
of innocence; and upon very nice and dangerous precipices
stand their determinations on either side. Some hold, that
God invested him with a power to stand, so that in the
strength of that power received, he might, without the
auxiliaries of any further influence, have determined his will
to a full choice of good. Others hold, that notwithstanding
this power, yet it was impossible for him to exert it in any
good action, without a superadded assistance of grace, actually determining that power to the certain production of such
an act. So that, whereas some distinguish between sufficient
and effectual grace; they order the matter so as to acknowledge none sufficient, but what is indeed effectual, and actually
productive of a good action. I shall not presume to interpose
dogmatically in a controversy, which I look never to see decided. But concerning the latter of these opinions, I shall
only give these two remarks:
1. That it seems contrary to the common and natural conceptions of all mankind, who acknowledge themselves able
and sufficient to do many things, which actually they never
do.
2. That to assert, that God looked upon Adam's fall as a
sin, and punished it as such, when, without any antecedent
sin of his, he withdrew that actual grace from him, upon the
withdrawing of which, it was impossible for him not to fall,
seems a thing that highly reproaches the essential equity and
goodness of the divine nature.
Wherefore, doubtless the will of man in the state of innocence had an entire freedom, a perfect equipendency and indifference to either part of the contradiction, to stand, or not
to stand; to accept, or not accept the temptation. I will
grant the will of man now to be as much a slave as any one
will have it, and be only free to sinl; that is, instead of a




GEN. i. 27.]      in the Image of God.                31
liberty, to have only a licentiousliess; yet certainly this is not
nature, but chance.,We were not born crooked; we learnt
these windings and turnings of the serpent: and therefore it
can not but be a blasphemous piece of ingratitude to ascribe
them to God, and to make the plague of our nature the condition of our creation.
The will was then ductile, and pliant to all the motions of
right reason; it met the dictates of a clarified understanding half way. And the active informations of the intellect,
filling the passive reception of the will, like form closing
with matter, grew actuate into a third, and distinct perfection
of practice: the understanding and will never disagreed; for
the proposals of the one never thwarted the inclinations of
the other. Yet neither did the will servilely attend upon the
understanding, but as a favorite does upon his prince, where
the service is privilege and preferment; or as Solomon's servants waited upon him, it admired its wisdom, and heard its
prudent dictates and counsels, both the direction and the reward of its obedience. It is indeed the nature of this faculty
to follow a superior guide, to be drawn by the intellect; but
then it was drawn as a triumphant chariot, which at the
same time both follows and triumphs; while it obeyed this, it
commanded the other faculties. It was subordinate, not enslaved to the understanding: not as a servant to a master,
but as a queen to her king, who both acknowledges a subjection, and yet retains a majesty.
Pass we now downward from man's intellect and will,
III. To the passions, which have their residence and situation chiefly in the sensitive appetite. For we must know,
that inasmuch as man is a compound, and mixture of flesh;
as well as spirit, the soul, during its abode in the body, does
all things by the mediation' of these passions and inferior
affections. And here the opinion of the Stoics was famous
and singular, who looked upon all these as sinful defects and
irregularities, as so many deviations from  right reason,
making passion to be only another word for perturbation.
Sorrow, in their esteem, was a sin, scarce to be expiated by
another; to pity, was a fault; to rejoice, an extravagance;
and the Apostle's advice, to be angry and sin not, was a contradiction in their philosophy. But in this, they were con



32               On the Creation of Man          [SERM. II.
stantly outvoted by other sects of philosophers, neither for
fame nor number less than themselves: so that all arguments
brought against them from divinity would come in by way
of overplus to their confutation. To us let this be sufficient,
that our Saviour Christ, who took upon him all our natural
infirmities, but none of our sinful, has been seen to weep, to
be sorrowful, to pity, and to be angry: which shows that
there might be gall in a dove, passion without sin, fire without smoke, and motion without disturbance. For it is not
bare agitation, but the sediment at the bottom, that troubles
and defiles the water: and when we see it windy and dusty,
the wind does not (as we use to say) make, but only raise a
dust.
Now, though the schools reduce all the passions to these
two heads, the concupiscible, and the irascible appetite; yet
I shall not tie myself to an exact prosecution of them under
this division; but at this time, leaving both their terms and
their method to themselves, consider only the principal and
most noted passions, from whence we may take an estimate
of the rest.
And first, for the grand leading affection of all, which is
love. This is the great instrument and engine of nature,
the bond and cement of society, the spring and spirit of the
universe. Love is such an affection, as can not so properly
be said to be in the soul, as the soul to be in that. It is
the whole man wrapt up into one desire; all the powers,
vigor, and faculties of the soul abridged into one inclination. And it is of that active, restless nature, that it must
of necessity exert itself; and like the fire, to which it is so
often compared, it is not a free agent, to choose whether it
will heat or no, but it streams forth by natural results and
unavoidable emanations. So that it will fasten upon any
inferior, unsuitable object, rather than none at all. The soul
may sooner leave off to subsist, than to love; and, like the
vine, it withers and dies, if it has nothing to embrace. Now
this affection in the state of innocence was happily pitched
upon its right object; it flamed up in direct fervors of devotion to God, and in collateral emissions of charity to its
neighbor. It was not then only another and more cleanly
name for lust. It had none of those impure heats, that




Go. i. 27.]       in the Image of God.                33
both represent and deserve hell. It was a vestal, and a virgin fire, and differed as much from that which usually passes
by this name nowadays, as the vital heat from the burning of
a fever.
Then, for the contrary passion of hatred. This, we know,
is the passion of defiance, and there is a kind of aversation
and hostility included in its very essence and being. But
then, (if there could have been hatred in the world, when
there was scarce any thing odious,) it would have acted within
the compass of its proper object. Like aloes, bitter indeed,
but wholesome. There would have been no rancor, no hatred of our brother: an innocent nature could hate nothing
that was innocent. In a word, so great is the commutation,
that the soul then hated only that which now only it loves,
that is, sin.
And if we may bring anger under this head, as being, according to some, a transient hatred, or at least very like it:
this also, as unruly as now it is, yet then it vented itself by
the measures of reason. There was no such thing as the
transports of malice, or the violences of revenge: no rendering evil for evil, when evil was truly a nonentity, and nowhere to be found. Anger then was like the sword of justice, keen, but innocent and righteous: it did not act like
fury, and then call itself zeal. It always espoused God's
honor, and never kindled upon any thing but in order to a
sacrifice. It sparkled like the coal upon the altar, with the
fervors of piety, the heats of devotion, the sallies and vibrations of an harmless activity. In the next place, for the
lightsome passion- of joy. It was not that, which now often
usurps, this name; that trivial, vanishing, superficial thing,
that only gilds the apprehension, and plays upon the surface
of the soul. It was not the mere crackling of thorns, a sudden blaze of the spirits, the exultation of a tickled fancy or
a pleased appetite. Joy was then a masculine and a severe
thing; the recreation of the judgment, the jubilee of reason.
It was the result of a real good, suitably applied. It commenced upon the solidifies of truth and the substance of
fruition. It did not run out in voice, or undecent eruptions,
but filled the soul, as God does the universe, silently and
without noise. It was refreshing, but composed; like the
VOL. I.             3




34              On the Creation of Man         [SERM. II.
pleasantness of youth tempered with the gravity of age; or
the mirth of a festival managed with the silence of contemplation.
And, on the other side, for sorrow. Had ally loss or disaster made but room for grief, it would have moved according
to the severe allowances of prudence, and the proportions of
the provocation. It would not have sallied out into complaint or loudness, nor spread itself upon the face, and writ
sad stories upon the forehead. No wringing of the hands,
knocking the breast, or wishing one's self unborn; all which
are but the ceremonies of sorrow, the pomp and ostentation
of an effeminate grief: which speak, not so much the greatness of the misery, as the smallness of the mind. Tears may
spoil the eyes, but not wash away the affliction. Sighs may
exhaust the man, but not eject the burden. Sorrow then
would have been as silent as thoughts, as severe as philosophy. It would have rested in inward senses, tacit dislikes;
and the whole scene of it been transacted in sad and silent
reflections.
Then again for hope. Though indeed the fullness and
affluence of man's enjoyments in the state of innocence,
might seem to leave no place for hope, in respect of any
further addition, but only of the prorogation, and future continuance of what already he possessed: yet doubtless, God,
who made no faculty, but also provided it with a proper object, upon which it might exercise and lay out itself, even
in its greatest innocence, did then exercise man's hopes with
the expectations of a better paradise, or a more intimate admission to himself. For it is not imaginable, that Adam
could fix upon such poor, thin enjoyments, as riches, pleasure,
and the gayeties of an animal life. Hope indeed was always
the anchor of the soul, yet certainly it was not to catch or
fasten upon such mud. And if, as the Apostle says, no man
hopes for that which he sees, much less could Adam then hope
for such things as he saw through.
And lastly, for the affection of fear. It was then the instrument of caution, not of anxiety; a guard, and not a torment to the breast that had it. It is now indeed an unhappiness, the disease of the soul: it flies from a shadow, and
makes more dangers than it avoids: it weakens the judg



GEN. i. 27.3      in the Image of God.                35
ment, and betrays the succors of reason: so hard is it to
tremble and not to err, and to hit the mark with a shaking
hand.. Then it fixed upon him who is only to be feared, God:
and yet-with a filial fear, which at the same time both fears
and loves. It was awe without amazement, dread without
distraction. There was then a beauty even in this very paleness. It was the color of devotion, giving a lustre to reverence, and a gloss to humility.
Thus did the passions then act without any of their
present jars, combats, or repugnances; all moving with the
beauty of uniformity, and the stillness of composure. Like
a well -governed army, not for fighting, but for rank and
order. I confess the scripture does not expressly attribute
these several endowments to Adam in his first estate. But
all that I have said, and much more, may be drawn out of
that short aphorism, God made man upright, Eccl. vii. 29.
And since the opposite weaknesses now infest the nature of
man fallen, if we will be true to the rule of contraries, we
must conclude, that those perfections were the lot of man
innocent.
Now from  this so.exact and regular composure of the
faculties, all moving in their due place, each striking in its
proper time, there arose, by natural consequence, the crowning perfection of all, a good conscience.  For, as in the
body, when the principal parts, as the heart and liver, do
their offices, and all the inferior, smaller vessels act orderly
and duly, there arises a sweet enjoyment upon the whole,
which we call health: so in the soul, when the supreme
faculties of the will and understanding move regularly, the
inferior passions and affections following, there arises a
serenity and complacency upont the whole soul, infinitely beyond the greatest bodily pleasures, the highest quintessence
and elixir of worldly delights. There is in this case a kind
of fragrancy, and spiritual perfume upon the conscience;
much like what Isaac spoke of his son's garments; that the
scent of them was like the smell of a field which the Lord had
blessed. Such a freshness and flavor is there upon the soul,
when daily watered with the actions of a virtuous life. Whatsoever is pure is also pleasant.
Having thus surveyed the image of God in the soul of




36               On the Creaion of Man         [SERM. Il.
man, we are not to omit now those characters of majesty that
God imprinted upon the body. He drew some traces of his
image upon this also; as much as a spiritual substaince could
be pictured upon a corporeal. As for the sect of the'Anthropomorphites, who from hence ascribe to God the figule of a
man, eyes, -hands, feet, and the like, they are too ridiculous
to deserve a confutation. They would seem to draw this impiety from the letter of the scripture sometimes speaking of
God in this manner. Absurdly; as if the mercy of scripture
expressions ought to warrant the blasphemy of our opinions.
And not rather show us, that God condescends to us, only to
draw us to himself; and clothes himself in our likeness, only
to win us to his own. The practice of the papists is much'of
the same nature, in their absurd and impious picturing of
God Almighty: but the wonder in them is the less, since the
image of a deity may be a proper object for that, which is
but the image of a religion. But to the purpose: Adam
was then no less glorious in his externals; he had a beautiful
body, as well as an immortal soul. The whole compound was
like a well- built temple, stately without, and sacred within.
The elements were at perfect union and agreement in his
body; and their contrary qualities served not for the dissolution of the compound, but the variety of the composure.
Galen, who had no more divinity than what his physic taught
him, barely upon the consideration of this so exact frame of
the body, challenges any one upon an hundred years study,
to find how any the least fibre,' or most minute particle,
might be more commodiously placed, either for the advantage of use or comeliness; his stature erect, and tending upwards to his centre; his countenance majestic and comely,
with the lustre of a native beauty, that scorned the poor assistance of art, or the attempts of imitation; his body of so
much quickness and agility, that it did not only contain, but
also represent the soul: for we might well suppose, that
where God did deposit so rich a jewel, he would suitably
adorn the case. It was a fit workhouse for sprightly vivid
faculties to exercise and exert themselves in. A fit tabernacle for an immortal soul, not only to dwell in, but to contemplate upon: where it might see the world without travel;
it being a lesser scheme of the creation, nature contracted, a




GE;N. i. 27.]     in -the Image of God.               37
little cosmography, or map of the unrverse. Neither was
the body then subject to distempers, to die by piecemeal,
and languish under coughs, catarrhs, or consumptions.
Adam knew no disease, so long as temperance from the
forbidden fruit secured him. Nature was his physician; and
innocence and abstinence would have kept him healthful to
immortality.
Now the use of this point might be various, but at present
it shall be only this; to remind us of the irreparable loss
that we sustained in our first parents, to show us of how fair
a portion Adam disinherited his whole posterity by one single
prevarication. Take the picture of a man in the greenness
and vivacity of his youth, and in the latter date and declensions of his drooping years, and you will scarce know it to
belong to the same person: there would be more art to discern, than at first to draw it. The same: and greater is the
difference between man innocent and fallen. He is, as it
were, a new kind or species; the plague of sin has even altered his nature, and eaten into his very essentials. The
image of God is wiped out, the creatures have shook off his
yoke, renounced his sovereignty, and revolted from his dominion. Distempers and diseases have shattered the excellent frame of his body; and, by a new dispensation, immortality is swallowed up of mortality. The same disaster and
decay also has invaded his spirituals: the passions rebel,
every faculty would usurp and rule; and there are so many
governors, that there can be no government.: The light
within us is become darkness; and the understanding, that
should be eyes to the blind faculty of the will, is blind itself,
and so brings all the inconveniences that attend a blind follower under the conduct of a blind guide. He tha twould
have a clear, ocular demonstration of this, let him reflect
upon that numerous litter of strange, senseless, absurd opinions, that crawl about the world, to the disgrace of reason,
and the unanswerable reproach of a broken intellect.
The two great perfections, that both adorn and exercise
man's understanding, are philosophy and religion: for the
first of these; take it even amongst the professors of it,
where it most flourished, and we shall find the very first notions of comnmon sense debauched by them. For there have




38              On, the Creation of Man;SERM. II.
been such as have asserted, that there is no such thing in the
world as motion; that contradictions may be true. There has
not been wanting one, that has denied snow to be white.
Such a stupidity or wantonness had seized upon the most
raised wits, that it might be doubted, whether the philhsophers or the owls of Athens were the quicker sighted. But
then for religion; what prodigious, monstrous, misshapen
births has the reason of fallen man produced I It is now almost six thousand years, that far the greatest part of the
world has had no other religion but idolatry: and idolatry
certainly is the first-born of folly, the great and leading paradox; nay, thevery abridgment and sum total of all absurdities. For is it not strange, that a rational man should worship an ox, nay, the image of an ox? that he should fawn
upon his dog? bow himself before a cat? adore leeks and
garlic, and shed penitential tears at the smell of a deified
onion? Yet so did the Egyptians, once the famed masters
of all arts and learning. And to go a little further; we have
yet a stranger instance in Isa. xliv. 14, A man hews him
down a tree in the wood, and part of it he burns, in ver. 16. and
in ver. 17, with the residue thereof he maketh a god. With one
part he furnishes his chimney, with the other his chapel. A
strange thing, that the fire must consume this part, and then
burn incense to that. As if there was more divinity in one
end of the stick than in the other; or as if it could be
graved and painted omnipotent, or the nails and the hammer could give it an apotheosis. Briefly, so great is the
change, so deplorable the degradation of our nature, that,
whereas before we bore the image of God, we now retain only
the image of men.
In the last place, we learn from hence the excellency of
Christian religion, in that it is the great and only means that
God has sanctified and designed to repair the breaches of humanity, to set fallen man upon his legs again, to clarify his
reason, to rectify his will, and to compose and regulate his affections. The whole business of our redemption is, in short,
only to rub over the defaced copy of the creation, to reprint
God's image upon the soul, and (as it were) to set forth nature
in a second and a fairer edition.




GEN. i. 27.]      in the Image of God.                 39
The recovery of which lost image, as it is God's pleasure to
command, and our duty to endeavor, so it is in his power only
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 III.
INTEREST DEPOSED, AND TRUTH RESTORED:
OR A WORD IN  SEASON,
DELIVERED IN TWO SERMONS:
THE FIRST AT ST. MARY'S IN OXFORD, ON THE 24TH OF JULY, 1659, BEING THE TIME
OF THE ASSIZES: AS ALSO OF THE FEARS AND GROANS OF THE NATION, IN THE
THREATENED AND EXPECTED RUIN OF THE LAWS, MINISTRY, AND UNIVERSITIES.
THE OTHER PREACHED BEFORE THE HONORABLE SOCIETY OF LINCOLN'S INN.
TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFUL EDWARD ATKINS, SERGEANT-AT-LAW, AND FORMERLY ONE OF THE JUSTICES OF THE COMMON PLEAS.
HONORED SIR,
TrpHOUGH at first it was free, and in my choice, whether I should
publish these discourses, yet the publication being once resolved, the dedication was not so indifferent; the nature of the subject, no less than the obligations of the author, styling them in a
peculiar manner yours: for since their drift is to carry the most
endangered and endangering truth, above the safest, when sinful,
interest; as a practice upon grounds of reason the most generous,
and of Christianity the most religious; to whom rather should this
assertion repair as to a patron, than to him whom it has for an instance? Who, in a case of eminent competition, chose duty before
interest; and when the judge grew inconsistent with the justice,
preferred rather to be constant to sure principles, than to an unconstant government: and to retreat to an innocent and honorable
privacy, than to sit and act iniquity by a law; and make your age
and conscience (the one venerable, the other sacred) drudges to the
tyranny of fanatic, purjured usurpers. The next attempt of this
discourse is a defense of the ministry, and that, at such a time, when
none owned them upon the bench, (for then you had quitted it;)
but when, on the contrary, we lived to hear one in the very face
of the university, (as it were in defiance of us and our professions)
openly in his charge to defend the Quakers and fanatics, persons
not fit to be named in such courts, but in an indictment. But, sir,




The Epistle Dedicatory.                 41
in the instructions I here presumed to give to others, concerning
what they should do, you may take a narrative of what you have
done: what respected their actions as a rule or admonition, applied
to yours is only a rehearsal, whose zeal in asserting the ministerial
cause is so generally known, so gratefully acknowledged, that.I dare
affirm, that in what I deliver, you read the words indeed of one, but
the thanks of all. Which affectionate concernment- of yours for
them, seems to argue a spiritual sense, and experimental taste of
their works, and that you have reaped as much from their labors, as
others have done from their lands: for to me it seemed always strange,
and next to impossible, that a man, converted by the word preached,
should ever hate and persecute a preacher. And since you have
several times in discourse declared yourself for that government in
the church, which is founded'upon scripture, reason, apostolical
practice, and antiquity, and (we are sure) the only one that can consist with the present government of state, I thought the latter discourse also might fitly address itself to you; in the which you may
read your judgment, as in the other your practice. And now, since
it has pleased Providence at length to turn our captivity, and answer persecuted patience with the unexpected returns of settlement;
to remove our rulers, and restore our ruler; and not only to make
our exactors righteousness, but, what is better, to give us righteousness instead of exaction, and hopes of religion to a church worried
with reformation; I believe, upon a due and impartial reflection on
what is past, you now find no cause to repent, that you never dipt
your hands in the bloody high courts of justice, properly so called'only by antiphrasis; nor ever prostituted the scarlet robe to those
employments, in which you must have worn the color of your sin in
the badge of your office: but, notwithstanding all the enticements of
a prosperous villainy, abhorred the purchase, when the price was
blood. So that now, being privileged by an happy unconcernment'in those legal murders, you may take a sweeter relish of your own
innocence, by beholding the misery of others' guilt, who being guilty
before God, and infamous before men, obnoxious to both, begin to
find the first-fruits of their sin in the universal scorn of all, their
apparent danger, and unlikely remedy: which beginnings being at
length. consummated by the hand of justice, the cry of blood and
sacrilege will cease, men's doubts will be satisfied, and Providence
absolved.
And thus, sir, having presumed to honor my first essays in divinity, by prefixing to: them a name, to which divines are so much
obliged; I should here in the close of this address contribute a wishi
at least to your happiness: but since we desire it not yet in another




42          Interest deposed, and Truth restored.   [SERM. III.
world, and your enjoyments in this (according to the standard of a
Christian desire) are so complete, that they require no addition; I
shall turn my wishes into gratulations, and congratulating their fullness, only wish their continuance: praying that you may still possess
what you possess, and do what you do; that is, reflect upon a
clear, unblotted, acquitting conscience, and feed upon the ineffable
comforts of the memorial of a conquered temptation, without the
danger of returning to the trial. And this, sir, I account the greatest felicity that you can enjoy, and therefore the greatest that he can
desire, who is
Yours in all observance,
Ch. Ch. 25 of                        ROBERT SOUTH.
May, 1660.
MATTHEW X. 33.- But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny
before my Father which is in heaven..AS the great comprehensive gospel duty is the denial of
self, so the grand gospel sin that confronts it is the denial of Christ.  These two are both the commanding and the
dividing principles of all our actions: for whosoever acts in
opposition to one, does it always in behalf of the other.
None ever opposed Christ, but it was to gratify self: none
ever renounced the interest of self, but from a prevailing love
to the interest of Christ. The subject I have here pitched
upon may seem improper in these times, and in this place,
where the number of professors and of men is the same;
where the cause and interest of Christ has been so cried up;
and Christ's personal reign and kingdom so called for and
expected. But since it has been still preached up, but acted
down; and dealt with, as the eagle in the fable did with the
oyster, carrying it up on high, that by letting it fall he might
dash it in pieces: I say, since Christ must reign, but his
truths be made to serve; I suppose it is but reason to distinguish between profession and pretense, and to conclude, that
men's present crying, Hail king, and bending the knee to Christ,
are only in order to his future crucifixion.
For the discovery of the sense of the words, I shall inquire
into their occasion. From the very beginning of the chapter
we have Christ consulting the propagation of the gospel;
and: in order to it (being the only way that he knew to effect




MATT. X. 33.]  Interest deposed, and Truth restored.     43
it) sending forth a ministry; and giving them  a commission,
together with instructions for the execution of it. He would
have them fully acquainted with the nature and extent of
their office; and so he joins commission with instruction; by
one he conveys power, by the other knowledge. Supposing
(I conceive) that upon such an undertaking, the more learned
his ministers were, they would prove never the less faithful.*
And thus having fitted them, and stript them of all manner
of defense, ver. 9, he sends them forth amongst wolves: a hard
expedition, you will say, to go amongst wolves; but yet much
harder to convert them into sheep; and no less hard even to
discern some of them, possibly being under sheep's clothing;
and so by the advantage of that dress, sooner felt than discovered: probably also such as had both the properties of
wolves, that is, they could whine and howl, as well as bite and
devour. But that they might not go altogether naked among
their enemies, the only armor that Christ allows them is
prudence and innocence; Be ye wise as serpents, but harmless
as doves, ver. 16. Weapons not at all offensive, yet most
suitable to their warfare, whose greatest encounters were to
be exhortations, and whose only conquest, escape. Innocence
is the best caution, and we may unite the expression, to be
wise as a serpent is to be harmless as a dove. Innocence is like
polished armor; it adorns, and it defends.  In sum, he tells
them, that the opposition they should meet with was the
greatest imaginable, from ver. 16 to 26. But in the ensuing verses he promises them an equal proportion of assistance; and, as if it were not an argument of force enough to
outweigh the forementioned discouragements, he casts into
the balance the promise of a reward to such as should execute, and of punishment to such as should neglect their
commission: the reward in the former verse, Whosoever shall
confess me before men, &c. the punishment in this, But who.,soever shall deny, &c. As if by way of preoccupation he
should have said, Well, here you see your commission; this
is your duty, these are your discouragements: never seek for
shifts and evasions from worldly afflictions; this is your reward, if you perform it; this is your doom, if you decline it.
* In the parliament 1663, it being learned ministry, the latter word was
put to the vote, whether they should rejected, and the vote passed for a
support and encourage a godly and godly and faithful ministry.




44          Interest. deposed, and Truth restored.   [SERM. III.
As for the explication of the words, they are clear and
easy; and their originals in the Greek are of single signification, without any ambiguity; and therefore I shall not
trouble you, by proposing how they run in this or that edition; or straining for an interpretation where there is no
difficulty, or distinction where there is no difference.  The
only exposition that I shall give of them, will be to compare
them to other parallel scriptures, and peculiarly to that in
Mark viii. 38.  Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and
of 1my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him
also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the
glory of his Father, with the holy angels. These words are a
comment upon my text.
1. What is here in the text called a denying of Christ, is
there termed a being ashamed of him, that is, in those words
the cause is expressed, and here the effect; for therefore we
deny a thing, because we are ashamed of it. First, Peter is
ashamed of Christ, then he denies him.
2. What is here termed a denying of Christ, is there called
a being ashamed of Christ and his words: Christ's truths are
his second self. And he that offers a contempt to a king's
letters or edicts, virtually affronts the king; it strikes his
words, but it rebounds upon his' person.
3.,What is here. said, before men, is there phrased, in this
adulterous and sinful generation.   These words import the hinderance of the duty enjoined; which therefore is here purposely enforced with a non obstante to all opposition. The
term adulterous, I conceive, may chiefly relate to the Jews,
who being nationally espoused to God by covenant, every sin
of theirs was in a peculiar manner spiritual adultery.
4. What is here said, I will deny him before my Father, is
there expressed, I will be ashamed of him before my Father and
his holy angels; that is, when he shall come to judgment,
when revenging justice shall come; in pomp, attended with
the glorious retinue of, all the host of heaven. In short, the
sentence pronounced declares the judgment, the solemnity of
it the terror.
From the words we may deduce these observations:
I. We shall find strong motives and temptations from
men, to draw us to a denial of Christ.




MATT. x. 33.]  Interest deposed, and Truth restored.   45
II. No terrors or solicitations from men, though never so
great, can warrant or excuse such a denial.
III. To deny Christ's words, is to deny Christ.
But since these observations are rather implied than expressed in the words, I shall wave them, and instead of deducing a doctrine distinct from the words, prosecute the words
themselves under this doctrinal paraphrase:
Whosoever shall deny, disown, or be ashamed of either the person or truths of Jesus Christ, for any.fear or favor of man, shall
with shame be disowned and eternally rejected by him at the
dreadful judgment of the great day.
The discussion of this shall lie in these things:
I. To show, how many ways Christ and his truths may be
denied; and what is the denial here chiefly intended.
II. To show, what are the causes that induce men to a
denial of Christ and his truths.
III. To show, how far a man may consult his safety in
time of persecution, without denying Christ.
IV. To show, what is imported in Christ's denying us before his Father in heaven.
V. To apply all to the present occasion.
But before I enter upon these, I must briefly premise this,
that though the text and the doctrine run peremptory and
absolute, Whosoever denies Christ, shall assuredly be denied by
him; yet still there is a tacit condition in the words supposed, unless repentance intervene.  For this and many
other scriptures, though as to their formal terms they are
absolute, yet as to their sense they are conditional. God in
mercy has so framed and tempered his word, that we have,
for the most part, a reserve of mercy wrapped up in a curse.
And the very first judgment that was pronounced upon fallen
man, was with the allay of a promise. Wheresoever we find
a curse to the guilty expressed, in the same words mercy to
the penitent is still understood. This premised,'I come now
to discuss the first thing, namely, how many ways Christ and
his truths may be denied, &c. Here-first in general I assert,
that we may deny him inI all those acts that are capable of
being morally good or evil; those are the proper scene in
which we act our confessions or denials of him. Accordingly
therefore all ways of denying Christ I shall comprise under
these three.




46         Interest deposed, and Truth restored.   [SERM. III.
1. We may deny him and his truths by an erroneous,
heretical judgment. I know it is doubted whether a bare
error in judgment can condemn: but since truths absolutely
necessary to salvation are so clearly revealed, that we cannot
err in them, unless we be notoriously wanting to ourselves;
herein the fault of the judgment is resolved into a precedent
default in the will; and so the case is put out of doubt.
But here it may be replied, Are not truths of absolute and
fundamental necessity very disputable; as the deity of Christ,
the trinity of persons P If they are not in themselves disputable, why are they so much disputed P Indeed, I believe, if
we trace these disputes to their original cause, we shall find,
that they never sprung from a reluctancy in reason to embrace them. For this reason itself dictates, as most rational,
to assent to any thing, though seemingly contrary to reason,
if it is revealed by God, and we are certain of the revelation.
These two supposed, these disputes must needs arise only
from curiosity and singularity; and these are faults of a diseased will. But some will further demand in behalf of these
men, whether such as assent to every word in scripture, (for
so will those that deny the natural deity of Christ and the
Spirit,) can be yet said in doctrinals to deny Christ P To this
I answer, Since words abstracted from their proper sense and
signification lose the nature of words, and are only equivocally so called; inasmuch as the persons we speak of, take
them.thus, and derive the letter from Christ, but the' signification from  themselves, they can not be said properly to:
assent so much as to the words of the scripture. And so
their case also is clear. But yet more fully to state the matter, how far a denial of Christ in belief and judgment is
damnable: we will propose the question, whether those who
hold the fundamentals of faith may deny Christ damnably,
in respect of those superstructures and consequences that
arise from them P I answer in brief, By fundemental truths
are understood, (1.) either such, without the belief of which
we can not be saved: or, (2.) such, the belief of which is
sufficient to save: if the question be proposed of fundamentals in this latter sense, it contains its own answer; for
where a man believes those truths, the belief of which is
sufficient to save, there the disbelief or denial of their con



MATT. X. 33.]  Interest deposed, and Truth restored.  47
sequences can not damn. But what and how many these
fundamentals are, it will then be agreed upon, when all sects,
opinions, and persuasions do unite and consent. 2dly, If we
speak of fundamentals in the former sense, as they are only
truths, without which we can not be saved: it is manifest
that we may believe them, and yet be damned for denying
their consequences: for that which is only a condition, without which we can not be saved, is not therefore a cause sufficient to save: much more is required to the latter, than to
the former. I conclude therefore, that to deny Christ in our
judgment, will condemn, and this concerns the learned:
Christ demands the homage of your understanding: he will
have your reason bend to him; you must put your heads
under his feet. And we know, that heretofore, he who had
the leprosy in this part was to be pronounced utterly unclean.
A poisoned reason, an infected judgment, is Christ's greatest
enemy.  And an error in the judgment is like an imposthume in the head, which is always noisome, and frequently
mortal.
2. We may deny Christ verbally, and by oral expressions.
Now our words are the interpreters of our hearts, the transcripts of the judgment, with some further addition of good
or evil. He that interprets, usually enlarges. What our
judgment whispers in secret, these proclaim upon the housetop. To deny Christ in the former, imports enmity; but in
these, open defiance. Christ's passion is renewed in both:
he that misjudges of him, condemns him; but he that blasphemes him, spits in his face. Thus the Jews and the
Pharisees denied Christ;. We know that this man is a sinner,
John ix. 24, and a deceiver, Matt. xxvii. 63. And he casts out
devils by the prince of devils, Matt. xii. 24. And thus Christ
is daily denied, in many blasphemies printed and divulged,
and many horrid opinions vented against the truth. The
schools dispute whether in morals the external action superadds any thing of good or evil to the internal elicit act
of the will: but certainly the enmity of our judgments is
wrought up to an high pitch, before it rages in an open
denial. And it is a sign that it is grown too big for the
heart, when it seeks for vent in our words.  Blasphemy
uttered, is error heightened with impudence: it is sin




48           Interest deposed, and Truth restored.   [SERM. nIII.
scorning a concealment, not only committed, but defended.
He that denies Christ in his judgment, sins; but he that
speaks his denial, vouches and owns his sin: and so, by publishing it, does what in him lies to make it universal, and by
writing it, to establish it eternal. There is another way of
denying Christ with our mouths, which is negative; that is,
when we do not acknowledge and confess him: but of this I
shall have occasion to treat under the discussion of the third
general head.
3: We may deny Christ in our actions and practice; and
these speak much louder than our tongues.  To have an
orthodox belief, and a true profession, concurring with a bad
life, is only to deny Christ with a greater solemnity. Belief
and profession will speak thee a Christian but very faintly,
when thy conversation proclaims thee an infidel. Many,
while they have preached Christ in their sermons, have read
a lecture of atheism  in their practice.  We have many here
who speak of godliness, mortification, and self -denial; but
if these are so, what means the bleating of the sheep, and
the lowing of the oxen, the noise of their ordinary sins, and
the cry of their great onesP If godly, why do they wallow
and steep in all the carnalities of the world, under pretense
of Christian liberty P Why do they make religion ridiculous
by pretending to prophesy; and when their prophecies prove
delusions, why do they blaspheme P * If such are self-deniers, what means the griping, the prejudice, the covetousness, and the pluralities preached against, and retained, and
the arbitrary government of many P When such men preach
of self-denial and humility, I can not but think of Seneca,
who praised poverty, and that very safely, in the midst of
his great riches and gardens; and even exhorted the world to
throw away their gold, perhaps (as one well conjectures) that
he might gather it up: so these desire men to be humble,
that'they may domineer without opposition.  But it is an
easy matter to commend patience, when there is no danger
* A noted independent divine, when But Oliver's death being published two
Oliver Cromwell was sick, of which days after, the said divine publicly in
sickness he died, declared that God prayer expostulated with God the dehad revealed to him that he should re- feat of his prophecy, in these words:
cover, and live thirty years longer, for Lord, thou hast lied unto us; yea, thou hast
that God had raised him up for a work lied unto us.
which could not be done in less time.




MATT. x. 33.]  Interest deposed, and Truth restored.  49
of any trial, to extol humility in the midst of honors, to begin a fast after dinner.*  But, O how Christ will deal with
sw;ch persons, when he shall draw forth all their actions bare,
and stript from this deceiving veil of their heavenly speeches!
He will then say, It was not your sad countenance, nor your
hypocritical groaning, by which you did either confess or
honor me: but your worldliness, your luxury, your sinister
partial dealing: these have denied me, these have wounded
me, these have goner to my heart; these have caused the
weak to stumble, and the profane to blaspheme; these have
offended the one, and hardened the other. You have indeed
spoke me fair, you have saluted me with your lips, but even
then you betrayed me. Depart from me therefore, you professors of holiness, but you workers of iniquity.
And thus having shown the three ways by which Christ
may be denied, it may now be demanded, which is the denial
here intended in the words.
Answer. (1.) I conceive, if the words are taken as they
were particularly and personally directed to the apostles,
upon the occasion of their mission to preach the gospel, so
the denial of him was the not acknowledgment of the deity
or godhead of Christ; and the reason to prove that this was
then principally intended is this; because this was the truth
in those days chiefly opposed, and most disbelieved; as appears, because Christ and the apostles did most earnestly inculcate the belief o6f this, and accepted men upon the bare
acknowledgment of this, and baptism was administered to
such as did but profess this, Act viii. 37, 38. And indeed,
as this one aphorism, Jesus Christ is the Son of God, is virtually and eminently the whole gospel; so, to confess or deny
it, is virtually to embrace or reject the whole round and series
of. gospel truths. For he that acknowledges Christ to be the
Son of God, by the same does consequentially acknowledge,
that he is to be believed and obeyed, in whatsoever he does
enjoin and deliver to the sons of men: and therefore that we
are to repent, and believe, and rest upon him for salvation,
and to deny ourselves: and within the compass of this is included whatsoever is called gospel.
* Very credibly reported to have been done in an independent congregation
at Oxon.
VOL. I.




50         Interest deposed, and Truth restored.   [SERM. III.
As for the manner of our denying the deity of Christ here
prohibited, I conceive, it was by words and oral expressions
verbally to deny and disacknowledge it. This I ground upon
these reasons:
1. Because it was such a denial as was before men, and
therefore consisted in open profession; for a denial in judgment and practice, as such, is not always before men.
2. Because it was such a denial or confession of him as
would appear in preaching: but this is managed in words and
verbal profession.
But now, (2.) if we take the words as they are a general
precept, equally relating to all times and to all persons,
though delivered only upon a particular occasion to the
apostles, (as I suppose they are to be understood;) so I think
they comprehend all the three ways mentioned of confessing
or denying Christ: but principally in respect of practice;
and that, 1. Because by this he is most honored or dishonored.
2. Because without this the other two cannot save. 3. Because those who are ready enough to confess him both in
judgment and profession, are for the most part very prone to
deny him shamefully in their doings.
Pass we now to a second thing, viz. to show,
II. What are the causes inducing men to deny Christ in
his truths. I shall propose three:
1. The seeming supposed absurdity of many truths: upon
this foundation heresy always builds. The heathens derided
the Christians, that still they required and pressed belief;
and well they might, say they, since the articles of their
religion are so absurd, that upon principles of science they
can never win assent. It is easy to draw it forth and demonstrate, how upon this score the chief heresies, that now
are said to trouble the church, do oppose and deny the most
important truths in divinity. As first, hear the denier of the
deity and satisfaction of Christ. What, says he, can the
same person be God and man P the creature and the creator P
Can we ascribe such attributes to the same thing, whereof
one implies a negation and a contradiction of the other P Can
he be also finite and infinite, when to be finite is not to be
infinite, and to be infinite not to be finite P And when we
distinguish between the person and the nature, was not that




MATT. X. 33.]  Interest deposed, and Truth restored.  51
distinction an invention of the schools, savoring rather of
metaphysics than divinityP If we say, that he must have
been God, because he was to mediate between us and God,
by -the same reason, they will reply, we should need a mediator between us and Christ, who is equally God, equally
offended. Then for his satisfaction, they will demand to
whom this satisfaction is paid P If to God, then God pays a
price to himself: and what is it else to require and need no
satisfaction, than for one to satisfy himselfP Next comes in
the denier of the decrees and free grace of God. What, says
he, shall we exhort, admonish, and entreat the saints to beware of falling away finally, and at the same time assert, that
it is impossible for them so to fall P What, shall we erect two
contradictory wills in God, or place two contradictories in the
same will P and make the will of his purpose and intention
run counter to the will of his approbation P? Hear another
concerning the scripture and justification. What, says the
Romanist, rely in matters of faith upon a private spirit P How
do you know this is the sense of such a scripture P Why, by
the Spirit. But how will you try that Spirit to be of God?P
Why, by the scripture. This he explodes as a circle, and so
derides it. Then for justification. How are you justified by
an imputed righteousness P? Is it yours before it is imputed,
or not P If not, as we must say, is this to be justified to have
that accounted yours, that is not yours P But again, did you
ever hear of any man made rich or wise by imputation P Why
then righteous or just  Now these seeming paradoxes, attending gospel truths, cause men of weak, prejudiced intellectuals to deny them, and in them, Christ; being ashamed
to own faith so much, as they think, to the disparagement of
their reason.
2. The second thing causing men to deny the truths of
Christ is their unprofitableness. And no wonder, if here
men forsake the truth, and assert interest. To be pious is
the way to be poor. Truth still gives its followers its own
badge and livery, a despised nakedness. It is hard to maintain the truth, but much harder to be maintained by it.
Could it ever yet feed, clothe, or defend its assertors P Did
ever any man quench his thirst or satisfy his hunger with
a notion P Did ever any one live upon propositions P The




52         Interest deposed, and Truth restored.   [SERM. III.
testimony of Brutus concerning virtue is the apprehension
of most concerning truth: that it is a name, but lives and
estates are things, and therefore not to be thrown away upon
words. That we are neither to worship or cringe to any
thing under the Deity, is a truth too strict for a Naaman:
he can be content to worship the true God, but then it must
be in the house of Rimmon: the reason was implied in his
condition; he was captain of the host, and therefore he
thought it reason good to bow to Rimmon, rather than endanger his place: better bow than break. Indeed sometimes
Providence casts things so, that truth and interest lie the
same way: and, when it is wrapt up in this covering, men
can be content to follow it, to press hard after it, but it is,
as we pursue some beasts, only for their skins: take off the
covering, and though men obtain the truth, they would lament the loss of that: as Jacob wept and mourned over the
torn coat, when Joseph was alive. It is incredible to consider how interest outweighs truth. If a thing in itself be
doubtful, let it make for interest, and it shall be raised at
least into a probable; and if a truth be certain, and thwart
interest, it will quickly fetch it down to but a probability:
nay, if it does not carry with it an impregnable evidence, it
will go near to debase it to a downright falsity. How much
interest casts the balance in cases dubious, I could give sundry instances: let one suffice: and that concerning the unlawfulness of usury. Most of the learned men in the world
successively, both heathen and Christian, do assert the taking of use to be utterly unlawful; yet the divines of the
reformed church beyond the seas, though most severe and
rigid in other things, do generally affirm it to be lawful.
That the case is doubtful, and may be disputed with plausible
arguments.on either side, we may well grant: but what then
is the reason, that makes these divines so unanimously concur in this opinion P Indeed I shall not affirm this to be the
reason, but it may seem so to many: that they receive their
salaries by way of pension, in present ready money, and so
have no other way to improve them; so that it may be suspected, that the change of their salary would be the strongest argument to change their opinion. The truth is, interest
is the grand wheel and spring that moves the whole universe.




MATT. X. 33.]  Interest deposed, and Truth restored.    53
Let Christ and truth say what they will, if interest will have
it, gain must be godliness: if enthusiasm is in request,
learning must be inconsistent with grace. If pay grows
short, the university maintenance must be too great. Rather
than Pilate will be counted Coesar's enemy, he will pronounce
Christ innocent one hour, and condemn him the next. How
Christ is made to truckle under the world, and how his truths
are denied and shuffled with for profit and pelf, the clearest
proof would be by induction and example. But as it is the
most clear, so here it would be the most unpleasing: wherefore I shall pass this over, since the world is now so peccant
upon this account, that I am afraid instances would be mistaken for invectives.
3. The third cause inducing men to deny Christ in his
truths is their apparent danger. To confess Christ is the
ready way to be cast out of the synagogue. The church is a
place of graves, as well as of worship and profession. To be
resolute in a good cause is to bring upon ourselves the punishments due to a bad. Truth indeed is a possession of the
highest value, and therefore it must needs expose the owner
to much danger. Christ is sometimes pleased to make the
profession of himself costly, and a man can not buy the truth,
but he must pay down his life and his dearest blood for it.
Christianity marks a man out for destruction; and Christ
sometimes chalks out such a way to salvation as shall verify
his own saying, He that will save his life shall lose it. The
first aiges of the church had a more abundant experience of
this: what Paul and the rest planted by their preaching,
they watered with their blood. We know their usage was
such, as Christ foretold; he sent them to wolves, and the
common course then was, Christianos ad leones. For a man
to give his name to Christianity in those days was to list himself a martyr, and to bid farewell, not only to the pleasures,
but also to the hopes of this life. Neither was it a single
death only that then attended this profession, but the terror
and sharpness of it was redoubled in the manner and circumstance. They had persecutors, whose invention was as great
as their cruelty. Wit and malice conspired to find out such
tortures, such deaths, and those of such incredible anguish,
that only the manner of dying was the punishment, death




54,~Interest deposed, and Truth restored.   CSERs. III.
itself the deliverance. To be a martyr signifies only to witness the truth of Christ, but the witnessing of the truth was
then so generally attended with this event, that martyrdom
now signifies, not only to witness, but to witness by death:
the word, besides its own signification, importing their practice. And since Christians have been freed from heathens,
Christians themselves have turned persecutors. Since Rome
from heathen was turned Christian, it has improved its persecution into an inquisition. Now, when Christ and truth are
upon these terms, that men can not confess him, but upon
pain of death, the reason of their apostasy and denial is
clear; men will be wise, and leave truth and misery to such
as love it; they are resolved to be cunning, let others run the
hazard of being sincere. If they must be good at so high a
rate, they know they may be safe at a cheaper. Si negare
sufficiat, quis erit nocens?  If to deny Christ will save them,
the truth shall never make them guilty. Let Christ and his
flock lie open, and exposed to all weather of persecution,
foxes will be sure to have holes. And if it comes to this,
that they must either renounce their religion, deny and blaspheme Christ, or forfeit their lives to the fire and sword, it is
but inverting Job's wife's advice, Curse God, and live.
III. We proceed now to the third thing, which is to show,
how far a man may consult his safety, &c.
This he may do two ways:
1. By withdrawing his person. Martyrdom is an heroic
act of faith: an achievement beyond an ordinary pitch of it;
To you, says the Spirit, it is given to suffer, Phil. i. 29. It is
a peculiar additional gift: it is a distinguishing excellency of
degree, not an essential consequent of its nature. Be ye
harmless as doves, says Christ; and it is as natural to them to
take flight upon danger, as to be innocent: let every man
thoroughly consult the temper of his faith, and weigh his
courage with his fears, his weakness and his resolution together, and take the measure of both, and see which preponderates; and if his spirit faints, if his heart misgives and
melts at the very thoughts of the fire, let him fly, and secure
his own soul, and Christ's honor. Non negat Christumrn fugiendo, qui ideo fugit ne neget: he does not deny Christ by flying,
who therefore flies that he may not deny him. Nay, he does




MATT. X. 33.]  Interest deposed, and Truth restored.  55
not so much decline, as rather change his martyrdom: he
flies from the flame, but repairs to a desert; to poverty and
hunger in a wilderness. Whereas, if he would dispense with
his conscience, and deny his Lord, or swallow down two or
three contradictory oaths, he should neither fear the one, nor
be forced to the other.
2. By concealing his judgment. A man sometimes is no
more bound to speak, than to destroy himself: and as nature
abhors this, so religion does not command that. In the times
of the primitive church, when the Christians dwelt amongst
heathens, it is reported of a certain maid, how she came from
her father's house to one of the tribunals of the gentiles, and
declared herself a Christian, spit in the judge's face, and so
provoked him to cause her to be executed. But will any say,
that this was to confess Christ, to die a martyr P He that,
uncalled for, uncompelled, comes and proclaims a persecuted
truth, for which he is sure to die, only dies a confessor of his
own folly, and a sacrifice to his own rashness. Martyrdom
is stamped such only by God's command; and he that
ventures upon it without a call, must endure it without a
reward: Christ will say, Who required this at your hands?
His gospel does not dictate imprudence; no evangelical precept justles out that of a lawful self-preservation. He therefore that thus throws himself upon the sword, runs to heaven
before he is sent for; where, though perhaps Christ may in
mercy receive the man, yet he will be sure to disown the
martyr.
And thus much concerning those lawful ways of securing
ourselves in time of persecution: not as -if these were always
lawful: for sometimes a man is bound to confess Christ
openly, though he dies for it; and to conceal a truth is to
deny it. But now, to show when it is our duty, and when
unlawful to take these courses, by some general rule of a
perpetual, never-failing truth, none ever would yet presume:
for, as Aristotle says, we are not to expect demonstrations
in ethics or politics, nor to build certain rules upon the contingency of human actions; so, inasmuch as our flying from
persecution, our confessing or concealing persecuted truths,
vary and change their very nature, according to different
circumstances of time, place, and persons, we can not limit




56         Interest deposed, and Truth restored.   [SERM. III.
their directions within any one universal precept. You will
say then, how shall we know when to confess, when to conceal a truth P when to wait for, when to decline persecution P
Indeed, the only way that I think can be prescribed in this
case, is to be earnest and importunate with God in prayer for
special direction: and it is not to be imagined, that he, who
is both faithful and merciful, will leave a sincere soul in the
dark upon such an occasion. But this I shall add, that the
ministers of God are not to evade, or take refuge in any
of these two forementioned ways. They are public persons;
and good shepherds must then chiefly stand close to the
flock, when the wolf comes. For them to be silent in the
cause of Christ, is to renounce it; and to fly, is to desert it.
As for that place urged in favor of the contrary, in ver. 23,
Vhen they persecute you in this city, flee into another, it proves
nothing; for the precept was particular, and concerned only
the apostles; and that, but for that time in which they were
then sent to the Jews, at- which time Christ keep them as a
reserve for the future: for when after his death they were
indifferently sent both to Jews and gentiles, we find not this
clause in their commission, but they were to sign the truths
they preached with their blood; as we know they actually
did. And moreover, when Christ bids them, being persecuted in one city, fly into another, it was not (as Grotius
actuely observes) that they might lie hid, or be secure in that
city, but that there they might preach the gospel: so that
their flight here was not to secure their persons, but to continue their business.  I conclude therefore, that faithful
ministers are to stand and endure the brunt. A common
soldier may fly, when it is the duty. of him that holds the
standard to die upon the place. And we have abundant encouragement so to do. Christ has seconded and sweetened
his command with his promise: yea, the thing itself is not
only our duty, but our glory. And he who has done this
work, has in the very work partly received his wages. And
were it put to my choice, I think I should choose rather
with spitting and scorn to be tumbled into the dust in blood,
bearing witness to any known truth of our dear Lord, now
opposed by the enthusiasts of the present age, than by a
denial of those truths through blood and perjury wade to a




MATT. x. 33.]  Interest deposed, and Truth restored.  57
sceptre, and lord it in a throne. And we need not doubt, but
truth, however oppressed, will have some followers, and at
length prevail. A Christ, though crucified, will arise: and
as it is in Rev. xi. 3, the witnesses will prophesy, though it be
in sackcloth.
IV. Having thus dispatched the third thing, I proceed to
the fourth, which is to show, what it is for Christ to deny us
before his Father in heaven. Hitherto we have treated of
men's carriage to Christ in this world; now we will describe
his carriage to them in the other. These words clearly relate
to the last judgment, and they are a summary description of
his proceeding with men at that day.
And here we will consider,
1. The action itself, He will deny them.
2. The circumstance of the action, He will deny them before his Father and the holy angels.
1. Concerning the first: Christ's denying us is otherwise
expressed in Luke xiii. 27, I know you not. To know, in
scripture language, is to approve; and so, not to know, is to
reject and condemn. Now who knows how many woes are
crowded into this one sentence, I will deny him? It is (to say
no more) a compendious expression of hell, an eternity of
torments comprised in a word: it is condemnation itself, and,
what is most of all, it is condemnation from the mouth of a
Saviour. O the inexpressible horror that will seize upon a
poor sinner, when he stands arraigned at the bar of divine
justice!  When he shall look about, and see his accuser,
his judge, the witnesses, all of them his remorseless adversaries; the law impleading, mercy and the gospel upbraiding'
him, the devil, his grand accuser, drawing his indictment;
numbering his sins with the greatest exactness, and aggravating them with the cruelest bitterness; and conscience,
like a thousand witnesses, attesting every article, flying in
his face, and rending his very heart: and then after alli
Christ, from whom only mercy could be expected, owning the
accusation. It will be hell enough to hear the sentence;
the very promulgation of the punishment will be part of the
punishment, and anticipate the execution.. If Peter was so
abashed when Christ gave him a look after his denial; if
there was so much dread in his looks when he stood as pris



58         Interest deposed, and Truth restored.   [SERM. III.
oner, how much greater will it be when he sits as a judge!
If it was so fearful when he looked his denierinto repentance, what will it be when he shall look him into destruction!
Believe it, when we shall hear an accusation from an advocite, our eternal doom from our intercessor, it will convince
us that a denial of Christ is something more than a few
transitory words: what trembling, what outcries, what astonishment will there be upon the pronouncing this sentence!
Every word will come upon the sinner like an arrow striking
through his reins; like thunder, that is heard, and consumes
at the same instant. Yea, it will be a denial with scorn, with
taunting exprobrations: and to bemiserable without commiseration is the height of misery. He that falls below pity, can
fall no lower. Could I give you a lively representation of
guilt and horror on this hand, and paint out eternal wrath,
and decipher eternal vengeance on the other, then might I
show you the condition of a sinner hearing himself denied
by Christ: and for those whom Christ has denied, it will be
in vain to appeal to the Father, unless we can imagine that
those whom mercy has condemned, justice will absolve.
2. For the circumstance, He will deny us before his Father
and the holy angels. As much as God is more glorious than
man, so much is it more glorious to be confessed before him,
than before men: and so much glory as there is in being
confessed, so much dishonor there is in being denied. if
there could be any room for comfort after the sentence of
damnation, it would be this, to be executed in secret, to
perish unobserved: as it is some allay to the infamy of him
who died ignominiously, to be buried privately. But when
a man's folly must be spread open before the angels, and all
his baseness ript up before those pure spirits, this will be a
double hell: to be thrust into utter darkness, only to be punished by it, without the benefit of being concealed. When
Christ shall compare himself, who was denied, and the thing
for which he was denied, together, and parallel his merits
with a lust, and lay eternity in the balance with a trifle, then
the folly of the sinner's choice shall be the greatest sting of
his destruction. For a man shall not have the advantage of
his former ignorances and error to approve his sin: things
that appear amiable by the light of this world, will appear




MATT.x. 33.]  Interest deposed, and Truth restored.  59
of a different odious hue in the clear discoveries of the next:
as that which appears to be of this color by a dim candle,
will be found to be of another, looked upon in the day. So
when Christ shall have cleared up men's apprehensions about
the value of things, he will propose that worthy prize for
which he was denied; he will hold it up to open view, and
call upon men and angels: Behold, look, here's the thing,
here's that piece of dirt, that windy applause, that poor
transitory pleasure, that contemptible danger, for which I
was dishonored, my truths disowned, and for which, life,
eternity, and God himself was scorned and trampled upon by
this sinner: judge, all the world, whether what he so despised
in the other life, he deserves to enjoy in this. How will the
condemned sinner then crawl forth, and appear in his filth
and shame, before that undefiled tribunal, like a toad or a
snake in a king's presence-chamber! Nothing so irksome, as
to have one's folly displayed before the prudent; one's imnpurity before the pure. And all this before that company
surrounding him, from which he is neither able to look off,
nor yet to look upon. A disgrace put upon a man in company is unsupportable: it is heightened according to the
greatness, and multiplied according to the number of the
persons that hear it. And now as this circumstance [before
his Father] fully speaks the shame, so likewise it speaks the
danger of Christ's then denying us. For when the accusation
is heard, and the person stands convict, God is immediately
lifting up his hand to inflict the eternal blow; and when
Christ denies to exhibit a ransom, to step between the stroke
then coming and the sinner, it must inevitably fall upon him,
and sink his guilty soul into that deep and bottomless gulph
of endless perdition. This therefore is the sum of Christ's
denying us before his Father, viz. unsupportable shame, unavoidable destruction.
V. I proceed now to the uses which may be drawn from the
truths delivered. And here,
1. (Right honorable) not only the present occasion, but
even the words themselves, seem eminently to address an exhortation to your honors. As for others not to deny Christ,
is openly to profess him; so for you who are invested with
authority, not to deiiy him, is to defend him. Know there



60         Interest deposed, and Truth restored.   [SERM. III
fore, that Christ does not only desire, but demand your defense, and that in a double respect.
(1.) In respect of his truth.  (2.) Of his members.
(1.) He requires that you should defend and confess him
in his truth. Heresy is a tare sometimes not to be pulled up
but by the civil magistrate. The word liberty of conscience
is much abused for the defense of it, because not well understood. Every man may have liberty of conscience to think
and judge as he pleases, but not to vent what he pleases.
The reason is, because conscience bounding itself within
the thoughts is of private concernment, and the cognizance
of these belong only to God: but when an opinion is published, it concerns all that hear it; and the public is endamaged, and therefore becomes punishable by the magistrate, to
whom the care of the public is intrusted. But there is one
truth that concerns both ministry and magistracy, and all;
which is opposed by those who affirm, that none ought to
govern upon the earth, but Christ in person: absurdly; as
if the powers that are destroyed his; as if a deputy were
not consistent with a king; as if there were any opposition
in subordination.  They affirm also, that the wicked have
no right to their estates; but only the faithful, that is, themselves, ought to possess the earth. And it is not to be questioned, but when they come to explain this principle, by putting it into execution, there will be but few that have estates
at present, but will be either found, or made wicked. I shall
not be so urgent, to press you to confess Christ, by asserting
-and owning the truth, contrary to this, since it does not only
oppose truth, but property; and here to deny Christ, would
be to deny yourselves, in a sense which none is like to do.
(2.) Christ requires you to own and defend him  in his
members; and amongst these, the chief of them, and such
as most fall in your way, the ministers; I say, that despised,
abject, oppressed sort of men, the ministers, whomi the world
would make antichristian, and so deprive them of heaven;
and also strip them of that poor remainder of their maintenance, and so allow them no portion upon the earth. You
may now spare that distinction of scandalous ministers, when
it is even made scandalous to be a minister. And as for
their discouragement in the courts of the law, I shall only




MATT. X. 33.]  Interest- deposed, and Truth restored.    61
note this, that for these many years last past, it has been
the constant observation of all, that if a minister had a cause
depending in the court, it was ten to one but it went against
him.  I can not believe your law justles out the gospel; but
if it be thus used to undermine Christ in his servants, beware
thlat such judgments passed upon them do not fetch down
God's judgments upon the land; and that for such abuse of
law, Christ does not in anger deprive both you and us of
its use.  (My lords) I make no doubt but you will meet with
many suits in your course, in which the persons we speak
of are concerned,* as it is easy to prognosticate from those
many worthy petitions preferred against them, for which the
well-affected petitioners will one day receive but small thanks
from the court of heaven.  But however their causes speed
in your tribunals, know that Christ himself will recognize
them  at a greater. And then, what a different face will be
put upon things! When the usurping, devouring Nimrods
of the world shall be cast with scorn on the left. hand; and
Christ himself in that great consistory shall deign to step
down fromn his throne, and single out a poor despised minister, and (as it were taking him by the hand) present him to,
and openly thus confess him before his Father: Father, here
is a poor servant of mine, who, for doing his duty impartially,
for keeping a good conscience, and testifying my truths in an
hypocritical pretending age, was wronged, trod upon, stripped
of all: Father, I will that there be now a distinction made,
between such as have owned and confessed me with the loss
of the world, and those that have denied, persecuted, and
insulted over me. It will be in vain then to come and creep
for mercy; and say, Lord, when did we insult over thee?
when did we see thee in our courts, and despised or oppressed
thee?P Christ's reply will be then quick and sharp: Verily,
inasmuch as you did it to one of these little, poor despised
ones, ye did it unto me.
2. Use is of information, to show us the danger as well as
the baseness of a dastardly spirit, in asserting the interest
and truth of Christ. Since Christ has made a Christian
* Whensoever any petition was put of the house were still returned to them,
up to the parliament in the year 1653, and that by the name and elogy of the
for the taking away of tithes, the thanks well-affected petitioners.




62          Interest deposed, and Truth restored.   [SERM. III.
course a warfare, of all men living a coward is the most unfit
to make a Christian: whose infamy is not so great, but it is
sometimes less than his peril. A coward does not always
scape with disgrace, but sometimes also he loses his life:
wherefore, let all such know, as can enlarge their consciences
like hell, and call any sinful compliance submission, and style
a cowardly silence in Christ's cause, discretion and prudence;
I say, let them know, that Christ will one day scorn them,
and spit them, with their policy and prudence, into hell;
and then let them consult, how politic they were, for a temporal emolument, to throw away eternity.  The things which
generally cause men to deny Christ are, either the enjoyments
or the miseries of this life: but alas! at the day of judgment
all these will expire; and, as one well observes, what are we
the better for pleasure, or the worse for sorrow, when it is
past? But then sin and guilt will be still fresh, and heaven
and hell will be then yet to begin. If ever it was seasonable
to preach courage in the despised, abused cause of Christ,
it is now, when his truths are reformed into nothing, when
the hands and hearts of his faithful ministers are weakened,
and even broke, and his worship extirpated in a mockery,
that his honor may be advanced.  Well, to establish our
hearts in duty, let us beforehand propose to ourselves the
worst that can happen. Should God in his judgment suffer
England to be transformed into a Munster: should the faithful be everywhere massacred: should the places of learning
be demolished, and our colleges reduced (not only as one * in
his zeal would have it) to three, but to none; yet, assuredly,
hell is worse than all this, and is the portion of such as deny
Christ: wherefore, let our discouragements be what they will,
loss of places, loss of estates, loss of life and relations, yet
still this sentence stands ratified in the decrees of Heaven,
Cursed be that man, that for any of these shall desert the
truth, and deny his Lord.
* A colonel of the army, the perfidi- that three colleges were sufficient to
ous cause of Penruddock's death, and answer the occasions of the nation, for
some time after high-sheriff of Oxford- the breeding of men up to learning,
shire, openly and frequently affirmed so far as it was either necessary or
the uselessness of the universities, and useful.




SERMON IV.
ECCLESIASTICAL POLICY THE BEST POLICY:
OR RELIGION THE BEST REASON.OF STATE:
IW  A SERMON PREACHED BEFORE THE HONORABLE SOCIETY OF LINCOLN'S INN.
1 KIsSES xiii. 33, 34. - Afler this thing Jeroboam returned not from his evil way, but
mao again of the lowest of the people priests of the high places: whosoever would,
he c6c.ecrated him, and he became one of the priests of the hiqh places. And this
thing bcame sin unto the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off, and to destroy it from
off thej yce of the earth.
JEROBOAM (from the name of a person become the
character of impiety) is reported to posterity eminent,
or rather infamous, for two things; usurpation of government, and innovation of religion. It is confessed, the former
is expressly said to have been from God; but since God may
order and dispose what he does not approve, and use the
wickedness of men while he forbids it, the design of the
first cause does not excuse the malignity of the second: and
therefore, the advancement and sceptre of Jeroboam was in
that sense only the work of God, in which it is said, Amos
iii. 6. that there is no evil in the city which the Lord hath not
done. But from his attempts upon the civil power, he proceeds to innovate God's worship; and from  the subjection
of men's bodies and estates, to enslave their consciences, as
knowing that true religion is no friend to an unjust title.
Such was afterwards the way of Mahomet, to the tyrant to
join the impostor, and what he had got by the sword to confirm by the Alcoran; raising his empire upon two pillars,
conquest and inspiration. Jeroboam being thus advanced,
and thinking policy the best piety, though indeed in nothing
ever more befooled, the nature of sin being not only to defile,
but to infatuate; in the xiith chapter, and the 27th verse,




64           Religion the best Reason of State.    [SERM. IV.
he thus argues; If this people go up to do sacrifice in the
house of tle Lord at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this
people turn again unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam king of
Judah, and they shall kill me, and go again unto Rehoboam
king of Judah. As if he should have said: The true worship
of God, and the converse of those that use it, dispose men to
a considerate lawful subjection. And therefore I must take
another course: my practice must not be better than my
title; what was won by force, must be continued by delusion.
Thus sin is usually seconded with sin; and a man seldom
commits one sin to please, but he commits another to defend
himself: as it is frequent for the adulterer to commit murder,
to conceal the shame of his adultery. But let us see Jeroboam's politic procedure in the next verse.  Whereupon the
king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, alnd said unto
themn, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy
gods, 0 Israel. As if he had made such an edict: I Jeroboam, by the advice of my council, considering the great distance of the temple, and the great charges that poor people
are put to in going thither; as also the intolerable burden
of paying the first-fruits and tithes to the priest, have considered of a way that may be more easy, and less burdensome
to the people, as also more comfortable to the priests themselves; and therefore strictly enjoin, that none henceforth
presume to repair to the temple at Jerusalem, especially since
God is not tied to allny place or form of worship; as also because the devotion of men is apt to be clogged by such ceremonies; therefore, both for the ease of the people, as well as
for the advancement of religion, we require and command,
that all henceforth forbear going up to Jerusalem. Questionless these and such other reasons the impostor used, to insinuate his devout-idolatry. And thus the calves were set up,
to which oxen must be sacrificed; the god and the sacrifice
out of the same herd. And because Israel was not to return
to Egypt, Egypt was brought back -to them: that is, the
Egyptian way of worship,- the.Apis, or Serapis, which was
nothing but the image of a calf or ox, as is clear. from most
historians. Thus Jeroboam having procured his people gods,
the next thing was to provide priests. Hereupon to the
calves he adds a commission for the approving, trying, and




1 KINGS Xiii. 83, 34.] Religion the best Reason of State.  65
admitting the rascality and lowest of the people to minister
in that service: such as kept cattle, with a little change of
their office, were admitted to make oblations to them. And
doubtless, besides the approbation of these, there was a commission also to eject such of the priests and ILevites of God,
as being too ceremoniously addicted to the temple, would not
serve Jeroboam before God, nor worship his calves for their
gold, nor approve those two glittering sins for any reason of
state whatsoever. Having now perfected divine worship, and
Irepared both gods and priests; in the next place, that he
might the better teach his false priests the way of their new
worship, he begins the service himself, and so countenances
by his example what he had enjoined by his command, in the
1st verse of this chapter; and Jeroboam stood by the altar to
burn incense. Burning of incense was then the ministerial
office amongst them, as preaching is now amongst us. So
that to represent to you the nature of Jeroboam's action; it
was as if in a Christian nation the chief governor should
authorize and encourage all the scum  and refuse of the
people to preach, and call them to the ministry by using to
preach,* and invade the ministerial function himself. But
Jeroboam rested not here, but while he was busy in his work,
and a prophet immediately sent by God declares against his
idolatry, he endeavors to seize upon and commit him; in ver.
4, he held forth his hand from. the altar, and said, Lay hold of
him.  Thus we have him  completing his sin, and by a
strange imposition of hands persecuting the true prophets,
as well as ordaining false. But it was a natural transition,
and no ways wonderful to see him, who stood affronting God
with false incense in the right hand, persecuting with the
left, and abetting the idolatry of one arm with the violence
of the other. Now if we lay all these things together, and
consider the parts, rise, and degrees of his sin, we shall find,
that it was not for nothing that the Spirit of God so frequently and bitterly in scripture stigmatizes this person; for
it represents him first encroaching upon the civil government, thence changing that of the church, debasing the
office that God had made sacred, introducing a false way of
worship, and destroying the true. And in this we have a
* Cromwell (a lively copy of Jeroboam) did so.
VOL. I.          5




66          Religion the best Reason of State.    [SERM. IV.
full and fair description of a foul thing, that is, of an usurper
and an impostor: or, to use one word more comprehensive
than both, of Jeroboanm the son of Jebat, who made Israel to sin.
From the story and practice of Jeroboam, we might gather
these observations:
1. That God sometimes punishes a notorious sin, by suffering the sinner to fall into a worse.
Thus God punished the rebellion of the Israelites, by permitting them to fall into idolatry.
2. There is nothing so absurd, but may be obtruded upon
the vulgar under pretense of religion.
Certainly, otherwise a golden calf could never have been
made either the object or the means of divine worship.
3. Sin, especially that of perverting God's worship, as it
leaves a guilt upon the soul, so it perpetuates a blot upon the
name.
Hence nothing so frequent, as for the Spirit of God to express wicked, irreligious kings, by comparing them to Ahab
or Jeroboam. It being usual to make the first and most eminent in any kind, not only the standard for comparison, but
also the rule of expression.
But I shall insist only upon the words of the text, and what
shall be drawn from thence. There are two things in the
words that may seem to require explication:
1. What is meant by the high places.
2. What by the consecration of the priests.
1. Concerning the high places. The use of these in the
divine worship was general and ancient; and as Dionysius
Vossius observes in his notes upon Moses Maimonides, the
first way that was used, long before temples were either built
or thought lawful. The reason of this seems to be, because
those places could not be thought to shut up or confine the
immensity of God, as they supposed an house did; and withal
gave his worshipers a nearer approach to heaven by their
height.  Hence we read that the Samaritans worshiped
upon mount Gerizim, John iv. 20; and Samuel went up to
the high place to sacrifice, 1 Sam. ix. 14; and Solomon sacrificed at the high place in Gibeon, 1 Kings iii. 4. Yea, the
temple itself was at length built upon a mount or high place,
2 Chron. iii. 1. You will say. then, why are these places




1 KINas xii. 33, 34.1 Religion the best Reason of State.  67
condemned P I answer, that the use of them was not condemned, as absolutely and always unlawful in itself, but only
after the temple was built, and that God had professed to
put his name in that place and no other: therefore, what was
lawful in the practice of Samuel and Solomon before the
temple was in being, was now detestable in Jeroboam, since
that was constituted by God the only place for his worship.
To bring this consideration to the times of Christianity.
Because the apostles and primitive Christians preached in
houses, and had only private meetings, in regard they were
under persecution, and had no churches; this can not warrant
the practice of those nowadays, nor a toleration of them, that
prefer houses before churches, and a conventicle before the
congregation.
2. For the second thing, which is the consecration of the
priests; it seems to have been correspondent to ordination in
the Christian church. Idolaters themselves were not so far
gone, as to venture upon the priesthood without consecration
and a call. To show all the solemnities of this would be
tedious, and here unnecessary: the Hebrew word which we
render to consecrate, signifies to fill the hand, which indeed
imports the manner of consecration, which was done by filling
the hand: for the priest cut a piece of the sacrifice, and put
it into the hands of him that was to be consecrated; by
which ceremony he received right to sacrifice, and so became
a priest. As our ordination in the Christian church is said
to have been heretofore transacted by the bishop's delivering
of the Bible into the hands of him that was to be ordained,
whereby he received power ministerially to dispense the mysteries contained in it, and so was made a presbyter. Thus
much briefly concerning consecration.
There remains nothing else to be explained in the words:
I shall therefore now draw forth the sense of them into these
two propositions:
I. The surest means to strengthen, or the readiest to ruin
the civil power, is either to establish. or destroy the worship
of God in the right exercise of religion.
II. The next and most effectual way to destroy religion, is
to embase the teachers and dispensers of it.
Of both these in their order,




68          Religion the best Reason of State.    [SERM. IV.
For the prosecution of the former we are to show,
1. The truth of the assertion, that it is so.
2. The reason of the assertion, why and whence it is so.
1. For the truth of it: it is abundantly evinced from all
records both of divine and profane history, in which he'that
runs may read the ruin of the state in the destruction of the
church; and that not only portended by it, as its sign, but
also inferred from it, as its cause.
2. For the reason of the point; it may be drawn
(1.) From the judicial proceeding of God, the great King
of kings, and supreme Ruler of the universe; who for his
commands is indeed careful, but for his worship jealous:
and therefore in states notoriously irreligious, by a secret
and irresistible power, countermands their deepest project,
splits their counsels, and smites their most refined policies
with frustration and a curse; being resolved that the kingdoms of the world shall fall down before him, either in his
adoration, or their own confusion.
(2.) The reason of the doctrine may be drawn from the
necessary dependence of the very principles of government
upon religion. And this I shall pursue more fully. The
great business of government is to procure obedience, and
keep off disobedience  the great springs upon which those
two move are rewards and punishments, answering the two
ruling affections of man's mind, hope and fear. For since
there is a natural opposition between the judgment and the
appetite, the former respecting what is honest, the latter
what is pleasing, which two qualifications seldom concur in
the same thing, and since withal man's design in every action
is delight; therefore to render things honest also practicable,
they must be first represented desirable, which can not be,
but by proposing honesty clothed with pleasure; and since it
presents no pleasure to the sense, it must be fetched from the
apprehension of a future reward: for questionless duty moves
not so much upon command as promise. Now therefore,
that which proposes the greatest and most suitable rewards
to obedience, and the greatest terrors and punishments to
disobedience, doubtless is the most likely to enforce one, and
prevent the other. But it is religion that does this, which to
happiness and misery joins eternity. And these, supposing




1 KINGs xiii. 33, 34.] Religion the best Reason of State.  69
the immortality of the soul, which philosophy indeed conjectures, but only religion proves, or (which is as good)
persuades; I say these two things, eternal happiness and
eternal misery, meeting with a persuasion that the soul is
immortal, are, without controversy, of all others, the first the
most desirable, and the latter the most horrible to human apprehension. Were it not for these, civil government were
not able to stand before the prevailing swing of corrupt nature, which would know no honesty but advantage, no duty
but in pleasure, nor any law but its own will. Were not
these frequently thundered into the understandings of men,
the magistrate might enact, order, and proclaim; proclamations might be hung upon walls and posts, and there they
might hang, seen and despised, more like malefactors than
laws: but when religion binds them  upon the conscience,
conscience will either persuade or terrify men into their
practice. For put the case, a man knew, and that upon sure
grounds, that he might do an advantageous murder or robbery, and not be discovered; what human laws could hinder
him, which' he knows, can not inflict any penalty, where
they can make no discoveryP But religion assures him,
that no sin, though concealed from human eyes, can either
escape God's sight in this world, or his vengeance in the
other.' Put the case also, that men looked upon death without fear, in which sense it is nothing, or at most very.little;
ceasing, while it is endured, and probably without pain, for
it seizes upon the vitals, and benumbs the senses, and where
there is no sense, there can be no pain: I say, if while a man
is acting his will towards sin, he should. also thus act his
reason to despise death, where would be the. terror of the
magistrate, who can neither threaten nor inflict any more P
Hence an old malefactor in his execution at the gallows
made no other confession but this; that he had very jocundly
passed over his life in such courses; and he that would not
for fifty years' pleasure endure half an hour's' pain, deserved
to die a worse death than himself. Questionless this man
was not ignorant before, that there were such things as
laws, assizes, and gallows; but had he considered and believed the terrors of another'world, he might probably have
found a fairer passage out of. this. If there was not a minT



70          Religion the best Reason of State.    [SERM. IV.
ister in every parish, you would quickly find cause to increase the number of constables: and if the churches were
not employed to be places to hear God's law, there would be
need of them to be prisons for the breakers of the laws of
men. Hence it is observable, that the tribe of Levi had not
one place or portion together, like the rest of the tribes:
but, because it was their office to dispense religion, they were
diffused over all the tribes, that they might be continually
preaching to the rest their duty to God; which is the most
effectual way to dispose them to obedience to man: for he
that truly fears God can not despise the magistrate. Yea, so
near is the connection between the civil state and religious,
that heretofore, if you look upon well-regulated, civilized
heathen nations, you will find the government and the priesthood united in the same person; Anius rex idem hominum,
Phcebique sacerdos, Virg. 3 lEn. if under the true worship
of God; Melchisedech, king of Salem, and priest of the most
high God, Hebrews vii. 1. And afterwards Moses, (whom
as we acknowledge a pious, so atheists themselves will confess to have been a wise prince,) he, when he took the kingly
government upon himself, by his own choice, seconded by divine institution, vested the priesthood in his brother Aaron,
both whose concernments were so coupled, that if nature had
not, yet their religious, nay, their civil interests, would have
made them brothers. And it was once the design of the emperor of Germany, Maximilian the first, to have joined the
popedom and the empire together, and to have got himself
chosen pope, and by that means derived the papacy to succeeding emperors. Had he effected it, doubtless there would
not have been such scuffles between them and the bishop of
Rome; the civil interest of the state would not have been
undermined by an adverse interest, managed by the specious
and potent pretenses of religion. And to see, even amongst
us, how these two are united, how the former is upheld by
the latter: the magistrate sometimes can not do his own
office dexterously, but by acting the minister: hence it is,
that judges of assizes find it necessary in their charges to use
pathetical discourses of conscience; and if it were not for the
sway of this, they would often lose the best evidence in the
world against malefactors, which is confession: for no man




1 KING sxiii. 33, 34.] Religion the best Reason of State.  71
would confess and be hanged here, but to  avoid being
damned hereafter. Thus I have in general shown the utter
inability of the magistrate to attain the ends of government,
without the aid of religion. But it may be here replied, that
many are not at all moved with arguments drawn from hence,
or with the happy or miserable state of the soul after death;
and therefore this avails little to procure obedience, and consequently to advance government. I answer by concession:
that this is true of epicures, atheists, and some pretended
philosophers, who have stifled the notions of a Deity and the
soul's immortality; but the unprepossessed on the one hand,
and the well-disposed on the other, who both together make
much the major part of the world, are very apt to be affected
with a due fear of these things: and religion, accommodating
itself to the generality, though not to every particular temper, sufficiently secures government; inasmuch as that stands
or falls according to the behavior of the multitude. And
whatsoever conscience makes the generality obey, to that
prudence will make the rest conform. Wherefore, having
proved the dependence of government upon religion, I shall
now demonstrate, that the safety of government depends
upon the truth of religion. False religion is, in its nature,
the greatest bane and destruction to government in the world.
The reason is, because whatsoever is false, is also weak. Ens
and verum in philosophy are the same: and so much as any
religion has of falsity, it loses of strength and existence.
Falsity gains authority only from ignorance, and therefore is
in danger to be known; for from being false, the next immediate step is to be known to be such. And what prejudice this would be to the civil government, is apparent, if
men should be awed into obedience, and aftrighted from sin
by rewards and punishments, proposed to them in such a
religion, which afterwards should be detected, and found a
mere falsity and cheat; for if one part be but found to be
false, it will make the whole suspicious. And men will then
not only cast off obedience to the civil magistrate, but they
will do it with disdain and rage, that they have been deceived
so long, and brought to do that out of conscience, which was
imposed upon them out of design: for though men are often
willingly deceived, yet still it must be under an opinion of




72          Religion the best Reason of State.    [SERM. IV.
being instructed; though they love the deception, yet they
mortally hate it under that appearance: therefore it is no
ways safe for a magistrate, who is to build his dominion upon
the fears of men, to build those fears upon a false religion.
It is not to be doubted, but the absurdity of Jeroboam's
calves made many Israelites turn subjects to Rehoboam's
government, that they might be proselytes to his religion.
Herein the weakness of the Turkish religion appears, that it
urges obedience upon the promise of such absurd rewards, as,
that after death they'should have palaces, gardens, beautiful
women, with all the luxury that could be: as if those things,
that were the occasions and incentives of sin in this world,
could be the rewards of holiness in the other: besides many
other inventions, false and absurd, that are like so many
chinks and holes to discover the rottenness of the whole
fabric, when God shall be pleased to give light to discover
and open their reasons to discern them. But you will say,
what government more sure and absolute than the Turkish,
and yet what religion more false P Therefore, certainly government may stand sure.and strong, be the religion professed
never so absurd. I answer, that it may do so indeed by accident, through the strange peculiar temper and gross ignorance of a people; as we see it happens in the Turks, the
best part of whose policy, supposing the absurdity of their
religion, is this, that they prohibit schools of learning; for
this hinders knowledge and disputes, which such a religion
would not bear. But suppose we, that the learning of these
western nations were as great there as here, and the Alcoran
as common to them as the Bible to us, that they might have
free recourse to search.and examine the flaws and follies of
it; and withal, that they were of as inquisitive a temper as
we: and who knows, but as there are vicissitudes in the
government, so there may happen the same also in the temper of a nation P If this should come to pass, where would
be their religion P' And then let every one judge, whether
the arcana imperii and religionis would not fall together.
They have begun to totter already; for Mahomet having
promised to come and visit his followers, and translate them
to paradise after a thousand years, this being expired, many
of the Persians began to doubt and smell the cheat, till the




1 KINGS xiii. 33, 34.] Religion the best Reason of State.  73
Mufti or chief priest told them that it was a mistake in the
figure, and assured them, that upon more diligent survey of
the records, he found it two thousand instead of one. When
this is expired, perhaps they will not be able to renew the
fallacy. I say therefore, that though his government continues firm in the exercise of a false religion, yet this is by accident, through the present genius of the people, which may
change; but this does not prove, but that the nature of such
a religion (of which we only now speak) tends to subvert and
betray the civil power. Hence Machiavel himself, in his animadversions upon Livy, makes it appear, that the weakness
of Italy, which was once so strong, was caused by the corrupt
practices of the papacy, in depraving and misusing religion
to that purpose, which he, though himself a papist, says,
could not have happened, had the Christian religion been
kept in its first and native simplicity. Thus much may
suffice for the clearing of the first proposition.
The inferences from hence are two:
1. If government depends upon religion, then this ~shows
the pestilential design of those that attempt to disjoin the
civil and ecclesiastical interest, setting the latter wholly out
of the tuition of the former. But it is clear that the fanatics
know no other step to the magistracy, but through the ruin
of the ministry. There is a great analogy between the body
natural and politic; in which the ecclesiastical or spiritual
part justly supplies the part of the soul; and the violent
separation of this from the other does as certainly infer death
and dissolution, as the disjunction of the body and the soul
in the natural; for when this once departs, it leaves the body
of the commonwealth a carcass, noisome, and exposed to be
devoured by birds of prey.  The ministry will be one day
found, according to Christ's word, the salt of the earth, the
only thing that- keeps societies of men from stench and corruption. These two interests are of that nature, that it is to
be feared they can not be divided, but they will also prove
opposite; and not resting in a bare diversity, quickly rise
into a contrariety: these two are to the state, what the elements of fire and water to the body, which united compose,
separated destroy it. I am not of the papist's opinion, who
would make the spiritual above the civil state in power as




74          Religion the best Reason of State.    [SERM. IV.
well as dignity, but rather subject it to the civil; yet thus
much I dare affirm, that the civil, which is superior, is upheld and kept in being by the ecclesiastical and inferior; as
it is in a building, where the upper part is supported by the
lower; the church resembling the foundation, which indeed
is the lowest part, but the most considerable. The magistracy can not so much protect the ministry, but the ministers
may do more in serving the magistrate. A taste of which
truth you may take from the holy war, to which how fast and
eagerly did men go, when the priest persuaded them, that
whosoever died in that expedition was a martyr P Those that
will not be convinced what a help this is to the magistracy,
would find how considerable it is, if they should chance to
clash; this would certainly eat out the other. For the magistrate can not urge obedience upon such potent grounds, as
the minister, if so disposed, can urge disobedience. As for
instance, if my governor should command me to do a thing,
or I must die, or forfeit my estate; and the minister steps in,
and tells me, that I offend God, and ruin my soul, if I obey
that command, it is easy to see a greater force in this persuasion from  the advantage of its ground. And if divines
once begin to curse Meroz, we shall see that Levi can use the
sword as well as Simeon; and although ministers do not
handle, yet they can employ it. This shows the imprudence,
as well as the danger of the civil magistrate's exasperating
those that can fire men's consciences against him, and arm his
enemies with religion. For I have read heretofore of some,
that, having conceived an irreconcilable hatred of the civil
magistrate, prevailed with men so far, that they went to resist
him even out of conscience, and a full persuasion and dread
upon their spirits, that, not to do it, were to desert God, and
consequently to incur damnation.*  Now when men's rage is
both heightened and sanctified by conscience, the war will be
fierce; for what is done out of conscience, is done with the
utmost activity. And then Campanella's speech to the king
of Spain will be found true, Religio semper vicit, prcesertim
armata: which sentence deserves seriously to be considered
by all governors, and timely to be understood, lest it comes
to be felt.
* See Serm. on Prov. xii. 22.




I KINGS xiii. 33, 34.] Religion the best Reason of State.  75
2. If the safety of government is founded upon the truth of
religion, then this shows the danger of any thing that may
make even the true religion suspected to be false. To be
false, and to be thought false, is all one in respect of men,
who act not according to truth, but apprehension. As on the
contrary, a false religion, while apprehended true, has the
force and efficacy of truth. Now there is nothing more apt
to induce men to a suspicion of any religion, than frequent
innovation and change: for since the object of religion, God,
the subject of it, the soul of man, and the business of it, truth,
is always one and the same; variety and novelty is a just presumption of falsity. It argues sickness and distemper in the
mind, as well as in the body, when a man is continually turning and tossing from one side to the other. The wise Romans
ever dreaded the least innovation in religion: hence we find
the advice of Maecenas to Augustus Coesar, in Dion Cassius, in
the 52d book, where he counsels him to detest and persecute
all innovators of divine worship, not only as contemners of
the gods, but as the most pernicious disturbers of the state:
for when men venture to make changes in things sacred, it
argues great boldness with God, and this naturally imports
little belief of him: which if the people once perceive, they
will take their creed also, not from the magistrate's laws, but
his example. Hence in England, where religion has been
still purifying, and hereupon almost always in the fire and the
furnace; atheists and irreligious persons have took no small
advantage from our changes. For in king Edward the sixth's
time, the divine worship was twice altered in two new liturgies. In the first of queen Mary, the protestant religion was
persecuted with fire and fagot, by law and public counsel of
the same persons, who had so lately established it. Upon the
coming in of queen Elizabeth, religion was changed again,
and within a few days the public council of the nation made
it death for a priest to convert any man to that religion,
which before with so much eagerness of zeal had been restored. So that it is observed by an author, that in the space
of twelve years there were four changes about religion made
in England, and that by the public council and authority of
the realm, which were more than were made by any Christian
state throughout the world, so soon one after another, in the




76          Religion the best Reason of State.    [SsBlM. Iv.
space of fifteen hundred years before. Hence it is, that the
enemies of God take occasion to blaspheme, and call our
religion statism. And now adding to the former, those many
changes that have happened since, I am afraid we shall not
so easily claw off that name: nor, though we may satisfy our
own consciences in what we profess, be able to repel and clear
off the objections of the rational world about us, which, not
being interested in our changes as we are, will not judge of
them as we judge; but debate them by impartial reason, by
the nature of the thing, the general practice of the church;
against which, new lights, sudden impulses of the Spirit, extraordinary calls, will be but weak arguments to prove any
thing but the madness of those that use them, and that the
church must needs wither, being blasted with such inspirations. We see therefore how fatal and ridiculous innovations
in the church are: and indeed when changes are so frequent,
it is not properly religion, but fashion. This, I think, we may
build upon as a sure ground, that where there is continual
change, there is great show of uncertainty; and uncertainty
in religion is a shrewd motive, if not to deny, yet to doubt of
its truth.
Thus much for the first doctrine. I proceed now to the
second, viz. That the next, and most effectual way to destroy
religion, is to embase the teachers and dispensers of it. In
the handling of this I shall show,
I. How the dispensers of religion, the ministers of the
word, are embased or rendered vile.
2. How the embasing or vilifying them is a means to destroy religion.
1. For the first of these, the ministers and dispensers of
the word are rendered base or vile two ways:
(1.).By divesting them  of all temporal privileges and
advantages, as inconsistent with their calling.. It is strange,
since the priest's office heretofore was always splendid, and
almost regal, that it is now looked upon as a piece of religion,
to make it low and sordid. So that the use of the word minister is brought down to the literal signification of it, a servant: for now to serve and to minister, servile and ministerial,
are.: terms equivalent. But in the Old Testament the same
wvo.rd signifies a priest, and a prince, or chief ruler: hence,




1 KINGS xiii. 33, 34.] Religion the best Reason of State.  77
though we translate it priest of On, (Gen. xli. 45,) and priest
of Midian, (Exod. iii. 1,) and as it is with the people so with the
priest, Isa. xxiv. 2, Junius and Tremellius render all these
places, not by sacerdos, priest, but by prceses, that is, a prince,
or at least a chief counsellor, or minister of state. And it is
strange, that the name should be the same, when the nature
of the thing is so exceeding different. The like also may be
observed in other languages, that the most illustrious titles
are derived from things sacred, and belonging to the worship
of God.:E/a3csTos was the title of the Christian Caesars correspondent to the Latin Augzustus, and it is derived from the
same word that -E/dacra, cultus, res sacra, or sacrificium. And
it is usual in our language to make sacred an epithet to
majesty; there was a certain royalty in things sacred. Hence
the Apostle, who, I think, was no enemy to the simplicity of
the gospel, speaks of a royal priesthood, 1 Pet. ii. 9, which
shows at least, that there is no contradiction or impiety in
those terms. In old time, before the placing this office only
in the line of Aaron, the head of the family and the first-born
offered sacrifice for the rest; that is, was their priest. And
we know, that such rule and dignity belonged at first to the
masters of families, that they had jus vitce et necis, jurisdiction
and power of life and death in their own family; and from
hence was derived the beginning of kingly government: a
king being only a civil head, or master of a politic family, the
whole people; so that we see the same was the foundation of
the royal and sacerdotal dignity. As for the dignity of this
office among the Jews, it is so pregnantly set forth in holy
writ, that it is unquestionable.  Kings and priests are still
mentioned together: Lam. ii. 6, The Lord hath despised in
the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.  Hos. v. 1,
Hear, O priests, and give ear, 0 house, of the king.  Deut. xvii.
12, And the man that doth presumptuously, and will not
hearken unto the priest that standeth there to minister before the
Lord thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die.
Hence Paul, together with a blow, received this reprehension,
Acts xxiii. 4, Revilest thou God's high priest? And Paul in the
next verse does not defend himself, by pleading an extraordinary motion of the Spirit, or that he was sent to reform
the church, and might therefore lawfully vilify the priesthood




78           Religion the best Reason of State.    [SERM. Iv.
and all sacred orders; but in the 5th verse he makes an excuse,
and that from ignorance, the only thing that could take away
the fault; namely, that he knew not that he was the high priest,
and subjoins a reason which further advances the truth here
defended: for it is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler
of thy people. To holy writ we might add the testimony of
Josephus, of next authority to it in things concerning the
Jews, who in sundry places of his history sets forth the dignity of the priests; and in his second book against Apion
the grammarian has these words -ravrTov Trv a/Ut/S/3qTrov/JuEOvJV
8tKacr-at ot depos Ta'XOVXcav, the priests were constituted judges
of all doubtful causes. Hence Justin also in his 36th book
has this: Semper apud Judceos mos fuit, ut eosdem  reges et
sacerdotes haberent: though this is false, that they were always
so, yet it argues, that they were so frequently, and that the
distance between them was not great. To the Jews we may
join the Egyptians, the first masters of learning and philosophy. Synesius in his 57th epist. having shown the general
practice of antiquity, o 7raXaL Xpo'vos qVE7KE TOr avTrovs EpEag TC Kat
Kptras, gives an instance in the Jews and Egyptians, who for
many ages 7To TR pov'p S/3atAcXvrcrav, had no other kings but
priests.  Next, we may take a view of the practice of the
Romans: Numa Pompilius, that civilized the fierce Romans,
is reported in the first book of Livy sometimes to have performed the priest's office himself.  Turn sacerdotibus creandis
animum adjecit, quanquam ipse plurimra sacra obibat; but when
he made priests, he gave them a dignity almost the same
with himself. And this honor continued together with the
valor and prudence of that nation: for the success of the
Romans did not extirpate their religion; the college of the
priests being in many things exempted even from the jurisdiction of the senate, afterwards the supreme power. Hence
Juvenal in his 2d Sat. mentions the priesthood of Mars, as
one of the most honorable places in Rome. And Jul. Caesar,
who was chosen priest in his private condition, thought it not
below him to continue the same office when he was created
absolute governor of Rome, under the name of perpetual
dictator. Add to these the practice of the Gauls mentioned
by Caesar in his 6th book de Bello Gallico, where he says of
the Druids, who were their priests, that they did judge de




1 KNGS xiii. 33, 34.] Religion the best Reason of State.  79
omnnibus fere controversiis publicis privatisque. See also Homer
in the 1st book of his Iliad representing Chryses priest of
Apollo, with his golden sceptre, as well as his golden censer.
But why have I produced all these examples of the heathens?
Is it to make these a ground of our imitation P  No, but to
show that the giving honor to the priesthood was a custom
universal amongst all civilized nations. And whatsoever is
universal is also natural, as not being founded upon compact,
or the particular humors of men, but flowing from the native
results of reason: and that which is natural neither does nor
can oppose religion. But you will say,'this concerns not us,
who have an express rule and word revealed. Christ was
himself poor and despised, and withal has instituted such a
ministry. To the first part of this plea I answer, that Christ
came to suffer, yet the sufferings and miseries of Christ do
not oblige all Christians to undertake the like. For the
second, that the ministry of Christ was low and despised by
his institution, I utterly deny. It was so, indeed, by the
malice and persecution of the heathen princes; but what does
this argue or infer for a low, dejected ministry in a flourishing
state, which professes to encourage ChristianityP But to
dash this cavil, read but the practice of Christian emperors
and kings all along, down from the time of Constantine, in
what respect, what honor and splendor they treated the ministers; and then let our adversaries produce their puny,
pitiful arguments for the contrary, against the general, clear,
undoubted vogue and current of all antiquity. As for two or
three little countries about us, the learned and impartial will
not value their practice; in one of which places the minister
has been seen, for mere want, to mend shoes on the Saturday,
and been heard to preach on the Sunday. In the other place,
stating the several orders of the citizens, they place their
ministers after their apothecaries; that is, the physician of
the soul after the drugster of the body: a fit practice for
those, who, if they were to rank things as well as persons,
would place their religion after their trade.
And thus much concerning the first way of debasing the
ministers and ministry.
(2.) The second way is by admitting ignorant, sordid, illiterate persons to this function. This is to give the royal




80)         Religion the best Reason. of State.    [SERM. IV.
stamp to a piece of lead. I confess, God has no need of any
man's parts or learning; but certainly then, he has much
less need of his ignorance and ill behavior. It is a sad thing,
when all other employments shall empty themselves into the
ministry: when men shall repair to it, not for preferment,
but refuge; like malefactors flying to the altar, only to save
their lives; or like those of Eli's race, (1 Sam. ii. 36,) that
should come crouching, and seek to be put into the priest's
office that they might eat a piece of bread. Heretofore there
was required splendor of parentage to recommend any one to
the priesthood, as Josephus witnesses in a treatise which he
wrote of his own life; where he says, to have right to deal in
things sacred, was, amongst them, accounted an argument
of a noble and illustrious descent. God would not accept the
offals of other professions. Doubtless many rejected Christ
upon this thought, that he was the carpenter's son, who
would have embraced him, had they known him to have been
the son of David. The preferring underserving persons to
this great service was eminently Jeroboam's sin, and how
Jeroboam's practice and offense has been continued amongst
us in another guise, is not unknown: for has not learning
unqualified men for approbation to the ministry P have not
parts and abilities been reputed enemies to grace, and qualities no ways ministerial? while friends, faction, well- meaning, and little understanding have been accomplishments
beyond study and the university; and to falsify a story of
conversion, beyond pertinent answers and clear resolutions to
the hardest and most concerning questions. So that matters
have been brought to this pass, that if a man amongst his
sons had any blind, or disfigured, he laid him aside for the
ministry; and such an one was presently approved, as having
a mortified countenance. In short, it was a fiery furnace,
which often approved dross, and rejected gold. But thanks
be to God, those spiritual wickednesses are now discharged from
their high places. Hence it was, that many rushed into the
ministry, as being the only calling that they could profess
without serving an apprenticeship. Hence also we had those
that could preach sermons, but not defend them. The reason
of which is clear, because the works and writings of learned
men might be borrowed, but not the abilities. Had indeed




1 KINGs xiii. 33, 34.] Religion the Best Reason of State.  81
the old Levitical hierarchy still continued, in which it was
part of the ministerial office to flay the sacrifices, to cleanse
the vessels, to scour the flesh-forks, to sweep the temple, and
carry the filth and rubbish to the brook Kidron, no persons
living had been fitter for the ministry, and to serve in this
nature at the altar. But since it is made a labor of the mind;
as to inform men's judgments, and move their affections, to
resolve difficult places of scripture, to decide and clear off
controversies; I can not see how to be a butcher, scavenger,
or any other such trade, does at all qualify or prepare men for
this work. But as unfit as they were, yet to clear a way for
such into the ministry, we have had almost all sermons full
of gibes and scoffs at human learning. Away with vain philosophy, with the disputer of this world, and the enticing words of
man's wisdom, and set up the foolishness of preaching, the simplicity of the gospel: thus divinity has been brought in upon
the ruins of humanity; by forcing the words of the scripture
from the sense, and then haling them to the worst of drudgeries, to set a jus divinum upon ignorance and imperfection,
and recommend natural weakness for supernatural grace.
Hereupon the ignorant have took heart to venture upon this
great calling, and instead of cutting their way to it, according
to the usual course, through the knowledge of the tongues,
the study of philosophy,, school divinity, the fathers and
councils, they have taken another and a shorter cut; and
having read perhaps a treatise or two upon the Heart, the
bruised Reed, the Crumbs of Conbfort, Wollebius in English,
and some other little authors, the usual furniture of old
women's closets, they have set forth as accomplished divines,
and forthwith they present themselves to the service; and
there have not been wanting Jeroboams as willing to consecrate and receive them, as they to offer themselves. And
this has been one of the most fatal and almost irrecoverable,
blows that has been given to the ministry.
And this may suffice concerning the second way of embasing God's ministers; namely, by intrusting the ministry
with raw, unlearned, ill-bred persons; so that what Solomon
speaks of a proverb in the mouth of a fool, the same may be
said of the ministry vested in them, that it is like a pearl in a
swine's snout.
VOL. I.          6




82          Religion the Best Reason of State.   [SERM. IV.
2. I proceed now to the second thing proposed in the discussion of this doctrine, which is, to show how the embasing
of the ministers tends to the destruction of religion.
This it does two ways.
(1.) Because it brings them under exceeding scorn and
contempt; and then, let none think religion itself secure:
for the vulgar have not such logical heads, as to be able to
abstract such subtle conceptions as to separate the man from
the minister, or to consider the same person under a double
capacity, and so honor him as a divine, while they despise
him as poor. But suppose they could, yet actions can not
distinguish, as conceptions do; and therefore every act of
contempt strikes at both, and unavoidably wounds the ministry through the sides of the minister. And we must know,
that the least degree of contempt weakens religion, because
it is absolutely contrary to the nature of it; religion properly
consisting in a reverential esteem of things sacred. Now
that which in any measure weakens religion, will at length
destroy it: for the weakening of a thing is only a partial
destruction of it. Poverty and meanness of condition expose the wisest to scorn, it being natural for men to place
their esteem rather upon things great than good; and the
poet observes, that this infelix paupertas has nothing in it
more intolerable than this, that it renders men ridiculous.
And then, how easy and natural it is for contempt to pass
from the person to the office, from him that speaks, to the
thing that he speaks of, experience proves: counsel being
seldom valued so much for the truth of the thing, as the
credit of him that gives it. Observe an excellent passage to
this purpose in Eccles. ix. 14, 15. We have an account of a
little city, with few men in it, besieged by a great and potent king, and in the 15th verse, we read, that there was
found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the
city. A worthy service indeed, and certainly we may expect
that some honorable recompense should follow it; a deliverer
of his country, and that in such distress, could not but be
advanced: but we find a contrary event in the next words of
the same verse, yet none remembered that same poor man.
Why, what should be the reason P Was he not a man of
parts and wisdom P and is not wisdom honorable?P Yes, but




1 KINGos xiii. 33, 34.] Religion the Best'Reason of State.  83
he was poor. But was he not also successful, as well as
wiseP True; but still he was poor: and once grant this,
and you can not keep off that unavoidable sequel in the next
verse, the poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words are not
heard. We may believe it upon Solomon's word, who was
rich as well as wise, and therefore knew the force of both:
and probably, had it not been for his riches, the queen of
Sheba would never have come so far only to have heard his
wisdom.  Observe her behavior when she came: though
upon the hearing of Solomon's wisdom, and the resolution
of her hard questions, she expressed a just admiration; yet
when Solomon afterwards showed her his palace, his treasures, and the temple which he had built, 1 Kings x. 5, it is
said, there was no more spirit in her. What was the cause of
this? Certainly, the magnificence, the pomp and splendorof such a structure: it struck her into an ecstasy beyond his
wise answers. She esteemed this as much above his wisdom,
as astonishment is beyond bare admiration: she admired his
wisdom, but she adored his magnificence. So apt is the
mind, even of wise persons, to be surprised with the superficies, or circumstance of things, and value or undervalue
spirituals, according to the manner of their external appearance. When circumstances fail, the substance seldom long
survives: clothes are no part of the body; yet take away
clothes, and the body will die. Livy observes of Romulus,
that being to give laws to his new Romans, he found no better
way to procure an esteem and reverence to them, than by
first procuring it to himself by splendor of habit and retinue,
and other signs of royalty. And the wise Numa, his successor, took the same course to enforce his religious laws,
namely, by giving the same pomp to the priest, who was to
dispense them.  Sacerdotem  creavit, insignique eum veste, et
curuli regia sella adornavit. That is, he adorned him with a
rich robe, and a royal chair of state. And in our judicatures,
take away the trumpet, the scarlet, the attendance, and the
lordship, which would be to make justice naked as well as
blind, and the law would lose much of its terror, and consequently of its authority. Let the minister be abject and low,
his interest inconsiderable, the word will suffer for his sake:
the message will still find reception according to the dignity




84           Religion the Best Reason of State.   [SER~M. IV.
of the messenger. Imagine an ambassador presenting himself in a poor frieze jerkin and tattered clothes, certainly he
would have but small audience, his embassy would speed
rather according to the weakness of him that brought, than
the majesty of him that sent it. It will fare alike with the
ambassadors of Christ, the people will give them audience according to their presence. A notable example of which we
have in the behavior of some to Paul himself, 2 Cor. x. 10.
Hence in the Jewish church it was cautiously provided in the
law, that none that was blind or lame, or had any remarkable.defect in his body, was capable of the priestly office;
because these things naturally make a person contemned,
and this presently reflects upon the function. This therefore
is the first way by which the low despised condition of the
ministers tends to the destruction of the ministry and religion; namely, because it subjects their persons to scorn, and
consequently their calling; and it is not imaginable that men
will be brought to obey what they can not esteem.
(2.) The second way by which it tends to the ruin of the
ministry is, because it discourages men of fit parts and abilities from undertaking it. And certain it is, that as the
calling dignifies the man, so the man much more advances
his calling: as a garment, though it warms the body, has
a return with an advantage, being much more warmed by it.
And how often a good cause may miscarry without a wise
manager, and the faith for want of a defender, is, or at least
may be known. It is not the truth of an assertion, but the
skill of the disputant, that keeps off a baffle; not the justness of a cause, but the valor of the soldiers, that must win
the field: when a learned Paul was converted, and undertook
the ministry, it stopped the mouths of those that said, None
but poor weak fishermen preached Christianity; and so his
learning silenced the scandal, as well as strengthened the
church.  Religion, placed in a soul of exquisite knowledge
and abilities, as in a castle, finds not only habitation, but
defense. And what a learned foreign divine  said of the
English preaching, may be said of all, Plus est in artifice
quam in arte. So much of moment is there in the professors of any thing, to depress or raise the profession.  What
* Gaspar Streso.




1KI,NGsxiii. 33, 34.] Religion the Best Reason of State.  85
is it that kept the church of Rome strong, athletic, and flourishing for so many centuries, but the happy succession of the
choicest wits engaged to her service by suitable preferments?
And what strength, do we think, would that give to the true
religion, that is able thus to establish a false  Religion in a
great measure stands or falls according to the abilities of
those that assert it. And if, as some observe, men's desires
are usually as large as their abilities, what course have we
took to allure the former, that we might engage the latter
to our assistance P But we have took all ways to affright and
discourage scholars from looking towards this sacred calling:
for will men lay out their wit and judgment upon that employment, for the undertaking of which both will be questioned?  Would men, not long since, have spent toilsome
days and watchful nights, in the laborious quest of knowledge
preparative to'this work, at length to come and dance attendance for approbation upon a junto of petty tyrants, acted by
party and prejudice, who denied fitness from learning, and
grace from morality P Will a man exhaust his livelihood upon
books, and his health, the best part of his life, upon study,
to be at length thrust into a poor village, where he shall have
his due precariously, and entreat for his own; and when he
has it, live poorly and contemptibly upon it; while the same
or less labor, bestowed upon any other calling, would bring
not only comfort but splendor, not only maintenance but
abundance P It is, I confess, the duty of ministers to endure
this condition; but neither religion nor reason does oblige
either them to approve, or others to choose it. Doubtless,
parents will not throw away the towardness of a child, and
the expense of education, upon a profession, the labor of
which is increased, and the rewards of which are vanished:
to condemn promising, lively parts to contempt and penury
in a despised calling, what is it else but the casting of a
Moses into the mud, or offering a son upon the altar; and
instead of a priest, to make him a sacrifice P Neither let any
here reply, that it becomes not a ministerial spirit to undertake such a calling for reward; for they must know, that it
is one thing to undertake it for a reward, and not to be willing to undertake it without one. It is one thing to perform
good works only that we may receive the recompense of them




86          Religion the Best Reason of State.   [SERM. IV.
in heaven, and another thing not to be willing to follow
Christ and forsake the world, if there were no such recompense. But besides, suppose it were the duty of scholars to
choose this calling in the midst of all its discouragements;
yet a prudent governor, who knows it to be his wisdom as
well as his duty, to take the best course to advance religion,
will not consider men's duty, but their practice; not what
they ought to do, but what they use to do: and therefore
draw over the best qualified to his service, by such ways as
are most apt to persuade and induce men. Solomon built his
temple with the tallest cedars: and surely, when God refused
the defective and the maimed for sacrifice, we can not think
that he requires them for the priesthood. When learning,
abilities, and what is excellent in the world, forsake the
church, we may easily foretell its ruin, without the gift of
prophecy. And when ignorance succeeds in the place of
learning, weakness in the room of judgment, we may be sure
heresy and confusion will quickly come in the room of religion: for undoubtedly there is no way so effectual to betray
the truth, as to procure it a weak defender.
Well now, instead of raising any particular uses from the
point that has been delivered, let us make a brief recapitulation of the whole. Government, we see, depends upon religion, and religion upon the encouragement of those that are
to dispense and assert it. For the further evidence of which
truths, we need not travel beyond our own borders; but leave
it to every one impartially to judge, whether from the very
first day that our religion was unsettled, and church government flung out of doors, the civil government has ever been
able to fix upon a sure foundation. We have been changing
even to a proverb. The indignation of heaven has been
rolling and turning us from  one form to another, till at
length such a giddiness seized upon government, that it fell
into the very dregs of sectaries, who threatened an equal
ruin both to minister and magistrate; and how the state has
sympathized with the church is apparent. For have not our
princes as well as our priests been of the lowest of the people P
Have not cobblers, draymen, mechanics, governed, as well as
preached P Nay, have not they by preaching come to govern P
Was ever that of Solomon more verified, that servants have rid,




1 KINGs xiii. 33, 34.] Religion the Best Reason of State.  87
while princes and nobles have gone on foot?  But God has been
pleased by a miracle of mercy to dissipate this confusion and
chaos, and to give us some openings, some dawnings of liberty and settlement. But now, let not those who are to rebuild our Jerusalem think that the temple must be built last:
for if there be such a thing as a God, and religion, as whether
men believe it or no, they will one day find and feel, assuredly
he will stop our liberty, till we restore him his worship. Besides, it is a senseless thing in reason, to think that one of
these interests can stand without the other, when in the very
order of natural causes, government is preserved by religion.
But to return to Jeroboam with whom we first began. He
laid the foundation of his government in destroying, though
doubtless he colored it with the name of reforming God's
worship; but see the issue. Consider him cursed by God,
maintaining his usurped title by continual vexatious wars
against the kings of Judah: smote in his prosperity, which
was made like the dung upon the face of the earth, as low
and vile as those priests whom he had employed: consider
him branded, and made odious to all after-ages: and now,
when his kingdom and glory was at an end, and he and his
posterity rotting under ground, and his name stinking above
it, judge what a worthy prize he made in getting of a kingdom, by destroying the church. Wherefore the sum of all is
this: to advise and desire those whom it may concern, to
consider Jeroboam's punishment, and then they will have
little heart to Jeroboam's sin.




SERMON V.
A SERMON PREACHED  AT LAMBETH  CHAPEL ON THE
25TH OF NOVEMBER, 1666.
UPON THE CONSECRATION OF THE RIGHT REVEREND FATHER IN GOD DR. JOHN
DOLBEN, LORD BISHOP OF ROCHESTER.
TO THE RIGHT REVEREND FATHER IN GOD JOHN, LORD BISHOP OF ROCHESTER,
DEAN OF THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF WESTMINSTER, AND CLERK OF THE
CLOSET TO HIS MAJESTY.
MY LORD,
THOUGH the interposal of my Lord of Canterbury's command
for the publication of this mean discourse may seem  so far
to determine, as even to take away my choice; yet I must own
it to the world, that it is solely and entirely my own inclination,
seconded by my obligations to your Lordship, that makes this, that
was so lately an humble attendant upon your Lordship's consecration,
now ambitious to consecrate itself with your Lordship's name. It
was my honor to have lived in the same college with your Lordship,
and now to belong to the same cathedral, where at present you
credit the church as much by your government, as you did the school
formerly by your wit. Your Lordship even then grew up into a constant superiority above others; and. all your after-greatness seems
but a paraphrase upon those promising beginnings: for whatsoever
you are, or shall be, has been but an easy prognostic from what you
were. It is your Lordship's unhappiness to be cast upon an age in
which the church is in its wane; and if you do not those glorious
things that our English prelates did two or three hundred years since,
it is not because your Lordship is at all less than they, but because
the times are worse. Witness those magnificent buildings in Christ
Church in Oxford, begun and carried on by your Lordship; when by
your place you governed, and by your wisdom increased the treasure
of that college: and, which must eternally set your fame above
the reach of envy and detraction, these great structures you attempted at a. time when you returned poor and bare, to a college




TITUS ii. 15.] The Duties of the Episcopal Functions.      89
as bare, after a long persecution, and before you had laid so much as
one stone in the repairs of your own fortunes: by which incomparably high and generous undertaking, you have shown the world how
fit a person you were to build upon Wolsey's foundation: a prelate
whose great designs you imitate, and whose mind you equal. Briefly,
that Christ Church stands so high above ground, and that the church
of Westminster lies not flat upon it, is your Lordship's commendation.
And therefore your Lordship is not behindhand with the church,
paying it as much credit and support, as you receive from it; for
you owe your promotion to your merit, and, I am sure, your merit to
yourself. All men court you, not so much because a great person, as
a public good. For, as a friend, there is none so hearty, so nobly
warm and active to make good all the offices of that endearing relation; as a patron, none more able to oblige and reward your dependents, and, which is the crowning ornament of power, none more
willing. And lastly, as a diocesan, you are like even to outdo yourself in all other capacities; and, in a word, to exemplify and realize
every word of the following discourse: which is here most humbly
and gratefully presented to your Lordship, by
Your Lordship's
most obliged servant,
From St. James's,                      ROBERT SOUTH.
Dec. 3, 1666.
TITUS ii. 15.- These things speak and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no
man despise thee.
IT  may possibly be expected, that the very taking of my
text out of this epistle to Titus may engage me in a discourse about the nature, original, and divine right of episcopacy; and if it should, it were no more than what some of
the greatest and the learnedest persons in the world (when
men served truth instead of design) had done before: for I
must profess, that I can not look upon Titus as so far unbishoped yet, but that he still exhibits to us all the essentials
of that jurisdiction, which to this day is claimed for episcopal.
We are told in the fifth verse of the first chapter, that he was left
in Crete to set things in order, and to ordain elders in every city;
which text one would think were sufficiently clear and full,
and too big with evidence to be perverted: but when we have
seen rebellion commented out of the thirteenth of the Ro



90        The Duties of the Episcopal Functions.  [SERM. V.
mans; and since there are few things but admit of gloss and
probability, and consequently may be expounded as well as
disputed on both sides; it is no such, wonder, that some
would bear the world in hand, that the apostle's design and
meaning is for presbytery, though his words are all the time
for episcopacy: no wonder, I say, to us at least, who have
conversed with too many strange unparalleled actions, occurrences, and events, now to wonder at any thing: wonder is
from surprise; and surprise ceases upon experience.
I am not so much a friend to the stale starched formality
of preambles, as to detain so great an audience with any
previous discourse extrinsic to the subject matter and design
of the text; and therefore I shall fall directly upon the
words, which run in the form of an exhortation, though in
appearance a very strange one; for the matter of an exhortation should be something naturally in the power of him to
whom  the exhortation is directed.  For no man exhorts
another to be strong, beautiful, witty, or the like; these
are the felicities of some conditions, the object of more
wishes, but the effects of no man's choice. Nor seems there
any greater reason for the apostle's exhorting Titus, that no
man should despise him; for how could another man's action
be his duty P Was it in his power that men should not be
wicked and injurious; and if such persons would despise
him, could any thing pass an obligation upon him not to be
despised P No, this can not be the meaning; and therefore
it is clear that the exhortation lies not against the action
itself, which is only in the despiser's power, but against the
just occasion of it, which is in the will and power of him
that is despised: it was not in Titus's power that men should:not despise him, but it was in his power to bereave them of
all just cause of doing so; it was not in his power not to be
derided, but it was in his power not to be ridiculous.
In all this epistle it is evident that St. Paul looks upon
Titus as advanced to the dignity of a prime ruler of the
church, and intrusted with a large diocese, containing many
particular churches under the immediate government of
their respective elders; and those deriving authority from his
ordination, as was specified in the fifth verse of the first chapter. And now looking upon Titus under this qualification,




Tus ii. 15.] The Duties of the Episcopal Functions.   91
he addresses a long advice and instruction to him, for the
discharge of so important a function, all along the first and
second chapters; but sums up all in the last verse, which is
the subject of the ensuing discourse, and contains in it these
two things:
I. An account of the duties of his place or office.
II. Of the means to facilitate and make effectual their execution.
I. The duties of his place were two. 1. To teach. 2. To
rule.  Both comprised in these words: These things speak
and exhort, and rebuke with all authority.
And then the means, the only means to make him successful, bright, and victorious in the performance of these great
works, was to be above contempt, to shine like the Baptist,
with a clear and a triumphant light. In a word, it is every
bishop's duty to teach and to govern; and his way to do it
is not to be despised.
We will discourse of each respectively in their order.
1. And first, for the first branch of the great work incumbent upon a church ruler, which is to teach. A work that
none is too great or too high for; it is a work of charity,
and charity is the work of heaven, which is always laying
itself out upon the needy and the impotent: nay, and it is
a work of the highest and the noblest charity; for he that
teacheth another, gives an alms to his soul; he clothes the
nakedness of his understanding, and relieves the wants of
his impoverished reason: he indeed that governs well, leads
the blind; but he that teaches, gives him eyes: and it is a
glorious thing to have been the repairer of a decayed intellect, and a sub-worker to grace, in freeing it from some of the
inconveniences of original sin. It is a benefaction that gives
a man a kind of prerogative; for even in the common dialect
of the world every teacher is called a master: it is the property of instruction to descend, and upon that very account,
it supposes him that instructs, the superior, or at least makes
him so.
To say a man is advanced too high to condescend to teach
the ignorant, is as much as to say, that the sun is in too high
a place to shine upon what is below it. The sun is said to
rule the day, and the moon to rule the night: but do they not




92        The Duties of the Episcopal Functions.   [SERM. V.
rule them only by enlightening them P Doctrine is that, that
must prepare men for discipline; and men never go on so
cheerfully, as when they see where they go.
Nor is the dullness of the scholar to extinguish, but rather
to inflame the charity of the teacher: for since it is not in
men as vessels, that the smallest capacity is the soonest
filled; where the labor is doubled, the value of the work is
enhanced; for it is a sowing where a man never expects to
reap any thing but the comfort and conscience of having
done virtuously. And yet we know moreover, that God sometimes converts even the dull and the slow, turning very stones
into sons of Abraham; where besides that the difficulty of
the conquest advances the trophy of the conqueror, it often
falls out, that the backward learner makes amends another
way, recompensing sure for sudden, expiating his want of
docility with a deeper and a more rooted retention: which
alone were argument sufficient to enforce the apostle's injunction of being instant in season and out of season, even
upon the highest, and most exalted riler in the church. He
that sits in Moses's chair, sits there to instruct, as well as to
rule: and a general's office engages him to lead, as well as to
command his army. In the first of Ecclesiastes, Solomon
represents himself both as preacher and king of Israel: and
every soul that a bishop gains is a new accession to the
extent of his power; he preaches his jurisdiction wider, and
enlarges his spiritual diocese, as he enlarges men's apprehensions.
The teaching part indeed of a Romish bishop is easy
enough, whose grand business is only to teach men to be
ignorant, to instruct them how to know nothing, or, which is
all one, to know upon trust, to believe implicitly, and in a
word, to see with other men's eyes, till they come to be lost
in their own souls. But our religion is a religion that dares
to be understood; that offers itself to the search of the inquisitive, to the inspection of the severest and the most
awakened reason: for being secure of her substantial truth
and purity, she knows, that for her to be seen and looked
into, is to be embraced and admired: as there needs no
greater argument for men to love the light, than to see it.
It needs no legends, no service in an unknown tongue, no in



TITUSii. 15.] The Duties of the Episoopal Functions.   93
quisition against scripture, no purging out the heart and sense
of authors, no altering -or bribing the voice of antiquity to
speak for it; it needs none of all these laborious artifices of
ignorance; none of all these cloaks and coverings. The
Romish faith indeed must be covered, or it can not be kept
warm, and their clergy deal with their religion as with a
great crime; if it is discovered, they are undone. But there
is no bishop of the church of England, but accounts it his
interest, as well as his duty, to comply with this precept of
the apostle Paul to Titus, These things teach and exhort.
Now this teaching may be effected two ways:
(1.) Immediately by himself.
(2.) Mediately by others.
And first, immediately by himself. Where God gives a
talent, the episcopal robe can be no napkin to hide it in.
Change of condition changes not the alilities of nature but
makes them  more illustrious in their exercise; and the
episcopal dignity added to a good preaching faculty is like
the erecting of a stately fountain upon a spring, which still,
for all that, remains as much a spring as it was before, and
flows as plentifully, only it flows with the circumstance of
greater state and magnificence. Height of place is intended
only to stamp the endowments of a private condition with
lustre and authority: and, thanks be to God, neither the
church's professed enemies, nor her pretended friends, have
any cause to asperse her in this respect, she having over her
such bishops as are able to silence the factious, no less by
their preaching than by their authority.
But then, on the other hand, let me add also, that this is
not so absolutely necessary, as to be of the vital constitution
of this function. He may teach his diocese, who ceases to
be able to preach to it: for he may do it by appointing teachers, and by a vigilant exacting from them the care and the
instruction of their respective flocks. He is the spiritual
father of his diocese; and a father may see his children
taught, though he himself does not turn schoolmaster. It is
not the gift of every person nor of every age, to harangue
the multitude, to voice it high and loud, et dominari in concionibus. And since experience fits for government, and age usually brings experience, perhaps the most governing years are
the least preaching years.




94        The Duties of the Episcopal Functions.   [SERM. V.
(2.) In the second place therefore, there is a teaching mediately, by the subordinate ministration of others; in which,
since the action of the instrumental agent is, upon all
grounds of reason, to be ascribed to the principal, he, who
ordains and furnishes all his churches with able preachers, is an universal teacher; he instructs where he can not be
present; he speaks in every mouth of his diocese; and every
congregation of it every Sunday feels his influence, though it
hears not his voice. That master deprives not his family of
their food, who orders a faithful steward to dispense it.
Teaching is not a flow of words, nor the draining of an hourglass, but an effectual procuring, that a man comes to know
something which he knew not before, or to know it better.
And therefore eloquence and ability of speech is to a church
governor, as Tully said it was to a philosopher; Si afferatur,
non repudianda; si absit, non magnopere desideranda: and to
find fault with such an one for not being a popular speaker,
is to blame a painter for not being a good musician.
To teach indeed must be confessed his duty, but then there
is a teaching by example, by authority, by restraining seducers, and so removing the hinderances of knowledge. And a
bishop does his church, his prince and country, more service
by ruling other men's tongues, than he can by employing his
own. And thus much for the first branch of the great work
belonging to a pastor of the church, which was to teach and to
exhort.
-2. The second is to rule, expressed in these words; rebuke
with all authority.  By which I doubt not but the apostle
principally intends church censures; and so the words are a
metonymy of the part for the whole, giving an instance in
ecclesiastical censures, instead of all other ecclesiastical jurisdiction. A jurisdiction, which in the essentials of it is as old
as. Christianity, and even in those circumstantial additions
of secular encouragement, with which the piety and wisdom
of Christian princes always thought necessary to support it
against the encroachments of the injurious world, much older
and more venerable than any constitution that has divested
the church of it.
But to speak directly to the thing before us; we see here
the great apostle employing the utmost of his authority in




TITUS ii. 15.] The Duties of the Episcopal Functions.  95
commanding Titus to use his: and what he said to him, he says
to every Christian bishop after him, rebuke with all authority.
This authority is a spiritual sword put into the hands of every
church ruler; and God put not this sword into his hands,
with an intent that he should keep it there for no other purpose, but only for fashion sake, as men used to wear one by
their sides. Government is an art above the attainment of
an ordinary genius, and requires a wider, a larger, and a
more comprehending soul than God has put into every body.
The spirit which animates and acts the universe, is a spirit
of government; and that ruler that is possessed of it, is the
substitute and vicegerent of Providence, whether in church
or state: every bishop is God's curate. Now the nature of
government contains in it these three parts:
(1.) An exaction of duty from the persons placed under it.
(2.) A protection of them in the performance of their duty.
(3.) Coercion and animadversion upon such as neglect it.
All which are, in their proportion, ingredients of that government which we call ecclesiastical.
(1.) And first, it implies exaction of duty from the persons
placed under it: for it is both to be confessed and lamented,
that men are not so ready to offer it, where it is not exacted:
otherwise, what means the service of the church so imperfectly and by halves read over, and that by many who profess
a conformity to the rules of the church? What makes them
mince and mangle that in their practice, which they could
swallow whole in their subscriptions P Why are the public
prayers curtailed and left out, prayers composed with sobriety,
and enjoined with authority, only to make the more room
for a long, crude, impertinent, upstart harangue before the
sermon P
Such persons seem to conform (the signification of which
word they never make good) only that they may:despise the
church's: injunctions under the church's wing, and contemn
authority within the protection of the laws.  Duty is but
another English word for debt; and God knows, that it is
well if men pay their debts when they are called upon. But
if governors do not remind men of, and call them to obedience, they will find, that it will never come as a free-will
offering, no not from many who even serve at the altar.




96        The Duties of the Episcopal Functions.  [SERM. V.
(2.) Government imports a protection and encouragement
of the persons under it, in the discharge of their duty. It
is not for a magistrate to frown upon, and browbeat those who
are hearty and exact in the management of their ministry;
and with a grave insignificant nod, to call a well-regulated
and resolved zeal, want of prudence and moderation. Such
discouraging of men in the ways of an active conformity to
the church's rules is that, which will crack the sinews of government; for it weakens the hands and damps the spirits of
the obedient. And if only scorn and rebuke shall attend men
for asserting the church's dignity, and taxing the murder of
kings, and the like; many will choose rather to neglect their
duty safely and creditably, than to get a broken pate in the
church's service, only to be rewarded with that which shall
break their hearts too.
(3.) The third thing implied in government is coercion,
and animadversion upon such as neglect their duty: without
which coercive power all government is but toothless and precarious, and does not so much command as beg obedience.
Nothing, I confess, is more becoming a Christian, of what degree soever, than meekness, candor, and condescension; but
they are virtues that have their proper sphere and season to
act and show themselves in, and consequently not to interfere with others, different indeed in their nature, but altogether as necessary in their use.  And when an insolent
despiser of discipline, nurtured into impudence and contempt
of all order by a long risk of license and rebellion, shall appear before a church governor, severity and resolution are
that governor's virtues, and justice itself is his mercy; for
by making such an one an example; (as much as in him lies,)
he will either cure him,.or at least preserve others.
Were indeed the consciences of men as they should be, the
censures of the church might be a sufficient coercion upon
them; but being, as most of them nowadays are, hell and
damnation proof, her bare anathemas fall but like so many
brutta fiulmina upon the obstinate and schismatical; who are
like to think themselves shrewdly hurt (forsooth) by being
cut off from that body, which they choose not to be of; and
so being punished into a quiet enjoyment of their beloved
separation. Some will by no means allow the church any




TITUS ii. 15.] The Duties of the Episcopal Functions.  97
further power than only to exhort and to advise; and this
but with a proviso too, that it extends not to such as think
themselves too wise and too great to be advised; according
to the hypothesis of which persons, the authority of the
church, and the obliging force of all church sanctions, can
bespeak men only thus: These and these things it is your
duty to do, and if you will not do them, you may as well let
them alone.  A strict and efficacious constitution indeed,
which invests the church with no power at all, but where men
will be so very civil as to obey it, and so at the same time pay
it a duty, and do it a courtesy too.
But when in the judgment of some men the spiritual function, as such, must render a churchman, though otherwise
never so discreet and qualified, yet merely because he is a
churchman, unfit to be intrusted by his prince with a share
of-.that power and jurisdiction, which in many circumstances
his prince has judged but too necessary to secure the affairs
and dignity of the church; and which every thriving grazier
can think himself but ill dealt with, if within his own country
he is not mounted to: it is a sign, that such discontented
persons intend not that religion shall advise them upon any
other terms, than that they may ride and govern their
religion.
But surely, all our kings and our parliaments understood
well enough what they did, when they thought fit to prop
and fortify the spiritual order with some power that was temporal; and such is the present state of the world, in the
judgment of any observing eye, that if the bishop has no
other defensatives but excommunication, no other power but
that of the keys, he may, for any notable effect that he is like
to do upon the factious and contumacious, surrender up his
pastoral staff, shut up the church, and put those keys under
the door.
And thus I have endeavored to show the three things
included in the general nature of government; but to prescribe the manner of it in particular is neither in my power
nor inclination: only, I suppose, the common theory and
speculation of things is free and open to any one whom God
has sent into the world with some ability to contemplate, and
by continuing him in the world, gives him also opportunity.
VOL. I..   7




98        The Duties of the Episcopal Functions.   [SERM. V.
In all that has been said, I do not in the least pretend to
advise, or chalk out rules to my superiors; for some men can
not be fools with so good acceptance as others. But whosoever is called to speak upon a certain occasion, may, I conceive, without offense, take any text suitable to that occasion,
and having taken it, may, or at least ought, to speak suitably
to that text.
II. I proceed now to the second thing proposed from the
words, which is the means assigned for the discharge of the
duties mentioned, and exhibited under this one short prescription, Let no man despise thee: in the handling of which I shall
show,
1. The ill effects and destructive influence that contempt
has upon government.
2. The groundless causes upon which church rulers are frequently despised.
3. And lastly, the just causes that would render them, or
indeed any other rulers, worthy to be despised. All which
being clearly made out, and impartially laid before our eyes,
it will be easy and obvious for every one, by avoiding the evil
so marked out, to answer and come up to the apostle's exhortation. And,
1. We will discourse of contempt, and the malign hostile
influence it has upon government. As for the thing itself,
every man's experience will inform him, that there is no
action in the behavior of one man towards another, of which
human nature is more impatient than of contempt, it being a
thing made up of these two ingredients, an undervaluing of
a man upon a belief of his utter uselessness and inability,
and a spiteful endeavor to engage the rest of the'world in the
same belief and slight esteem of him. So that the immediate
design of contempt is the shame of the person contemned;
and shame is a banishment of him from the good opinion of
the world, which every man most earnestly desires, both upon
a principle of nature and of interest. For it is natural to all
men to affect a good name; and he that despises a man,
libels him in his thoughts, reviles and traduces him in his
judgment. And there is also interest in the case; for a
desire to be well thought of, directly resolves itself into that
owned and mighty principle of self-preservation: forasmuch




TITUS ii. 15.] The Duties of the Episcopal Functions.  99
as thoughts are the first wheels and motives of action, and
there is no long passage from one to the other. He that
thinks a man to the ground, will, quickly endeavor to lay
him there; for:while he despises him, he arraigns and condemns him in his heart; and the after-bitterness and cruelties of his. practices are but the executioners of the sentence
passed before upon him by his judgment. Centempt, like the
planet Saturn, has first an ill aspect, and then a destroying
influence.
By all which, I suppose, it is sufficiently proved how noxious it must.needs be to every governor: for, can a man respect the person whom he despises P and can there be obedience, where there is not so much as respect?  Will the knee
bend, while the heart insults? and the actions submit, while
the apprehensions:rebel? And therefore the most experienced disturbers and underminers of government have always
laid their first train in contempt, endeavoring to blow it up
in the judgment and esteem of the subject. And was not
this method observed in the late most flourishing and successful rebellion?  For, how studiously did they lay about them,
both from the pulpit and the press, to cast a slur upon the
king's person, and to bring his governing abilities under a
disrepute? And then after they had sufficiently blasted him
in his personal capacity, they found it easy work to dash and
overthrow him in his political.
Reputation is power, and consequently to despise is to
weaken. For where there is contempt, there can be no awe;
and where there is no awe, there will be no subjection; and
if there is no subjection, it is impossible, without the help of
the former distinction of a politic capacity, to imagine how a
prince can be a governor. He that makes his prince despised
and undervalued, blows a trumpet against him  in men's
breasts, beats him out of his subjects' hearts, and fights him
out of their affections; and after this, he may easily strip him
of his other garrisons, having already dispossessed him of his
strongest, by dismantling him of his honor, and seizing his
reputation.
Nor is what has been said of princes less true of all other
governors, from highest to lowest, from him that heads an
army, to him that is master of a family, or of one single




100       The Duities of the Episcopal Functions.  [SERM. V.
servant; the formal reason of a thing equally extending itself
to every particular of the same kind. It is a proposition of
eternal verity, that none can govern while he is despised.
We may as well imagine that there may be a king without
majesty, a supreme without sovereignty.  It is a paradox,
and a direct contradiction in practice; for where contempt
takes place, the very causes and capacities of government
cease.
Men are so far from being governed by a despised person,
that they will not so much as be taught by him. Truth
itself shall lose its credit, if delivered by a person that has
none. As on the contrary, be but a person in vogue and
credit with the multitude, he shall be able to commend and
set off whatsoever he says, to authorize any nonsense, and to
make popular, rambling, incoherent stuff (seasoned with
twang and tautology) pass for high rhetoric and moving
preaching; such indeed as a zealous tradesman would even
live and die under. And now, I suppose, it is no ill topic of
argumentation, to show the prevalence of contempt, by the
contrary influences of respect; which thus (as it were) dubs
every little, petit, admired person, lord and commander of all
his admirers. And certain it is, that the ecclesiastical, as
well as the civil governor, has cause to pursue the same
methods of securing and confirming himself; the grounds
and means of government being founded upon the same bottom of nature in both, though the circumstances and relative
considerations-of the persons may differ. And I have nothing to say more upon this head, but that if churchmen are
called upon to discharge the parts of governors, they may
with the highest reason expect those supports and helps that
are indispensably requisite thereunto; and that those men
are but trepanned, who are called to govern, being invested
with authority, but bereaved of power; which, according to a
true and plain estimate of things, is nothing else but to mock
and betray them into a splendid and magisterial way of being
ridiculous. And thus much for the ill effects and destructive
influence that contempt has upon government.
2. I pass now to the second thing, -which is to show the
groundless causes, upon which church rulers are frequently
despised.




TITUS ii. 15.] The Duties of the Episcopal Functions.  101
Concerning which, I shall premise this: that nothing can
be a reasonable ground of despising a man, but some fault
or other chargeable upon him; and nothing can be a fault
that is not naturally in a man's power to prevent; otherwise,
it is a man's unhappiness, his mischance, or calamity, but not
his fault. Nothing can justly be despised, that can not
justly be blamed: and it is a most certain rule in reason and
moral philosophy, that where there is no choice, there can be
no blame.
This premised, we may take notice of two usual grounds
of the contempt men cast upon the clergy, and yet for which
no man ought to think himself at all the more worthy to be
contemned.
(1.) The first is their very profession itself; concerning
which it is a sad, but an experimented truth, that the names
derived from it, in the refined language of the present age,
are made but the appellatives of scorn. This is not charged
universally upon all, but experience will affirm, or rather
proclaim it of much the greater part of the world; and men
must persuade us that we have lost our hearing and our
common sense, before we can believe the contrary. But
surely, the bottom and foundation of this behavior towards
persons set apart for the service of God, that this very relation should entitle them to such a peculiar scorn, can be
nothing else but atheism, the growing rampant sin of the
times.
For call a man oppressor, griping, covetous, or overreaching person, and the word indeed, being ill befriended by
custom, perhaps sounds not well, but generally, in the apprehension of the hearer, it signifies no more than that such
an one is a wise and a thriving, or, in the common phrase, a
notable man; which will certainly procure him a respect:
and say of another, that he is an epicure, a loose, or a vicious
man, and it leaves in men no other opinion of him than
that he is a merry, pleasant, and a genteel person, and that
he that taxes him is but a pedant, an unexperienced and a
morose fellow; one that does not know men, nor understand
what it is to eat and drink well: but call a man priest or
parson, and you set him, in some men's esteem, ten degrees
below his own servant.




~i102      The Duties of the Episcopal Functions.  [SERM. V.
But let us not be discouraged or displeased, either with
ourselves or our profession, upon this account. Let the virtuosos mock, insult, and despise on: yet after all, they shall
never be able to droll away the nature of things; to trample
a pearl into a pebble, nor to make sacred things contemptible,
any more than themselves, by such speeches, honorable.
(2.) Another groundless cause of some men's despising the
governors of our church is their loss of that former grandeur
and privilege that they enjoyed. But it is no real disgrace
to the church merely to lose her privileges, but to forfeit
them by her fault or misdemeanor, of which she is not conscious. Whatsoever she enjoyed in this kind, she readily
acknowledges to have streamed from the royal munificence,
and the favors of the civil power shining upon the spiritual;
which favors the same power may retract and gather back
into itself, when it pleases. And we envy not the greatness
and lustre of the Romish clergy; neither their scarlet gowns
nor their scarlet sins. If our church can not be great;
which is better, she can be humble, and content to be reformed into as low a condition as men for their own private
advantage would have her; who wisely tell her, that it is best
and safest for her to be without any power or temporal advantage; like the good physician, who out of tenderness to
his patient, lest he should hurt himself by drinking, was so
kind as to rob him of his silver cup. The church of England
glories in nothing more, than that she is the truest friend to
kings and to kingly government of any other church in the
world; that they were the same hands and principles that
took the crown from the king's head, and the mitre from the
bishops. It is indeed the happiness of some professions and
callings, that they can equally square themselves to, and
thrive under all revolutions of government: but the clergy
of England neither know nor affect that happinesA, and are
willing to be despised for not doing so.  And so far is
our church from encroaching upon the civil power, as some,
who are back-friends to both, would maliciously insinuate,
that, were it stripped of the very remainder of its privileges,
and made as like the primitive church for its bareness, as it
is already for its purity, it could cheerfully, and, what is
more, loyally, want all such privileges; and in the want of




TITUS ii. 15.] The Duties of the Episcopal Functions.  103
them pray heartily that the civil power may flourish as much,
and stand as secure from the assaults of fanatic, antimonarchical principles, (grown to such a dreadful height during the
church's late confusions,) as it stood while the church enjoyed
those privileges.  And thus much for the two groundless
causes upon which church rulers are frequently despised.
I descend now to the
3. And last thing, which is to show those just causes, that
would render them, or indeed any other rulers, worthy to be
despised. Many might be assigned, but I shall pitch only
upon four; in discoursing of which, rather the time than the
subject will force me to be very brief.
(1.) And the first is ignorance. We know how great an
absurdity our Saviour accounted it, for the blind to lead the
blind; and to put him that can not so much as see, to discharge the office of a watch. Nothing more exposes to contempt than ignorance. When Samson's eyes were, out, of a
public magistrate he was made a public sport. And when
Eli was blind, we know how well he governed his sons, and
how well they governed the church under him. But now the
blindness of the understanding is greater and more scandalous; especially in such a seeing age as ours; in which the
very knowledge of former times passes but for ignorance in
a better dress: an age that flies at all learning, and inquires
into every thing, but especially into faults and defects. Ignorance indeed, so far as it may be resolved into natural inability, is, as to men, at least, inculpable; and consequently,
not the object of scorn, but pity; but in a governor, it can
not be without the conjunction of the highest impudence:
for who bid such an one aspire to teach and to govern P A
blind man sitting in the chimney-corner is pardonable enough,
but sitting at the helm he is intolerable. If men will be ignorant and illiterate, let them be so in private, and to themselves, and not. set their defects in an high place, to make
them visible and conspicuous. If owls will not be hooted at,
let them keep close within the tree, and not perch upon the
upper boughs., (2.) A second thing that makes a governor justly despised,
is viciousness and ill morals. Virtue is that which must tip
the preacher's tongue and the ruler's sceptre with authority.,




104       The Duties of the Episcopal Functions.  [SERM. V.
And therefore with what a controlling overpowering force
did our Saviour tax the sins of the Jews, when he ushered in
his rebukes of them with that high assertion of himself, Who
is there amongst you, that convinces me of sin? Otherwise we
may easily guess with what impatience the world would have
heard an incestuous Herod discoursing of chastity, a Judas
condemning covetousness, or a Pharisee preaching against
hypocrisy: every word must have recoiled upon the speaker.
Guilt is that which quells the courage of the bold, ties the
tongue of the eloquent, and makes greatness itself sneak and
lurk, and behave itself poorly. For, let a vicious person be
in never so high command, yet still he will be looked upon
but as one great vice, empowered to correct and chastise
others. A corrupt governor is nothing else but a reigning
sin: and a sin in office may command any thing but respect.
No man can be credited by his place or power, who by his
virtue does not first credit that.
(3.) A third thing that makes a governor justly despised,
is fearfulness of, and mean compliances with bold, popular
offenders. Some indeed account it the very spirit of policy
and prudence, where men refuse to come up to a law, to make
the law come down to them. And for their so doing, have
this infallible recompense, that they are not at all the more
loved, but much the less feared; and, which is a sure consequent of it, accordingly respected. But believe it, it is a
resolute, tenacious adherence to well chosen principles that
adds glory to greatness, and makes the face of a governor
shine in the eyes of those that see and examine his actions.
Disobedience, if complied with, is infinitely encroaching, and
having gained one degree of liberty upon indulgence, will
demand another upon claim. Every vice interprets a connivance and approbation.
Which being so, is it not an enormous indecency, as well
as a gross impiety, that any one who owns the name of a
divine, hearing a great sinner brave it against Heaven, talk
atheistically, and scoff profanely at that religion by which he
owns an expectation to be saved, if he cares to be saved at
all, should, instead of vindicating the truth to the blasphemer's
teeth, think it discretion and moderation (forsooth) with a
complying silence, and perhaps a smile to boot, tacitly to




TITUS ii. 15.] The Duties of the Episcopal Functions.  105
approve, and strike in with the scoffer, and so go sharer both
in the mirth and guilt of his profane jests P
But let such an one be assured, that even that blasphemer
himself would inwardly reverence him, if rebuked by him;
as, on the contrary, he in his heart really despises him for
his cowardly, base silence.  If any one should reply here,
that the times and manners of men will not bear such a practice, I confess that it is an answer, from the mouth of a professed time-server, very rational: but as for that man that is
not so, let him satisfy himself of the reason, justice, and duty
of an action, and leave the event of it to God, who will never
fail those who do not think themselves too wise to trust him.
For, let the worst come to the worst, a man in so doing would
be ruined more honorably than otherwise preferred.
(4.) And lastly.  A fourth thing that makes a governor
justly despised, is a proneness to despise others. There is
a kind of respect due to the meanest person, even from the
greatest; for it is the mere favor of Providence, that he, who
is actually the greatest, was not the meanest. A man can
not cast his respects so low, but they will rebound and return
upon him. What Heaven bestows upon the earth in kind influences and benign aspects, is paid it back again in sacrifice,
incense, and adoration. And surely, a great person gets
more by obliging his inferior, than he can by disdaining him;
as a man has a greater advantage by sowing and dressing his
ground, than he can have by trampling upon it. It is not to
insult and domineer, to look disdainfully, and revile imperiously, that procures an esteem from any one; it will indeed
make men keep their distance sufficiently, but it will be distance without reverence.
And thus I have shown four several causes that may justly
render any ruler despised; and by the same work, I hope,
have made it evident, how little cause men have to despise
the rulers of our church.
God is the fountain of honor; and the conduit by which
he conveys it to the sons of men, are virtuous and generous
practices. But as for us, who have more immediately and
nearly devoted both our persons and concerns to his service,
it were infinitely vain to expect it upon any other terms.
Some indeed may please and promise themselves high mat



106       The Duties of the Episoopal Functions.  [SERM. V.
ters, from full revenues, stately palaces, court-interests, and
great dependences: but that which makes the clergy glorious,
is to be knowing in their profession, unspotted in their lives,
active and laborious in their charges, bold and resolute in opposing seducers, and daring to look vice in the face, though
never so potent and illustrious; and lastly, to be gentle,
courteous, and compassionate to all.
These are our robes and our maces, our escutcheons, and
highest titles of honor: for by all these things God is honored, who has declared this the eternal rule and standard of
all honor derivable upon men, that those who honor him, shall
he honored by him.
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 VI.
JOHN Vii. 17. — If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it
be of God, or whether I speak of myself.
W        HEN God was pleased to new-model the world by the
introduction of a new religion, and that in the room
of one set up by himself, it was requisite that he should recommend it to the reasons of men with the same authority
and evidence that enforced the former; and that a religion
established by God himself should not be displaced by any
thing under a demonstration of that divine power that first
introduced it. And the whole Jewish economy, we know,
was brought in with miracles; the law was writ and confirmed by the same almighty hand: the whole universe was
subservient to its promulgation: the signs of Egypt and the
Red Sea; fire and a voice from heaven; the heights of the
one, and the depths of the other; so that, as it were, from
the top to the bottom of nature there issued forth one universal united testimony of the divinity of the Mosaic law and
religion. And this stood in the world for the space of two
thousand years; till at length, in the fullness of time, the
reason of men ripening to such a pitch as to be above the
pedagogy of Moses's rod, and the discipline of types, God
thought fit to display the substance without the shadow, and
to read the world a lecture of an higher and more sublime
religion in Christianity. But the Jewish was yet in possession, and therefore that this might so enter as not to intrude,
it was to bring its warrant from the same hand of omnipotence. And for this cause, Christ, that he might not make
either a suspected or precarious address to men's understandings, outdoes Moses before he displaces him; shows an ascendant spirit above him, raises the dead, and cures more
plagues than he brought upon Egypt, casts out devils, and




108          W     hy Christ's Doctrine        [SERM. VI.
heals the deaf, speaking such words, as even gave ears to
hear them; cures the blind and the lame, and makes the very
dumb to speak for the truth of his doctrine. But what was
the result of all this? Why, some look upon him as an impostor and a conjurer, as an agent for Beelzebub, and therefore reject his gospel, hold fast their law, and will not let
Moses give place to the magician.
Now the cause that Christ's doctrine was rejected must of
necessity be one of these two. 1. An insufficiency in the arguments brought by Christ to enforce it. Or, 2. An indisposition in the persons, to whom this doctrine was addressed,
to receive it.
And for this, Christ, who had not only an infinite power to
work miracles, but also an equal wisdom both to know the
just force and measure of every argument or motive to
persuade or cause assent; and withal, to look through and
through all the dark corners of the soul of man, all the
windings and turnings, and various workings of his faculties;
and to discern how and by what means they are to be
wrought upon; and what prevails upon them, and what does
not: he, I say, stakes the whole matter upon this issue; that
the arguments by which his doctrine addressed itself to the
minds of men, were proper, adequate, and sufficient to compass their respective ends in persuading or convincing the
persons to whom they were proposed: and, moreover, that
there was no such defect in the natural light of man's understanding, or knowing faculty; but that, considered in itself,
it would be apt enough to close with, and yield its assent to,
the evidence of those arguments duly offered to and laid
before it. And yet, that, after all this, the event proved
otherwise; and that, notwithstanding both the weight and
fitness of the arguments to persuade, and the light of man's
intellect to meet this persuasive evidence with a suitable
assent, no assent followed, nor were men thereby actually
persuaded; he charges it wholly upon the corruption, the
perverseness, and viciosity of man's will, as the only cause
that rendered all the arguments, his doctrine came clothed
with, unsuccessful. And consequently he affirms here in the
text, that men must love the truth before they throughly believe it; and that the gospel has then only a free admission




JoHN vii. 17.]  was rejected by the Jews.            109
into the assent of the understanding, when it brings a passport from a rightly disposed will, as being the great faculty
of dominion, that commands all, that shuts out and lets in
what objects it pleases, and, in a word, keeps the keys of the
whole soul.
This is the design and purport of the words, which I shall
draw forth and handle in the prosecution of these four following heads:
I. I shall show, what the doctrine of Christ was that the
world so much stuck at and was so averse from believing.
II. I shall show, that men's unbelief of it was from  no
defect or insufficiency in the arguments brought by Christ to
enforce it.
III. I shall show, what was the true and proper cause into
which this unbelief was resolved.
IV. And, lastly, I shall show, that a pious and well disposed
mind, attended with a readiness to obey the known will of
God, is the surest and best means to enlighten the understanding to a belief of Christianity.
Of these in their order; and,
First, for the doctrine of Christ. We must take it in the
known and common division of it, into matters of belief, and
matters of practice.
The matters of belief related chiefly to his person and
offices. As, That he was the Messias that should come into
the world: the eternal son of God, begotten of him  before
all worlds: that in time he was made man, and born of a
pure virgin: that he should die and satisfy for the sins of
the world; and that he should rise again from the dead, and
ascend into heaven; and there sitting at the right hand of
God, hold the government of the whole world, till the great
and last day; in which he should judge both the quick and
the dead, raised to life again with the very same bodies; and
then deliver up all rule and government into the hands of his
Father. These were the great articles and credemda of Christianity that so much startled the world, and seemed to be
such as not only brought in a new religion amongst men, but
also required new reason to embrace it.
The other part of his doctrine lay in matters of practice;
which we find contained in his several sermons, but prin



110               Why Christ's Doctrine         [SERM. VI.
cipally in that glorious, full, and admirable discourse upon
the mount, recorded in the 5th, 6th, and 7th chapters of St.
Matthew. All which particulars if we would reduce to one
general comprehensive head, they are all wrapt up in the
doctrine of self-denial,* prescribing to the world the most
inward purity of heart, and a constant conflict with all our
sensual appetites and worldly interests, even to the quitting
of all that is dear to us, and the sacrificing of life itself,
rather than knowingly to omit the least duty, or commit
the least sin. And this was that which grated harder upon,
and raised greater tumults and boilings in the hearts of
men, than the strangeness and seeming unreasonableness of
all the former articles, that took up chiefly in speculation and
belief.
And that this was so, will appear from a consideration of
the state and condition the world was in, as to religion, when
Christ promulged his doctrine. Nothing further than the
outward action was then looked after, and when that failed,
there was an expiation ready in the opus operatumrn of a sacrifice. So that all their virtue and religion lay in their folds
and their stalls, and what was wanting in the innocence, the
blood of lambs was to supply.! The Scribes and Pharisees, who
were the great doctors of the Jewish church, expounded the
law no further. They accounted no man a murderer, but he
that struck a knife into his brother's heart: no man an adulterer, but he that actually defiled his neighbor's bed. They
thought it no injustice nor irreligion to prosecute the severest
retaliation or revenge; so that at the same time their outward man might be a saint, and their inward man a devil.
No care at all was had to curb the unruliness of anger, or
the exorbitance of desire. Amongst all their sacrifices, they
never sacrificed so much as one lust. Bulls and goats bled
apace, but neither the violence of the one, nor the wantonness
of the other, ever died a victim at any of their altars. So
that no wonder, that a doctrine that arraigned the irregularities of the most inward motions and affections of the soul,
and told men that anger and harsh words were murder, and
looks and desires, adultery; that a man might stab with his
tongue, and assassinate with his mind, pollute himself with a
* See Sermon on Matth. x. 33, ante, p.. 42.




JOHN vii. 17.]  was rejected by the Jews.            Ill
glance, and forfeit eternity by a cast of his eye: no wonder, I
say, that such a doctrine made a strange bustle and disturbance in the world, which then sat warm and easy in a free
enjoyment of their lusts; ordering matters so, that they put
a trick upon the great rule of virtue, the law, and made a
shift to think themselves guiltless, in spite of all their sins;
to break the precept, and at the same time to baffle the curse;
contriving to themselves such a sort of holiness as should
please God and themselves too, justify and save them harmless, but never sanctify nor make them better.
But the severe notions of Christianity turned all this upside down, filling all with surprise and amazement: they came
upon the world, like light darting full upon the face of a
man asleep, who had a mind to sleep on, and not to be disturbed: they were terrible astonishing alarms to persons
grown fat and wealthy by a long and successful imposture;
by suppressing the true sense of the law, by putting another
veil upon Moses; and, in a word, persuading the world, that
men might be honest and religious, happy and blessed, though
they never denied nor mortified one of their corrupt appetites.
And thus much for the first thing proposed; which was
to give you a brief draught of the doctrine of Christ, that
met with so little assent from the world in general, and from
the Jews in particular. I come now to the
Second thing proposed: which was to show, That men's
unbelief of Christ's doctrine was from no defect or insufficiency in the arguments brought by Christ to enforce it.
This I shall make appear two ways:
1. By showing, that the arguments spoken of were in
themselves convincing and sufficient.
2. By showing, that upon supposition they were not so, yet
their insufficiency was not the cause of their rejection.
And, first, for the first of these: That the arguments brought
by Christ for the confirmation of his doctrine were in themselves convincing and sufficient. I shall insist only upon the
convincing power of the two principal.  One from the prophecies recorded concerning him; the other from the miracles done by him. Of both very briefly. And for the former. There was a full entire harmony and consent of all the
divine predictions receiving their completion in Christ. The




112              Why Christ's Doctrine          [SERM. VI.
strength of which argument lies in this, that it evinces the
divine mission of Christ's person, and thereby proves him to
be the Messias; which by consequence proves and asserts the
truth of his doctrine. For he that was so sent by God, could
declare nothing but the will of God. And so evidently do all
the prophecies agree to Christ, that I dare with great confidence affirm, that if the prophecies recorded of the Messiah
are not fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth, it is impossible to know
or distinguish when a prophecy is fulfilled and when not, in
any thing or person whatsoever; which would utterly evacuate the use of them. But in Christ they all meet with such
an invincible lustre and evidence, as if they were not predictions, but after-relations; and the penmen of them not
prophets, but evangelists. And now, can any kind of ratiocination allow Christ all the marks of the Messiah, and yet
deny him to be the Messiah P Could he have all the signs,
and- yet not be the thing signified P? Could the shadows that
followed him, and were cast from him, belong to any other
body P All these things are absurd and unnatural; and therefore the force of this argument was undeniable.
Nor was that other from the miracles done by him at all
inferior. The strength and force of which, to prove the
things they are alleged for, consists in this, that a miracle
being a work exceeding the power of any created agent, and
consequently being an effect of the divine omnipotence, when
it is done to give credit and authority to any word or doctrine
declared to proceed from God, either that doctrine must really
proceed from God as it is declared, or God by that work of
his almighty power must bear witness to a falsehood, and
so bring the creature under the greatest obligation that can
possibly engage the assent of a rational nature, to believe and
assent to a lie. For surely a greater reason than this can not
be produced for the belief of any thing than for a man to
stand up and say, This and this I tell you as the mind and
word of God; and to prove that it is so, I will do that before
your eyes, that you yourselves shall confess can be done by
nothing but the almighty power of that God that can neither
deceive nor be deceived. Now if this be an irrefragable way
to convince, as the reason of all mankind must confess it to
be, then Christ's doctrine came attended and enforced with




JOHN vii. 17.]  was rejected by the Jews.            113
the greatest means of conviction imaginable. Thus much for
the argument in thesi: and then for the assumption that Christ
did such miraculous and supernatural works to confirm what
he said, we need only repeat the- message sent by him to John
the Baptist; that the dumb spake, the blind saw, the lame walked,
and the dead were raised. Which particulars none of his bitterest enemies ever pretended to deny, they being conveyed
to them by an evidence past all exception, even the evidence
of sense; nay of the quickest, the surest, and most authentic
of all the senses, the sight: which if it be not certain in the
reports and representations it makes of things to the mind,
there neither is, nor can be naturally, any such thing as certainty or knowledge in the world. And thus much for the
first part of the second general thing proposed; namely, That
the arguments brought by Christ for the proof of his doctrine were in themselves convincing and sufficient.
I come now to the other part of it, which is to show, That
admitting or supposing that they were not sufficient, yet their
insufficiency was not the cause of their actual rejection.
Which will appear from these following reasons:
(1.) Because those who rejected Christ's doctrine, and the
arguments by which he confirmed it, fully believed and assented to other things conveyed to them with less evidence.
Such as were even the miracles of Moses himself, upon the
credit and authority of which stood the.whole economy of theJewish constitution. For though I grant that they believed
his miracles upon the credit of constant unerring tradition,
both written and unwritten, and grant also that such tradition was of as great certainty as the reports of sense, yet
still I affirm that it was not of the same evidence, which yet
is the greatest and most immediate ground of all assent.
The evidence of sense (as I have noted) is the clearest that
naturally the mind of man can receive, and is indeed the
foundation both of all the evidence and certainty too, that
tradition is capable of; which pretends to no other credibility
from the testimony and word of some men, but because their
word is at length traced up to, and originally terminates in,
the sense and experience of some others, which could not be
known beyond that compass of time in which it was exercised, but by being told and reported to such as, not living
VOL. I.         8




114               Why Christ's Doctrine         [SERM. VI.
at that time, saw it not, and by them to others, and so down
from one age to another. For we therefore believe the report of some men concerning a thing, because it implies that
there were some others who actually saw that thing. It is
clear therefore, that want of evidence could not be the cause
that the Jews rejected and disbelieved the gospel, since they
embraced and believed the law, upon the credit of those miracles that were less evident. For those of Christ they knew
by sight and sense, those of Moses only by tradition; which,
though equally certain, yet were by no means equally evident
with the other.
(2.) They believed and assented to things that were neither
evident nor certain, but only probable; for. they conversed,
they traded, they merchandized, and, by so doing, frequently
ventured their whole estates and fortunes upon a probable
belief or persuasion of the honesty and truth of those whom
they dealt and corresponded with. And interest, especially
in worldly matters, and yet more especially with a Jew, never
proceeds but upon supposal, at least, of a firm and sufficient
bottom: from whence it is manifest, that, since they could believe and practically rely upon, and that even in their dearest
concerns, bare probabilities, they could not with any color of
reason pretend want of evidence for their disbelief of Christ's
doctrine, which came enforced with arguments far surpassing
all such probabilities.
(3.) They believed and assented to things neither evident
nor certain, nor yet so much as probable, but actually false
and fallacious. Such as were the absurd doctrines and stories
of their rabbins: which, though since Christ's time they have
grown much more numerous and fabulous than before, yet
even then did so much pester the church, and so grossly
abuse and delude the minds of that people, that contradictions themselves asserted by rabbies were equally received and
revered by them as the sacred and infallible word of God.
And whereas they rejected Christ and his doctrine, though
every tittle of it came enforced with miracle, and the best
arguments that heaven *and earth could back it with, yet
Christ then foretold, and after-times confirmed that prediction of his in John v. 43, that they should receive many
cheats and deceivers coming to them in their own name:




JoHN vii. 17.]   was rejected by the Jews.           115
fellows that set up for Messias's only upon their own heads,
without pretending to any thing singular or miraculous, but
impudence and imposture.
From all which it follows, that the Jews could not allege
so much as a pretense of the want of evidence in the argument brought by Christ to prove the divinity and authority
of his doctrine, as a reason of their rejection and disbelief of
it; since they embraced and believed many things, for some
of which they had no evidence, and for others of which they
had no certainty, and for most of which they had not so much
as probability. Which being so, from whence then could
such an obstinate infidelity, in matters of so great clearness
and credibility, take its rise P Why, this will be made out to
us in the
Third thing proposed, which was to show, What was the
true and proper cause into which this unbelief of the Pharisees was resolved. And that was, in a word, the captivity
of their wills and affections to lusts directly opposite to the
design and spirit of Christianity.  They were extremely
ambitious and insatiably covetous, and therefore no impression from argument or miracle could reach them; but they
stood proof against all conviction. Now, to show how the
pravity of the will could influence the understanding to a
disbelief of Christianity, I shall premise these two considerations:
1. That the understanding, in its assent to any religion, is
very differently wrought upon in persons bred up in it and
in persons at length converted to it. For in the first it finds
the mind naked and unprepossessed with any former notions,
and so easily and insensibly gains upon the assent, grows up
with it, and incorporates into it. But in persons adult, and
already possessed with other notions of religion, the understanding can not be brought to quit these, and to change
them for new, but by great consideration and examination of
the truth and firmness of the one, and comparing them with
the flaws and weakness of the other. Which can not be done
without some labor and intention of the mind, and the
thoughts dwelling a considerable time upon the survey and
discussion of each particular.
2. The other thing to be considered is, that in this great




116               Why Christ's Doctrine        [SERI. VI.
work, the understanding is chiefly at the disposal of the will.
For though it is not in the power of the will directly either
to cause or hinder the assent of the understanding to a thing
proposed and duly set before it, yet it is antecedently in the
power of the will to apply the understanding faculty to, or
to take it off from the consideration of those objects to which,
without such a previous consideration, it can not yield its assent. For all assent presupposes a simple apprehension or
knowledge of the terms of the proposition to be assented to.
But unless the understanding employ or exercise its cognitive
or apprehensive power about these terms, there can be no
actual apprehension of them. And the understanding, as to
the exercise of this power, is subject to the command of the
will, though as to the specific nature of its acts it is determined by the object. As, for instance; my understanding
can not assent to this proposition, That Jesus Christ is the Son
of God; but it must first consider, and so apprehend, what
the terms and parts of it are, and what they signify. And
this can not be done, if my will be so slothful, worldly, or
voluptuously disposed, as never to suffer me at all to think of
them, but perpetually to carry away and apply my mind to
other things. Thus far is the understanding at the disposal
of the will.
Now these two considerations being premised, namely, that
persons grown up in the belief of any religion can not change
that for another, without applying their understanding duly
to consider and to compare both; and then, that it is in the
power of the will, whether it will suffer the understanding
thus to dwell upon such objects or no: from these two, I say,
we have the true philosophy and reason of the Pharisees'
unbelief; for they could not relinquish their Judaism, and
embrace Christianity, without considering, weighing, and
collating both religions. And this their understanding could
not apply to, if it were diverted and took off by their will;
and their will would be sure to divert and take it off, being
wholly possessed and governed by their covetousness and,ambition, which perfectly abhorred the precepts of such a
doctrine. And this is the very account that our Saviour
himself gives of this matter in John v. 44. How can ye believe,
says he, who receive honor one of another?  He looked upon




JOHN vii. 17.]   was rejected by the Jews.            117
it as a thing morally impossible, for persons infinitely proud
and ambitious, to frame their minds to an impartial unbiased
consideration of a religion that taught nothing but self-denial
and the cross; that humility was honor, and that the higher
men climbed, the further they were from heaven. They
could not with patience so much as think of it; and therefore, you may be sure, would never assent to it. And again,
when Christ discoursed to them of alms, and a pious distribution of the goods and riches of this world, in Luke xvi. it
is said in the 14th verse, that the Pharisees, who were covetous,
heard all those things, and derided him.  Charity and liberality is a paradox to the covetous. The doctrine that
teaches alms, and the persons that need them, are by such
equally sent packing. Tell a miser of bounty to a friend, or
mercy to the poor, and point him out his duty with an evidence as bright and piercing as the light, yet he will not
understand it, but shuts his eyes as close as he does his
hands, and resolves not to be convinced. In both these cases
there is an incurable blindness caused by a resolution not to
see; and to all intents and purposes, he who will not open
his eyes, is for the present as blind as he that can not. And
thus I have done with the third thing proposed, and shown
what was the true cause of the Pharisees' disbelief of Christ's
doctrine: it was the predominance of those two great vices
over their will, their covetousness and ambition. Pass we
now to the
Fourth and last, which is to show, That a pious and welldisposed mind, attended with a readiness to obey the known
will of God, is the surest and best means to enlighten the understanding to a belief of Christianity. That it is so, will
appear upon a double account.
First, upon the account of God's goodness, and the method
of his dealing with the souls of men; which is, to reward
every degree of sincere obedience to his will, with a further
discovery of it.  I understand more than the ancients, says
David, Psalm cxix. 100. But how did he attain to such an
excellency of understanding? Was it by longer study, or ia
greater quickness and felicity of parts, than was in those before him P No; he gives the reason in the next words; it was,
because I keep thy statutes. He got the start of them in point




118               Why Christ's Doctrine          [SERM. VI.
of obedience, and thereby outstript them at length in point
of knowledge. And who in old time were the men of extraordinary revelations, but those who were also men of extraordinary piety P Who were made privy to the secrets of Heaven,
and the hidden will of the Almighty, but such as performed
his revealed will at an higher rate of strictness than the
rest of the world P They were the Enochs, the Abrahams,
the Elijahs, and the Daniels; such as the scripture remarkably testifies of, that they walked with God. And, surely, he
that walks with another is in a likelier way to know and understand his mind than he that follows him at a distance.
Upon which account, the learned Jews still made this one of
the ingredients that went to constitute a prophet, that he
should be perfectus in moralibus, a person of exact morals, and
unblamable in his life: the gift of prophecy being a ray of
such a light as never darts itself upon a dunghill. And
what I here observe occasionally of extraordinary revelation
and prophecy, will by analogy and due proportion extend even
to those communications of God's will that are requisite to
men's salvation. An honest hearty simplicity and proneness
to do all that a man knows of God's will, is the ready, certain,
and infallible way to know more of it. For I am sure it may
be said of the practical knowledge of religion, that to him that
hath shall be given, and he shall have more abundantly.
I dare not, I confess, join in that bold assertion of some,
that facienti quod in se est, Deus nee debet, nec potest denegare
gratiam, which indeed is no less than a direct contradiction in
the very terms; for if Deus debet, then id quod debetur non est
gratia; there being a perfect inconsistency between that
which is of debt and that which is of free gift. And therefore leaving the non debet and the non potest to those that can
bind and loose the Almighty at their pleasure, so much, I
think, we may pronounce safely in this matter, that the goodness and mercy of God is such that he never deserts a sincere:person, nor suffers any one that shall live (even according to
these measures of sincerity) up to what he knows, to perish
for want of any knowledge necessary, and, what is more, sufficient to save him.
If any one should here say, Were there'then none living
up to — these measures of sincerity amongst the heathen P and




JOHN Vii. 17.]   was rejected by the Jews.            119
if there were, did the goodness of God afford such persons
knowledge enough to save them? My answer is according to
that of St. Paul, I judge not those that are without the church:
they stand or fall to their own master: I have nothing to say
of them. Secret things belong to God: it becomes us to be
thankful to God, and charitable to men.
2. A pious and well-disposed will is the readiest means to
enlighten the understanding to a knowledge of the truth of
Christianity, upon the account of a natural efficiency; forasmuch as a will so disposed will be sure to engage the mind
in a severe search into the great and concerning truths of
religion: nor will it only engage the mind in such a search;
but it will also accompany that search with two dispositions,
directly tending to, and principally productive of, the discoveries of truth, namely, diligence and impartiality. And,
(1.) For the diligence of the search.  Diligence is the
great harbinger of truth; which rarely takes up in any mind
till that has gone before, and made room for it. It is a
steady, constant, and pertinacious study, that naturally leads
the soul into the knowledge of that which at first seemed
locked up from it. For this keeps the understanding long in
converse with an object: and long converse brings acquaintance.  Frequent consideration of a thing wears off the
strangeness of it, and shows it in its several lights, and various ways of appearance, to the view of the mind.
Truth is a great stronghold, barred and fortified by God
and nature; and diligence is properly the understanding's
laying siege to it: so that, as in a kind of warfare, it must be
perpetually upon the watch; observing all the avenues and
passes to it, and accordingly makes its approaches. Sometimes it thinks it gains a point; and presently again it finds
itself baffled and beaten off: yet still it renews the onset;
attacks the difficulty afresh; plants this reasoning, and that
argument, this consequence, and that distinction, like so
many intellectual batteries, till at length it forces a way and
passage into the obstinate enclosed truth, that so long withstood and defied all its assaults.
The Jesuits have a saying common amongst them, touching the institution of youth, (in which their chief strength
and talent lies,) that vexatio dat intellectum. As when the




120               Why Christ's Doctrine           [SERM. VI.
mind casts and turns itself restlessly from one thing to
another, strains this power of the soul to apprehend, that to
judge, another to divide, a fourth to remember; thus tracing
out the nice and scarce observable difference of some things,
and the real agreement of others, till at length it brings all
the ends of a long and various hypothesis together; sees how
one part coheres with and depends upon another; and so
clears off all the appearing contrarieties and contradictions
that seemed to lie cross and uncouth, and to make the whole
unintelligible.  This is the laborious and vexatious inquest
that the soul must make after science. For truth, like a
stately dame, will not be seen, nor show herself at the first
visit, nor match with the understanding upon an ordinary
courtship or address. Long and tedious attendances must be
given, and the hardest fatigues endured and digested; nor
did ever the most pregnant wit in the world bring forth any
thing great, lasting, and considerable, without some pain anti
travail, some pangs and throes, before the delivery.
Now all this, that I have said, is to show the force of diligence in the investigation of truth, and particularly of the
noblest of all truths, which is that of religion. But then, as
diligence is the great discoverer of truth, so is the will the
great spring of diligence. For no man can heartily search
after that which he is not very desirous to find. Diligence is
to the understanding as the whetstone to the razor; but the
will is the hand that must apply one to the other.
What makes many men so strangely immerse themselves,
some in chemical, and some in mathematical inquiries, but
because they strangely love the things they labor in P Their
intent study gives them skill and proficiency, and their particular affection to these kinds of knowledge puts them upon
such study. Accordingly let there be but the same propensity and bent of will to religion, and there will be the
same sedulity and indefatigable industry in men's inquiry into
it. And then, in the natural course of things, the consequent of a sedulous seeking is finding, and the fruit of inquiry is information.
(2.) A pious and well-disposed will gives not only diligence,
but also impartiality to the understanding, in its search into
religion, which is as absolutely necessary to give success to




JoHN vii. 17.]    was rejected by the Jews.           121
our inquiries into truth as the former; it being scarce possible for that man to hit the mark, whose eye is still glancing
upon something beside it. Partiality is properly the understanding's judging according to the inclination of the will
and affections, and not according to the exact truth of things,
or the merits of the cause before it. Affection is still a briber
of the judgment; and it is hard for a man to admit a reason
against the thing he loves, or to confess the force of an argument against an interest.
In this case he prevaricates with his own understanding,
and can not seriously and sincerely set his mind to consider
the strength, to poise the weight, and to discern the evidence
of the clearest and best argumentations, where they would
conclude against the darling of his desires. For still that
beloved thing possesses and even engrosses him, and like a
colored glass before his eyes casts its own color and tincture
upon all the images and ideas of things that pass from the
fancy to the understanding; and so absolutely does it sway
that, that if a strange irresistible evidence of some unacceptable truth should chance to surprise and force reason to assent to the premises, affection would yet step in at last, and
make it quit the conclusion.
Upon which account, Socinus and his followers state the
reason of a man's believing or embracing Christianity upon
the natural goodness or virtuous disposition of his mind,
which they sometimes call naturalis probitas, and sometimes
animus in virtutem, pronus. For, say they, the whole doctrine
of Christianity teaches nothing but what is perfectly suitable
to, and coincident with, the ruling principles that a virtuous
and well-inclined man is acted by, and with the main interest that he proposes to himself. So that as soon as ever
it is declared to such an one, he presently closes in, accepts,
and complies with it: as a prepared soil eagerly takes in and
firmly retains such seed or plants as particularly agree with it.
With ordinary minds, such as much the greatest part of
the world are, it is the suitableness, not the evidence of a
truth, that makes it to be assented to. And it is seldom that
any thing practically convinces a man, that does not please
him first. If you would be sure of him, you must inform
and gratify him too. But now, impartiality strips the mind




122              Why Christ's Doctrine          [SERM. VI.
of prejudice and passion, keeps it right and even from the
bias of interest and desire, and so presents it like a rasa
tabula, equally disposed to the reception of all truth. So
that the soul lies prepared, and open to entertain it, and prepossessed with nothing that can oppose or thrust it out. For
where diligence opens the door of the understanding, and
impartiality keeps it, truth is sure to find both an entrance
and a welcome too.
And thus I have done with the fourth and last general
thing proposed, and proved by argument, that a pious and
well-disposed mind, attended with a readiness to obey the
known will of God, is the surest and best means to enlighten
the understanding to a belief of Christianity.
Now, from the foregoing particulars, by way of use, we
may collect these two things:
1. The true cause of that atheism, that skepticism and
caviling at religion, that we see and have cause to lament
in too many in these days. It is not firom any thing weak
or wanting in our religion, to support and enable it to look
the strongest arguments and the severest and most controlling reason in the face: but men are atheistical because they
are first vicious, and question the truth of Christianity
because they hate the practice. And therefore, that they
may seem to have some pretense and color to sin on freely,
and to surrender up themselves wholly to their sensuality
without any imputation upon their judgment, and to quit
their morals without any discredit to their intellectuals, they
fly to several stale, trite, pitiful objections and cavils, some
against religion in general, and some against Christianity in
particular, and some against the very first principles of morality, to give them some poor credit andcountenance in the
pursuit of their brutish courses.
Few practical errors in the world are embraced upon the
stock of conviction, but inclination: for though indeed the
judgment may err upon the account of weakness, yet where
there is one error that enters in at this door, ten are let into
it through the will: that, for the most part, being set upon
those things, which truth is a direct obstacle to the enjoyment of; and where both can not be had, a man will be sure
to buy his enjoyment,:though he pays down truth for the




JOHN vii. 17.]  was rejected by the Jews.          123
purchase. For in this case, the further from truth, the further from trouble: since truth shows such an one what he is
unwilling to see, and tells him what he hates to hear. They
are the same beams that shine and enlighten, and are apt to
scorch too: and it is impossible for a man engaged in any
wicked way, to have a clear understanding of it, and a quiet
mind in it together.
But these sons of Epicurus, both for voluptuousness and
irreligion also, (as it is hard to support the former without
the latter,) these, I say, rest not here; but (if you will take
them at their word) they must also pass for the only wits of
the age: though greater arguments, I am sure, may be produced against this than any they can allege against the most
improbable article of Christianity. But heretofore the rate
and standard of wit was very different from what it is nowadays. No man was then accounted a wit for speaking such
things as deserved to have the tongue cut out that spake them:
nor did any man pass for a philosopher, or a man of depth, for
talking atheistically: or a man of parts, for employing them
against that God that gave them. For then the world was
generally better inclined; virtue was in so much reputation
as to be pretended to at least. And virtue, whether in a
Christian or in an infidel, can have no interest to be served
either by atheism or infidelity.
For which cause, could we but prevail with the greatest
debauchees amongst us to change their lives, we should find
it no very hard matter to change their judgments. For notwithstanding all their talk of reason and philosophy, which
(God knows) they are deplorably strangers to; and those
unanswerable doubts and difficulties, which, over their cups
or their coffee, they pretend to have against Christianity;
persuade but the covetous man not to deify his money; the
proud man not to adore himself; the lascivious man to throw
off his lewd amours; the intemperate man to abandon his
revels; and so for any other vice, that is apt to abuse and
pervert the mind of man; and I dare undertake, that all
their giant-like objections against Christian religion shall
presently vanish and quit the field. For he that is a good
man, is three quarters of his way towards the being a good
Christian, wheresoever he lives, or whatsoever he is called.




124              Wihy Christ's Doctrine        [SERM. VI.
2. In the next place, we learn from hence the most effectual way and means of proficiency and growth in the knowledge of the great and profound truths of religion, and how
to make us all not only good Christians, but also expert
divines. It is a knowledge that men are not so much to
study as to live themselves into: a knowledge that passes
into the head through the heart. I have heard of some,
that in their latter years, through the feebleness of their
limbs, have been forced to study upon their knees: and I
think it might well become the youngest and the strongest
to do so too. Let them daily and incessantly pray to God
for his grace; and if God gives grace, they may be sure
that knowledge will not stay long behind: since it is the
same spirit and principle that purifies the heart, and clarifies
the understanding. Let all their inquiries into the deep
and mysterious points of theology be begun and carried on
with fervent petitions to God; that he would dispose their
minds to direct all their skill and knowledge to the promotion of a good life, both in themselves and others; that he
would use all their noblest speculations, and most refined
notions, only as instruments, to move and set at work the
great principles of actions, the will and the affections; that
he would convince them of the infinite vanity and uselessness
of all that learning that makes not the possessor of it a better man; that he would keep them from those sins that may
grieve and provoke his holy Spirit (the fountain of all true
light and knowledge) to withdraw from them, and so seal
them up under darkness, blindness, and stupidity of mind.
For where the heart is bent upon, and held under the power
of, any vicious course, though Christ himself should take
the contrary virtue for his doctrine, and do a miracle before
such an one's eyes, for its application, yet he would not
practically gain his assent, but the result of all would end in
a non persuadebis etiamsi persuaseris. Few consider what a
degree of sottishness and confirmed ignorance men may sin
themselves into.
This was the case of the Pharisees. And no doubt but
this very consideration also gives us the true reason and full
explication of that notable and strange passage of scripture,
in Luke xvi. and the last verse: That if men will not hear




JOHN Vii. 17.]  was rejected by the Jews.             125
Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though
one rose from the dead. That is, where a strong inveterate love
of sin has made any doctrine or proposition wholly unsuitable
to the heart, no argument or demonstration, no nor miracle
whatsoever, shall be able to bring the heart cordially to close
with and receive it. Whereas, on the contrary, if the heart
be piously disposed, the natural goodness of any doctrine is
enough to vouch for the truth of it: for the suitableness of it
will endear it to the will, and by endearing it to the will, will
naturally slide it into the assent also. For in morals, as well
as in metaphysics, there is nothing really good but has a
truth commensurate to its goodness.
The truths of Christ crucified are the Christian's philosophy, and a good life is the Christian's logic, that great instrumental introductive art that must guide the mind into
the former. And where a long course of piety, and close
communion with God, has purged the heart, and rectified the
will, and made all things ready for the reception of God's
Spirit, knowledge will break in upon such a soul, like the
sun shining in his full might, with such a victorious light,
that nothing shall be able to resist it.
If now at length some should object here, that, from what
has been delivered, it will follow, that the most pious men are
still the most knowing, which yet seems contrary to common
experience and observation, I answer, that, as to all things
directly conducing and necessary to salvation, there is no
doubt but they are so; as the meanest common soldier, that
has fought often in an army, has a truer and better knowledge of war than he that has read and writ whole volumes of
it, but never was in any battle.
Practical sciences are not to be learnt but in the way of
action. It is experience that must give knowledge in the
Christian profession, as well as in all others. And the knowledge drawn from experience is quite of another kind from
that which flows from speculation or discourse. It is not the
opinion, but the' path of the just, that, the wisest of men tells
us, shines more and more unto a perfect day. The obedient,
and the men of practice, are those sons of light that shall
outgrow all their doubts and ignorances, that shall ride upon
these clouds, and triumph over their present imperfections,




126  Why Christ's Doctrine was Rejected by the Jews. [SERM. VI.
till persuasion pass into knowledge, and knowledge advance
into assurance, and all come at length to be completed in
the beatific vision, and a full fruition of those joys which
God has in reserve for them whom by his grace he shall prepare for glory.
To which God, infinitely wise, holy, and just, be rendered and
ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen.




SERMON VII.
A SERMON PREACHED  AT THE CONSECRATION  OF A
CHAPEL. 1667.
PREFACE.
AFTER the happy expiration of those times which had reformed
so many churches to the ground, and in which men used to
express their honor to God, and their allegiance to their prince the
same way, demolishing the palaces of the one and the temples of
the other, it is now our glory and felicity, that God has changed
men's tempers with the times, and made a spirit of building succeed
a spirit of pulling down, - by a miraculous revolution, reducing many
from the head of a triumphant rebellion to their old condition of
masons, smiths, and carpenters, that in this capacity they might repair what, as colonels and captains, they had ruined and defaced.
But still it is strange to see any ecclesiastical pile, not by ecclesiastical cost and influence rising above ground; especially in an age
in which men's mouths are open against the church, but their hands
shut towards it; an age in which, respecting the generality of men,
we might as soon expect stones to be made bread, as to be made
churches.
But the more epidemical and prevailing this evil is, the more honorable are those who stand and shine as exceptions from the common practice; and may such places, built for the divine worship, derive an honor and a blessing upon the head of the builders, as great
and lasting as the curse and infamy that never fails to rest upon the
sacrilegious violators of them; and a greater, I am sure I need not,
I can not wish.
Now the foundation of what I shall discourse, upon the present
subject and occasion, shall be laid in that place in




128          God's Peculiar Regard to Places    [SERM. VII.
PSALM lxxxvii. 2.- God hath loved the gates of Sion, more than all the dwellings of
Jacob.
THE comparison here exhibited between the love God bore
to Sion, the great place of his solemn worship, and that
which he bore to the other dwellings of Israel, imports, as
all other comparisons do in the superior part of them, two
things, difference and preeminence: and accordingly I can
not more commodiously and naturally contrive the prosecution
of these words, than by casting the sense of them into these
two propositions:
I. That God bears a different respect to places set apart
and consecrated to his worship, from what he bears to all
other places designed to the uses of common life.
II. That God prefers the worship paid him in such places,
above that which is offered him in any other places whatsoever.
I. As to the former of these, this difference of respect,
borne by God to such places, from what he bears to others,
may be evinced these three several ways:
1. By those eminent interposals of Providence, for the
erecting and preserving of such places.
2. By those notable judgments shown by God upon the
violators of them.
3. Lastly, by declaring the ground and reason why God
shows such a different respect to those places, from what he
manifests to others. Of all which in their order.
1i. First of all then, those eminent interposals of the divine
Providence for the erecting and preserving such places, will
be one pregnant and strong argument to prove the difference
of God's respect to them, and to others of common use.
That Providence that universally casts its eye over all the
parts of the creation, is yet pleased more particularly to fasten
it upon some. God made all the world, that he might be
worshiped in some parts of the world; and therefore in the
first and most early times of the church, what care did he
manifest to have such places erected to his honor! Jacob he
admonished by a vision, as by a messenger from heaven, to
build him an altar; and then, what awe did Jacob express to
it! How dreadful, says he, is this place! for Aurely it is no




Ps. lxxxvii. 2.]   set apart for Divine Worship.    129
other than the house of God.  What particular inspirations
were there upon Aholihab to fit him to work about the sanctuary! The Spirit of God was the surveyor, director, and
manager of the whole business. But above all, how exact
and (as we may say with reverence) how nice was God about
the building of the temple!  David, though a man of most
intimate converse and acquaintance with God, and one who
bore a kingly preeminence over others, no less in point of
piety than of majesty, after he had made such rich, such vast,
and almost incredible provision of materials for the building
of the temple; but because he had dipt his hands in blood,
though but the blood of God's enemies, had the glory of that
work took out of them, and was not permitted to lay a stone
in that sacred pile; but the whole work was entirely reserved
for Solomon, a prince adorned with those parts of mind, and
exalted by such a concurrence of all prosperous events to
make him glorious and magnificent, as if God had made it his
business to build a Solomon, that Solomon might build him
an house. To which, had not God borne a very different
respect from what he bore to all other places, why might not
David have been permitted to build God a temple, as well as
to rear himself a palace?  Why might not he, who was so
pious as to design, be also so prosperous as to finish it? God
must needs have set a more than ordinary esteem upon that
which David, the man after his own heart, the darling of
Heaven, and the most flaming example of a vigorous love to
God that ever was, was not thought fit to have a hand in.
And to proceed, when, after a long tract of time, the sins
of Israel had even unconsecrated and profaned that sacred
edifice, and thereby robbed it of its only defense, the palladium of God's presence, so that the Assyrians laid it even
with the ground; yet after that a long captivity and affliction
had made the Jews fit again for so great a privilege as a
public place to worship God in, how did God put it into the
heart, even of an heathen prince, to promote the building of
a second temple! How was the work undertook and carried
on amidst all the unlikelihoods and discouraging circumstances imaginable! The builders holding the sword in one
hand, to defend the trowel working with the other; yet finished and completed it was, under the conduct and protection
VOL. I.         9




130          God's Peculiar Regard to Places: [SERM. V.
of a peculiar providence, that made the instruments of that
great design prevalent and victorious, and all those mountains of opposition to become plains before Zorobabel.
And lastly, when Herod the Great, whose magnificence
served him instead of piety to prompt him to an action, if
not in him religious, yet heroic at least, thought fit to pull
down that temple, and to build one much more glorious, and
fit for the Saviour of the world to appear and preach in.
Josephus, in his 15th book of the Jewish Antiquities, and the
14th chapter, says, that during all the time of its building,
there fell not so much as a shower to interrupt the work,
but the rain still fell by night, that it might not retard the
business of the day. If this were so, I am not of the number
of those who can ascribe such great and strange passages to
chance, or satisfy my reason in assigning any other cause
of this, but the kindness of God himself to the place of his
worship; making the common influences of heaven to stop
their course, and pay a kind of homage to the rearing of so
sacred a structure. Though I must confess, that David's
being prohibited, and Herod permitted to build God a temple
might seem strange, did not the absoluteness of God's good
pleasure satisfy all sober minds of the reasonableness of God's
proceedings, though never so strange and unaccountable.
Add to all this, that the extraordinary manifestations of
God's presence were still in the sanctuary: the cloud, the
Urim and Thummim, and the oracular answers of God, were
graces and prerogatives proper and peculiar to the sacredness
of this place. These were the dignities that made it, as it
were, the presence-chamber of the Almighty, the room of
audience, where he declared that he would receive and
answer petitions from all places under heaven, and where he
displayed his royalty and glory.  There was no parlor or
dining-room in all the dwellings of Jacob, that he vouchsafed
the like privileges to. And moreover, how full are God's expressions to this purpose! Here have I placed my namte, and
here will I dwell, for I have a delight thereto.
But to evidence, how different a respect God bears to
things consecrated to his own worship, from what he bears
to all other things, let that one eminent passage of Corah,
Dathan, and- Abiram, be proof beyond all exception; in




Ps. lxxxvii. 2.]   set apart for Divine Worship.     131
which the censers of those wretches, who, I am sure, could
derive no sanctity to them from their own persons, yet upon
this account, that they had been consecrated by the offering
incense in them, were, by God's special command, sequestered from all common use, and appointed to be beaten into
broad plates, and fastened as a covering upon the altar,
Numb. xvi. 38. The censers of these sinners against their own
souls, let them make broad plates for a covering of the altar: Jor
they offered them before the Lord, therefore they are hallowed.
It seems this one single use left such an indelible sacredness
upon them, that neither the villainy of the persons, nor the
impiety of the design, could be a sufficient reason to unhallow
and degrade them to the same common use that other vessels
may be applied to. And the argument holds equally good
for the consecration of places. The apostle would have no
reveling, or junketing upon the altar, which had been used,
and by that use consecrated to the celebration of a more
spiritual and divine repast. Have ye not houses to eat and to
drink in? or despise ye the church of God? says St. Paul, 1
Cor. xi. 22. It would have been no answer to have told the
apostle, What! is not the church stone and wood as well as
other buildings P And is there any such peculiar sanctity in
this parcel of brick and mortar P And must God, who has
declared himself no respecter of persons, be now made a respecter of places P No, this is the language of a more spiritualized and refined piety than the apostles and primitive
Christians were acquainted with. And thus much for the
first argument, brought to prove the different respect that
God bears to things and places consecrated and set apart to
his own worship, from what he bears to others.
2. The second argument, for the proof of the same assertion, shall be taken from those remarkable judgments shown
by God, upon the violators of things consecrated and set apart
to holy uses.
A coal, we know, snatched from the altar once, fired the
nest of the eagle, the royal and commanding bird; and so
has sacrilege consumed the families of princes, broke sceptres, and destroyed kingdoms. We read how the victorious
Philistines were worsted by the captivated ark, which foraged' their country more than a conquering army; they were




132          God's Peculiar Regard to Places   [SERM. VII.
not able to cohabit with that holy thing; it was like a plague
in their bowels, and a curse in the midst of them; so that
they were forced to restore their prey, and to turn their triumphs into supplications. Poor Uzzah for but touching the
ark, though out of care and zeal for its preservation, was
struck dead with a blow from heaven. He had no right to
touch it, and therefore his very zeal was a sin, and his care
an usurpation; nor could the purpose of his heart excuse the
error of his hand. Nay, in the promulgation of the Mosaic
law, if so much as a brute beast touched the mountain, the
bow of vengeance was ready, and it was to be struck through
with a dart, and to die a sacrifice for a fault it could not understand-.
But to give some higher and clearer instances of the divine judgments upon sacrilegious persons. In 1 Kings xiv.
26. we find Shishak king of Egypt spoiling and robbing Solomon's temple; and that we may know what became of him,
we must take notice that Josephus calls him Susac, and tells
us that Herodotus calls him Sesostris; and withal reports,
that immediately after his return from this very expedition,
such disastrous calamities befell his family, that he burnt
two of his children himself; that his brother conspired against
hini; and lastly, that his son, who succeeded him, was struck
blind, yet not so blind (in his understanding at least) but that
he saw the cause of all these mischiefs; and therefore, to redeem his father's sacrilege, gave more and richer things to
temples than his father had stolen from them: though, by
the way, it may seem to be a strange method of repairing an
injury done to the true God, by adorning the temples of the
false. See the same sad effect of sacrilege in the great
Nebuchadnezzar: he plunders the temple of God, and we
find the fatal doom that afterwards befell him; he lost his
kingdom, and by a new unheard-of judgment was driven
from  the society and converse of men, to table with the
beasts, and to graze with oxen; the impiety and inhumanity
of his sin making him a fitter companion for them than for
those to whom religion is more natural than reason itself.
And since it was his unhappiness to transmit his sin, together
with his kingdom, to his son, while Belshazzar was quaffing
in the sacred vessels of the temple, which in his pride he




Ps. lxxxvii. 2.]   set apart for Divine Worship.        133
sent for to abuse with his impious sensualityi he sees his fatal
sentence writ by the finger of God in the very midst of his
profane mirth.  And he stays not long for the execution of
it, that very night losing his kingdom  and his life too. And
that which makes the story direct for our purpose is, that all
this comnes upon him for profaning those sacred vessels.  God
himself tells us so much by the mouth of his prophet in Dan.
v. 23, where this only sin is charged upon him, and particularly made the cause of his sudden and utter ruin.
These were violators of the first temple, and those that
profaned and abused the second sped no better.  And for
this, take for instance that first-born of sin and sacrilege,
Antiochus; the story of whose profaning God's house you
may read in the first book of Maccabees, chap. i. And you
may read also at large what success he found after it, in
the sixth chapter, where the author tells us, that he never
prospered afterwards in any thing, but all his designs were
frustrated, his captains slain, his armies defeated; and lastly,
himself falls sick, and dies a miserable death. And (which
is most considerable as to the present business) when all
these evils befell him, his own conscience tells him that it
was even for this, that he had most sacrilegiously pillaged
and invaded God's house, 1 Maccab. vi. 12, 13. Noew I remember, says he, the evils I did at Jerusalemn, how I took the vessels
of gold and silver:  I perceive therefore, that for this cause
these evils are come upon me, and, behold, I perish for grief in
a strange land.  The sinner's conscience is for the most part
the best expositor of the mind of God, under any judgment
or affliction.
Take another notable instance in Nicanor, who purposed
and threatened to burn the temple, 1 Maccab. vii. 35. And a
curse lights upon him  presently after: his great army is utterly ruined, he himself slain in it, and his head and right
hand cut off, and hung up before Jerusalem.  Where two
things are remarkable in the text: 1. That he himself was
first slain, a thing that does not usually befall a general of
an army.  2. That the Jews prayed against him to God, and
desired God to destroy Nicanor, for the injury done to his
sanctuary only, naming no sin else. And God ratified their
prayers by the judgment they brought down upon the head




134          God's Peculiar Regard to Places   [SERM. VII.
of him  whom they prayed against. God stopped his blasphemous mouth, and cut off his sacrilegious hand, and made
them teach the world what it was for the most potent sinner
under heaven to threaten the almighty God, especially in his
own house; for so was the temple.
But now, lest some should puff at these instances, as being
such as were under a different economy of religion, in which
God was more tender of the shell and ceremonious part of
his worship, and consequently not directly pertinent to ours;
therefore to show that all profanation, and invasion of things
sacred, is an offense against the eternal law of nature, and not
against any positive institution after a time to expire, we need
not go many nations off, nor many ages back, to see the
vengeance of God upon some families, raised upon the ruins
of churches, and enriched with the spoils of sacrilege, gilded
with the name of reformation. And for the most part, so
unhappy have been the purchasers of church lands, that the
world is not now to seek for an argument from a long experience to convince it, that though in such purchases men have
usually the cheapest pennyworths, yet they have not always
the best bargains. For the holy thing has stuck fast to their
sides like a fatal shaft, and the stone has cried out of the
consecrated walls they have lived within, for a judgment
upon the head of the sacrilegious intruder; and Heaven has
heard the cry, and made good the curse. So that when the
heir of a blasted family has rose up and promised fair, and
perhaps flourished for some time upon the stock of excellent
parts and great favor, yet at length a cross event has certainly met and stopped him in the career of his fortunes; so
that he has ever after withered and declined, and in the end
come to nothing, or to that which is worse. So certainly
does that, which some call blind superstition, take aim when
it shoots a curse at the sacrilegious person. But I shall not
engage in the odious task of recounting the families which
this sin has blasted with a curse. Only, I shall give one
eminent instance in some persons who had sacrilegiously
procured the demolishing of some places consecrated to holy
uses.
And for this (to show the world that Papists can commit
sacrilege as freely as they can object it to Protestants) it shall




Ps. lxxxvii. 2.]   set apart for Divine Worship.    135
be in that great cardinal and minister of state, Wolsey, who
obtained leave of pope Clement the seventh to demolish forty
religious houses; which he did by the service of five men, to
whose conduct he committed the effecting of that business;
every one of which came to a sad and fatal end. For the
pope himself was ever after an unfortunate prince, Rome
being twice taken and sacked in his reign, himself taken
prisoner, and at length dying a miserable death. Wolsey (as
is known) incurred a premunire, forfeited his honor, estate,
and life, which he ended, some say, by poison, but certainly
in great calamity.
And for the five men employed by him, two of them quarreled, one of which was slain, and the other hanged for it;
the third drowned himself in a well; the fourth (though rich)
came at length to beg his bread; and the fifth was miserably
stabbed to death at Dublin in Ireland.
This was the tragical end of a knot of sacrilegious persons
firom highest to lowest. The consideration of which and the
like passages, one would think, should make men keep their
fingers off from the church's patrimony, though not out of
love to the church, (which few men have,) yet at least out of
love to themselves, which, I suppose, few want.
Nor is that instance in one of another religion to be passed
over, (so near it is to the former passage of Nicanor,) of a
commander in the parliament's rebel army, who, coming to
rifle and deface the cathedral at Litchfield, solemnly at the
head of his troops begged of God to show some remarkable
token of his approbation or dislike of the work they were
going about. Immediately after which, looking out at a
window, he was shot in the forehead by a deaf and dumb man.
And this was on St. Chadd's day, the name of which saint
that church bore, being dedicated to God in memory of the
same. Where we see, that as he asked of God a sign, so
God gave him one, signing him in the forehead, and that with
such a mark as he is like to be known by to all posterity.
There is nothing that the united voice of all history proclaims so loud as the certain unfailing curse that has pursued
and overtook sacrilege. Make a catalogue of all the prosperous sacrilegious persons that have been from the beginning
of the world to this day, and I believe they will come within




136          God's Peculiar Regard to Places    [SERM. VII.
a very narrow compass, and be repeated much sooner than
the alphabet.
Religion claims a great interest in the world, even as great
as its object, God, and the souls of men. And since God has
resolved not to alter the course of nature, and upon principles
of nature, religion will scarce be supported without the encouragement of the ministers of it; Providence, where it
loves a nation, concerns itself to own and assert the interest
of religion, by blasting the spoilers of religious persons and
places. Many have gaped at the church revenues, but, before
they could swallow them, have had their mouths stopt in the
churchyard.
And thus much for the second argument, to prove the different respect that God bears to things consecrated to holy
uses; namely, his signal judgments upon the sacrilegious
violators of them.
3. I descend now to the third and last thing proposed
for the proof of the first proposition, which is, to assign the
ground and reason why God shows such a concern for these
things. Touching which we are to observe, (1.) Negatively,
that it is no worth or sanctity naturally inherent in the things
themselves, that either does or can procure.them this esteem
from God; for by nature all things have an equally common
use. Nature freely and indifferently opens the bosom of the
universe to all mankind; and the very sanctuti sanctorum had
originally no more sacredness in it than the valley of the son
of Hinnom, or any other place in Judaea. (2.) Positively,
therefore, the sole ground and reason of this different esteem
vouchsafed by God to consecrated things and places, is this,
that he has the sole property of them.
It is a known maxim, that in Deo sunt jura omnia; and,
consequently, that he is the proprietor of all things, by that
grand and transcendent right founded upon creation. Yet
notwithstanding he may be said to have a greater, because a
sole property in some things, for that he permits not the use
of them to men, to whom yet he has granted the free use of
all other things. Now this property may be founded upon a
double ground.
First, God's own fixing upon, and institution of, a place or
thing to his peculiar use. When he shall say to the sons of




Ps. lxxxvii. 2.]   set apart for Divine Worship.     137
men, as he spoke to Adam concerning the forbidden fruit, Of
all things and places that I have enriched the universe with,
you may freely make use for your own occasions; but as for
this spot of ground, this person, this thing, I have selected
and appropriated, I have enclosed it to myself and my own
use; and I will endure no sharer, no rival, or companion in
it: he that invades them, usurps, and shall bear the guilt of
his usurpation. Now, upon this account, the gates of Sion,
and the tribe of Levi, became God's property. He laid his
hand upon them, and said, These are mine.
Secondly, The other ground of God's sole property in any
thing or place, is the gift, or rather the return of it made
by man to God; by which act he relinquishes and delivers
back to God all his right to the use of that thing, which
before had been freely granted him  by God.  After which
donation there is an absolute change and alienation made
of the property of the thing given, and that as to the use of
it too; which being so alienated, a man has no more to do
with it than with a thing bought with another's money, or
got with the sweat of another's brow.
And this is the ground of God's sole property in things,
persons, and places, now under the gospel.  Men by free
gift consign over a place to the divine worship, and thereby
have no more right to apply it to another use than they have
to make use of another man's goods. He that has devoted
himself to the service of God in the Christian priesthood, has
given himself to God, and so can no more dispose of himself
to another employment than he can dispose of a thing that
he has sold or freely given away. Now in passing a thing
away to another by deed of gift, two things are required:
1. A surrender, on the giver's part, of all the property and
right he has in the thing given. And to the making of a
thing or place sacred, this surrender of it, by its right owner,
is so necessary, that all the rites of consecration used upon
a place against the owner's will, and without his giving up
his property, make not that place sacred, forasmuch as the
property of it is not hereby altered; and therefore says the
canonist, Qui sine voluntate Domini consecrat, revera desecrat.
The like judgment passed that learned Bishop Synesius upon
a place so consecrated. OG3' tEpov ovip6 Rev OtLOv MyoiaL. I
account it not, says he, for any holy thing.




138          God's Peculiar Regard to Places    [SERM. VIL
For we must know, that consecration makes not a place
sacred, any more than coronation makes a king, but only
solemnly declares it so. It is the gift of the owner of it to
God, which makes it to be solely God's, and consequently
sacred; after which, every violation of it is as really sacrilege
as to conspire against the king is treason before the solemnity
of his coronation. And moreover, as consecration makes not
a thing sacred without the owner's gift, so the owner's gift
of itself alone makes a thing sacred, without the ceremonies
of consecration; for we know that tithes and lands given to
God are never, and plate, vestments, and other sacred utensils are seldom consecrated: yet certain it is, that after the
donation of them to the church, it is as really sacrilege to
steal or alienate them from those sacred uses, to which they
were dedicated by the donors, as it is to pull down a church,
or turn it into a stable.
2. As, in order -to the passing away a thing by gift, there
is required a surrender of all right to it on his part that
gives, so there is required also an acceptation of it on his part
to whom it is given. For giving being a relative action,
(and so requiring a correlative to answer it), giving on one
part transfers no property, unless there be an accepting on
the other; for as volenti non fit injuria, so in this case nolenti
non fit beneficium.
And if it be now asked, how God can be said to accept
what we give, since we are not able to transact with him in
person?P To this I answer, 1. That we may and do converse
with God in person really, and to all the purposes of giving
and receiving, though not visibly: for natural reason will
evince that God will receive testimonies of honor fiom his
creatures; amongst which the homage of offerings, and the
parting with a right, is a very great one. And where a gift
is suitable to the person to whom it is offered, and no refusal
of it testified, silence in that case (even amongst those
who transact visibly and corporally with one another) is, by
the general voice of reason, reputed an acceptance. And
therefore much more ought we to conclude that God accepts
of a thing suitable for him to receive, and for us to give,
where he does not declare his refusal and disallowance of it.
But, 2. I add further, that we may transact with God in the




Ps. lxxxvii. 2.]   set apart for Divine Worship.     139
person of his and Christ's substitute, the bishop, to whom
the deed of gift ought, and uses to be delivered by the owner
of the thing given, in a formal instrument signed, sealed,
and legally attested by witnesses, wherein he resigns up all
his right and property in the thing to be consecrated. And
the bishop is as really vicarius Christi to receive this from us
in Christ's behalf, as the Levitical priest was vicarius Dei to
the Jews, to manage all transactions between God and them.
These two things therefore concurring, the gift of the
owner, and God's acceptance of it, either immediately by
himself, which we rationally presume, or mediately by the
hands of the bishop, which is visibly done before us, is that
which vests the sole property of a thing or place in God. If
it be now asked, Of what use then is consecration, if a thing
were sacred before it? I answer, Of very much; even as
much as coronation to a king, which confers no royal authority upon him, but by so solemn a declaration of it imprints
a deeper awe and reverence of it in the people's minds, a
thing surely of no small moment. And, 2. The bishop's
solemn benediction and prayers to God for a blessing upon
those who shall seek him in such sacred places, can not but
be supposed a direct and most effectual means to procure a
blessing from God upon those persons who shall address
themselves to him there, as they ought to do. And surely,
this also vouches the great reason of the episcopal consecration. Add to this, in the third place, that all who ever had
any awful sense of religion and religious matters (wvhether
Jews or Christians, or even heathens themselves) have ever
used solemn dedications and consecrations of things set
apart, and designed for divine worship; which surely could
never have been so universally practiced, had not right reason
dictated the high expediency and great use of such practices.
Eusebius, (the earliest church-historian,) in the tenth book
of his " Ecclesiastical History," as also in the " Life of Constantine," speaks of these consecrations of churches as of things
generally in use, and withal sets down those actions particularly, of which they consisted, styling them OEropvE7r, EKKX7Ola cotaioo,  laws or customs of the church becoming God.
What the Greek and Latin churches used to do, may be seen
in their pontificals, containing the set forms for these conse



140           God's Peculiar Regard to Places    [SERM. VIL
crations; though indeed (for these six or seven last centuries) full of many tedious, superfluous, and ridiculous fopperies; setting aside all which, if also our liturgy had a set
form for the consecration of places, as it has of persons,
perhaps it would be nevertheless perfect. Now from what
has been above discoursed of the ground of God's sole property in things set apart for his service, we come at length
to see how all things given to the church, whether houses,
or lands, or tithes, belong to churchmen.  They are but
usufructuarii, and have only the use of these things, the
property and fee remaining wholly in God; and consequently
the alienating of them is a robbing of God, Mal. iii. 8, 9.
Ye are cursed with a curse, for ye have robbed me, even this
whole nation, in tythes and offerings. If it was God that was
robbed, it was God also that was the owner of what was took
away in the robbery: even our own common law speaks as
much; for so says our Magna Charta, in the first chapter,
Concessimus Deo - quod ecclesia Anglicana libera erit, &c. Upon
which words, that great lawyer in his " Institutes " comments
thus: When any thing is granted for God, it is deemed in
law to be granted to God; and whatsoever is granted to the
church for his honor, and the maintenance of his service, is
granted for and to God.
The same also appears from those forms of expression in
which the donation of sacred things usually ran. As Deo
omntipotenti hac prcesente charta donavimus, with the like. But
most undeniably is this proved by this one argument:  That
in case a bishop should commit treason or felony, and thereby
forfeit his estate with his life, yet the lands of his bishopric
become not forfeit, but remain still in the church, and pass
entire to his successor; which sufficiently shows that they
were none of his.
It being therefore thus proved that God is the sole proprietor of all sacred things or places, I suppose his peculiar
property in them is an abundantly pregnant reason of that
different respect that he bears to them. For is not the meumn,
and the separate property of a thing, the great cause of its
endearment amongst all mankind P Does any one respect a
common as much as he does his garden P or the gold that
lies in the bowels of a mine as much as that which he has in
his purse P




Ps. lxxxvii. 2.]   set apart for Divine Worship.     141
I have now finished the first proposition drawn from the
words; namely, that God bears a different respect to places
set apart and consecrated to his worship, from what he bears
to all other places designed to the uses of common life:
and also shown the reason why he does so. I proceed now
to the other proposition, which is, That God prefers the worship paid him in such places, above that which is offered
him  in any other places whatsoever. And that for these
reasons:
1. Because such places are naturally apt to excite a greater
reverence and devotion in the discharge of divine service,
than places of common use. The place properly reminds a
man of the business of the place, and strikes a kind of awe
into the thoughts, when they reflect upon that great and sacred Majesty they use to treat and converse with there. They
find the same holy consternation upon themselves that Jacob
did at his consecrated Bethel, which he called the gate of
heaven; and if such places are so, then surely a daily expectation at the gate is the readiest way to gain admittance into
the hiouse.
It has been the advice of some spiritual persons, that such
as were able should set apart some certain place in their
dwellings for private devotions only, which if they constantly
performed there, and nothing else, their very entrance into it
would tell them what they were to do in it, and quickly make
their chamber-thoughts, their table-thoughts, and their jolly,
worldly, but much more their sinful thoughts and purposes,
fly out of their hearts.
For is there any man (whose heart has not shook off all
sense of what is sacred) who finds himself no otherwise affected, when he enters into a church, than when he enters
into his parlor or chamber? If he does, for aught I know,
he is fitter to be there always than in a church.
The mind of man, even in spirituals, acts with a corporeal
dependence, and so is helped or hindered in its operations,
according to the different quality of external objects that
incur into the senses. And perhaps sometimes the sight of
the altar, and those decent preparations for the work of devotion, may compose and recover the wandering mind much
more effectually than a sermon, or a rational discourse. For




142          God's Peculiar Regard to Places    [SIRm. VII.
these things in a manner preach to the eye, when the ear is
dull and will not hear, and the eye dictates to the imagination, and that at last moves the affections.  And if these
little impulses set the great wheels of devotion on work, the
largeness and height of that shall not at all be prejudiced by
the smallness of its occasion. If the fire burns bright and
vigorously, it is no matter by what means it was at first kindled; there is the same force, and the same refreshing virtue
in it, kindled by a spark from a flint, as if it were kindled by
a beam from the sun.
I am far from thinking that these external things are either
parts of our devotion, or by any strength in themselves direct
causes of it; but the grace of God is pleased to move us by
ways suitable to our nature, and to sanctify these sensible
inferior helps to greater and higher purposes. And since
God has placed the soul in a body, where it receives all things
by the ministry of the outward senses, he would have us
secure these cinque ports (as I may so call them) against the
invasion of vain thoughts, by suggesting to them such objects
as may prepossess them with the contrary. For God knows
how hard a lesson devotion is, if the senses prompt one thing
when the heart is to utter another. And therefore let no
man presume to think that he may present God with as acceptable a prayer in his shop, and much less in an alehouse
or a tavern, as he may in a church or in his closet: unless he
can rationally promise himself (which is impossible) that he
shall find the same devout motions and impresses upon his
spirit there that he may here.
What says David, in Psalm lxxvii. 13. Thy way, 0 God, is
in the sanctuary. It is no doubt but that holy person continued a strict and most pious communion with God during
his wanderings upon the mountains and in the wilderness;
but still he found in himself that he had not those kindly,
warm meltings upon his heart, those raptures and ravishing
transports of affection, that he used to have in the fixed and
solemn place of God's worship. See the two first verses of
the 63d Psalm, entitled, A psalm of David, when he was in the
wilderness of Judah. How  emphatically and divinely does
every word proclaim the truth that I have been speaking of!
0 God, says he, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my




Ps.lxxxvii. 2.]   set apart for Divine Worship.      143
soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and
thirsty land, where no water is; to see thy power and thy glory,
so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. Much different was his
wish from that of our nonconforming zealots nowadays, which
expresses itself in another kind of dialect; as, When shall I
enjoy God as I used to do at a conventicle?  When shall I
meet with those blessed breathings, those heavenly hummings
and hawings, that I used to hear at a private meeting, and
at the end of a table P
In all our worshipings of God, we return him but what
he first gives us; and therefore he prefers the service offered
him in the sanctuary, because there he usually vouchsafes
more helps to the piously disposed person, for the discharge
of it. As we value the same kind of fruit growing under one
climate more than under another; because under one it has
a directer and a warmer influence from the sun than under
the other, which gives it both a better savor and a greater
worth.
And perhaps I should not want a further argument for the
confirmation of the truth discoursed of, if I should appeal to
the experience of many in this.nation, who, having been long
bred to the decent way of divine service in the cathedrals of
the church of England, were afterwards driven into foreign
countries, where, though they brought with them the same
sincerity to church, yet perhaps they could not find the same
enlargements and flowings out of spirit which they were wont
to find here. Especially in some countries, where their very
religion smelt of the shop; and their ruder and coarser
methods of divine service seemed only adapted to the genius
of trade and the designs of parsimony; though one would
think that parsimony in God's worship were the worst husbandry in the world, for fear God should proportion his blessings to such devotions.
2. The other reason why God prefers a worship paid him
in places solemnly dedicated and set apart for that purpose,
is, because in such places it is a more direct service and testification of our homage to him. For surely, if I should have
something to ask of a great person, it were greater respect
to wait upon him with my petition at his own house, than to
desire him to come and receive it at mine.




1.44         God's Peculiar Regard to Places    [SERM. VII.
Set places and set hours for divine worship, as much as the
laws of necessity and charity permit us to observe them, are
but parts of that due reverence that we owe it: for he that is
strict in observing these, declares to the world that he accounts his attendance upon God his greatest and most important business: and surely it is infinitely more reasonable
that we should wait upon God than God upon us.
We shall still find, that when God was pleased to vouchsafe his people a meeting, he himself would prescribe the
place. When he commanded Abraham to sacrifice his only
deand beloved Isaac, the place of the offering was not left untermined, and to the offerer's discretion: but in Gen. xxii. 2.
Get thee into the land of Moriah, (says God;) and offer him for a
burn t-ofering upon one of the mountains that I shall tell thee of.
It was part of his sacrifice, not only what he should offer,
but where. When we serve God in his own house, his service (as I may so say) leads all our other secular affairs in triumph after it. They are all made to stoop and bend the knee
to prayer, as that does to the throne of grace.
Thrice a year were the Israelites from all, even the remotest
parts of Palestine, to go up to Jerusalem, there to worship
and pay their offerings at the temple. The great distance
of some places from thence could not excuse the inhabitants
from making their appearance there, which the Mosaic law
exacted as indispensable.
Whether or no they had coaches, to the temple they must
go: nor could it excuse them to plead God's omniscience,
that he could equally see and hear them in allny place: nor
yet their own good will and intentions; as if the readiness of
their mind to go, might, forsooth, warrant their bodies to stay
at home. Nor, lastly, could the real danger of leaving their
dwellings to go up to the temple excuse their journey: for
they might very plausibly and very rationally have alleged,
that during their absence their enemies round about them
might take that advantage to invade their land. And therefore, to obviate this fear and exception, which indeed was
built upon so good ground, God makes them a promise, which
certainly is as remarkable as any in the whole book of God,
Exod. xxxiv. 24. I will cast out the nations before thee; neither
shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear




Ps. lxxxvii. 2.]   set apart for Divine Worship.    145
before the Lord thy God thrice in a year.  While they were
appearing in God's house, God himself engages to keep and
defend theirs, and that by little less than a miracle, putting
forth an overpowering work and influence upon the very
hearts and wills of men, that when their opportunities should
induce, their hearts should not serve them to annoy their
neighbors.
For surely, a rich land, guardless and undefended, must
needs have been a double incitement, and such an one as
might not only admit, but even invite the enemy. It was
like a fruitful garden or a fair vineyard without an hedge, that
quickens the appetite to enjoy so tempting, and withal so easy
a prize. But the great God, by ruling men's hearts, could
by consequence hold their hands, and turn the very desires
of interest and nature out of their common channel, to coinply with the designs of his worship.'
But now, had not God set a very peculiar value upon the
service paid him in his temple, surely he would not have thus,
as it were, made himself his people's convoy, and exerted
a supernatural work to secure them in their passage to it.
And therefore that eminent hero in religion, Daniel, when in
the land of his captivity he used to pay his daily devotions to
God, not being able to go to the temple, would at least look
towards it, advance to it in wish and desire, and so, in a
manner, bring the temple to his prayers, when he could not
bring his prayers to that.
And now, what have I to do more, but to wish that all this
discourse may have that blessed effect upon us, as to send us
both to this and to all other solemn places of divine worship
with those three excellent ingredients of devotion, - desire,
reverence, and confidence?
1. And first, for desire.  We should come hither, as to
meet God in a place where he loves to meet us; and where
(as Isaac did to his sons) he gives us blessings with embraces.
Many frequent the gates of Sion, but is it because they love
them; and not rather because their interest forces them,
much against their inclination, to endure them P
Do they hasten to their devotions with that ardor and
quickness of mind that they would to a lewd play or a masquerade?
VOL. I.          ]0




146    God's Regard to Places of Divine Worship. [SERM. VII.
Or do they not rather come hither slowly, sit here uneasily,
and depart desirously? All which is but too evident a sign
that men repair to the house of God, not as to a place of
fruition, but of task and trouble, not to enjoy, but to afflict
themselves.
2. We should come full of reverence to such sacred places;
and where there are affections of reverence, there will be
postures of reverence too. Within consecrated walls we are
more directly under God's eye, who looks through and through
every one that appears before him, and is too jealous a God
to be affronted to his face.
3. And lastly; God's peculiar property in such places should
give us a confidence in our addresses to him here. Reverence
and confidence are so far fromn being inconsistent, that they
care the most direct and proper qualifications of a devout and
filial approach to God.
For where should we be so confident of a blessing as in
the place and element of blessings; the place where God
both promises and delights to dispense larger proportions of
his favor, even for this purpose, that he mnay fix a lnark of
honor upon his sanctuary; and so recommend and endear it
to the sons of men, upon the stock of their own interest as
well as his glory; who has declared himself the high and the
lofty One that inhabits eternity, and dwells not in houses made
with men's hands, yet is pleased to be present in the assemblies of
his saints.
To whom  be rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all.
praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for
evermore. Amen.




SERMON VIII.
A SERMON PREACHED AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY,
FEBRUARY 22, 1684-85.
PROV. xvi. 33. - The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing of it is of the
Lord.
I CANNOT think myself engaged from these words to discourse of lots, as to their nature, use, and allowableness;
and that not only in matters of moment and business, but
also of recreation; which latter is indeed impugned by some,
though better defended by others; but I shall fix only upon
the design of the words, which seems to be a declaration of a
divine perfection by a signal instance; a proof of the exactness and universality of God's providence from its influence
upon a thing, of all others, the most casual and fortuitous,
such as is the casting of lots.
A lot is properly a casual event, purposely applied to the
determination of some doubtful thing.
Some there are who utterly proscribe the name of chance,
as a word of impious and profane signification; and indeed,
if it be taken by us in that sense in which it was used by the
heathen, so as to make any thing casual in respect of God
himself, their exception ought justly to be admitted. But to
say a thing is a chance, or casualty, as it relates to second
causes, is not profaneness, but a great truth; as signifying
no more than that there are some events, besides the knowledge, purpose, expectation, and power of second agents. And
for this very reason, because they are so, it is the royal prerogative of God himself, to have all these loose, uneven, fickle
uncertainties under his disposal.
The subject, therefore, that from hence we are naturally




148            A11 Contingeneies under the     [SEIRM. VIMI.
carried to the consideration of, is, the admirable extent of the
divine Providence, in managing the most contingent passages
of human affairs; which that we may the better treat of, we
will consider the result of a lot:
I. In reference to men.
II. In reference to God.
I. For the first of these, if we consider it as relating to
men, who suspend the decision of some dubious case upon
it, so we shall find that it naturally implies in it these two
things:
1. Something future. 2. Something contingent.
From which two qualifications these two things also follow:
1. That it is absolutely out of the reach of man's knowledge.
2. That it is equally out of his power.
This is most clear; for otherwise, why are men in such
cases doubtful, and concerned, what the issue and result
should be? for no man doubts of what he sees and knows;
nor is solicitous about the event of that which he has in his
power to dispose of to what event he pleases.
The light of man's understanding is but a short, diminutive, contracted light, and looks not beyond the present: he
knows nothing future, but as it has some kind of presence in
the stable, constant manner of operation belonging to its
cause; by virtue of which we know, that if the fire continues
for twenty years, it will certainly burn so long; and that there
will be summer, winter, and harvest, in their respective seasons: but whether God will continue the world till to-morrow
or no, we can not know by any certain argument, either from
the nature of God or of the world.
But when we look upon such things as relate to their immediate causes with a perfect indifference, so that in respect
of them they equally may or may not be, human reason can
then, at the best, but conjecture what will be. And in some
things, as here in the casting of lots, a man can not, upon
any ground of reason, bring the event of them so much as
under conjecture.
The choice of man's' will is indeed uncertain, because in
many things free; but yet there are certain habits and principles in the soul, that have some kind of sway upon it, apt




PROV. XVi. 33.]   Direction of God's Providence.     149
to bias it more one way than another; so that, upon the
proposal of an agreeable object, it may rationally be conjectured, that a man's choice will rather incline him to accept
than to refuse it. But when lots are shuffled together in a
lap, urn, or pitcher, or a man blindfold casts a die, what
reason in the world can he have to presume that he shall
draw a white stone rather than a black, or throw an ace
rather than a size P Now, if these things are thus out of the
compass of a man's knowledge, it will unavoidably follow,
that they are also out of his power. For no man can govern
or command that which he can not possibly know; since to
dispose of a thing implies both a knowledge of the thing to
be disposed of, and of the end that it is to be disposed of to.
And thus we have seen how a contingent event baffles man's
knowledge, and evades his power. Let us now consider the
same in respect of God; and so we shall find that it falls
under,
i. A certain knowledge. And
2. A determining providence.
1. First of all then, the most casual event of things, as
it stands related to God, is comprehended by a certain
knowledge.  God, by reason of his eternal, infinite, and
indivisible nature, is, by one single act of duration, present
to all the successive portions of time; and consequently to
all things successively existing in them: which eternal, indivisible act of his existence makes all futures actually present to him; and it is the presentiality of the object which
founds the unerring certainty of his knowledge. For whatsoever is known, is some way or other present; and that
which is present can not but be known by him who is omniscient.
But I shall not insist upon these speculations; which
when they are most refined serve only to show how impossible -it is for us to have a clear and explicit notion of that
which is infinite. Let it suffice us in general to acknowledge
and adore the vast compass of God's omniscience. That it is
a light shining into every dark corner, ripping up all secrets,
and steadfastly grasping the greatest and most slippery uncertainties. As when we see the sun shine upon a river,
though the waves of it move and roll this way and that way




150            All Contingencies under the     [SERM. vIII.
by the wind; yet for all their unsettledness, the sun strikes
them with a direct and a certain beam. Look upon things
of the most accidental and mutable nature, accidental in
their production, and mutable in their continuance; yet
God's prescience of them is as certain in him as the memory
of them is or can be in us. He knows which way the lot
and the die shall fall, as perfectly as if they were already
cast. All futurities are naked before that all-seeing eye, the
sight of which is no more hindered by distance of time than
the sight of an angel can be determined by distance of place.
2. As all contingencies are comprehended by a certain
divine knowledge, so they are governed by as certain. and
steady a providence.
There is no wandering out of the reach of this, no slipping
through the hands of omnipotence. God's hand is as steady
as his eye; and certainly thus to reduce contingency to
method, instability and chance itself to an unfailing rule and
order, argues such a mind as is fit to govern the world; and
I am sure nothing less than such an one can.
Now God may be said to bring the greatest casualties under
his providence Upon a twofold account:
(1.) That he directs them to a certain end.
(2.) Oftentimes to very weighty and great ends.
(1.) And first of all, he directs them to a certain end.
Providence never shoots at rovers. There is an arrow that
flies by night as well as by day, and God is the person that
shoots it, who can aim then as well as in the day. Things
are not left to an equilibrium, to hover under an indifference
whether they shall come to pass or not come to pass; but
the whole train of events is laid beforehand, and all proceed
by the rule and limit of an antecedent decree.: for otherwise,
who could manage the affairs of the world, and govern the
dependence of one event upon another, if that event happened at random, and was not cast into a certain method and
relation to some foregoing purpose to direct it P
The reason why men are so short and weak in governing
is, because most things fall out to them accidentally, and
come not into any compliance with their preconceived ends,
but they are forced to comply subsequently, and to strike in
with things as they fall out, by postliminious after-applications




PRov. xvi. 33.]    Direction of God's Providence.    151
of them to their purposes, or by framing their purposes to
them.
But now there is not the least thing that falls within the
cognizance of man, but is directed by the counsel of God.
Not an hair can fallfrom our head, nor a sparrow to the ground,
without the will of our heavenly Father.  Such an universal
superintendency has the eye and hand of Providence over all,
even the most minute and inconsiderable things.
Nay, and sinful actions too are overruled to a certain issue;
even that horrid villainy of the crucifixion of our Saviour was
not a thing left to the disposal of chance and uncertainty;
but in Acts ii. 23. it is said of him, that he was delivered to the
wicked hands of his murderers, by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God: for surely the Son of God could not die
by chance, nor the greatest thing that ever came to pass in
nature be left to an undeterminate event. Is it imaginable.that the great means of the world's redemption should rest
only in the number of possibilities, and hang so loose in respect of its futurition as to leave the event in an equal poise,
whether ever there should be such a thing or no P Certainly
the actions and proceedfigs of wise men run in a much
greater closeness and coherence with one another than thus
to derive at a casual issue, brought under no forecast or design. The pilot must intend some port before he steers his
course, or he had as good leave his vessel to the direction of
the winds and the government of the waves.
Those that suspend the purposes of God, and the resolves
of an eternal mind upon the actions of the creature, and nake
God first wait and expect what the creature will do, (and then
frame his decrees and counsels accordingly,) forget that he is
the first cause of all things, and discourse most unphilosophically, absurdly, and unsuitably to the nature of an infinite
being; whose influence in every motion must set the first
wheel agoing.  He must still be the first agent, and what
he does he must will and intend to do before he does it, and
what he wills and intends once, he willed and intended from
all eternity; it being grossly contrary to the very first notions
we have of the infinite perfection of the divine nature, to
state or suppose any new immanent act in God.
The Stoics indeed held a fatality, and a fixed unalterable




152            All Contingencies under the     [SERM. VIII.
course of events; but then they held also, that they fell out
by a necessity emergent from and inherent in the things
themselves, which God himself could not alter: so that they
subjected God to the fatal chain of causes, whereas they
should have resolved the necessity of all inferior events into
the free determination of God himself; who executes necessarily that which he first purposed freely.
In a word, if we allow God to be the governor of the world,
we can not but grant that he orders and disposes of all inferior events; and if we allow him to be a wise and a rational
governor, he calln not but direct them to a certain end.
(2.) In the next place, he directs all these appearing casualties, not only to certain, but also to very great ends.
He that created something out of nothing, surely can raise
great things out of small, and bring all the scattered and
disordered passages of affairs into a great, beautiful, and exact frame. Now this overruling, directing power of God may
be considered,
First, In reference to societies, or united bodies of men.
Secondly, In reference to particular persons.
First. And first for societies. God and nature do not
principally concern themselves in the preservation of particulars, but of kinds and companies. Accordingly, we must
allow  Providence to be more intent and solicitous about
nations and governments than about any private interest
whatsoever. Upon which account it must needs have a peculiar influence upon the erection, continuance, and dissolution
of every society. Which great effects it is strange to consider,
by what sniall, inconsiderable means they are oftentimes
brought about, and those so wholly undesigned by such as are
the immediate visible actors in them. Examples of this we
have both in holy writ, and also in other stories.
And first for those of the former sort.
Let us reflect upon that strange and unparalleled story of
Joseph and his brethren; a story that seems to be made up
of nothing else but chances and little contingencies, all
directed to mighty ends. For was it not a mere chance that
his father Jacob should send him to visit his brethren, just
at that time that the Ishmaelites were to pass by that way,
and so his unnatural brethren take occasion to sell him to




PROV. XVi. 33.]   Direction of God's Providence.    153
them, and they to carry him into Egypt P and then that he
should be cast into prison, and thereby brought at length to
the knowledge of Pharaoh in that unlikely manner that he
was P Yet by a joint connection of every one of these casual
events, Providence served itself in the preservation of a kingdoml from famine, and of the church, then circumscribed
within the family of Jacob. Likewise by their sojourning in
Egypt, he made way for their bondage there, and their bondage for a glorious deliverance through those prodigious manifestations of the divine power, in the several plagues inflicted
upon the Egyptians.  It was hugely accidental that Joash
king of Israel, being commanded by the prophet to strike
upon the ground, 2 Kings xiii., should strike no oftener than
just three times; and yet we find there that the fate of a
kingdom depended upon it, and that his victories over Syria
were concluded by that number. It was very casual that the
Levite and his concubine should linger so long as to be forced
to take up their lodging at Gibeah, as we read in Judges xix.,
and yet we know what a villainy was occasioned by it, and
what a civil war that drew after it, almost to the destruction
of a whole tribe.
And then for examples out of other histories, to hint a few
of them.
Perhaps there is none more remarkable than that passage
about Alexander the Great, in his famed expedition against
Darius.
When in his march towards him, chancing to bathe himself in the river Cydnus, through the excessive coldness of
those waters, he fell sick near unto death for three days;
during which short space the Persian army had advanced
itself into the strait passages of Cilicia; by which means Al-.
exander with his small army was able to equal them under
those disadvantages, and to fight and conquer them. Whereas
had not this stop been given him by that accidental sickness,
his great courage and promptness of mind would, beyond all
doubt, have carried him directly forward to the enemy, till he
had met him in the vast open plains of Persia, where his
paucity and small numbers would have been contemptible,
and the Persian multitudes formidable; and, in all likelihood
of reason, victorious. So that this one little accident of that




154            All Contingencies under the    [SERM. VIII.
prince's taking a fancy to bathe himself at that time, caused
the interrupti6n of his march, and that interruption gave occasion to that great victory that founded the third monarchy
of the world.  In like manner, how much of casualty was
there in the preservation of Romulus, as soon as born exposed
by his uncle, and took up and nourished by a shepherd! (for
the story of the shewolf is a fable.)  And yet in that one
accident was laid the foundation of the fourth universal monarchy.
How doubtful a case was it, whether Hannibal, after the
battle of Cannae, should march directly to Rome, or divert
into Campania! Certain it is, that there was more reason
for the former; and he was a person that had sometimes the
coummand. of reason, as well as regiments: yet his reason deserted his conduct at that time; and by not going to Rome
he gave occasion to those recruits of the Roman strength that
prevailed to the conquest of his country, and at length to the
destruction of Carthage itself, one of the most puissant cities
in the world.
And to descend to occurrences within our own nation. How
many strange accidents concurred in the whole business of
King Henry the Eighth's divorce! yet we see Providence directed it and them to an entire change of the affairs and state
of the whole kingdom. And surely, there could not be a
greater chance than that which brought to light the powder
treason, when Providence, as it were, snatched a king and
kingdom out of the very jaws of death, only by the mistake
of a word in the direction of a letter.
But of all cases in which little casualties produce great
and strange effects, the chief is in war; upon the issues of
which hangs the fortune of states and kingdoms.
Caesar, I am sure, whose great sagacity and conduct put
his success as much out of the power of chance as human
reason could well do, yet upon occasion of a notable experiment that had like to have lost him his whole army at
Dyrrachium, tells us the power of it in the third book of
his Commentaries, De Bello Civili: "Fortuna quae plurimum  potest, cum in aliis rebus, tumn praecipue in bello, in
parvis momentis magnas rerum  mutationes efficit."  Nay,
and a greater than Caesar, even the Spirit of God himself,




PROV. xvi. 33.]   Direction of God's Providence.    155
in Eccles. vi. 11., expressly declares, that the battle is not always to the strong. So that upon this account every warrior
may in some sense be said to be a soldier of fortune; and the
best commanders to have a kind of lottery for their work, as,
amongst us, they have for their reward. For how often have
whole armies been routed by a little mistake, or a sudden fear
raised in the soldiers' minds, upon some trivial ground or occasion!
Sometimes the misunderstanding of a word has scattered
and destroyed those who have been even in possession of victory, and wholly turned the fortune of the day. A spark of
fire or an unexpected gust of wind may ruin a navy. And
sometimes a false, senseless report has spread so far, and sunk
so deep into the people's minds, as to cause a tumult, and that
tumult a rebellion, and that rebellion has ended in the subversion of a government.
And in the late war between the king and some of his
rebel subjects, has it not sometimes been at an even cast,
whether his army should march this way or that way?P
Whereas had it took that way, which actually it did not,
things afterwards so fell out, that in very high probability of
reason, it must have met with such success as would have
put an happy issue to that wretched war, and thereby have
continued the crown upon that blessed prince's head, and his
head upon his shoulders. Upon supposal of which event,
most of those sad and strange alterations that have since
happened would have been prevented; the ruin of many honest men hindered, the punishment of many great villains
hastened, and the preferment of greater spoiled.
Many passages happen in the world, much like that little
cloud in 1 Kings xviii., that appeared at first to Elijah's
servant, no bigger than a man's hand, but presently after grew
and spread, and blackened the face of the whole heaven, and
then discharged itself in thunder and rain, and a mighty
tempest. So these accidents, when they first happen, seem
but small and contemptible; but by degrees they branch out,
and widen themselves into such a numerous train of mischievous consequences, one drawing after it another, by a continued
dependence and multiplication, that the plague becomes vic



156            All Contingencies under the    [SERM. VIII.
torious and universal, and. personal miscarriage determines in
a national calamity.
For who that should view the small, despicable beginnings
of some things and persons at first, could imagine or prognosticate those vast and stupendous increases of fortune that
have afterwards followed them P
Who, that had looked upon Agathocles first handling the
clay, and making pots under his father, and afterwards turning robber, could have thought that from such a condition
he should come to be king of Sicily P
Who, that had seen Masianello, a poor fisherman, with his
red cap and his angle, could have reckoned it possible to see
such a pitiful thing, within a week after, shining in his cloth
of gold, and with a word or a nod absolutely commanding the
whole city of Naples P
And who, that had beheld such a bankrupt, beggarly fellow
as Cromwell, first entering the parliament house with a threadbare torn cloak, and a greasy hat, (and perhaps neither of
them paid for,) could have suspected that in the space of so
few years he should, by the murder of one king and the banishment of another, ascend the throne, be invested in the
royal robes, and want nothing of the state of a king but the
changing of his hat into a crown?
It is, as it were, the sport of the Almighty thus to baffle
and confound the sons of men by such events as both. cross
the methods of their actings, and surpass the measure of their
expectations. For according to both these, men still suppose
a gradual natural progress of things; as that from great,
things and persons should grow greater, till at length, by
many steps and ascents, they come to be at greatest; not
considering that when Providence designs strange and
mighty changes, it gives men wings instead of legs; and
instead of climbing leisurely, makes them at once fly to the
top and height of greatness and power. So that the world
about them (looking up to those illustrious upstarts) scarce
knows who or whence they were, nor they themselves where
they are.
It were infinite to insist upon particular instances; histories are full of them, and experience seals to the truth of
history.




PRov. xvi. 83.]    Direction of God's Providene.    157
In the next place, let us consider to what great purposes
God directs these little casualties, with reference to particular persons; and those either public or private.
1. And first for public persons, as princes. Was it not
a mere accident that Pharaoh's daughter met with Moses P
Yet it was a means to bring him up in the Egyptian court,
then the school of all arts and policy, and so to fit him for
that great and arduous employment that God designed him
to. For see upon what little hinges that great affair turned;
for had either the child been cast out, or Pharaoh's daughter
come down to the river but an hour sooner or later; or had
that little vessel not been cast by the parents, or carried by
the water, into that very place where it was, in all likelihood
the child must have undergone the common lot of the other
Hebrew children, and been either starved or drowned; or,
however, not advanced to such a peculiar height and happiness of condition. That Octavius Coesar should shift his tent
(which he had never used to do before) just that very night
that it happened to be took by the enemy, was a mere casualty; yet such an one as preserved a person who lived to establish a total alteration of government in the imperial city
of the world.
But we need not go far for a prince preserved by as strange
a series of little contingencies as ever were managed by the
art of Providence to so great i purpose.
There was but an hair's breadth between him and certain
destruction for the space of many days. For had the rebel
forces gone one way rather than another, or come but a little
sooner to his hiding-place, or but mistrusted something
which they passed over, (all which things might very easily
have happened;) we had not seen this face of things at this
day; but rebellion had been still enthroned, perjury and
cruelty had reigned, majesty had been proscribed, religon extinguished, and both church and state thoroughly reformed
and ruined with confusions, massacres, and a total desolation.
On the contrary, when Providence designs judgment or
destruction to a prince, nobody knows by what little, unusual,
unregarded means the fatal blow shall reach him. If Ahab
be designed for death, though a soldier in the enemy's army
draws a bow at a venture; yet the sure, unerring directions




158            All Contingencies under the    [SERM. VIII.
of Providence shall carry it in a direct course to his heart,
and there lodge the revenge of Heaven.
An old woman shall cast down a stone from a wall, and
God shall send it to the head of Abimelech, and so sacrifice a
king in the very head of his army.
How many warnings had Julius Coosar of the fatal ides of
March! Whereupon sometimes he resolved not to go to the
senate, and sometimes again he would go; and when at
length he did go, in his very passage thither, one put into his
hand a note of the whole conspiracy against him, together
with all the names of the conspirators, desiring him to read
it forthwith, and to remember the giver of it as long as he
lived. But continual salutes and addresses entertaining him
all the way, kept him from saving so great a life, but with
one glance of his eye upon the paper; till he came to the
fatal place where he was stabbed, and died with the very
means of preventing death in his hand.
Henry the Second of France, by a splinter, unhappily thrust
into his eye at a solemn justing, was dispatched and sent out
of the world, by a sad, but very accidental death.
In a word, God has many ways to reap down the grandees
of the earth; an arrow, a bullet, a tile, a stone from an house,
is enough to do it: and besides all these ways, sometimes,
when he intends to bereave the world of a prince or an illustrious person, he may cast him upon a bold, self-opinioned
physician, worse than his distemper, who shall dose and bleed,
and kill him secundum artem, and make a shift to cure him
into his grave.
In the last place we will consider this directing influence
of God with reference to private persons; and that, as touching things of nearest concernment to them. As,
1. Their lives.
2. Their health.
3. Their reputation.
4. Their friendships. And,
5. Lastly, their employments or preferments.
And first for men's lives. Though these are things for
which nature knows no price or ransom, yet I appeal to universal experience whether they have not, in many men, hung
oftentimes upon a very slender thread, and the distance be



PRov. xvi. 33.]   Direction of God's Providence.   159
tween them and death been very nice, and the escape wonder,
ful. There have been some, who upon a slight and perhaps
groundless occasion have gone out of a ship, or house, and
the ship has sunk, and the house has fell immediately after
their departure.
He that, in a great wind, suspecting the strength of his
house, betook himself to his orchard, and walking there, was
knocked on the head by a tree, falling through the fury of a
sudden gust, wanted but the advance of one or two steps to
have put him out of the way of that mortal blow.
He that being subject to an apoplexy, used still to carry his
remedy about him; but, upon a time, shifting his clothes,
and not taking that with him, chanced, upon that very day,
to be surprised with a fit, and to die in it, certainly owed his
death to a mere accident, to a little inadvertency and failure
of memory. But not to recount too many particulars: may
not every soldier, that comes alive out of the battle, pass for
a living monument of a benign chance, and a happy providence P  For was he not in the nearest neighborhood to
death P And might not the bullet, that perhaps grazed his
cheek, have as easily gone into his head P And the sword
that glanced upon his arm, with a little diversion have found
the way to his heart P But the workings of Providence are
marvelous, and the methods secret and untraceable by which
it disposes of the lives of men.
In like manner, for men's health, it is no less wonderful to
consider to what strange casualties many sick persons oftentimes owe their recovery. Perhaps an unusual draught or
morsel, or some accidental violence of motion, has removed
that malady that for many years has baffled the skill of all
physicians. So that, in effect, he is the best physician that
has the best luck; he prescribes, but it is chance that cures.
That person that (being provoked by excessive pain) thrust
his dagger into his body, and thereby, instead of reaching his
vitals, opened an inmposthume, the unknown cause of all his
pain, and so stabbed himself into perfect health and ease,
surely had great reason to acknowledge Chance for his chirurgeon, and Providence for the guider of his hand.
And then also for men's reputation; and that either in
point of wisdom or of wit. There is hardly any thing which




160            All Contingencies under the    [SERM. VIII.
(for the' most part) falls under a greater chance. If a man
succeeds in any attempt, though undertook with never so
much folly and rashness, his success shall vouch him a politician; and good luck shall pass for deep contrivance: for give
any one fortune, and he shall be thought a wise man, in spite
of his heart; nay, and of his head too. On the contrary, be
a design never so artificially laid, and spun in the finest
thread of policy, if it chances to be defeated by some cross
accident, the man is then run down by an universal vogue;
his counsels are derided, his prudence questioned, and his person despised.
Ahithophell was as great an oracle, and gave as good counsel
to Absalom, as ever he had given to David; but not having
the good luck to be believed, and thereupon losing his former
repute, he thought it high time to hang himself. And, on
the other side, there have been some, who for several years
have been fools with tolerable good reputation, and never discovered themselves to be so, till at length they attempted to
be knaves also, but wanted art and dexterity.
And as the repute of wisdom, so that of wit also, is very
casual. Sometimes a lucky saying, or a pertinent reply, has
procured an esteem of wit, to persons otherwise very shallow,
and no ways accustomed to utter such things by any standing
ability of mind; so that if such an one should have the ill hap
at any time to strike a man dead with a smart saying, it
ought, in all reason and conscience, to be judged but a chancemedley: the poor man (God knows) being no way guilty of
any design of wit.
Nay, even where there is a real stock of wit, yet the wittiest
sayings and sentences will be found in a great measure the
issues of chance, and nothing else but so many lucky hits of
a roving fancy.
For consult the acutest poets and speakers, and they will
confess that their quickest and most admired conceptions
were such as darted into their minds like sudden flashes of
lightning, they knew not how, nor whence; and not by any
certain consequence or dependence of one thought upon
another, as it is in matters of ratiocination.
Moreover, sometimes a man's reputation rises or falls as his
memory serves him in a performance; and yet there is




PROV. xvi. 33.]    Direction of God's Providence.   161
nothing more fickle, slippery, and less under command than
this faculty. So that many, having used their utmost diligence to secure a faithful retention of the things or words
committed to it, yet after all can not certainly know where it
will trip and fail them. Any sudden diversion of the spirits,
or the justling in of a transient thought, is able to deface
those little images of things; and so breaking the train that
was laid in the mind, to leave a man in the lurch. And for
the other part of memory, called reminiscence, which is the
retrieving of a thing, at present forgot, or but confusedly
remembered, by setting the mind to hunt over all its notions, and to ransack every little cell of the brain. While it
is thus busied, how accidentally oftentimes does the thing
sought for offer itself to the mind! And by what small, petit
hints does the mind catch hold of and recover a vanishing
notion!
In short, though wit and learning are certain and habitual
perfectiomns of the mind, yet the declaration of them (which
alone brings the repute) is subject to a thousand hazards.
So that every wit runs something the same risk with the
astrologer, who, if his predictions come to pass, is cried up
to the stars from whence he pretends to draw them; but if
not, the astrologer himself grows more out of date than his
almanac.
And then, in the fourth place, for the friendships or
enmities that a man contracts in the world; than which
surely there is nothing that has a more direct and potent
influence upon the whole course of a man's life, whether as
to happiness or misery; yet chance has the ruling stroke in
them all.
A man by mere peradventure lights into company, possibly
is driven into an house by a shower of rain for present shelter, and there begins an acquaintance with a person; which
acquaintance and endearment grows and continues, even when
relations fail, and perhaps proves the support of his mind and
of his fortunes to his dying day.
And the like holds in enmities, which come much more
easily than the other. A word unadvisedly spoken on the
one side, or misunderstood on the other; any the least surmise of neglect; sometimes a bare gesture; nay, the very
VOL..           11




162            AllM Contingencies under the. [SERM. II.
unsuitableness of one man's aspect to another man's fancy,
has raised such an aversion to him, as in time has produced
a perfect hatred of him; and that so strong and so tenacious,
that it has never left vexing and troubling him, till perhaps
at length: it has worried him to his grave; yea, and after
death too, has pursued him in his surviving shadow,; exercising the same tyranny upon his very name and memory.
It is hard to please men of some tempers, who indeed hardly
know what will please themselves; and yet if a man does not
please them, which it is ten thousand to one if he does, if
they can but have power equal to their malice, (as sometimes,
to plague the world, God lets them have,) such an one must
expect all the mischief that power and spite, lighting upon a
base mind, can possibly do him.
In the last place. As for men's employments and preferments, every man that sets forth into the world, comes
into a great lottery, and draws some one certain profession to
act, and live by, but knows not the fortune that will attend
him in it.
One man perhaps proves miserable in the study of the law,
who might have flourished in that of phystc or divinity.
Another runs his head against the pulpit, who might have
been very serviceable to his country at the plow. And a
third proves a very dull and heavy philosopher, who possibly
would have made a good mechanic, and have done well enough
at the useful philosophy of the spade or the anvil.
Now let this man reflect upon the time when all these
several callings and professions were equally offered to his
choice, and consider how indifferent it was once for him to
have fixed upon any one of them, and' what little accidents
and considerations cast the balance of his choice rather one
way than the other; and he will find how easily chance may
throw a man upon a profession which all his diligence can not
make him fit for.
And then for the preferments of the world, he that would
reckon up all the accidents that they depend upon, may as
well undertake to count the sands, or to sum up infinity; so
that greatness, as well as an estate, may, upon this account,.be properly called a man's fortune, forasmuch as no man can
state either the acquisition or preservation of it upon any cer



PROV. XVi. 33.]    Direction of God's Providence.   163
tain rules; every man, as well as the merchant, being here
truly an adventurer. For the ways by which it is obtained
are various, and frequently contrary: one man, by sneaking
and flattering, comes to riches and honor, (where it is in the
power of fools to bestow them,) upon observation whereof, another presently thinks to arrive to the same greatness by the
very same means; but striving, like the ass, to court his master, just as the spaniel had done before him, instead of being
stroked and made much of, he is only rated off and cudgeled
for all his courtship.
The source of men's preferments is most commonly the
will, humor, and fancy of persons in power; whereupon,
when a prince or grandee manifests a liking to such a thing,
such an art, or such a pleasure, men generally set about to
make themselves considerable for such things, and thereby,
through his favor, to advance themselves; and at length,
when they have spent their whole time in them, and so are
become fit for nothing else, that prince or grandee perhaps
dies, and another succeeds him, quite of a different disposition, and inclining him  to be pleased with quite different
things. Whereupon these men's hopes, studies, and expectations, are wholly at an end. And besides, though the grandee
whom they build upon should not die, or quit the stage, yet
the same person does not always like the same things. For
age may alter his constitution, humor, or appetite; or the
circumstances of his affairs may put him  upon different
courses and counsels; every one of which accidents wholly
alters the road to preferment. So that those who travel that
road must be (like highwaymen) very dexterous in shifting
the way upon every turn; and yet their very doing so sometimes proves the means of their being found out, understood,
and abhorred; and for this very cause, that they that are
ready to do any thing, are justly thought fit to be preferred to
nothing.
~ Caesar Borgia (base son to Pope Alexander VI.) used to
boast to his. friend Machiavel, that he had contrived his affairs and greatness into such a posture of firmness, that,
whether his holy father lived or died, they could not but be
secure.. If he lived, there could be no doubt of them; and




164           All Contingencies under the      [SERM. VIII.
if he died, he laid his interest so as to overrule the next election as he pleased. But all this while the politician never
thought or considered that he might in the mean time fall
dangerously sick, and that sickness necessitate his removal
from the court, and during that his absence his father die,
and so his interest decay, and his mortal enemy be chosen to
the papacy, as indeed it fell out. So that for all his exact
plot, down was he cast from all his greatness, and forced to
end his days in a mean condition: as it is pity but all such
politic opiniators should.
Upon much the like account, we find it once said of an
eminent cardinal, by reason of his great and apparent likelihood to step into St. Peter's chair, that in two conclaves he
went in pope, and came out again cardinal.
So much has chance the casting voice in the disposal of all
the great things of the world. That which men call merit,
is a mere nothing. For even when persons of the greatest
worth and merit are preferred, it is not their merit, but their
fortune that prefers them. And then, for that other so much
admired thing called policy, it is but little better. For when
men have busied themselves, and beat their brains never so
much, the whole result both of their counsels and their fortunes is still at the mercy of an accident. And therefore,
whosoever that man was, that said that he had rather have a
grain of fortune than a pound of wisdom, as to the things of
this life, spoke nothing but the voice of wisdom and great experience.
And now I am far from affirming that I have recounted
all, or indeed the hundredth part of those casualties of human life, that may display the full compass of divine Providence; but surely I have reckoned up so many as sufficiently
enforce the necessity of our reliance upon it, and that in
opposition to two extremes that men are usually apt to fall
into.
1. Too much confidence and presumption in a prosperous
estate. David, after his deliverances from Saul, and his victories over all his enemies round about him, in Psalm xxx.
ver. 7, 8, confesses, that this his prosperity had raised him to
such a pitch of confidence, as to make him say, that he should




PROV. XVi. 33.]   Direction of God's Providence.    165
never be moved, God of his favor had made his hill so strong:
but presently he adds, almost in the very same breath, Thou
didst hide thy face, and I was troubled.
The sun shines in his full brightness but the very moment
before he passes under a cloud. Who knows what a day,
what an hour, nay, what a minute may bring forth! He who
builds upon the present, builds upon the narrow compass of
a point; and where the foundation is so narrow, the superstructure can not be high and strong too.
Is a man confident of his present health and strength?
Why, an unwholesome blast of air, a cold, or a surfeit took
by chance, may shake in pieces his hardy fabric, and, in spite
of all his youth and vigor, send him, in the very flower of his
years, pining and drooping to his long home. Nay, he can
not with any assurance so much as step out of his doors, but
(unless God commissions his protecting angel to bear him up
in his hands) he may dash his foot against a stone, and fall,
and in that fall breathe his last.
Or is a man confident of his estate, wealth, and power P
Why, let him read of those strange, unexpected dissolutions
of the great monarchies and governments of the world.
Governments that once made such a noise, and looked so big
in the eyes of mankind, as being founded upon the deepest
counsels and the strongest force; and yet, by some slight
miscarriage or cross accident, (which. let in ruin and desolation upon them at first,) are now so utterly extinct, that
nothing remains of them but a name, nor are there the least.signs or traces of them to be found, but only in story. When,
I say, he shall have well reflected upon all this, let him see
what security he can promise himself in his own little personal domestic concerns, which at the best have but the protection of the laws to guard and defend them, which, God
knows, are far from being able to defend themselves.
No man can rationally account himself secure, unless he
could command all the chances of the world: but how should:he command them, when he can not so much as number
them P Possibilities are as infinite as God's power; and whatsoever may come to pass, no man can certainly conclude shall
not come to pass.
People forget how little it is that they know, and how much




166            All Contingencies under the    [SERM. V1II.
less it is that they can do, when they grow confident upon
any present state of things.
There is no one enjoyment that a man pleases himself in,
but is liable to be lost by ten thousand accidents, wholly out
of all mortal power either to foresee or to prevent. Reason
allows none to be confident, but Him only who governs the
world, who knows all things, and can do all things, and therefore can neither be surprised nor overpowered.
2. The other extreme, which these considerations should
arm the heart of man against, is, utter despondency of mind
in a time of pressing adversity.
As he who presumes, steps into the throne of God, so he
that despairs limits an infinite power to a finite apprehension,
and measures Providence by his own little, contracted model.
But the contrivances of Heaven are as much above our politics
as beyond our arithmetic.
Of those many millions of casualties which we are not
aware of, there is hardly one but God can make an instrument of our deliverance. And most men, who are at length
delivered from any great distress indeed, find that they are so
by ways that they never thought of; ways above or beside
their imagination.
And therefore let no man, who owns the belief of a
providence, grow desperate or forlorn under any calamity
or strait whatsoever; but compose the anguish of his
thoughts, and rest his amazed spirits upon this one consideration, that he knows not which way the lot may fall,
or what may happen to him; he comprehends not those
strange unaccountable methods by which Providence may
dispose of him.
In a word. To sum up all the foregoing discourse: since
the interest of governments and nations, of princes and private persons, and that both as to life and health, reputation
and honor, friendships and enmities, employments and preferments, (notwithstanding all the contrivance and power that
human nature can exert about them,) remain so wholly contingent as to us; surely all the reason of mankind can not
suggest any solid ground of satisfaction, but in making that
God our friend who is the sole and absolute disposer of all
these things: and in carrying a- conscience so clear towards




PRov. xvi. 33.]   Direction of God's Providence.      167
him  as may encourage us with confidence to cast ourselves
upon him: and in all casualties still to promise ourselves the
best events from his providence, to whom nothing is casual:
who constantly wills the truest happiness to those that trust
in him, and works all things according to the counsel of that
blessed will.
To whom be rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all praise,
might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for evermore.
Amen.




SERMON IX.
A SERMON PREACHED  AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY, APRIL
30, 1676.
1 CoR. iii. 19. — For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.
THE wisdom of the world, so called by an Hebraism, frequent in the writings of this apostle, for worldly wisdom,
is taken in scripture in a double sense.
1. For that sort of wisdom that consists in speculation,
called (both by St. Paul and the professors of it) philosophy;
the great idol of the learned part of the heathen world, and
which divided it into so many sects and denominations, as
Stoics, Peripatetics, Epicureans, and the like; it was professed and owned by them for the grand rule of life, and certain guide to man's chief happiness. But for its utter insufficiency to make good so high an undertaking, we find it
termed by the same apostle, Col. ii. 8, vain philosophy; and
1 Tim. vi. 20, science falsely so called; and a full account of
its uselessness we have in this, 1 Cor. i. 21, where the apostle,
speaking of it, says, that the world by wisdom knew not God.
Such a worthy kind of wisdom is it: only making men accurately and laboriously ignorant of what they were most
concerned to know.
2. The wisdom of this world is sometimes taken in scripture
for such a wisdom as lies in practice, and goes commonly by
the name of policy; and consists in a certain dexterity or art
of managing business for a man's secular advantage: and so
being indeed that ruling engine that governs the world, it
both claims and. finds as great a preeminence above all other
kinds of knowledge, as government is above contemplation,




1 COR. iii. 19.]  The Wisdom of this World.          169
or the leading of an army above the making of syllogisms, or
managing the little issues of a dispute.
And so much is the very name and reputation of it affected
and valued by most men, that they can much rather brook
their being reputed knaves, than for their honesty be accounted fools; as they easily may: knave, in the mean time,
passing for a name of credit, where it is only another word
for politician.
Now this is the wisdom here intended in the text; namely,
that practical cunning that shows itself in political matters,
and has in it really the mystery of a trade, or craft. So that
in this latter part of verse 19. God is said to take the wise in
their own craftiness.
In short, it is a kind of trick or sleight, got not by study,
but converse, learned not from books, but men; and those
also, for the most part, the very worst of men of all sorts,
ways, and professions. So that if it be in truth such a precious jewel as the world takes it for, yet, as precious as it is,
we see that they are forced to rake it out of dunghills; and
accordingly the apostle gives it a value suitable to its extract,
branding it with the most degrading and ignominious imputation of foolishness. Which character running so cross to
the general sense and vogue of mankind concerning it, who
are still admiring, and even adoring it, as the mistress and
queen-regent of all other arts whatsoever, our business, in the
following discourse, shall be to inquire into the reason of the
apostle's passing so severe a remark upon it: and here, indeed,
since we must allow it for an art, and since every art is properly an habitual knowledge of certain rules and maxims, by
which a man is governed and directed in his actions, the
prosecution of the words will most naturally lie in these two
things:
I. To show what are those rules or principles of action,
upon which the policy or wisdom here condemned by the
apostle does proceed.
II. To show and demonstrate the folly and absurdity of
them, in relation to God, in whose account they receive a very
different estimate from what they have in the world's.
And first, for the first of these; I shall set down four several rules or principles, which that policy or wisdom, which




170             The Wisdom of this World.        [SEPcM. IX.
carries'so great a vogue and value in the world, governs its
actions by.
1. The first is, That a man must maintain a constant continued course of dissimulation, in the whole tenor of his behavior. Where yet, we must observe, that dissimulation
admits of a twofold acception. (1.) It may be taken for a
bare concealment of one's mind: in.which.sense we commonly say, that it is prudence to dissemble injuries, that is,
not always to declare our resentments of them; and this
must be allowed not only lawful, but, in most of the affairs of
human life, absolutely necessary: for certainly it can be no
man's duty to write his heart upon his forehead, and to give
all the inquisitive and malicious world round about him a
survey of those thouglits which it is the prerogative of God
only to know, and his own great interest to conceal. Nature
gives every one a right to defend himself, and silence surely
is a very innocent defence.
(2.) Dissimulation is taken for a man's positive professing
himself to be what indeed he is not, and what he resolves not
to be.; and consequently it employs all the art and industry
imaginable, to make good the disguise; and by false appearances to render its designs the less visible, that so they may
prove'the more effectual: and this is the dissimulation here
meant, which is the very groundwork of all worldly policy.
The superstructure of which being folly, it is but reason that
the foundation of it should be falsity.
In the language of the scripture it is damrnable hypocrisy;
but of those who neither believe scripture nor damnation, it is
voted wisdom; nay, the very primunm  mobile, or great wheel,
upon which all the various arts of policy move and turn: the
soul, or spirit, which, as it were, animates and runs through
all the particular designs and contrivances by which the great
masters of this mnysterious wisdom turn about the world. So
that he who hates his neighbor mortally, and wisely too, must
profess all the dearness and friendship, all the readiness to
serve him, (as the phrase now is,) that words and superficial
actions can express.
When he purposes one thing, he must swear and lie, and
-damn himself with ten thousand protestations, that he designs
the:clean contrary. If he really intends to ruin and murder




1 CoR. iii. 19.]  Te Wisdom of this World.           171
his prince, (as Cromwell, an experienced artist in that perfidious and bloody faculty, once did,) he must weep and call upon
God, use all the oaths and imprecations, all the sanctified perjuries, to persuade him that he resolves nothing but his safety,
honor, and establishment, as the same grand exemplar of
hypocrisy did before.
If such persons'project the ruin of church and state, they
must appeal to God, the searcher of all hearts, that they are
ready to sacrifice their dearest blood for the peace of the one
and the purity of the other.
And now, if men will be prevailed upon so far as to renounce the sure and impartial judgments of sense and experience, and to believe that black is white, provided there be
somebody to swear that it is so; they shall not want arguments of this sort, good store, to convince them: there being
knights of the post, and holy cheats enough in- the world, to
swear the truth of the broadest contradictions, and the highest impossibilities, where interest and pious frauds shall give
them an extraordinary call to it.
It is looked upon as a great piece of weakness and unfitness for business, forsooth, for a man to be so clear and open
as really to think, not only what he says, but what he swears;
and when he makes any promise, to have the least intent
of performing it, but when his interest serves instead of
veracity, and engages him rather to be true to another than
false to himself. He only nowadays speaks like an oracle,
who speaks tricks and ambiguities. Nothing is thought
beautiful that is not painted: so that, what between French
fashions and Italian dissimulations, the old, generous English
spirit, which heretofore made this nation so great in the eyes
of all the world round about it, seems utterly lost and extinct; and we are degenerated into a mean, sharking, fallacious, undermining way of converse; there being a snare
and a trepan almost in every word we hear, and every action
we see. Men speak with designs of mischief, and therefore
they speak in the dark. In short, this seems to be the true,
inward judgment of all our politic sages, that speech was
given to the ordinary sort of men, whereby to communicate
their mind; but to wise men, whereby to conceal it.
2. The second rule or principle upon which this policy, or




172            The Wisdom of this World.         [SERM. IX.
wisdom of the world, does proceed, is, That conscience and
religion ought to lay no restraint upon men at all, when it
lies opposite to the prosecution of their interest.
The great patron and coryphceus of this tribe, Nicolas
Machiavel, laid down this for a master rule in his political
scheme, That the show of religion was helpful to the politician, but the reality of it hurtful and pernicious. Accordingly, having shown how the former part of his maxim has
been followed by these men in that first and fundamental
principle of dissimulation already spoken to by us, we come
now to show further, that they can not with more art dissemble the appearance of religion than they can with ease lay
aside the substance.
The politician, whose very essence lies in this, that he be
a person ready to do any thing that he apprehends for his
advantage, must first of all be sure to put himself into a
state of liberty, as free and large as his principles: and so
to provide elbow-room enough for his conscience to lay about,
and have its full play in. And for that purpose, he must resolve to shake off all inward awe of religion, and by no means
to suffer the liberty of his conscience to be enslaved, and
brought under the bondage of observing oaths, or the narrowness of men's opinions, about turpe et honestum, which
ought to vanish when they stand in competition with any
solid, real good; that is, (in their judgment,) such as concerns
eating, or drinking, or taking money.
Upon which account, these children of darkness seem excellently well to imitate the wisdom of those children of
light, the great illuminati of the late times, who professedly
laid down this as the basis of all their proceedings; That
whatsoever they said or did for the present, under such a
measure of light, should oblige them no longer when agreater measure of light. should give them other discoveries.
And this principle, they professed, was of great use to
them; as how could it be otherwise, if it fell into skillful
hands P For since this light was to rest within them, and
the judgment of it to remain wholly in themselves, they
might safely and uncontrollably pretend it greater or less, as
their occasions should enlighten them.
If a man has a prospect of a fair estate, and sees a way




CoR. iii. 19.]  The Wisdom of this World.          173
open to it, but it must be through fraud, violence, and oppression; if he see large preferments tendered him, but conditionally upon his doing base and wicked offices; if he sees
he may crush his enemy, but that it must be by slandering,
belying, and giving him a secret blow; and conscience shall
here, according to its office, interpose, and protest the illegality and injustice of such actions, and the damnation
that is expressly threatened to them by the word of God;
the thorough-paced politician must presently laugh at the
squeamishness of his conscience, and read it another lecture,
and tell it, that just and unjust are but names grounded only
upon opinion, and authorized by custom, by which the wise
and the knowing part of the world serve themselves upon
the ignorant and easy; and that, whatsoever fond priests
may talk, there is no devil like an enemy in power, no damnation like being poor, and no hell like an empty purse; and
therefore, that those courses, by which a man comes to rid
himself of these plagues, are ipso facto prudent, and consequently pious: the former being, with such wise men, the
only measure of the latter. And the truth is, the late times
of confusion, in which the hights and refinements of religion were professed in conjunction with the practice of the
most execrable villainies that were ever acted upon the earth;
and the weakness of our church discipline since its restoration, whereby it has been scarce able to get any hold on
men's consciences, and much less able to keep it; and the
great prevalence of that atheistical doctrine of the Leviathan, and the unhappy propagation of Erastianism; these
things, I say, with some others, have been the sad and fatal
causes that have loosed the bands of conscience, and eaten
out the very heart and sense of Christianity amongst. us, to
that degree, that there is now scarce any religious tie or restraint upon persons, but merely from those faint remainders
of natural conscience which God will be sure to keep alive'
upon the hearts of men, as long as they are men, for the
great ends of his own providence, whether they will or no.
So that, were it not for this sole obstacle, religion is not now
so much in danger of being divided, and torn piecemeal by
sects and factions, as of being at once devoured by atheism.
Which being so, let none wonder that irreligion is accounted




174            The Wisdom of this World.       [SERM. IX.
policy, when it is grown even to a fashion; and passes for
wit with some, as well as for wisdom with others. For certain it is, that advantage now sits in the room of conscience,
and steers all: and no man is esteemed any ways considerable
for policy, who wears religion otherwise than as a cloak, that
is, as such a garment as may both cover and keep him warm,
and yet hang loose upon him too.
3. The third rule or principle upon which this policy, or
wisdom of the world, proceeds, is, That a man ought to make
himself, and not the public, the chief, if not the sole end of
all his actions. He is to be his own centre and circumference
too: that is, to draw all things to himself, and to extend
nothing beyond himself: he is to make the greater world
serve the less; and not only not to love his neighbor as himself, but indeed to account none for his neighbor but himself.
And therefore, to die or suffer for his country, is not only
exploded by him as a great paradox in politics, and fitter for
poets to sing of than for wise men to practice; but also, to
make himself so much as one penny the poorer, or to forbear
one base gain to serve his prince, to secure a whole nation,
or to credit a church, is judged by him a great. want of experience, and a piece of romantic melancholy, unbecoming a
politician; who is still to look upon himself as his prince, his
country, his church, nay, and his God too.
The general interest of the nation is nothing to him, but
only that portion of it that he either does or would possess.
It is not the rain that waters the whole earth, but that which
falls into his own cistern, that must relieve him: not the
common, but the enclosure, that must make him rich.
Let the public sink or swim, so long as he can hold up his;head above water: let the ship be cast away, if he may but
have the benefit of the wreck: let the government be ruined
by his avarice, if by the same avarice he can scrape together
so much as to make his peace, and maintain him as well
under another: let foreigners invade and spoil the land, so
long as he has a good estate in bank elsewhere. Peradventure, for all this, men may curse him as a covetous wretch, a
traitor, and a villain: but such words are to be looked upon
only as the splendid-declaimings of novices, and men of heat,
who, while they rail at his person, perhaps envy his fortune:




1COR. iii. 19.]  The Wisdom of this World.          175
or possibly of losers and malcontents, whose portion and inheritance is a freedom to speak. But a politician must be
above words. Wealth, he knows, answers all, and if it brings
a storm upon him, will provide him also a coat to weather it
out.
That such thoughts and principles as these lie at the bottom of most men's actions; at the bottom, do I say P nay, sit
at the top, and visibly hold the helm in- the management of
the weightiest affairs of most nations, we need not much history, nor curiosity of observation, to convince us: for though
there have not been wanting such heretofore, as have practiced these unworthy arts, (forasmuch as there have been
villains in all places and- all ages,) yet nowadays they are
owned above-board; and whereas men formerly had then in
design, amongst us they are openly vouched, argued, and asserted in common discourse.
But this, I confess, being a new, unexemplified kind of
policy, scarce comes up to that which the apostle here condemns for the wisdom of the world, but must pass rather for
the wisdom of this particular age, which, as in most other
things it stands alone, scorning the examples of all former
ages, so it has a way of policy and wisdom also peculiar to
itself.
4. The fourth and last. principle that I shall mention, upon
which this wisdom of the world proceeds, is this:
That in showing kindness, or doing favors, no respect at all
is to be had to friendship, gratitude, or sense of honor; but
that such favors are to be done only to the rich or potent,
from whom a man may receive a further advantage, or to his
enemies, from whom he may otherwise fear a mischief.
I have here mentioned gratitude, and sense of honor, being
(as I may so speak) a man's civil conscience, prompting him
to many things, upon the accounts of common decency, which
religion would otherwise bind him to, upon the score of duty.
And it is sometimes found that some, who have little or no
reverence for religion, have yet those innate seeds and sparks
of generosity as make them scorn to do such things as would
render them mean in the opinion of sober and worthy men;
and with such persons, shame is instead of piety, to restrain
them from many base and degenerous practices.




176            The Wisdom of this World.       [SERM. IX.
But now our politician, having baffled his greater conscience,
must not be nonplused with inferior obligations; and having
leaped over such mountains, at length poorly lie down before
a mole-hill: but he must add perfection to perfection; and
being past grace, endeavor, if need be, to be past shame too.
And accordingly he looks upon friendship, gratitude, and
sense of honor, as terms of art to amuse and impose upon
weak, undesigning minds. For an enemy's money, he thinks,
may be made as good a friend as any; and gratitude looks
backward, but policy forward: and for sense of honor, if it
impoverisheth a man, it is, in his esteem, neither honor nor
sense.
Whence it is, that nowadays only rich men or enemies are
accounted the rational objects of benefaction. For to be kind
to the former is traffic; and in these times men present, just
as they soil their ground, not that they love the dirt, but that
they expect a crop: and for the latter, the politician well approves of the Indian's religion; in worshiping the devil, that
he may do him no hurt; how much soever he hates him, and
is hated by him.
But if a poor, old, decayed friend or relation, whose purse,,
whose house and heart had been formerly free and open to
such an one, shall at length upon change of fortune come to
him with hunger and rags, pleading his past services and his
present wants, and so crave some relief of one, for the merit
and memory of the other; the politician, who imitates the
serpent's wisdom, must turn his deaf ear too, to all the insignificant charms of gratitude and honor, in behalf of such a
bankrupt, undone friend, who having been already used, and
now squeezed dry, is fit only to be cast aside. He must abhor gratitude as a worse kind of witchcraft, which only serves
to conjure up the pale, meagre ghosts of dead, forgotten
kindnesses, to haunt and trouble him; still respecting what
is past; whereas such wise men as himself, in such cases,
account all that is past to be also gone; and know that
there can be no gain in refunding, nor any profit in paying
debts. The sole measure of all his courtesies is, what return
they will make him, and what revenue they will bring him in.
His expectations govern his charity. And we must not vouch
any man for an exact master in the rules of our modern




1 CoR. iii. 19.]'The Wisdom of this World.        177
policy, but such an one as hath brought himself so far to hate
and despise the absurdity of being kind upon free cost, as (to
use a known expression) not so much as to tell a friend what
it is a clock for nothing.
And thus I have finished the first general head proposed
from the text, and shown some of those rules, principles, and
maxims that this wisdom of the world acts by: I say some
of them, for I neither pretend nor desire to know them all.
II. I come now to the other general head, which is, to
show the folly and absurdity of these principles in relation to
God. In order to which we must observe that foolishness,
being porperly a man's deviation from right reason in point
of practice, must needs consist in one of these two things:
1. In his pitching upon such an end as is unsuitable to his
condition; or,
2. In his pitching upon means unsuitable to the compassing of his end.
There is folly enough in either of these; and my business
shall be to show, that such as act by the forementioned rules
of worldly wisdom are eminently foolish upon both accounts.
1. And first, for that first sort of foolishness imputable to
them; namely, that a man, by following such principles,
pitches upon that for his end which noways suits his condition.
Certain it is, and indeed self-evident, that the wisdom of
this world looks no further than this world. All its designs
and efficacy terminate on this side heaven, nor does policy so
much as pretend to any more than to be the great art of raising a man to the plenties, glories, and grandeurs of the world.
And if it arrives so far as to make a man rich, potent, and
honorable, it has its end, and has done its utmost. But now
that a man can not rationally make these things his end, will
appear from these two considerations:
(1.) That they reach not the measure of his duration or
being; the perpetuity of which surviving this mortal state,
and shooting forth into the endless eternities of another
world, must needs render a man infinitely miserable and forlorn, if he has no other comforts but what lie must leave
behind him in this. For nothing can make a man happy,
but that which shall last as long as he lasts. And all these
VOL. I.         12




178            The Wisdom of this WorlU.         [SERM. IX.
enjoyments are much too short for an immortal soul to stretch
itself upon, which shall persist in being, not only when profit,
pleasure, and honor, but when time itself shall cease, and be
no more.
No man can transport his large retinue, his sumptuous fare,
and his rich furniture into another world. Nothing of all
these things can continue with him then, but the memory
of them. And surely the bare remembrance that a man
was formerly rich or great can not make him at all happier
there, where an infinite happiness or an infinite misery shall
equally swallow up the sense of these poor felicities. It may
indeed contribute to his misery, heighten the anguish, and
sharpen the sting of conscience, and so add fury to the everlasting flames, when he shall reflect upon the abuse of all that
wealth and greatness that the good providence of God had
put as a price into his hand for worthier purposes, than to
damn his nobler and better part, only to please and gratify
his worse. But the politician has an answer ready for all
these melancholy considerations; that he, for his part, believes none of these things; as that there is either a heaven,
or a hell, or an immortal soul. No, he is too great a friend
to real knowledge, to take such troublesome assertions as
these upon trust. Which if it be his belief, as no doubt it is,
let him for me continue in it still, and stay for its confutation
in another world; which if he can destroy by disbelieving,
his infidelity will do him better service than as yet he has
any cause to presume that it can. But,
(2.) Admitting that either these enjoyments were eternal,
or the soul mortal, and so, that one way or other they were
commensurate to its duration, yet still they can not be an
end suitable to a rational nature, forasmuch as they fill not
the measure of its desires. The foundation of all man's unhappiness here on earth, is the great disproportion between
his enjoyments and his appetites; which appears evidently in
this, that let a man have never so much, he is still desiring
something or other more. Alexander, we know, was much
troubled at the scantiness of nature itself, that there were no
more worlds for him to disturb: and in this respect, every
man living has a soul as great as Alexander, and, put under
the same circumstances, would own the very same dissatisfactions.




1 CoR. iii. 19.]  The Wisdom of this World.          179
Now this is most certain, that in spiritual natures, so much
as there is of desire, so much there is also of capacity to receive. I do not say there is always a capacity to receive the
very thing they desire, for that may be impossible: but for
-the degree of happiness that they propose to themselves from
that thing, this I say they are capable of. And as God is
said to have made man after his own image, so upon this
quality he seems peculiarly to have stampt the resemblance
of his infinity. For man seems as boundless in his desires
as God is in his being; and therefore nothing but God himself can satisfy him. But the great inequality of all things
else to the appetites of a rational soul appears yet further
from this;' that in all these worldly things, that a man pursues with the greatest eagerness and intention of mind imaginable, he finds not half the pleasure in the actual possession of them, that he proposed to himself in the expectation. Which shows that there is a great cheat or lie which
overspreads the world, while all things here below beguile
men's expectations, and their expectations cheat their experience.
Let this therefore be the first thing in which the foolishness of this worldly wisdom is manifest. Namely, that by it
a man proposes to himself an end wholly unsuitable to his
condition; as bearing no proportion to the measure of his
duration, or the vastness of his desires.
2. The other thing in which foolishness is seen, is a man's
pitching upon means unsuitable to that which he has made
his end.
And here we will, for the present, suppose the things of
the world to have neither that shortness nor emptiness in
them that we have indeed proved them to have. But that
they are so adequate to all the concerns of an intelligent nature, that they may be rationally fixed upon by men as the
ultimate end of all their designs: yet the folly of this wisdom
appears in this, that it suggests those means for the acquisition of these enjoyments, that are noways fit to compass or
acquire them, and that upon a double account.
(1.) That they are in themselves unable and insufficient for,
and,
(2.) That they are frequently opposite to a successful attain-,ment of them.




180             The Wisdonm of this World.        [SERM. IX.
(1.) And first for their insufficiency.  Let politicians contrive as accurately, project as deeply, and pursue what they
have thus contrived and projected, as diligently as it is possible for human wit and industry to do, yet still the success
of all depends upon the favor of an overruling hand. For
God expressly claims it as a special part of his prerogative, to
have the entire disposal of riches, honors, and whatsoever else
is apt to command the desires of mankind here below; Deut.
viii. 18. It is the Lord thy God that giveth thee power to get
wealth. And in 1 Sam. ii. 30. God peremptorily declares himself the sole fountain of honor, telling us, that those that
honor hinm shall be honored, and that those that despise him shall
be lightly esteemed.
And then for dignities and preferments, we have the word
of one that could dispose of these things as much as kings
could do, Prov. xxix. 26,. where he tells us, that many seek
the ruler's favor: that is, apply themselves both to his interest and humor, with all the arts of flattery and obsequiousness, the surest and the readiest ways (one would think) to
advance a man; and yet, after all, it follows in the next
words, that every man's judgment cometh qf the Lord. And
that, whatsoever may be expected here, it is resolved only in
the court of heaven, whether the man shall proceed favorite
in the courts of princes, and after all his artificial attendance
come to sit at the right hand, or be made a footstool. So
that upon full trial of all the courses that policy could either
devise or practice, the most experienced masters of it have
been often forced to sit down with that complaint of the disciples, We have toiled all night, and have caught nothing.  For
do we not sometimes see that traitors can be out of favor, and
knaves be beggars, and lose their estates, and be stript of
their offices, as well as honester men P
And why all this P Surely not always for want of craft
to spy out where their game lay, nor yet for want of irreligion to give them all the scope of ways lawful and unlawful
to prosecute their intentions; but because the providence
of God strikes not in with them, but dashes, and even dispirits all their endeavors, and makes their designs heartless
and ineffectual.  So that it is not their seeing this man, their
belying another, nor their sneaking to a third, that shall be




ICOR.iii. 19.]  Th  Wisdom of this World.           181
able to do their business, when the designs of Heaven will
be served by their disappointment. And this is the true
cause why so many politic conceptions, so elaborately formed
and wrought, and grown at length ripe for delivery, do yet
in the issue miscarry and prove abortive; for, being come to
the birth, the all-disposing providence of God denies them
strength to bring forth. And thus the authors of them, having missed of their mighty aims, are fain to retreat with
frustration and a baffle; and having played the knaves unsuccessfully, to have the ill luck to pass for fools too.
(2.) The means suggested by policy and worldly wisdom
for the attainment of these earthly enjoyments are unfit for
that purpose, not only upon the account of their insufficiency
for, but also of their frequent opposition and contrariety to,
the accomplishment of such ends; nothing being more usual
than for these unchristian fishers of men to be fatally caught
in their own nets: for does not the text expressly say, that
God taketh the wise in their own craftiness? And has not our
own experience sufficiently commented upon the text, when
we have seen some by the very same ways by which they had
designed to rise uncontrollably, and to clear off all obstructions before their ambition, to have directly procured their
utter downfall, and to have broke their necks from that very
ladder by which they had thought to have climbed as high
as their father Lucifer; and there from the top of all their
greatness to have looked down with scorn upon all below
them?
Such persons are the proper and lawful objects of derision,
forasmuch as God himself laughs at them.
Haman wanted nothing to complete his greatness but a
gallows upon which to hang Mordecai; but it mattered not
for whom he provided the gallows, when Providence designed
the rope for him..
With what contempt does the apostle here, in the 20th
verse of this third chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians, repeat those words of the psalmist, concerning all the
fine artifices of worldly wisdom; The Lord, says he, knoweth
the thoughts of the wise that they are vain. All their contrivances are but thin, slight, despicable things, and, for the
most part, destructive of themselves; nothing being nmore




182            The Wisdom of this World.        [SERM. IX.
equal in justice, and indeed more natural in the direct consequence and connection of effects and causes, than for men
wickedly wise to outwit themselves, and for such as wrestle
with Providence, to trip up their own heels.
It is clear, therefore, that the charge of this second sort of
foolishness is made good upon worldly wisdom; for that having made men pitch upon an end unfit for their condition, it
also makes them pitch upon means unfit to attain that end.
And that both by reason of their inability for, and frequent
contrariety to, the bringing about such designs.
This, I say, has been made good in the general; but since
particulars convince with greater life and evidence, we will
resume the forementioned principles of the politician, and
show severally in each of them, how little efficacy they have
to advance the practicers of them to the things they aspire
to by them.
1. And first, for his first principle, That the politician must
maintain a constant, habitual dissimulation.  Concerning
which I shall lay down this as certain; that dissimulation can
be no further useful than it is concealed, forasmuch as no
man will trust a known cheat: and it is also as certain, that
as some men use dissimulation for their. interest, so others
have an interest as strongly engaging them to use all the art
and industry they can to find it out; and to assure themselves
of the truth or falsehood of those with whom they deal, which
renders it infinitely hard, if not morally impossible, for a man
to carry on a constant course of dissimulation without discovery. And being once discovered, it is not only no help,
but the greatest impediment of action in the world. For
since man is but of a very limited, narrow power in his own
person, and consequently can effect no great matter merely
by his own personal strength, but as he acts in society and
conjunction with others, without first engaging their trust;
and moreover, since men will trust no further than they judge
a person for his sincerity fit to be trusted, it follows that a
discovered dissembler can achieve nothing great or considerable; for not being able to gain men's trust, he can not gain
their concurrence, and so is left alone to act singly, and upon
his own bottom; and while that is the sphere of his activity,
all that he can do must needs be contemptible. We know




1 CR. iii. 19.]  The Wisdom of this World.          183
how successful the late usurper * was, while his army believed
him real in his zeal against kingship. But when they found
out the imposture, upon his aspiring to the same himself, he
was presently deserted, and opposed by them, and never able
to crown his usurped greatness with the addition of that title
which he so passionately thirsted after.  Add to this the
judgment of as great an English author as ever wrote, with
great confidence affirming, " that the ablest men that ever
were, had all an openness and frankness of dealing; and that,
if at any time such did dissemble, their dissimulation took
effect merely in the strength of that reputation they had
gained by their veracity and clear dealing in the main."
From all which it follows, that dissimulation can be of no
further use to a man than just to guard him within the compass of his own personal concerns; which yet may be more
easily, and not less effectually done, by that silence and reservedness that every man may innocently practice, without
the putting on of any contrary disguise.
2. The politician's second principle was, That conscience,
or religion, ought never to stand between any man and his
temporal advantage. Which indeed is properly atheism; and,
so far as it is practiced, tends to the dissolution of society,
the bond of which is religion. Forasmuch as a man's happiness or misery in his converse with other men depends chiefly
upon their doing or not doing those things which human
laws can take no cognizance of: such as are all actions capable of being done in secret, and out of the view of mankind,
which yet have the greatest influence upon our neighbor,
even in his inearest and dearest concerns. And if there be
no inward sense of religion to awe men from the doing unjust
actions, provided they can do them without discovery, it is
impossible for any man to sit secure or happy in the possession of any thing that he enjoys. And this inconvenience
the politician must expect from others, as well as they have
felt from him, unless he thinks that he can engross this principle to his own practice, and that others can not be as false
and atheistical as himself, especially having had the advantage of his copy to write after.
3. The third principle was, That the politician ought to
* Cromwell.




18             Thle Wisdom of this World.       [SERM. IX.
make himself, and not the public, the chief, if not the sole
end of all that he does.
But here we shall quickly find that the private spirit will
prove as pernicious in temporals as ever it did in spirituals.
For while every particular member of the public provides
singly and solely for itself, the several joints of the body politic do thereby separate and disunite, and so become unable
to support the whole; and when the public interest once fails,
let private interests subsist if they can, and prevent an universal ruin from involving in it particulars. It is notra man's
wealth that can be sure to save him, if the enemy be wise
enough to refuse part of it tendered as a ransom, when it is
as easy for him to destroy the owner, and to take the whole.
When the hand finds itself well warmed and covered, let it
refuse the trouble of feeding the mouth or guarding the head
till the body be starved or killed, and then we shall see how
it will fare with the hand. The Athenians, the Romans, and
all other nations that grew great out of little or nothing, did
so merely by the public-mindedness of particular persons;
and the same courses that first raised nations and governments must support them. So that, were there no such thing
as religion, prudence were enough to enforce this upon all.
For our own parts, let us reflect upon our glorious and renowned English ancestors, men eminent in church and state,
and we shall find that this was the method by which they
preserved both.
We have succeeded into their labors, and the fruits of
them: and it will both concern and become us to succeed also
into their principles. For it is no man's duty to be safe or to
be rich, but I am sure, it is the duty of every one to make
good his trust. And it is a calamity to a whole nation, that
any man should have a place or an employment more large
and public than his spirit.
4, The fourth and last principle mentioned was, That the
politician must not, in doing kindnesses, consider his friends,
but only gratify rich men or enemies. Which principle (as
to that branch of it relating to enemies) was certainly first
borrowed and fetched up from the very bottom of hell; and
uttered, no doubt, by particular and immediate inspiration
of the devil. And yet (as much of the devil as it carries in




1CoR. iii. 19.]  The Wisdom of this World.             185
it) it neither is nor can be more villainous and detestable
than it is really silly, senseless, and impolitic.
But to go over the several parts of this principle; and to
begin with the supposed policy of gratifying only the rich
and opulent. Does our wise man think that the grandee,
whom he so courts, does not see through all the little plots of
his courtship as well as he himself? And so, at the same
time while he accepts the gift, laugh in his sleeve at the design, and despise the giver P
But, for the neglect of friends, as it is the hight of baseness, so it can never be proved rational, till we prove the
person using it omnipotent and self-sufficient, and such as
can never need any mortal assistance. But if he be a man,
that is, a poor, weak creature, subject to change and misery,
let him know that it is the friend only that God has made
for the day of adversity, as the most suitable and sovereign
help that humanity is capable of. And those (though in
highest place) who slight and disoblige their friends, shall
infallibly come to know the value of them, by having none
when they shall most need them.
That prince that maintains the reputation of a true, fast,
generous friend, has an army always ready to fight for him,
maintained to his hand without pay.
As for the other part of this principle, that concerns the
gratifying of enemies; it is (to say no more) an absurdity
parallel to the former. For when a man shall have done all
he can, given all he has, to oblige an enemy, he shall find
that he has armed him indeed, but not at all altered him.
The scripture bids us pray for our enemies, and love our
enemies, but nowhere does it bid us trust our enemies; nay,
it strictly cautions us against it, Prov. xxvi. 25. When he
speaketh thee fair, (says the text,) believe him not; for there are
yet seven abominations in his heart: and, in good earnest, it
would be a rarity worth the seeing, could any one show us
such a thing as a perfectly reconciled enemy. Men are generally credulous at first, and will not take up this great and
safe truth at the cost of other men's experience, till they come
to be bitten into a sense of it by their own; but are apt to
take fair professions, fawning looks, treats, entertainments,
visits, and such like pitiful stuff, for friendship and reconcile



186            The Wisdom of this World.       [SERM. IX.
ment, and so to admit the serpent into their bosom: but let
them come once to depend upon this new-made friend, or
reconciled enemy, in any great or real concern of life, and
they shall find him false as hell, and cruel as the grave. And
I know nothing more to be wondered at than that those reconcilements that are so difficult, and even next to impossible
in the effect, should yet be so frequent in the attempt; especially since the reason of this difficulty lies as deep as nature
itself; which, after it has done an injury, will forever be suspicious; and I would fain see the man that can perfectly love
the person whom he suspects.
There is a noted story of Hector and Ajax, who, having
combated one another,.ended that combat in a reconcilement,
and testified that reconcilement by mutual presents: Hector
giving Ajax a sword, and Ajax presenting Hector with a belt.
The consequence of which was, that Ajax slew himself with
the sword given him by Hector, and Hector was dragged
about the walls of Troy by the belt given him by Ajax. Such
are the gifts, such are the killing kindnesses of reconciled
enemies.
Confident men may try what conclusions they please, at
their own peril; but let history be consulted, reason heard,
and experience called in to speak impartially what it has
found, and I believe they will all with one voice declare,
that whatsoever the grace of God may do in the miraculous
change of men's hearts, yet, according to the common
methods of the world, a man may as well expect to make
the devil himself his friend, as an enemy that has given him
the first blow.
And thus I have gone over the two general heads proposed
from the words, and shown both what those principles are
upon which this wisdom of the world does proceed; and also
wherein the folly and absurdity of them does consist.
And now into what can we more naturally improve the
whole foregoing discourse, than into that practical inference
of our apostle, in the verse before the text P that if any man
desires the reputation of wisdom, he should become a fool, that he
may be wise; that is, a fool to the world, that he may be wise
to God.
Let us not be ashamed of the folly of being sincere, and




1 CoR. iii. 19.]  The Wisdom of this World.          187
without guile; without traps and snares in our converse; of
being fearful to build our estates upon the ruin of our consciences; of preferring the public good before our own private
emolument; and lastly, of being true to all the offices of
friendship, the obligations of which are sacred, and will certainly be exacted of us by the great judge of all our actions.
I say, let us not blush to be found guilty of all these follies,
(as some account them,) rather than to be expert in that kind
of wisdom that God himself, the great fountain of wisdom,
has pronounced to be earthly, sensual, devilish; and of the
wretched absurdity of which all histories, both ecclesiastical
and civil, have given us such pregnant and convincing examples.
Reflect upon Ahithophel, Haman, Sejanus, CUesar Borgia,
and other such masters of the arts of policy, who thought
they had fixed themselves upon so sure a bottom, that they
might even defy and dare Providence to the face; and yet
how did God bring an absolute disappointment, like one great
blot, over all their fine, artificial contrivances!
Every one of those mighty and profound sages coming to a
miserable and disastrous end.
The consideration of which, and the like passages, one
would think, should make men grow weary of dodging and
showing tricks with God in their own crooked ways: and even
force them to acknowledge it for the surest and most unfailing prudence, wholly to commit their persons and concerns to
the wise and good providence of God, in the straight and open
ways of his own commands.
Who, we may be confident, is more tenderly concerned for
the good of those that truly fear and serve him, than it is
possible for the most selfish of men to be concerned for themselves: and who, in all the troubles and disturbances, all the
cross, difficult, and perplexing passages that can fall out, will
be sure to guide all to this happy issue, that all things shall
work together for good to those that love God.
To which God, infinitely wise, holy, and just, be rendered
and ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might, majesty,
and dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen.




SERMON X.
A SERMON PREACHED AT CHRIST CHURCH, OXON,
BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY, MAY 3, 1685.
2 COR. viii. 12. — For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that
a man hath, and not according to that he hath not.
IN  dealing with men's consciences, for the taking them  off
from sin, I know nothing of so direct and efficacious an
influence as the right stating of those general rules and
principles of action that men are apt to guide their lives
and consciences by: for if these be true, and withal rightly
applied, men must needs proceed upon firm and safe grounds;
but if either false in themselves, or not right in their particular application, the whole course that men are thereby
engaged in, being founded in sin and error, must needs lead
to, and at length end in, death and confusion: there being
(as the wise man tells us) a way that may seem right in a
man's own eyes, when, nevertheless, the end of that way is death.
Now as amongst these principles or rules of action, the
pretenses of the Spirit, and of tenderness of conscience, and
the like, have been the late grand artifices, by which crafty
and designing hypocrites have so much abused the world; so
I shall now instance in another of no less note, by which the
generality of men are as apt to abuse themselves; and that is
a certain rule or sentence got almost into every man's mouth,
that God accepts the will for the deed. A principle (as usually applied) of less malice, I confess; but, considering the
easiness, and withal the fatality of the delusion, of more mischief than the other.
And this I shall endeavor to search into, and lay open, in
the following discourse.




2 COR. viii. 12.] Good Inclinations no Excuse for bad Actions. 189
The words hold forth a general rule or proposition delivered
upon a particular occasion: which was the apostle's exhorting
the Corinthians to a holy and generous emulation of the
charity of the Macedonians, in contributing freely to the
relief of the poor saints at Jerusalem: upon this great encouragement, that in all such works of charity, it is the will
that gives worth to the oblation, and, as to God's acceptance,
sets the poorest giver upon the same level with the richest.
Nor is this all; but so perfectly does the value of all charitable acts take its measure and proportion from the will, and
from the fullness of the heart, rather than that of the hand,
that a lesser supply may be oftentimes a greater charity, and
the widow's mite, in the balance of the sanctuary, outweigh
the shekels, and perhaps the talents of the most opulent and
wealthy: the all and utmost of the one being certainly a
nobler alms than the superfluities of the other: and all this
upon the account of the great rule here set down in the text:
That, in all transactions between God and man, wheresoever
there is a full resolution, drift, and purpose of will to please
God, there, what a man can do, shall, by virtue thereof, be
accepted, and what he can not do, shall not be required.
From whence these two propositions, in sense and design
much the same, do naturally result.
I. The first of them expressed in the words; to wit, that
God accepts the will, where there is no power to perform.
II. The other of them implied; namely, that where there
is a power to perform, God does not accept the will.
Of all the spiritual tricks and legerdemain by which men
are apt to shift off their duty, and to impose upon their own
souls, there is none so common, and of so fatal an import, as
these two; the plea of a good intention, and the plea of a
good will.
One or both of them' being used by men, almost at every
turn, to elude the precept, to put God off with something
instead of obedience, and so, in effect, to outwit him whom
they are called to obey. They are certainly two of the most
effectual instruments and engines in the devil's hands to wind
and turn the souls of men by, to whatsoever he pleases. For,
1. The plea of a good intention will serve to sanctify and
authorize the very worst of actions. The proof of which is




190                 Good Inclinations            [SERM. X.
but too full and manifest, from that lewd and scandalous doctrine of the Jesuits concerning the direction of the intention,
and likewise from the whole manage of the late accursed rebellion. In which, it was this insolent and impudent pretense, that emboldened the worst of men to wade through
the blood of the best of kings, and the loyalest of subjects;
namely, that in all that risk of villainy, their hearts, forsooth,
were right towards God; and that all their plunder and rapine
was for nothing else, but to place Christ on his throne, and
to establish amongst us the power of godliness, and the
purity of the gospel; by a further reformation (as the cant
goes) of a church which had but too much felt the meaning
of that word before.
But such persons consider not, that though an ill intention
is certainly sufficient to spoil and corrupt an act in itself materially good, yet no good intention whatsoever can rectify
or infuse a moral goodness into an act otherwise evil. To
come to church, is no doubt an act in itself materially good;
yet he who does it with an ill intention, comes to God's house
upon the devil's errand; and the whole act is thereby rendered absolutely evil and detestable before God. But on the
other side; if it were possible for a man to intend well, while
he does ill; yet no such intention, though never so good, can
make that man steal, lie, or murder with a good conscience;
or convert a wicked action into a good.
For these things are against the nature of morality; in
which nothing is or can be really good, without an universal
concurrence of all the principles and ingredients requisite to
a moral action; though the failure of any one of them will
imprint a malignity upon that act, which, in spite of all the
other requisite ingredients, shall stamp it absolutely evil, and
corrupt it past the cure of a good intention.
And thus, as I have shown, that the plea of a good intention is used by men to warrant and patronize the most villainous and wicked actions, so, in the next place, the plea of a
good will will be found equally efficacious to supersede and
take off the necessity of all holy and good actions. For still
(as I have observed) the great art of the devil, and the principal deceit of the heart, is to put a trick upon the command,
and to keep fair with God himself, while men fall foul upon




2 CoR. Viii. 12.]  no Excuse for bad Actions.          191
his laws. For both law and gospel call aloud for active obedience, and such a piety as takes not up either with faint
notions, or idle, insignificant inclinations, but such an one as
shows itself in the solid instances of practice and performance.
For, Do this and live, saith the law, Luke x. 28; and, If ye
know these things, happy are ye if ye do them, says the gospel,
John xiii. 17; and, Not every one that saith, Lord, Lord, shall
enter into the kingdonm of heaven, but he that doeth the will of
my Father which is in heaven, Matt. vii. 21; and, Let no man
deceive you; he that doth righteousness is righteous, 1 John iii.
7; with innumerable more such places. All of them terrible
and severe injunctions of practice, and equally severe obligations to it.
But then in comes the benign latitude of the doctrine of
good will, and cuts asunder all these hard, pinching cords;
and tells you, that if this be but piously and well inclined, if
the bent of the spirit (as some call it) be towards God and
goodness, God accepts of this above, nay, instead of all external works; those being but the shell, or husk, this the kernel,
the quintessence, and the very soul of duty. But for all this,
these bents and propensities and inclinations will not do the
business: the bare bending of the bow will not hit the mark
without shooting the arrow; and men are not called to will,
but to work out their salvation.
But what then?P Is it not as certain from the text, that
God sometimes accepts the will, as it is from those forementioned scriptures that God commands the deed P Yes, no
doubt: since it is impossible for the Holy Ghost to contradict
that in one place of scripture which he had affirmed in another. In all the foregoing places, doing is expressly commanded, and no happiness alloved to any thing short of it;
and yet here God is said to accept of the will; and can both
these stand together without manifest contradiction P That
which enjoins the deed is certainly God's law; and it is also
as certain that the scripture that allows of the will is neither
the abrogation, nor derogation, nor dispensation, nor relaxation of that law.
In order to the clearing of which, I shall lay down these
two assertions:
(1.) That every law of God commands the obedience of the
whole man.




192                 Good Inclinations            [SERM. X.
(2.) That the will is never accepted by God, but as it is the
obedience of the whole man.
So that the allowance or acceptance of the will, mentioned
in the text, takes off nothing from the obligation of those
laws, in which the deed is- so plainly and positively enjoined,
but is only an interpretation or declaration of the true
sense of those laws, showing the equity of them: which is as
really essential to every law, and gives it its obliging force as
much as the justice of it; and indeed, is not another, or a
distinct thing from the justice of it, any more than a particular case is from an universal rule.
But you will say, how can the obedience of the will ever be
proved to be the obedience of the whole man?
For answer to which, we are first to consider every man as
a moral, and consequently as a rational agent; and then to
consider what is the office and influence of the will in every
moral action. Now the morality of an action is founded in
the freedom of that principle by virtue of which it is in the
agent's power, having all things ready and requisite to the
performance of an action, either to perform or not to perform
it. And as the will is endued with this freedom, so is it also
endued with a power to command all the other faculties, both
of soul and body, to execute what it has so willed or decreed, and
that without resistance; so that upon the last dictate of the
will for the doing of such or such a thing, all the other faculties proceed immediately to act according to their respective
offices. By which it is manifest, that in point of action, the
will is virtually the whole man; as containing in it all that
which by virtue of his other faculties he is able to do: just as
the spring of a watch is virtually the whole motion of the
watch; forasmuch as it imparts a motion to all the wheels
of it.
Thus as to the soul. If the will bids the understanding
think, study, and consider, it will accordingly apply itself to
thought, study, and consideration. If it bids the affections
love, rejoice, or be angry, an act of love, joy, or anger will
follow. And then for the body; if the will bids the leg go,
it goes; if it bids the hand to do this, it does it. So that a
man is a moral agent only as he is endued with, and acts by,
a free and commanding principle of will.




2 COR. viii. 12.]    no Excuse for bad Actions.     193
And therefore, when God says, lly son, give me thy heart,
(which there signifies the will,) it is as much as if he had
commanded the service of the whole man; for whatsoever
the will commands, the whole man must do: the empire or
dominion of the will over all the faculties of soul and body (as
to Inost of the operations of each of them) being absolutely
overruling and despotical. From whence it follows, that
when the will has exerted an act of command upon any faculty of the soul, or member of the body, it has, by so doing,
done all that the whole man, as a moral agent, can do, for
the actual exercise or employment of such a faculty or member. And if so, then what is not done in such a case, is certainly not in a man's power to do; and consequently is no
part of the obedience required of him: no man being commanded or obliged to obey beyond his power.. And therefore
the obedience of the will to God's commands, is the obedience of the whole man, (forasmuch as it includes and infers
it,) which was the assertion that we undertook to prove.
But you will say, if the prerogative of the will be such, that
where it commands the hand to give an alms, the leg to
kneel, or to go to church, or the tongue to utter a prayer, all
these things will infallibly be done; suppose we now, a man
be bound hand and foot by some outward violence, or be laid
up with the gout, or disabled for any of these functions by a
palsy; can the will, by its command, make a man in such a
condition utter a prayer, or kneel, or go to church P. No, it
is manifest it can not: but then you are to know also, that
neither is vocal prayer, or bodily kneeling, or going to
church, in such a case, any part of the obedience required of
such a person: but that act of his will hitherto spoken of,
that would' have put his body upon all these actions, had there
been no impediment, is that man's whole obedience; and for
that very cause that it is so, and for'no other, it stands here
accepted by God.
From all which discourse, this must naturally and directly
be inferred, as a certain truth, and the chief foundation of
all that can be said upon this subject: namely, that whosoever wills the doing of: a thing, if the doing, of it be in his
power, he will certainly do it; and whosoever does not do
that, thing which he has in his power'to do, does not really
VOL. I.         13




194                 Good Inclinations          [SERM. X.
and properly will it. For though the act of the will commanding, and the act of any other faculty of the soul or body
executing that which is so commanded, be physically, and in
the precise nature of things, distinct and several; yet morally,
as they proceed in subordination, from one entire, free, moral
agent, both in divinity and morality they pass but for one
and the same action.
Now, that from the foregoing particulars we may come to
understand how far this rule of God's accepting the will for
the deed holds good in the sense of the apostle, we must consider in it these three things:
1. The original ground and reason of it.
2. The just measure and bounds of it: and,
3. The abuse or misapplication of it.
And first for the original ground and reason of this rule;
it is founded upon that great, self-evident, and eternal truth,
that the just, the wise, and good God neither does nor can
require of man any thing that is impossible, or naturally beyond his power to do: and therefore, in the second place, the
measure of this rule, by which the just extent and bounds of
it are to be determined, must be that power or ability that
man naturally has to do or perform the things willed by him.
So that wheresoever such a power is found, there this rule
of God's accepting the will has no place; and wheresoever
such a poweris not found, there this rule presently becomes
in force. And accordingly, in the third and last place, the
abuse or misapplication of this rule will consist in these two
things:
1. That men do very often take that to be an act of the
will that really and truly is not so.
2. That they reckon many things impossible that indeed
are not. impossible.
And first, to begin with men's. mistakes about the will, and
the acts of it; I shall note these three, by which men are.
extremely apt to impose upon themselves.
(1.) As first, the bare approbation of the worth and goodness of a thing is not properly the willing of that thing;
and yet men do very commnonly account it so. But this is
properly an act of the understanding or judgment; a faculty
wholly distinct from the will; and which makes a principal




2 COR. viii. 12.]    no Excuse for bad Actions.      195
part of that which in divinity we call natural conscience;
and in the strength of which a man may approve of things
good and excellent, without ever willing or intending the
practice of them. And accordingly the apostle, Rom. ii. 18,
gives us an account of some who approved of things excellent, and yet practiced, and consequently willed, things clean
contrary; since no man can commit a sin, but he must will
it first. Whosoever observes and looks into the workings of
his own heart, will find that noted sentence, Video rneliora
proboque, deteriora sequor, too frequently and fatally verified
upon himself. The seventh of the Romans (which has been
made the unhappy scene of so much controversy about these
matters) has several passages to this purpose. In a word, to
judge what ought to be done is one thing, and to will the
doing of it is quite another.
No doubt virtue is a beautiful and a glorious thing in the
eyes of the most vicious person breathing; and all that he
does or can hate in it, is the difficulty of its practice; for it
is practice alone that divides the world into virtuous and
vicious; but otherwise, as to the theory and speculation of
virtue and vice, honest and dishonest, the generality of mankind are much the same; for men do not approve of virtue
by choice and free election; but it is an homage which
nature commands all understandings to pay to it, by necessary determination; and yet, after all, it is but a faint, unactive thing; for in defiance of the judgment, the will may still
remain as perverse, and as much a stranger to virtue, as it
was before. In fine, there is as much difference between the
approbation of the judgment, and the actual volitions of the
will, with relation to the same object, as there is between a
man's viewing a desirable thing with his eye, and his reaching
after it with his hand.
(2.) The wishing of a thing is not properly the willing
of it; though too often mistaken by men for such: but it
is that which is called by the schools an imperfect velleity,
and imports no more than an idle unoperative complacency
in, and desire of the end, without any consideration of, nay,
for the most part, with a direct abhorrence of the means; of
which nature I account that wish of Balaam, in Numbers
xxiii. 10, Let rme die the death of the righteous, and let my last
end be like his.




196                 Good Inclmations             [SERM. X.
The thing itself appeared desirable to him, and accordingly
he could not but like and desire it; but then it was after a
very irrational, absurd way, and contrary to all the methods
and principles of a rational agent; which never wills a thing
really and properly, but it applies to the means by which it
is to be acquired. But at that very time that Balaam desired
to die the death of the righteous, he was actually following the
wages of unrighteousness, and so thereby engaged in a course
quite contrary to what he desired; and consequently such as
could not possibly bring him to such an end. Much like the
sot that cried, Utinam  Owc esset laborare, while he lay lazing
and lolling upon his couch.
But every true act of volition imports a respect to the end,
by and through the means; and wills- a thing only in that
way in which it is to be compassed or effected; which is the
foundation of that most true aphorism, That he who wills
the end, wills also the means. The truth of which is founded
in such a necessary connection of the terms, that I look
upon the proposition, not only as true, but as convertible;
and that, as a man can not truly and properly will the end,
but he  must also will the means; so neither can -he will the
means, but he must virtually, and by interpretation at least,
will the end. Which is so true, that, in the account of the
divine law, a man is reckoned to will even those things that
naturally are not the object of desire; such as death itself,
Ezek. xviii. 31, only because he wills those ways and courses
that naturally tend to and end in it. And even our own
common law looks upon a man's raising arms against, or imprisoning his prince, as an imagining or compassing of his
death: forasmuch as these actions are the'means directly
leading to it, and, for the most part, actually concluding in
it: and consequently, that the willing of the one'is the willing of the:other also.
To will a thing therefore is certainly much another thing
from what the generality of men, especially in their spiritual
concerns, take it to be. I;say, in their spiritual concerns;
for in their temporal, it is manifest that they think and judge
much otherwise; and in the things of this world no man is
allowed or believed' to will any thing heartily which he does
not endeavor after proportionably. A wish is properly a man




2 COR. viii. 12.]  no Excuse for bad Actions.          197
of desire, sitting or lying still; but an act of the will is a
man of business vigorously going about his work: and certainly there is a great deal of difference between a man's
stretching out his arms to work, and his stretching them out
only to yawn.
(3.) And lastly, a mere inclination to a thing is not properly a willing of that thing; and yet in matters of duty, no
doubt, men frequently reckon it for such.  For otherwise
why should they so often plead and rest in the goodness of
their hearts, and the honest and well-inclined disposition of
their minds, when they are justly charged with an actual nonperformance of what the law requires of them?
But that an inclination to a thing is not a willing of that
thing, is irrefragably proved by this one argument, that a
man may act virtuously against his inclination, but not against
his will. He may be inclined to one thing, and yet will another; and therefore inclination and will are not the same.
For a man may be naturally inclined to pride, lust, anger,
and strongly inclined so too, (forasmuch as these inclinations
are founded in a peculiar crasisand constitution of the blood
and spirits,) and yet by a steady, frequent repetition of the
contrary acts of humility, chastity, and meekness, carried
thereto by his will, (a principle not to be controlled by the
blood or spirits,) he may at length plant in his soul all those
contrary habits of virtue: and therefore it is certain that
while inclination bends the soul one way, a well-disposed and
resolved will may effectually draw it another.  A sufficient
demonstration, doubtless, that they are two very different
things; for where there may be a contrariety, there is certainly a diversity. A good inclination is but the first rude
draught of virtue; but the finishing strokes are from  the
will; which, if well-disposed, will by degrees perfect; if
ill-disposed, will, by the superinduction of ill habits, quickly
deface it.
God never accepts a good inclination instead of a good
action, where that action may be done; nay, so much the
contrary, that if a good inclination be not seconded by a good
action, the want of that action is thereby made so much the
more criminal and inexcusable.
A man may be naturally well and virtuously inclined, and




198                Good Inclinations             [SERM. X.
yet never do one good or virtuous action all his life. A bowl
may lie still for all its bias; but it is impossible for a man to
will virtue and virtuous actions heartily, but he must in the
same degree offer at the practice of them: forasmuch as the
dictates of the will are (as we have shown) despotical, and
command the whole man. It being a contradiction in morality for the will to go one way, and the man another.
And thus as to the first abuse or muisapplication of the great
rule mentioned in the text, about God's accepting the will, I
have shown three notable mistakes which men are apt to
entertain concerning the will; and proved that neither a bare
approbation of, nor a mere wishing, or unactive complacency
in, nor, lastly, a natural inclination to, things virtuous and
good, can pass before God for a man's willing of such things;
and consequently, if men upon this account will needs take
up and acquiesce in an airy, ungrounded persuasion, that
they will those things which really they do not will, they fall
thereby into a gross and fatal. delusion: a delusion that must
and will shut the door of salvation against them. They catch
at heaven, but embrace a cloud; they mock God, who will
not be mocked; and deceive their own souls, which, God
knows, may too easily be both deceived and destroyed too.
2. Come we now in the next place to consider the other
way by which men are prone to abuse and pervert this important rule of God's accounting the will for the deed; and
that is, by reckoning many things impossible which in truth
are not impossible.
And this I shall make appear by showing some of the
principal instances of duty, for the performance of which men
commonly plead want of power; and thereupon persuade
themselves that God and the law rest satisfied with their will.
Now these instances are four.
(1.) In duties of very great and hard labor. Labor is confessedly a great part of the curse; and therefore no wonder
if men fly from it: which they do with so great an aversion,
that few men know their own strength for want of trying it;
and upon that account think themselves really unable to do
many things which experience would convince them they have
more ability to effect than they have will to attempt.
It is idleness that creates impossibilities; and, where men




2 COR. viii. 12.]    no Excuse for bad Actions.      199
care not to do a thing, they shelter themselves under a persuasion that it can not be done. The shortest and the surest
way to prove a work possible, is strenuously to set about it;
and no wonder if that proves it possible, that, for the most
part, makes it so.
Dig, says the unjust steward, I can not. But why P  Did
either his legs or his arms fail him P No; but day-labor was
but a hard and a dry kind of livelihood to a man that could
get an estate with two or three strokes of his pen; and find
so great a treasure as he did, without digging for it.
But such excuses will not pass muster with God, who will
allow no man's humor or idleness to be the measure of possible or impossible. And to manifest the wretched hypocrisy
of such pretenses, those very things, which upon the bare
obligation of duty are declined by men as impossible, presently become not only possible, but readily practicable too, in
a case of extreme necessity. As no doubt that forementioned
instance of fraud and laziness, the unjust steward, who pleaded
that he could neither dig nor beg, would quickly have been
brought both to dig and to beg too, rather than starve. And
if so, what reason could such an one produce before God,
why he could not submit to the same hardships, rather than
cheat and lie P  The former being but destructive of the body,
this latter of the soul: and certainly the highest and dearest
concerns of. a temporal life are infinitely less valuable than
those of an eternal; and consequently ought, without any
demur at all, to be sacrificed to them, whensoever they come
in competition with them.  He who can digest any labor
rather than die, must refuse no labor rather than sin.
(2.) The second instance shall be in duties of great and
apparent danger.  Danger (as the world goes) generally
absolves from duty: this being a case in which most men,
according to a very ill sense, will needs be a law to themselves. And where it is not safe for them  to be religious,
their religion shall be to be safe. But Christianity teaches us
a very different lesson: for if fear of suffering could take off
the necessity of obeying, the doctrine of the cross would certainly be a very idle and a senseless thing; and Christ would
never have prayed, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass
from me, had the bitterness of the draught made it impossible




200                 Good Inclinations           [SERM. X.
to be drunk of. If death and danger are things that really
can not be endured, no man could ever be obliged to suffer
for his conscience, or to die for his religion; it being altogether as absurd to imagine a man obliged to suffer, as to do
impossibilities.
But those primitive heroes of the Christian church could
not so easily blow off the doctrine of passive obedience, as to
make the fear of being passive a discharge from being obedient. No, they found martyrdom not only possible, but in
many cases a duty also; a duty dressed up indeed with all
that was terrible and afflictive to human nature, yet not at all
the less a duty for being so. And such an height of Christianity possessed those noble souls, that every martyr could
keep one eye steadily fixed upon his duty, and look death and
danger out of countenance with the other: nor did they flinch
from duty for fear of martyrdom, when one of the most quickening motives to duty was their desire of it.
But to prove the possibility of a thing, there is no argument like to that which looks backwards; for what has been
done or suffered may certainly be done or suffered again.
And to prove that men may be martyrs, there needs no other
demonstration, than to show that many have been so. Besides that the grace of God has not so far abandoned the
Christian world, but that those high primitive instances of
passive fortitude in the case of duty and danger rivaling one
another have been exemplified, and (as it were) revived, by
several glorious copies of them in the succeeding ages of the
church.
And (thanks be to God) we need not look very far backward for some of them, even amongst ourselves. For when
a violent, victorious faction and rebellion had overrun all,
and made loyalty to the king and conformity to the church
crimes unpardonable, and of a guilt not to be expiated, but
at the price of life or estate; when men were put to swear
away all interest in the next world, to secure a very poor one
in this; (for they had then oaths to murder souls, as well as
sword and pistol for the body; nay,) when the persecution
ran so high, that that execrable monster Cromwell made and
published that barbarous, heathenish, or rather inhuman
edict against the poor suffering episcopal clergy, That they




2 COR. viii. 12.]    no Excuse for bad Actions.      201
should neither preach nor pray in public, nor baptize, nor
marry, nor bury, nor teach school, no, nor so much as live
in any gentleman's house, who in mere charity and compassion might be inclined to take them  in from  perishing in
the streets; that is, in other words, that they must starve
and die ex officio, and being turned out of their churches,
take possession only of the church-yard, as so many victims
to the remorseless rage of a foul, ill-bred tyrant, professing
piety without so much as common humanity: I say, when
rage and persecution, cruelty and Cromwellism were at that
diabolical pitch, tyrannizing over every thing that looked like
loyalty, conscience, and conformity; so that he, who took
not their engagement, could not take any thing else, though
it were given him; being thereby debarred from the very
common benefit of the law, in suing for or recovering of
his right in any of their courts of justice; (all of them still
following the motion of the high one;) yet even then, and
under that black and dismal state of things, there were many
thousands who never bowed the knee to Baal-Cromwell, Baalcovenant, or Baal-engagement; but with a steady, fixed, unshaken resolution, and in a glorious imitation of those heroic
Christians in the tenth and eleventh chapters of the epistle
to the Hebrews, endured a great fight of afflictiomw, were made
a gazing-stock by reproaches, took joyfully the spoiling of their
goods, had trial of cruel mockings; moreover of bonds and imprisonments; sometimes were tempted, sometimes were slain with
the sword, wandered about in hunger and nakedness, being destitute, afflicted, tormented. All which sufferings surely ought to
entitle them to that concluding character in the next words,
of whom the world was not worthy. And I wish I could say of
England, that it were worthy of those men now. For I look
upon the old church of England royalists (which I take to be
only another name for a man who prefers his conscience before his interest) to be the best Christians and the most
meritorious subjects in the world; as having passed all those
terrible tests and trials, which conquering, domineering
malice could put them to, and carried their credit and their
conscience clear and triumphant through, and above them
all, constantly firm and immovable, by all that they felt either
from their professed enemies or their false friends. And what




202                 Good Inclinations           [SERM. X.
these men did and suffered others might have done and suffered too.
But they, good men, had another and more artificial sort
of conscience, and a way to interpret off a command, where
they found it dangerous or unprofitable'to do it.
"God knows my heart, (says one,) I love the king cordially: and I wish well to the church, (says another,) but you
see the state of things is altered; and we can not do what
we would do. Our will is good, and the king gracious, and
we hope he will accept of this, and dispense with the rest."
A goodly present, doubtless, as they meant it; and such as
they might freely give, and yet part with nothing; and the
king, on the other hand, receive and gain just as much.
But now, had the whole nation mocked God and their king
at this shuffling, hypocritical rate, what an odious, infamous
people must that rebellion have represented the English to
all posterity P Where had been the honor of the reformed
religion, that could not afford a man Christian enough to suffer for his God and his princeP But the old royalists did
both, and thereby demonstrated to the world that no danger
could make duty impossible.
And, upon my conscience, if we may assign any other reason or motive of the late mercies of God to these poor kingdoms, besides his own proneness to show mercy, it was for the
sake of the old, suffering cavaliers, and for the sake of none
else whatsoever, that God delivered us from the two late accursed conspiracies. For they were the brats and offspring
of two contrary factions, both of them equally mortal and inveterate enemies of our church; which they have been, and
still are, perpetually pecking and striking at, with the same
malice, though with different methods.
In a word: the old, tried church of England royalists were
the men, who, in the darkest and foulest day of persecution
that ever befell England, never pleaded the will in excuse of
the deed, but proved the integrity and loyalty of their wills
both by their deeds and their sufferings too.
But, on the contrary, when duty and danger stand confronting one another, and when the law of God says, Obey
and assist your king; and the faction says, Do if you dare:
for men, in such a case, to think to divide themselves, and to




2 CoR. viii. 12.]  no Excuse for bad Actions.        203
pretend that their will obeys that law, while all besides their
will obeys and serves the faction, what is this but a gross
fulsome juggling with their duty, and a kind of trimming it
between God and the devil?P
These things I thought fit to remark to you, not out of any
intemperate humor of reflecting upon the late times of
confusion, (as the guilt or spite of some may suggest,) but
because I am satisfied in my heart and conscience, that it is
vastly the concern of his majesty, and of the peace of his
government, both in church and state, that the youth of the
nation (of which such auditories as this chiefly consist) should
be principled and possessed with a full, fixed, and thorough
persuasion of the justness and goodness of the blessed old
king's cause; and of the excellent piety and Christianity of
those principles upon which the loyal part of the nation adhered to him, and that against the most horrid and inexcusable rebellion that was ever set on foot and acted upon the
stage of the world: of all which whosoever is not persuaded,
is a rebel in his heart, and deserves not the protection which
he enjoys.
And the rather do I think such remarks as these necessary
of late years, because of the vile arts and restless endeavors
used by some sly and venomous factors for the old republican
cause, to poison and debauch men from their allegiance;
sometimes creeping into houses, and sometimes creeping
into studies; but in both equally pimping for the faction,
and stealing away as many hearts from the son, as they had
formerly employed hands against the father. And this with
such success, that it can not but be matter of very sad and
melancholy reflection to all sober and loyal minds, to consider, that several who had stood it out, and persevered firm
and unalterable royalists in the late storm, have since (I
know not by what unhappy fate) turned trimmers in the
calm.
(3.) The third instance, in which men use to plead the will
instead of the deed, shall be in duties of cost and expense.
Let a business of expensive charity be proposed; and then,
as I showed before, that, in matters of labor, the lazy person
could find no hands wherewith to work, so neither in this
case can the religious miser find any hands wherewith to give.




204                 Good Inclinations            [SERM. X.
It is wonderful to consider how a command or call to be
liberal, either upon a civil or religious account, all of a sudden
impoverishes the rich, breaks the merchant, shuts up every
private man's exchequer, and makes those men in a minute
have nothing at all to give, who, at the very same instant,
want nothing to spend. So that instead of relieving the poor,
such a command strangely increases their number, and transforms rich men into beggars presently. For, let the danger
of their prince and country knock at their purses, and call
upon them to contribute against a public enemy or calamity;
then immediately they have nothing, and their riches upon
such occasions (as Solomon expresses it) never fail to make
themselves wings, and to fly away.
Thus, at the siege of Constantinople, then the wealthiest
city in the world, the citizens had nothing to give their emperor for the defense of the place, though he begged a supply
of them with tears; but, when by that means the Turks took
and sacked it, then those who before had nothing to give,
had more than enough to lose. And in like manner, those
who would not support the necessities of the old blessed king,
against his villainous enemies, found that plunder could take
where disloyalty would not give, and rapine open those chests
that avarice had shut.
But to descend to matters of daily and common occurrence;
what is more usual in conversation, than for men to express
their unwillingness to do a thing, by saying they caln not do
it; and for a covetous man, being asked a little money in
charity, to answer that he has none? Which, as it is, if true,
a sufficient answer to God and man; so, if false, it is intolerable hypocrisy towards both.
But do men in good earnest think that God will be put off
so P or can they imagine that the law of God will be baffled
with a lie clothed in a scoff?
For such pretenses are no better, as appears from that
notable account given us by the apostle of this windy, insignificant charity of the will, and of the worthlessness of it, not
enlivened by deeds, James ii. 15, 16, If a brother or sister be
naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them,.Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye
give them not those things which are needful to the body; what




2 COR. viii. 12.]    no Excuse for bad Actions.     205
doth itprofit? Profit, does he say P Why, it profits just as much
as fair words command the market, as good wishes buy food
and raiment and pass for current payment in the shops.
Come to an old, rich, professing vulpony, and tell him that
there is a church to be built, beautified, or endowed in such a
place, and that he can not lay out his money more to God's
honor, the public good, and the comfort of his own conscience,
than to bestow it liberally upon such an occasion; and in
answer to this, it is ten to one but you shall be told, " how
much God is for the inward, spiritual worship of the heart;
and that the Almighty neither dwells nor delights in temples
made with hands; but hears and accepts the prayers of his
people in dens and caves, barns and stables; and in the
homeliest and meanest cottages, as well as in the stateliest
and most magnificent churches."  Thus, I say, you are like
to be answered. In reply to which, I would have all such sly,
sanctified cheats (who are so often harping upon this string)
know, once for all, that that God who accepts the prayers of
his people in dens and caves, barns and stables, when by his
afflicting providence he has driven them from the appointed
places of his solemn worship, so that they can not have the
use of them, will not, for all this, endure to be served or
prayed to by them in such places, nor accept of their barnworship, nor their hog-sty-worship; no, nor yet of their parlor or their chamber worship, where he has given them both
wealth and power to build him churches. For he that commands us to worship him in the spirit, commands us also to
honor him with our substance. And never pretend that thou
hast an heart to pray, while thou hast no heart to give; since
he that serves mammon with his estate, can not possibly serve
God with his heart. For as in the heathen worship of God,
a sacrifice without an heart was accounted ominous, so in
the Christian worship of him, an heart without a sacrifice is
worthless and impertinent.
And thus much for men's pretenses of the will, when
they are called upon to give a religious account; according
to which, a man may be well enough said (as-the common
word is) to be all heart, and' yet the arrantest miser in the
world. 
But come we now to this old rich pretender to godliness,




206                 Good Inclinations           [SERM. X.
in another case, and tell him that there is such an one, a
man of a good family, good education, and who has lost all
his estate for the king, now ready to rot in prison for debt;
come, what will you give towards his release P Why, then
answers the will instead of the deed, as much the readier
speaker of the two, " the truth is, I always had a respect for
such men; I love them with all my heart; and it is a thousand pities that any that have served the king so faithfully
should be in such want."  So say I too, and the more shame
is it for the whole nation, that they should be so. But still,
what will you give P Why, then answers the man of mouthcharity again, and tells you, that " you could not come in a
worse time; that money is nowadays very scarce with him;
and that therefore he can give nothing; but he will be sure
to pray for the poor gentleman."
Ah thou hypocrite! when thy brother has lost all that ever
he had, and lies languishing, and even gasping under the
utmost extremities of poverty and distress, dost thou think
thus to lick him whole again, only with thy tongue P Just like
that old formal hocus, who denied a beggar a farthing, and
put him off with his blessing.
Why, what are the prayers of a covetous wretch worth P
What will thy blessing go for P What will it buy P Is this
the charity that the apostle here, in the text, presses upon
the Corinthians P This the case in which God accepts the
willingness of the mind, instead of the liberality of the purse P
No, assuredly; but the measures that God marks out to thy
charity are these: thy superfluities must give place to thy
neighbor's great convenience: thy convenience must veil to
thy neighbor's necessity: and lastly, thy very necessities must
yield to thy neighbor's extremity.
This is the gradual process that must be thy rule; and he
that pretends a disability to give short of this, prevaricates
with his duty, and evacuates the precept. God sometimes
calls upon thee to relieve the needs of thy poor brother, sometimes the necessities of thy country, and sometimes the urgent wants of thy prince: now, before thou fliest to the old,
stale, usual pretense, that thou canst do none of all these
things, consider with thyself, that there is a God who is not
to be flammed off with lies, who knows exactly what thou canst




2 CoR. viii. 12.]    no Excuse for bad Actions.      207
do, and what thou canst not; and consider in the next place
that it is not the best husbandry in the world, to be damned
to save charges.
(4.) The fourth and last duty that I shall mention, in
which men use to plead want of power to do the thing they
have a will to, is the conquering of a long, inveterate, ill habit
or custom.
And the truth is, there is nothing that leaves a man less
power to good than this does.  Nevertheless that which
weakens the hand does not therefore cut it off. Some power
to good, no doubt, a man has left him for all this. And
therefore God will not take the drunkard's excuse, that he
has so long accustomed himself to intemperate drinking, that
now he can not leave it off; nor admit of the passionate man's
apology, that he has so long given his unruly passions their
head, that he can not now govern or control them. For these
things are not so: since no man is guilty of an act of intemperance of any sort, but he might have forborne it; not without some trouble, I confess, from  the strugglings of the
contrary habit: but still the thing was possible to be done;
and he might, after all, have forborne it. And, as he forbore
one act, so he might have forborne another, and after that
another, and so on, till he had, by degrees, weakened, and at
length mortified and extinguished the habit itself.  That
these things, indeed, are not quickly or easily to be effected,
is manifest, and nothing will be more readily granted; and
therefore the scripture itself owns so much, by expressing
and representing these mortifying courses by acts of the
greatest toil and labor; such as are warfare, and taking up
the cross: and by acts of the most terrible violence and contrariety to nature; such as are cutting off the right hand,
and plucking out the right eye; things infinitely grievous
and afflictive, yet still, for all that, feasible in themselves, or
else, to be sure, the eternal wisdom of God would never have
advised, and much less have commanded them. For, what
God has commanded must be done; and what must be done
assuredly may be done; and therefore all pleas of impotence,
or inability, in such cases, are utterly false and impertinent,
and will infallibly be thrown back in the face of such as make
them.




208                  Good Inclinations            [SERM. X.
But you will say, Does not the scripture itself acknowledge
it as a thing impossible for a man, brought under a custom of
sin, to forbear sinning P  In Jer. xiii. 23, Can the Ethiopian
change ehis skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do
good, that are accustomed to do evil. Now, if this can be no
more done than the former, is it not a demonstration that it
can not he done at all P
To this I answer, that the words mentioned are tropical or
figurative, and import a hyperbole, which is a way of expressing things beyond what really and naturally they are in
themselves; and consequently the design of this scripture, in
saying that this can not be done, is no more than to show
that it is very hardly and very rarely done; but not, in strict
truth, utterly impossible to be done.
In vain therefore do men take sanctuary in such misunderstood expressions as these; and from a false- persuasion, that
they can- not reform their lives, break off their ill customs,
and root out their old,- vicious habits, never so much as attempt, endeavor, or go about it. For, admit that such a
habit, seated in the soul, be, as our Saviour calls it, a strong
man armed, got into possession; yet still he may be dispossessed, and thrown out by a stronger, Luke xi. 21, 22. Or be
it, as St. Paul calls it, a law in our members, -Rom. vii. 23,
yet certainly, ill laws may be broken and disobeyed, as well
as good. But, if men will suffer themselves to be enslaved,
and carried away by their lusts, without resistance, and wear
the devil's yoke quietly, rather -than be at the trouble of
throwing it off,- and thereupon sometimes feel their consciences galled and grieved by wearing it, they must not from
these secret stings and remorses,- felt by them:in the prosecution of their sins, presently conclude that therefore their will
is good, and well disposed, and consequently such as God
will accept, though their lives remain all the while unchanged,
and as much under the dominion of sin as ever.
These reasonings, I know, lie deep in the minds of most
men, and relieve and support their' hearts, in spite, and in
the midst of their sins; but they are all but sophistry and
delusion, and false propositions contrived by the devil, to
hold men fast in their sins by final impenitence. For though
possibly the grace of God may, in some cases, be irresistible,




2 COR. viii. 12.]  no Excuse for bad Actions.         209
yet it would be an infinite reproach to his providence to affirm that sin either is or can be so. And thus I have given
you four principal instances in which men use to plead the
will instead of the deed, upon a pretended impotence, or disability for the deed: namely, in duties of great labor; in
duties of much danger; in duties of cost and expense; and
lastly, in duties requiring a resistance and an extirpation of
inveterate, sinful habits.
In the neglect of all which, men relieve their consciences
by this one great fallacy running through them all, that they
mistake difficulties for impossibilities. A pernicious mistake
certainly; and the more pernicious, for that men are seldom
convinced of it till their conviction can do them no good.
There can not be a weightier or more important case of conscience for men to be resolved in, than to know certainly how
far God accepts the will for the deed, and how far he does not:
and withal, to be informed truly when men do really will a
thing, and when they have really no power to do what they
have willed.
For surely it can not but be matter of very dreadful and
terrifying consideration to any one sober, and in his wits, to
think seriously with himself, what horror and confusion must
needs surprise that man, at the last and great day of account,
who had led his whole life and governed all his actions by one
rule, when God intends to judge him by another.
To which God, the great searcher and judge of hearts, and rewarder of men according to their deeds, be rendered and
ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen.
VOL. I.          14




SERMON XI.
A SERMON PREACHED  AT CHRIST CHURCH, OXON,
BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY, OCTOBER 17, 1675.
JUDGES viii. 34, 35.- And the children of Israel remembered not the Lord their God,
who had delivered them out of the hands of all their enemies on every side: neither
shewed they kindness to the house of Jerubbaal, namely, Gideon, according to all the
goodness which he had shewed unto Israel.
THESE words, being a result or judgment given upon
matter of fact, naturally direct us to the foregoing story,
to inform us of their occasion. The subject of which story
was that heroic and victorious judge of Israel, Gideon; who,
by the greatness of his achievements, had merited the offer
of a crown and kingdom, and, by the greatness of his mind,
refused it. The whole narrative is contained and set before
us in the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th chapters of this book. Where
we read, that when the children of Israel, according to their
usual method of sinning after mercies and deliverances, and
thereupon returning to a fresh enslavement to their enemies, had now passed seven years in cruel subjection to the
Midianites, a potent and insulting enemy; and who oppressed them to that degree that they had scarce bread to fill
their mouths, or houses to cover their heads: for in the 2d
verse of the 6th chapter we find them housing themselves
underground, in dens and caves; and in ver. 3, 4, no sooner
had they sown their corn, but we have the enemy coming up
in armies, and destroying it. In this sad and calamitous
condition, I say, in which one would have thought that a deliverance from such an oppressor would have even revived
them, and the deliverer eternally obliged them, God raised
up the spirit of this great person, and ennobled his courage




JUDGES viii. 34, 35.] Of the odious Sin of Ingratitude.  211
and conduct with the entire overthrow of this mighty and
numerous, or rather innumerable host of the Midianites;
and that in such a manner, and with such strange and unparalleled circumstances, that, in the whole action, the mercy
and the miracle seemed to strive for the preeminence. And
so quick a sense did the Israelites, immediately after it, seem
to entertain of the merits of Gideon, and the obligation he
had laid upon them, that they all, as one man, tender him
the regal and hereditary government of that people, in the
22d verse of this 8th chapter: Then said the men of Israel to
Gideon, Rule thou over us, both thou, and thy son and thy son's
son also: for thou hast delivered us from the hand of Midian.
To which he answered as magnanimously, and by that answer
redoubled the obligation, in the next verse, I will not rule over
you, neither shall my son rule over you: the Lord shall rule over
you.
Thus far then we see the workings of a just gratitude in the
Israelites; and goodness on the one side nobly answered with
greatness on the other. And now, after so vast an obligation, owned by so free an acknowledgment, could any thing
be expected, but a continual interchange of kindnesses, at
least on their part, who had been so infinitely obliged and
so gloriously delivered   Yet in the 9th chapter we find
these very men turning the sword of Gideon into his own
bowels; cutting off the very race and posterity of their deliverer, by the slaughter of three-score and ten of his sons,
and setting up the son of his concubine, the blot of his
family, and the monument of his shame, to reign over them;
and all this without the least provocation or offense given
them, either by Gideon himself, or by any of his house.
After which horrid fact, I suppose we can no longer wonder
at this unlooked-for account given of the Israelites in the
text: That they remembered not the Lord their God, who had
delivered them out of the hands of all their enemies on every side:
neither shewed they kindness to the house of Gideon, according to
all the goodness which he had shewed unto Israel.
The truth is, they were all along a cross, odd, untoward
sort of people, and such as God seems to have chosen, and
(as the prophets sometimes phrase it) to have espoused to
himself, upon the very same account that Socrates espoused




212          Of the odious Sin of Ingratitude.    [SERM. XI.
Xantippe, only for her extreme ill conditions, above all that
he could possibly find or pick out of that sex; and so the
fittest argument both to exercise and declare his admirable
patience to the world.
The words of the text are a charge given in against the
Israelites; a charge of that foul and odious sin of ingratitude;
and that both towards God and towards man: towards God
in the 34th verse, and towards man in the 35th. Such being
ever the growing contagion of this ill quality, that if it
begins at God, it naturally descends to men; and if it first
exerts itself upon men, it infallibly ascends to God. If we
consider it as directed against God, it is a breach of religion;
if as to men, it is an offense against morality. The passage
from one to the other is very easy; breach of duty towards
our neighbor still involving in it a breach of duty towards
God too; and no man's religion ever survives his morals.
My purpose is, from this remarkable subject and occasion,
to treat of ingratitude, and that chiefly in this latter sense;
and from the case of the Israelites towards Gideon, to traverse
the nature, principles, and properties of this detestable vice;
and so drawing before your eyes the several lineaments and
parts of it, from the ugly aspect of the picture, to leave it to
your own hearts to judge of the original. For the effecting
of which I shall do these following things:
I. I shall show what gratitude is, and upon what the obligation to it is grounded.
II. I shall give some account of the nature and baseness
of ingratitude.
III. I shall show the principle from which ingratitude
proceeds.
IV. I shall show those ill qualities that inseparably attend
it, and are never disjoined from it. And,
V. and lastly, I shall draw some useful inferences, by way
of application, from the premises.
And first for the first of these: What gratitude is, and
upon what the obligation to it is grounded.
" Gratitude is properly a virtue, disposing the mind to an
inward sense and an outward acknowledgment of a benefit received, together with a readiness to return the same, or the
like, as the occasions of the doer of it shall require, and the
abilities of the receiver extend to."




JUDGES viii. 34, 35.]  Of the odious Sin of Ingratitude.  213
This, to me, seems to contain a full description, or rather
definition, of this virtue; from which it appears that gratitude
includes in it these three parts:
1. A particular observation, or taking notice of a kindness
received, and consequently of the good will and affection of
the person who did that kindness. For still, in this case,
the mind of the giver is more to be attended to than the
matter of the gift;-it being this that stamps it properly a
favor, and gives it the noble and endearing denomination of a
kindness.
2. The second part of gratitude is that which brings it
from the heart into the mouth, and makes a man express the
sense he has of the benefit done him, by thanks, acknowledgments, and gratulations; and where the heart is full of the
one, it will certainly overflow, and run over in the other.
3. The third and last is an endeavor to recompense our
benefactor, and to do something that may redound to his
advantage, in consideration of what he has done towards ours.
I state it upon endeavor, and not upon effect; for this latter
may be ofteir impossible. But it is in the power of every one
to do as much as he can; to make some essay at least, some
offer and attempt this way; so as to show that there is a
spring of motion within, and that the heart is not idle or
insensible, but that it is full and big, and knows itself to be
so, though it wants strength to bring forth. Having thus
shown what gratitude is, the next thing is to show the obligation that it brings upon a man, and the ground and reason
of that obligation.
As for the obligation, I know no moralists or casuists that
treat scholastically of justice, but treat of gratitude under that
general head, as a part or species of it. And the nature and
office of justice being to dispose the mind to a constant and
perpetual readiness to render to every man his due, suum cuique tribuere, it is evident, that if gratitude be a part of justice,
it must be conversant about something that is due to another.
And whatsoever is so, must be so by the force of some law.
Now, all law that a man is capable of being obliged by, is
reducible to one of these three:
1. The law of nature. 2. The positive law of God revealed
in his word. 3. The law of man, enacted by the civil power,
for the preservation and good of society..




214          Of the odious Sin of Ingratitude.   [SERM. XI.
1. And first for the law of nature, which I take to be nothing else but the mind of God signified to a rational agent,
by the bare discourse of his reason, and dictating to him, that
he ought to act suitably to the principles of his nature, and
to those relations that he stands under. For every thing sustains both an absolute and a relative capacity. An absolute,
as it is such a thing endued with such a nature; and a relative, as it is a part of the universe, and so stands in such an
order and relation both to the whole and to the rest of the
parts.
After which, the next consideration immediately subsequent
to the being of a thing, is, what agrees or disagrees with that
thing; what is suitable or unsuitable to it; and from this
springs the notion of decency or indecency; that which becomes or misbecomes, and is the same with honestum et turpe.
Which decency, or r0 rpErwov, (as the Greeks term it,) imports
a certain measure or proportion of one thing to another;
which to transgress, is to do contrary to the natural order of
things; the preservation of which is properly that rule or
law by which every thing ought to act; and consequently
the violation of it implies a turpitude or indecency. Now
those actions that are suitable to a rational nature, and to
that 7rp rov, that decency or honestum, belonging to it, are
contained and expressed in certain maxims or propositions,
which, upon the repeated exercise of a man's reason about
such objects as come before him, do naturally result, and are
collected from thence; and so remaining upon his mind,
become both a rule to direct and a law to oblige him in the
whole course of his actions. Such as are these maxims, That
the supreme being, cause, and governor of all things ought
to be worshiped and depended upon. That parents are to be
honored. That a man should do as he would be done by.
From which last alone may sufficiently be deduced all those
rules of charity and justice that are to govern the offices of
common life; and which alone is enough to found an obligation to gratitude: forasmuch as no man, having done a kindness to another, would acquiesce or think himself justly dealt
with in a total neglect and unconcernedness of the person
who had received that kindness from him; and consequently
neither ought he to be unconcerned in the same case himself.




JUDGES viii. 34, 35.] Of the odious Sin of Ingratitude.  215
But I shall, from other and nearer principles, and those the
unquestionable documents and dictates of the law of nature,
evince the obligation and debt lying upon every man to show
gratitude where he has received a benefit. Such as are these
propositions:
(1.) That according to the rule of natural justice, one man
may merit and deserve of another. (2.) That whosoever deserves of another, makes something due to him from the
person of whom he deserves. (3.) That one man's deserving
of another is founded upon his conferring on him some good,
to which that other had no right or claim. (4.) That no man
has any antecedent right or claim to that which comes to him
by free gift. (5.) And lastly, that all desert imports an
equality between the good conferred and the good deserved,
or made due. From whence it follows, that he who confers a
good upon another, deserves and consequently has a claim to
an equal good from the person upon whom it was conferred.
So that from hence, by the law of nature, springs a debt; the
acknowledging and repaying of which debt (as a man shall be
able) is the proper office and work of gratitude.
As certain therefore as by the law of nature there may be,
and often is, such a thing as merit and desert from one man
to another; and as desert gives the person deserving a right
or claim to some good from the person of whom he deserves;
and as a right in one to claim this good infers a debt and
obligation in the other to pay it; so certain it is, by a direct
gradation of consequences from this principle of merit, that
the obligation to gratitude flows from, and is enjoined by, the
first dictates of nature. And the truth is, the greatest and
most sacred ties of duty that man is capable of, are founded
upon gratitude. Such as are the duties of a child to his
parent, and of a subject to his sovereign. From the former
of which there is required love and honor, in recompense of
being; and from the latter, obedience and subjection, in recompense of protection and wellbeing. And, in general, if
the conferring of a kindness did not bind the person upon
whom it was conferred to the returns of gratitude, why, in
the universal dialect of the world, are kindnesses still called
obligations P
And thus much for the first ground, enforcing the obli



216          Of the odious Sin of Ingratitude.    [SERM. XI.
gations of gratitude; namely, the law of nature. In the
next place,
2. As for the positive law of God revealed in his word, it
is evident that gratitude must needs be enjoined and made
necessary by all those scriptures that upbraid or forbid ingratitude; as in 2 Tim. iii. 2, the unthankful stand reckoned
among the highest and most enormous sinners; which sufficiently evinces the virtue opposite to unthankfulness to bear
the same place in the rank of duties that its contrary does
in the catalogue of sins. And the like, by consequence, is
inferred from all those places in which we are commanded to
love our enemies, and to do good to those that hate us: and
therefore certainly much more are we by the same commanded
to do good to those that have prevented us with good, and
actually obliged us. So that it is manifest that by the positive written law of God, no less than by the law of nature,
gratitude is a debt.
3. In the third and last place; as for the laws of men,
enacted by the civil power, it must be confessed that gratitude is not enforced by them; I say, not enforced, that is,
not enjoined by the sanction of penalties, to be inflicted upon
the person that shall not be found grateful. I grant indeed
that many actions are punished by law that are acts of ingratitude; but this is merely accidental to them, as they are such
acts; for if they were punished properly under that notion,
and upon that account, the punishment would equally reach
all actions of the same kind; but they are punished and provided against by law, as they are gross and dangerous violations of societies, and that common good that it is the business of the civil laws of all nations to protect and to take care
of: which good not being violated or endangered by every
omission of gratitude between man and man, the laws make
no peculiar provision to secure the exercise of this virtue, but
leave it as they found it, sufficiently enjoined, and made a duty
"by the law of God and nature.
Though in the Roman law indeed there is this particular
provision against the breach of this duty in case of slaves,
that if a lord nlanumits and makes free his slave, gross ingratitude in the person so made free forfeits his freedom,
and reasserts him to his former condition of slavery; though




JUDGES viii. 34,35.] Of the odious Sin of Ingratitude.  217
perhaps even this also, upon an accurate consideration, will
be found not a provision against ingratitude, properly and
formally as such, but as it is the ingratitude of slaves, which,
if left unpunished in a commonwealth where it was the custom for men to be served by slaves, as in Rome it was, would
quickly have been a public nuisance and disturbance; for such
is the peculiar insolence of this sort of men, such the incorrigible vileness of all slavish spirits,'that though freedom may
rid them of the baseness of their condition, yet it never takes
off the baseness of their minds.
And now, having shown both what gratitude is, and the
ground and reason of men's obligation to it, we have a full
account of the proper and particular nature of this virtue, as
consisting adequately in these two things: first, that it is a
debt; and, secondly, that it is such a debt as is left to every
man's ingenuity, (in respect of any legal coaction,) whether
he will pay or no; for there lies no action of debt against him,
if he will not. He is in danger of no arrest, bound over to
no assize, nor forced to hold up his unworthy hand (the instrument of his ingratitude) at any bar.
And this it is that shows the rare and distinguishing excellency of gratitude, and sets it as a crown upon the head of
all other virtues, that it should plant such an overruling generosity in the heart of man, as shall more effectually incline
him to what is brave and becoming, than the terror of any
penal law whatsoever. So that he shall feel a greater force
upon himself from within, and from the control of his own
principles, to engage him to do worthily, than all threatenings and punishments, racks and tortures can have upon a
low and servile mind, that never acts virtuously but as it is
acted; that knows no principle of doing well, but fear; no
conscience, but constraint.  On the contrary, the grateful
person fears no court or judge, no sentence or executioner,
but what he carries about him in his own breast: and being
still the most severe exactor of himself, not only confesses
but proclaims his debts; his ingenuity is his bond, and his
conscience a thousand witnesses: so that the debt must
needs be sure, yet he scorns to be sued for it; nay, rather,
he is always suing, importuning, and even reproaching himself, till he can clear accounts with his benefactor. His heart




218          Of the odious Sin of Ingratitude.    [SERM. XI.
is, as it were, in continual labor: it even travails with the obligation, and is in pangs till it be delivered: and as David,
in the overflowing sense of God's goodness to him, cries out,
in the 116th Psalm, ver. 12, What shall I render unto the
Lord for all his benefits towards me? so the grateful person,
pressed down under the apprehension of any great kindness
done him, eases his burdened mind a little by such expostulations with himself as these:  "What shall I do for such a
friend, for such a patron, who has so frankly, so generously,
so unconstrainedly relieved me in such a distress; supported
me against such an enemy; supplied, cherished, and upheld
me when relations would not know me, or at least could not
help me; and, in a word, has prevented my desires, and outdone my necessities 9 I can never do enough for him; my
own conscience would spit in my face, should I ever slight or
forget such favors." These are the expostulating dialogues
and contests that every grateful, every truly noble and magnanimous person has with himself. It was, in part, a brave
speech of Luc. Cornelius Sylla, the Roman dictator, who said,
-". that he found no sweetness in being great or powerful, but
only that it enabled him to crush his enemies and to gratify
his friends."
I can not warrant or defend the first part of this saying;
but surely he that employs his greatness in the latter, be he
never so great, it must and will make him still greater.
And thus much for the first general thing proposed, which
was to show what gratitude is, and upon what the obligation
to it is grounded. I proceed now to the second,
Which is to give some account of the nature and baseness
of ingratitude.
There is not any one vice or ill quality incident to the mind
of man against which the world has raised such a loud and
universal outcry, as against ingratitude: a vice never mentioned by any heathen writer, but with a particular hight of
detestation; and of such a malignity, that human nature
must be stripped of humanity itself before it can be guilty
of it.  It is instead of all other vices, and, in the balance
of morality, a counterpoise to them all. In the charge of
ingratitude, omnia dixeris: it is one great blot upon all morality: it is all in a word: it says Amen to the black roll of
sins: it gives completion and confirmation to them all.




JUDGES viii. 34, 35.] Of the odious Sin of Ingratitude.  219
If we would state the nature of it, recourse must be had to
what has been already said of its contrary; and so it is properly an insensibility of kindnesses received, without any endeavor either to acknowledge or repay them.
To repay them, indeed, by a return equivalent, is not in
every one's power, and consequently can not be his duty; but
thanks are a tribute payable by the poorest; the most forlorn
widow has her two mites; and there is none so indigent but
has an heart to be sensible of, and a tongue to express, its
sense of a benefit received.
For, surely, nature gives no man a mouth to be always eating, and never saying grace; nor an hand only to grasp and
to receive: but as it is furnished with teeth for the one, so it
should have a tongue also for the other; and the hands that
are so often reached out to take and to accept, should be
sometimes lifted up also to bless. The world is maintained
by intercourse; and the whole course of nature is a great exchange, in which one good turn is and ought to be the stated
price of another.
If you consider the universe as one body, you shall find
society and conversation to supply the office of the blood and
spirits; and it is gratitude that makes them circulate. Look
over the whole creation, and you shall see that the band or
cement that holds together all the parts of this great and
glorious fabric is gratitude, or something like it: you may
observe it in all the elements; for does not the air feed the
flameP and does not the flame at the same time warm and
enlighten the air P Is not the sea always sending forth as well
as taking in P And does not the earth quit scores with all the
elements, in the noble fruits and productions that issue from
it? And in all the light and influence that the heavens bestow upon this lower world, though the lower world can not
equal their benefaction, yet, with a kind of grateful return, it
reflects those rays that it can not recompense: so that there
is some return however, though there can be no requital.
Ile who has a soul wholly void of gratitude, should do well
to set his soul to learn of his body; for all the parts of that
minister to one another. The hands, and all the other limbs,
labor to bring in food and provision to the stomach, and the
stomach returns what it has received from them in strength




220          Of the odious Sin of Ingratitude.  [SERM. XI.
and nutriment, diffused into all the parts and members of the
body. It would be endless to pursue the like allusions: in
short, gratitude is the great spring that sets all the wheels of
nature agoing; and the whole universe is supported by giving and returning, by commerce and commutation.
And now, thou ungrateful brute, thou blemish to mankind,
and reproach to thy creation, what shall we say of thee, or
to what shall we compare thee P For thou art an exception
from all the visible world; neither the heavens above, nor the
earth beneath, afford any thing like thee: and therefore, if
thou wouldest find thy parallel, go to hell, which is both the
region and the emblem of ingratitude; for, besides thyself,
there is nothing but hell that is always receiving and never
restoring.
And thus much for the nature and baseness of ingratitude,
as it has been represented in the description given of it.
Come we now to the
Third thing proposed, which is: to show the principle from
which it proceeds. And to give you this in one word, it
proceeds from that which we call ill-nature. Which being a
word that occurs frequently in discourse, and in the characters given of persons, it will not be amiss to inquire into the
proper sense and signification of this expression. In order to
which we must observe, that, according to the doctrine of the
philosopher, man being a creature designed and framed by
nature for society and conversation, such a temper or disposition of mind as inclines him to those actions that promote
society and mutual fellowship is properly called good-nature:
which actions, though almost innumerable in their particulars, yet seem reducible in general to these two principles of
action.
1. A proneness to do good to others.
2. A ready sense of any good done by others.
And where these two meet together, as they are scarce
ever found asunder, it is impossible for that person not to be
kind, beneficial, and obliging to all whom he converses with.
On the contrary, ill-nature is such a disposition as inclines
a man to those actions that thwart, and sour, and disturb
conversation between man and man; and accordingly consists
of two qualities directly contrary to the former.




JUDGES viii. 34, 35.] Of the odious Sin of Ingratitude.  221
1. A proneness to do ill turns, attended with a complacency,
or secret joy of mind, upon the sight of any mischief that
befalls another. And,
2. An utter insensibility of any good or kindness done him
by others.  I mean not that he is insensible of the good
itself; but that, although he finds, feels, and enjoys the good
that is done him, yet he is wholly insensible and unconcerned
to value, or take notice of the benignity of him that does it.
Now either of these ill qualities, and much more both of
them together, denominate a person ill-natured; they being
such as make him grievous and uneasy to all whom he deals
and associates himself with. For from the former of these
proceed envy, an aptness to slander and revile, to cross and
hinder a man in his lawful advantages. For these and such
like actions feed and gratify that base humor of mind, which
gives a man a delight in making, at least in seeing, his
neighbor miserable: and from the latter issues that vile thing
which we have been hitherto speaking of, to wit, ingratitude:
into which all kindnesses and good turns fall, as into a kind
of dead sea. It being a quality that confines and, as it were,
shuts up a man wholly within himself, leaving him void of
that principle which alone should dispose- him to communicate and impart those redundancies of good that he is possessed of. No man ever goes sharer with the ungrateful
person; be he never so full, he never runs over. But (like
Gideon's fleece) though filled and replenished with the dew
of heaven himself, yet he leaves all dry and empty about him.
Now this surely, if any thing, is an effect of ill-nature.
And what is ill-nature but a pitch beyond original corruption P It is corruptio pessimi.'A further depravation of that
which was stark naught before. But, so certainly does it
shoot forth and show itself in this vice, that wheresoever you
see ingratitude, you may as infallibly conclude that there is
a growing stock of ill-nature in that breast, as you may know
that man to have the plague upon whom you see the tokens.
Having thus shown you from whence this ill quality proceeds, pass we now to the: Fourth thing proposed, which is to show those other ill
qualities that inseparably attend ingratitude, and are never
disjoined from it.




222          Of the odious Sin of Ingratitude.  [SERMI. XI.
It is a saying common in use, and true in observation, that
the disposition and temper of a man may be gathered as well
from  his companion or associate as from himself. And it
holds in qualities as it does in persons: it being seldom or
never known, that any great virtue or vice went alone; for
greatness in every thing will still be attended on.
How black and base a vice ingratitude is, we have seen by
considering it both in its own nature and in the principle
from which it springs; and we may see the same yet more
fully in those vices which it is always in combination with.
Two of which I shall mention, as being of near cognation to
it, and constant coherence with it.  The first of which is
pride. And the second, hard-heartedness, or want of compassion.
1. And first for pride. This is of such intimate, and even
essential connection with ingratitude, that the actings of
ingratitude seem directly resolvable into pride, as the principal reason and cause of them. The original ground of man's
obligation to gratitude was, as I have hinted, from this, that
each man has but a limited right to the good things of the
world; and that the natural allowed way by which he is to
compass the possession of these things, is by his own industrious acquisition of them; and consequently, when any good
is dealt forth to him any other way than by his own labor, lihe
is accountable to the person who dealt it to him, as for a
thing to which he had no right or claim, by any action of his
own entitling him to it.
But now pride shuts a man's eyes against all this, and so
fills him with an opinion of his own transcendent worth, that
he imagines himself to have a right to all' things, as well
those that are the effects and fruits of other men's labors, as
of his own. So that, if any advantage accrues to him by
the liberality and donation of his neighbor, he looks not upon
it as matter of free undeserved gift, but rather as a just
homage to that worth and merit which he conceives to be in
himself, and to which all the world ought to become tributary.
Upon which thought, no wonder if he reckons himself wholly
unconcerned to- acknowledge or repay any good that he
receives. For while the courteous person thinks that he is
obliging and doing such an one a kindness, the proud person,




JUDGES viii. 34, 35.] Of the odious Sin of Ingratitude.  223
on the other side, accounts him to be only paying a debt.
His pride makes him even worship and idolize himself; and
indeed every proud, ungrateful man has this property of an
idol, that though he is plied with never so many and so great
offerings, yet he takes no notice of the offerer at all.
Now this is the true account of the most inward movings
and reasonings of the very heart and soul of an ungrateful
person. So that you may rest upon this as a proposition of
an eternal, unfailing truth; that there neither is nor ever
was any person remarkably ungrateful, who was not also
insufferably proud; nor, convertibly, any one proud, who was
not equally ungrateful. For, as snakes breed in dunghills
not singly, but in knots, so in such base, noisome hearts you
shall ever see pride and ingratitude indivisibly wreathed and
twisted together. Ingratitude overlooks all kindnesses, but
it is because pride makes it carry its head so high.
See the greatest examples of ingratitude equally notorious
for their pride and ambition. And to begin with the top
and father of them all, the devil himself. That excellent and
glorious nature which God had obliged him with could not
prevent his ingratitude and apostasy,'when his pride bid him
aspire to an equality with his maker, and say, I will ascend,
and be like the Most High. And did not our first parents
write exactly after his copy? ingratitude making them to
trample upon the command, because pride made them desire
to be as gods, and to brave omniscience itself in the knowledge of good and evil. What made that ungrateful wretch,
Absalom, kick at all the kindnesses of his indulgent father,
but because his ambition would needs be fingering the sceptre, and hoisting him into his father's throne P And in the
courts of princes, is there any thing more usual than to see
those that have been raised by the favor and interest of some
great minister, to trample upon the steps by which they rose,
to rival him in his greatness, and at length (if possible) to
step into his place P
In a word, ingratitude is too base to return a kindness, and
too proud to regard it; much like the tops of mountains,
barren indeed, but yet lofty; they produce nothing, they feed
nobody, they clothe nobody, yet are high and stately, and look
down upon all the world about them.




224          Of the odious Sin of Ingratitude.  [SERM. XI.
2. The other concomitant of ingratitude is hard-heartedness, or want of compassion. This, at first, may seem to have
no great cognation with ingratitude; but upon a due inspection into the nature of that ill quality, it will be found directly
to follow it, if not also to result from it.
For the nature of ingratitude being founded in such a disposition as encloses all a man's concerns within himself, and
consequently gives him a perfect unconcernedness in all
things not judged by him immediately to relate to his own
interest, it is no wonder if the same temper of mind which
makes a man unapprehensive of any good done him by
others, makes him equally unapprehensive and insensible of
any evil or misery suffered by others. No such thought ever
strikes his marble, obdurate heart, but it presently flies off
and rebounds from it. And the truth is, it is impossible for
a man to be perfect and thorough-paced in ingratitude, till he
has shook off all fetters of pity and compassion. For all relenting and tenderness of heart makes a man but a puny in
this sin; it spoils the growth, and cramps the last and crowning exploits of this vice.
Ingratitude, indeed, put the poniard into Brutus's hand;
but it was want of compassion which thrust it into Caesar's
heart. When some fond, easy fathers think fit to strip themselves before they lie down to their long sleep, and to settle
their whole estates upon their sons, has it not been too
frequently seen, that the father has been requited with want
and beggary, scorn and contempt?  But now, could bare
ingratitude, think we, ever have made any one so unnatural
and diabolical, had not cruelty and want of pity come in as
a second to its assistance, and cleared the villain's breast of
all remainders of humanity? Is it not this which has made
so many miserable parents even curse their own bowels, for
bringing forth children that seem to have noneP Did not
this make Agrippina, Nero's mother, cry out to the assassinate sent by her son to murder her, to direct his sword
to her belly, as being the only criminal for having brought
forth such a monster of ingratitude into the world?  And to
give you yet a higher instance of the conjunction of these
two vices; since nothing could transcend the ingratitude and
cruelty of Nero, but the ingratitude and cruelty of an im



JUDGES viii. 34, 35.1 Of the odious Sin of Ingratitude.  225
perious woman; when Tullia, daughter of Servius Tullius,
sixth king of Rome, having married Tarquinius Superbus,
and put him first upon killing her father, and then invading
his throne, came through the street where the body of her
father lay newly murdered and wallowing in his blood, she
commanded her trembling coachman to drive her chariot and
horses over the body of her king and father triumphantly, in
the face of all Rome looking upon her with astonishment and
detestation. Such was the tenderness, gratitude, filial affection, and good-nature of this weaker vessel.
And then for instances out of sacred story; to go no further
than this of Gideon; did not ingratitude first make the Israelites forget the kindness of the father, and then cruelty
make them imbrue their hands in the blood of his sons?
Could Pharaoh's butler so quickly have forgot Joseph, had.not want of.gratitude to him as his friend met with an equal
want of compassion to him as his fellow-prisoner P A poor,
innocent, forlorn stranger languishing in durance, upon the
false accusations of a lying, insolent, whorish woman!
I might even weary you with examples of the like nature,
both sacred and civil, all of them representing ingratitude, as
it were, sitting in its throne, with pride at its right hand and
cruelty at its left; worthy supporters of such a stately quality,
such a reigning impiety.
And it has been sometimes observed, that persons signally
and eminently obliged, yet missing of the utmost of their
greedy designs in swallowing both gifts and giver too, instead
of thanks for received kindnesses, have betook themselves to
barbarous threatenings for defeat of their insatiable expectations.
Upon the whole matter we may firmly conclude, that ingratitude and compassion never cohabit in the same breast.
Which remark I do here so much insist upon, to show the
superlative malignity of:this vice, and the baseness of the
mind in which it dwells; for we may with great confidence
and equal truth affirm, that since there was such a thing as
mankind in the world, there never was any heart truly great
and generous, that was not also tender and. compassionate.
It is this noble quality that makes all men to be of one kind;
VOL. I.         15




226          Of the odious Sin of Ingratitude.    [SERM. XI.
for every man would be, as it were, a distinct species to himself, were there no sympathy amongst individuals.
And thus I have done with the fourth thing proposed, and
shown the two vices that inseparably attend ingratitude;
and now, if falsehood also should chance to strike in as the
third, and make up the triumvirate of its attendants, so that
ingratitude, pride, cruelty, and falsehood should all meet together, and join forces in the same person; as not only very
often, but for the most part they do; in this case, if the devils
themselves should take bodies, and come and live amongst
us, they could not be greater plagues and grievances to society than such persons.
From what has been said, let no man ever think to meet
ingratitude single and alone. It is one of those grapes of
gall mentioned by Moses, Deut. xxxii. 32, and therefore
expect always to find it one of a cluster. I proceed now to
the
Fifth and last thing proposed, which is, to draw some useful consequences, by way of application, from the premises.
As, -
1. Never enter into a league of friendship with an ungrateful person. That is, plant not thy friendship upon a dunghill.
It is too noble a plant for so base a soil.
Friendship consists properly in mutual offices, and a generous strife in alternate acts of kindness. But he who does
a kindness to an ungrateful person, sets his seal to a flint,
and sows his seed upon the sand: upon the former he makes
no impression, and from the latter he finds no production.
The only voice of ingratitude is, Give, give; but when the
gift is once received, then, like the swine at his trough, it is
silent and insatiable. In a word, the ungrateful person is a
monster which is all throat and belly, a kind of thoroughfare, or common-shore, for the good things of the world to
pass into; and of whom, in respect of all kindnesses conferred
on him, may be verified that observation of the lion's den;
before which appeared the footsteps of many that had gone in
thither, but no prints of any that ever came out thence.
The ungrateful person is the only thing in nature for which
nobody living is the better. He lives to himself, and subsists
by the good-nature of others, of which he himself has not




JDGES viii. 34, 35.] Of the odious Sin of Ingratitude.  227
the least grain. He is a mere encroachment upon society,
and, consequently, ought to be thrust out of the world as a
pest, and a prodigy, and a creature of the devil's making, and
not of God's.
2. As a man tolerably discreet ought by no means to attempt the making of such an one his friend, so neither is he,
in the next place, to presume to think that he shall be able
so much as to alter or meliorate the humor of an ungrateful
person by any acts of kindness, though never so frequent,
never so obliging.
Philosophy will teach the learned, and experience may
teach all, that it is a thing hardly feasible. For love such an
one, and he shall despise you: commend him, and, as occasion serves, he shall revile you: give to him, and he shall but
laugh at your easiness: save his life; but when you have
done, look to your own.
The greatest favors to such an one are but like the motion
of a ship upon the waves; they leave no trace, no sign behind
them; they neither soften nor win upon him; they neither
melt nor endear him, but leave him as hard, as rugged, and
as unconcerned as ever. All kindnesses descend upon such a
temper as showers of rain or rivers of fresh water falling
into the main sea: the sea swallows them all, but is not at
all changed or sweetened by them. I may truly say of the
mind of an ungrateful person, that it is kindness-proof. It
is impenetrable, unconquerable; unconquerable by that which
conquers all things else, even by love itself. Flints may be
melted, (we see it..daily,) but an ungrateful heart can not;
no, not by the strongest and the: noblest flame. After all
your attempts, all your experimeiits, for any thing that man
can do, he that is ungrateful will be ungrateful still. And
the reason is manifest; for you may remember that I told
you that ingratitude sprang from a principle of ill nature;
which being a thing founded in such a certain constitution of
blood and spirit, as being born with a man into the world,
and upon that account called nature, shall prevent all remedies
that can be applied by education, and leaves such a bias upon
the mind as is beforehand with all instruction.
So that you shall seldom or never meet with an ungrateful
person, but if you look backward, and trace him up to his




228          Of the odious Sin of Ingratitude.   [SERM. XL
original, you will find that he was born so; and if you could
look forward enough, it is a thousand to one but you will
find that he also dies so; for you shall never light upon an
ill-natured man, who was not also an ill-natured child; and
gave several testimonies of his being so, to discerning persons,
long before the use of his reason.
The thread that nature spins is seldom broken off by any
thing but death. I do not by this limit the operation of
God's grace; for that may do wonders: but humanly speaking, and according to the method of the world, and the little
correctives supplied by art and discipline, it seldom fails; but
an ill principle has its course, and nature makes good its
blow. And therefore where ingratitude begins remarkably
to show itself, he surely judges most wisely who takes the
alarm betimes; and arguing the fountain from the stream,
concludes that there is ill-nature at the bottom; and so reduciig his judgment into practice, timely withdraws his frustraneous, baffled kindnesses, and sees the folly of endeavoring
to stroke a tiger into a lamb, or to court an Ethiopian out of
his color.
3. In the third and last place.  Wheresoever you see a
man notoriously ungrateful, rest assured that there is no
true sense of religion in that person. You know the apostle's
argument, in 1 John iv. 20. HIe who loveth not his brother
whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?
So, by an exact parity of reason, we may argue: If a man
has no sense of those kindnesses that pass upon him from
one like himself, whom he sees, and knows, and converses
with sensibly; how much less shall his heart be affected with
the grateful sense of his favors whom  he converses with
only by imperfect speculations, by the discourses of reason,
or the discoveries of. faith; neither of which equal the quick
and lively impressions of sense? PIf the apostle's reasoning
was good and concluding, I am sure this must be unavoidable.
But the thing is too evident to need any proof. For shall
that man pass for a proficient in Christ's school, who would
have been exploded in the school of Zeno or Epictetus P Or
shall he pretend to religious attainments, who is defective
and short in moral P which yet are but the rudiments, the
beginnings, and first draught of religion, as religion is the




JUDGES viii. 34, 35.]  Of the odious Sin of Ingratitude.  229
perfection, the refinement, and the sublimation of morality;
so that it still presupposes it, it builds upon it, and grace
never adds the superstructure, where virtue has not laid the
foundation. There may be virtue indeed, and yet no grace;
but grace is never without virtue: and therefore, though
gratitude does not infer grace, it is certain that ingratitude
does exclude it.
Think not to put God off by frequenting prayers, and sermons, and sacraments, while thy brother has an action against
thee in the court of heaven; an action of debt, of that clamorous and great debt of gratitude. Rather, as our Saviour
commands, leave thy girft upon the altar, and first go and clear
accounts with thy brother. God scorns a gift from him who
has not paid his debts. Every ungrateful person, in the sight
of God and man, is a thief, and let him not make the altar
his receiver. Where there is no charity, it is certain there
can be no religion; and can that man be charitable who is
not so much as just P
In every benefaction between man and man, man is only
the dispenser, but God the benefactor; and therefore let all
ungrateful ones know, that where gratitude is the debt, God
himself is the chief creditor: who, though he causes his sun
to shine, and his rain to fall upon the evil and unthankful in
this world, has another kind of reward for their unthankfulness in the next.
To which God, the great searcher and judge of hearts, and
rewarder of men according to their deeds, be rendered and
ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen.




SERMON XII.
A SERMON PREACHED AT CHRIST CHURCH, OXON,
BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY, OCTOBER 14, 1688.
PROV. xii. 22. -Lying lips are abomination to the Lord.
I  AM very sensible, that by discoursing of lies and falsehood, which I have pitched upon for my present subject,
I must needs fall into a very large commonplace; though
yet, not by half so large and common as the practice: nothing
in nature being so universally decried, and withal so universally practiced, as falsehood. So that most of those things
that have the mightiest and most controlling influence upon
the affairs and course of the world, are neither better nor
worse than downright lies. For what is common fame, which
sounds from all quarters of the world, and resounds back to
them again, but generally a loud, rattling, impudent, overbearing lie? What are most of the histories of the world,
but lies P lies immortalized, and consigned over as a perpetual abuse and flam upon posterity P What are most of the
promises of the world, but lies P of which we need no other
proof but our own experience. And what are most of the
oaths in the world, but lies P and such as need rather a pardon for being took, than a dispensation from being kept P
And lastly, what are all the religions of the world,' except
Judaism and Christianity, but lies P And even in Christianity
itself, are there not those who teach, warrant, and defend
lying? and scarce use the Bible for any other purpose but to
swear upon it, and to lie against it P
Thus a mighty, governing lie goes round the world, and
has almost banished truth out of it; and so reigning triumphantly in its stead, is the true source of most of those




PROV. xii. 22.] Of the base Sins of Falsehood and Lying.   231
confusions and dire calamities that infest and plague the universe. For look over them all, and you shall find that the
greatest annoyance and disturbance of mankind has been
from one of these two things, force or fraud. Of which, as
boisterous and violent a thing as force is, yet it rarely
achieves any thing considerable, but under the conduct of
fraud. Sleight of hand has done that which force of hand
could never do.
But why do we speak of hands? It is the tongue that
drives the world before it. The tongue, and the lying lip,
which there is no fence against: for when that is the weapon,
a man may strike where he can not reach; and a word shall
do execution both further and deeper than the mightiest
blow. For the hand can hardly lift up itself high enough to
strike, but it must be seen; so that it warns while it threatens; but a false, insidious tongue may whisper a lie so close
and low, that though you have ears to hear, yet you shall not
hear; and indeed we generally come to know it, not by hearing, but by feeling what it says.
A man, perhaps, casts his eye this way and that way, and
looks round about him, to spy out his enemy, and to defend
himself; but alas.! the fatal mischief that would trip up his
heels is all the while under them. It works invisibly, and
beneath: and the shocks of an earthquake, we know, are
much more dreadful than the highest and loudest blusters of
a storm. For there may be some shelter against the violence
of the one, but no security against the hollowness of the
other; which never opens its bosom, but for a killing embrace. The bowels of the earth in such cases, and the mercies of the false in all, being equally without compassion.
Upon the whole matter, it is hard to assign any one thing'but lying, which God and man so unanimously join in the
hatred of; and it is as hard to tell whether it does a greater
dishonor to God, or mischief to man: it is certainly an abomination to both; and I hope to make it appear such in the
following discourse. Though I must confess myself very unable to speak to the utmost latitude of this subject; and I
thank God that I am so.
Now the words of the text are a plain, entire, categorical
proposition; and therefore I shall not go about to darken




232     Of thie base Sins of Falsehood and' Lying. [SERM. XII.
them by any needless explication, but shall immediately cast
the prosecution of them under these three following particulars. As,
I. I shall inquire into the nature of a lie, and the proper
essential malignity of all falsehood.
II. I shall show the pernicious effects of it. And,
III. and lastly, I shall lay before you the rewards and punishments that will certainly attend, or at least follow it.
Every one of which, I suppose, and much more all of them
together, will afford arguments more than sufficient, to prove,
(though it were no part of holy scripture,) that lying lips are
an abomination to the Lord.
And first, for the first of these.
I. What a lie is, and wherein the nature of it does consist.
A lie is properly an outward signification of something contrary to, or, at least, beside the inward sense of the mind;
so that when one thing is signified or expressed, and the same
thing not meant or intended, that is properly a lie.
And forasmuch as God has endued man with a power or
faculty to institute or appoint signs of his thoughts; and
that, by virtue hereof, he can appoint, not only words, but
also things, actions, and gestures to be signs of the inward
thoughts and conceptions of his mind, it is evident that he
may as really lie and deceive by actions and gestures, as he
can by words; forasmuch as, in the nature of them, they are
as capable of being made signs, and consequently of being
as much abused and misapplied as the other: though, for
distinction sake, a deceiving by words is commonly called a
lie, and a deceiving by actions, gestures, or behavior, is called
simulation, or hypocrisy.
The nature of a lie, therefore, consists in this, that it is a
false signification knowingly and voluntarily used; in which
the sign expressing is noways agreeing with the thought or
conception of the mind pretended to be thereby expressed.
For words signify not immediately and primely things themselves, but the conceptions of the mind concerning things;
and therefore, if there be an agreement between our words
and our thoughts, we do not speak falsely, though it sometimes so falls out that our words agree not with the things
themselves: upon which account, though in so speaking we




PRov. xii. 22.] Of the base Sins of Falsehood and Lying.   233
offend indeed against truth, yet we offend' not properly by
falsehood, which is a speaking against our thoughts; but by
rashness, which is an affirming or denying, beibre we have
sufficiently informed ourselves of the real and true estate of
those things whereof we affirm or deny.
And thus having shown what a lie is, and wherein it does
consist, the next consideration is, of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of it. And in this we have but too sad and scandalous an instance, both of the corruption and weakness of
man's reason, and of the strange bias that it still receives
from interest, that such a case as this, both with philosophers
and divines, heathens and Christians, should be held disputable.
Plato accounted it lawful for statesmen and governors;
and so did Cicero and Plutarch; and the Stoics, as some say,
reckoned it amongst the arts and perfections of a wise man,
to lie dexterously, in due time and place. And for some of
the ancient doctors of the Christian church; such as Origen,
Clemens Alexandrinus, Tertullian, Lactantius, and Chrysostoml; and generally, all before St. Austin, several passages
have fallen from them, that speak but too favorably of this
ill thing. So that Paul Layman, a Romish casuist, says, that
it is a truth but lately known and received in the world, that
a lie is absolutely sinful and unlawful; I suppose he means
that part of the world where the scriptures are not read, and
where men care not to know what they are not willing to
practice.
But then, for the mitigation of what has proceeded from
these great men, we must take in that known and celebrated
division of a lie into those three several kinds of it. As,
1. The pernicious lie, uttered for the hurt or disadvantage
of our neighbor.
2. The officious lie, uttered for our own or our neighbor's
advantage: and
3. lastly, The ludicrous and jocose lie, uttered by way of
jest, and only for mirth's sake, in common converse. Now
for the first of these, which is the pernicious lie; it was and
is universally condemned by all; but the other two have
found.some patronage from the writings of those forementioned authors. The reason of which seems to be, that those




234   (Of the base Sins of Falsehood and Lying.  [SERM. XII.
persons did not estimate the lawfulness or unlawfulness of a
lie, from the intrinsic nature of the thing itself, but either
from those external effects that it produced, or fiom those
ends to which it was directed; which accordingly as they
proved either helpful or hurtful, innocent or offensive, so the
lie was reputed either lawful or unlawful. And therefore,
since a man was helped by an officious lie, and not hurt by a
jocose, both of these came to be esteemed lawful, and in some
cases laudable.
But the schoolmen and casuists having too much plhilosophy to go about to clear a lie from that intrinsic inordination
and deviation froml right reason inherent in the nature of it,
and yet withal unwilling to rob the world, and themselves especially, of so sweet a morsel of liberty, held that a lie was
indeed absolutely and universally sinful; but then they held
also, that only the pernicious lie was a mortal sin, and the
other two were only venial. It can be no part of my business here to overthrow this distinction, and to show the nullity of it: which has been solidly and sufficiently done by
most of our polemic writers of the protestant church. But
at present I shall only take this their concession, that every
lie is sinful, and consequently unlawful; and if it be a sin, I
shall suppose it already proved to my hands to be, what all
sin essentially is and must be, mortal. So that thus far have
we gone, and this point have we gained, that it is absolutely
and universally unlawful to lie, or to falsify.
Let us now, in the next place, inquire from whence this
unlawfulness springs, and upon what it is grounded: to which
I answer; that upon the principles of natural reason, the unlawfulness of lying is grounded upon this, that a lie is properly a sort or species of injustice, and a violation of the right
of that person to whom the false speech is directed: for all
speaking, or signification of one's mind, implies, in the nature of it, an act or address of one man to another: it being
evident that no man, though lie does speak false, can be said
to lie to himself.
Now to show what this right is, we must know, that in the
beginnings and first establishments of speech there was an
implicit compact amongst men, founded upon common use
and consent, that such and such words or voices, actions or




PROV. xii. 22.] Of the base Sins of Falsehood and Lying.   235
gestures, should be means or signs, whereby they would express or convey their thoughts one to another; and that men
should be obliged to use them for that purpose; forasmuch
as, without such an obligation, those signs could not be effectual for such an end. From which compact there arising an
obligation upon every one so to convey his meaning, there
accrues also a right to every one, by the same signs to judge
of the sense or meaning of the person so obliged to express
himself: and consequently, if these signs are applied and
used by him so as not to signify his meaning, the right of the
person to whom he was -obliged so to have done, is hereby
violated, and the man, by being deceived and kept ignorant
of his neighbor's meaning, where he ought to have known it,
is so far deprived of the benefit of any intercourse or converse
with him.
From hence therefore we see, that the original reason of
the unlawfulness of lying or deceiving is, that it carries with
it an act of injustice, and a violation of the right of him to
whom we were obliged to signify or impart our minds, if we
spoke to him at all.
But then we must observe also, (which I noted at first,)
that as it is in man's power to institute, not only words, but
also things, actions, or gestures, to be the means whereby he
would signify and express his mind, so, on the other side,
those voices, actions, or gestures, which men have not by any
compact agreed to make the instruments of conveying their
thoughts one to another, are not the proper instruments of
deceiving, so as to denominate the person using them a liar
or deceiver, though the person to whom they are addressed
takes occasion from thence to form in his mind a false apprelhension or belief of the thoughts of those who use such
voices, actions, or gestures towards him. I say, in this case,
the person using these things can not be said to deceive;
since all deception is a misapplying of those signs which by
compact or institution were made the means of men's signifying or conveying their thoughts; but here, a man only does
those things from which another takes occasion to deceive
himself: which one consideration will solve most of those
difficulties that are usually started on this subject.
But yet this I do and must grant, that though it be not




236     Of the base Sins of Falsehood and Lying. [SERM. XII.
against strict justice or truth for a man to do those things
which he might otherwise lawfully do, albeit his neighbor
does take occasion fi'om thence to conceive in his mind a false
belief, and so to deceive himself, yet Christian charity will
in many cases restrain a man here too, and prohibit him to
use his own right and liberty, where it may turn considerably
to his neighbor's prejudice. For herein is the excellency of
charity seen, that the charitable man not only does no evil
himself, but that, to the utmost of his power, he also hinders
any evil friom being done even by another.
And as we have shown and proved that lying and deceiving
stand condemned, upon the principles of natural justice, and
the eternal law of right reason, so are the same much more
condemned, and that with the sanction of the highest penalties, by the law of Christianity, which is eminently and transcendently called the truth, and the word of truth; and in
nothing more surpasses all the doctrines and religions in the
world, than in this, that it enjoins the clearest, the openest,
and the.sincerest dealing, both in words and actions; and is
the rigidest exacter of truth in all our behavior, of any other
doctrine or institution whatsoever.
And thus much for the first general thing proposed, which
was to inquire into the nature of a lie, and the proper essential malignity of all falsehood. I proceed now to the
Second, which is to show the pernicious effects of it. Some
of the chief and most remarkable of which are these that
follow: as,
First of all, it was this that introduced sin into the world.
For how came our first parents to sin, and to lose their primitive innocence P Why, they were deceived, and by the
subtilty of the devil brought to believe a lie. And, indeed,
deceit is of the very essence and nature of sin, there being no
sinful action, but there is a lie wrapt up in the bowels of it.
For sin prevails upon the soul by representing that as suitable and desirable that really is not so. And no man is ever
induced to sin, but by a persuasion that he shall find some
good and happiness in it, which he had not before. The
wages that sin bargains with the sinner to serve it for, are
life, pleasure, and profit; but the wages it pays him with are
death, torment, and destruction. He that would understand




PROV. xii. 22.] - Of the base Sins of Falsehood and Lying.   237
the falsehood and deceit of sin throughly, must compare its
promises and its payments together.
And as the devil first brought sin into the world by a lie,
(being equally the base original of both,) so he still propagates and promotes it by the same. The devil reigns over
none but those whom he first deceives.  Geographers and
historians, dividing the habitable world into thirty parts, give
us this account of them: that but five of those thirty are
Christian; and for the rest, six of them are Jew and Mahometan, and the remaining nineteen perfectly heathen: all
which he holds and governs by possessing them with a lie,
and bewitching them with a false religion: like the moon and
the stars, he rules by night; and his kingdom, even in this
world, is perfectly a kingdom of darkness. And therefore
our Saviour, who came to dethrone the devil and to destroy
sin, did it by being the light of the world, and by bearing
witness to the truth. For so far as truth gets ground in the
world, so far sin loses it. Christ saves the world, by undeceiving it; and sanctifies the will, by first enlightening the
understanding.
2. A second effect of lying and falsehood is all that misery
and calamity that befalls mankind. For the proof of which
we need go no further than the former consideration: for
sorrow being the natural and direct effect of sin, that which
first brought sin into the world must by necessary consequence
bring in sorrow too.  Shame and pain, poverty and sickness, yea, death and hell itself, are all of them but the trophies
of those fatal conquests, got by that grand impostor, the devil,
over the deluded sons of men. And hardly can any example
be produced of a man in extreme misery, who was not one
way or other first deceived into it. For have not the greatest
slaughters of armies been effected by stratagem P And have
not the fairest estates been destroyed by suretyship P  In
both of which there is a fallacy, and the man is overreached
before he is overthrown.
What betrayed and delivered the poor old prophet into the
lion's mouth, 1 Kings xiii., but the mouth of a false prophet,
much the crueller and more remorseless of the two P How
came John Huss and Jerome of Prague to be so cruelly and
basely used by the council of Constance, those ecclesiastical




238     Of the base Sins of Falsehood and Lying. t [SER,. XII.
commnissioners of the court of Rome P  Why, they promised
those innocent men a safe-conduct, who thereupon took them
at their word, and accordingly were burnt alive, for trusting
a pack of perfidious wretches, who regarded their own word
as little as they did God's.*
And how came so many bonfires to be made in Queen
Mary's days?  Why, she had abused and deceived her people
with lies, promising them  the free exercise of their religion
before she got into the throne; and when she was once in,
she performed her promise to them  at the stake.  And I
know no security we had from seeing the same again in our
days, but one or two proclamations forbidding bonfires. Some
sort of promises are edged tools, and it is dangerous laying
hold on them.
But to pass from  hence to fanatic treachery, that is, from
one twin to the other; how came such multitudes of our own
nation, at the beginning of that monstrous (but still surviving
and successful) rebellion, in the year 1641, to be spunged of
their plate and money, their rings and jewels, for the carrying
on of the schismatical, dissenting, king-killing cause? Why,
next to their own love of being cheated, it was the public, or
rather prostitute faith of a company of faithless miscreants
that drew them in, and deceived them. And how came so
many thousands to fight and die in the same rebellion? Why,
they were deceived into it by those spiritual trumpeters who
followed them with continual alarms of damnation, if they did
not venture life, fortune, and all, in that which wickedly and
devilishly those impostors called the cause of God. So that
I myself have heard onet say,. (whose quarters have since
hung about that city where he had been first deceived,) that
he, with many more, went to that execrable war with such a
controlling horror upon their spirits, from  those sermons,4
that they verily believed they should have been accursed by
God forever, if they had not acted their part in that dismal
tragedy, and heartily done the devil's work, being so effectually called and commanded to it in God's name.
* Of which last, see an instance in counted and observed as a law; and
the 13th session of this council, in which that, if the priest should administer it
it decrees, with a non-obstante to Christ's otherwise, he was to be excommuniexpress institution of the blessed eu- cated.
charist in both kinds, that the con-  t Colonel Axtell.
trary custom and practice of receiving   t He particularly mentioned those
it only in one kind ought to be ac-. of Brooks and Calamy.




PRov. xii. 22.] Of the base Sins of Falsehood and Lying.   239
Infinite would it be to pursue all instances of this nature:
but, consider those grand agents and lieutenants of the devil,
by whom he scourges and plagues the world under him, to
wit, tyrants; and was there ever any tyrant since the creation, who was not also, false and perfidious?  Do not the
bloody and the deceitful man still go hand in hand together,
in the language of the scripture P Psalm lv. 23. Was ever
any people more cruel, and withal more false, than the Carthaginians P And had not the hypocritical contrivers of the
murder of that blessed martyr king Charles the First, their
masks and vizards, as well as his executioners P
No man that designs to rob another of his estate or life,
will be so impudent or ignorant, as in plain terms to tell him
so. But if it be his estate that he drives at, he will dazzle
his eyes, and bait him in with the luscious proposal of some
gainful purchase, some rich match, or advantageous project;
till the easy man is caught and hampered; and so, partly by
lies, and partly by lawsuits together, comes at length to be
stripped of all, and brought to a piece of bread, when he can
get it. Or if it be a man's life that the malice of his enenmy
seeks after, he will not presently clap his pistol to his breast,
orhis knife to his throat; but will rather take Absalom for
his pattern, who invited his dear brother to a feast, hugged
and embraced, courted and caressed him, till he had well
dosed his weak head with wine, and his foolish heart with
confidence and credulity; and then, in he brings him an old
reckoning, and makes him pay it off with his blood. Or,
perhaps, the cut-throat may rather take his copy from the
Parisian massacre; one of the horridest instances of barbarous inhumanity that ever the world saw, but ushered in with
all the pretenses of amity, and the festival treats of a reconciling marriage, -a new and excellent way, no doubt, of proving matrimony a sacrament. But such butchers know what
they have to do. They must soothe and allure before they
strike; and the ox must be fed before he is brought to the
slaughter; and the same course must be taken with some sort
of asses too.
In a word, I verily believe that no sad disaster ever yet
befell any person or people, nor any villainy or flagitious
action was ever yet committed, but, upon a due inquiry into




240     Of the base Sins of Falsehood and Lying. [SERM. XII.
the causes of it, it will be found that a lie was first or last
the principal engine to effect it: and that, whether pride,
lust, or cruelty brought it forth, it was falsehood that begot
it; this gave it being, whatsoever other vice might give it
birth.
3. As we have seen how much lying and falsehood disturbs,
so, in the next place, we shall see also how it tends utterly
to dissolve society. There is no doubt but all the safety,
happiness, and convenience that men enjoy in this life, is
from the combination of particular persons into societies or
corporations: the cause of which is compact; and the band
that knits together and supports all compacts is truth and
faithfulness. So that the soul and spirit that animates and
keeps up society is mutual trust, and the foundation of trust
is truth, either known, or at least supposed in the person so
trusted.
But now, where fraud and falsehood, like a plague or
canker, comes once to invade society, the band, which held
together the parts compounding it, presently breaks; and
men are thereby put to a loss where to league and to fasten
their dependences; and so are forced to scatter, and shift
every one for himself. Upon which account, every notoriously false person ought to be looked upon and detested, as a
public enemy, and to be pursued as a wolf or a mad dog, and
a disturber of the common peace and welfare of mankind.
There being no particular person whatsoever but has his private interest concerned and endangered in the mischief that
such a wretch does to the public.
For look into great families, and you shall find some one
false, paltry talebearer, who, by carrying stories from one to
another, shall inflame the minds and discompose the quiet of
the whole family. And from families pass to towns or cities;
and two or three pragmatical, intriguing, meddling fellows,
(men of business some call them,) by the venom of their false
tongues, shall set the whole neighborhood together by the
ears. Where men practice falsehood, and show tricks with
one another, there will be perpetual suspicions, evil surmisings, doubts, and jealousies, which, by souring the minds of
men, are the bane and pest of society.. For still society is
built upon trust, and trust upon the confidence that men have
of one another's integrity.




PROV. Xii. 22.] Of the base Sins of Falsehood and Lying.   241
And this is so evident, that without trusting, there could
not only be no happiness, but indeed no living in this world.
For in those very things that minister to the daily necessities of common life, how can any one be assured that the
very meat and drink that he is to take into his body, and the
clothes he is to put on, are not poisoned, and made unwholesome for him, before ever they are brought to him. Nay, in
some places, (with horror be it spoke,) how can a man be
secure in taking the very sacrament itself? For there have
been those who have found something in this spiritual food,
that has proved very fatal to their bodies, and more than prepared them for another world. I say, how can any one warrant himself in the use of these things against such suspicions, but in the trust he has in the common honesty and
truth of men in general, which ought and uses to keep them
from such villainies P Nevertheless, know this certainly beforehand he can not, forasmuch as such things have been
done, and consequently may be done again. And therefore,
as for any infallible assurance to the contrary, he can have
none; but, in the great concerns of life and health, every
man must be forced to proceed upon trust, there being no
knowing the intention of the cook- or baker, any more than
of the priest himself. And yet, if a man should forbear his
food, or raiment, or most of his business in the world, till he
had science and certainty of the safeness of what he was
going about, he must starve, and die disputing; for there is
neither eating, nor drinking, nor living by demonstration.
Now this shows the high malignity of fraud and falsehood,
that, in the direct and natural course of it, tends to the destruction of common life, by destroying that trust and mutual
confidence that men should have.in one another; by which
the common intercourse of the world must be carried on, and
wit~hout which men must first distrust, and then divide, separate, and stand upon their guard, with their hand against
every one, and every one's hand against them.
The felicity of societies and bodies politic consists in this,
that all relations in them do regularly discharge their respective duties and offices. Such as are the relation between
prince and subject, master and servant, a man and his friend,
husband and wife, parent and child, buyer and seller, and the
VOL. I.         16




242     Of the base Sins of Falsehood and Lying.  [SERM. XII.
like. But now, where fraud and falsehood take place, there
is not one of all these that is not perverted, and that does
not, from an help of society, directly become an hinderance.
For first, it turns all above us into tyranny and barbarity;
and all of the same religion and level with us into discord
and coilfusion. It is this alone that poisons that sovereign
and divine thing called friendship; so that when a man
thinks that he leans upon a breast as loving and true to him
as his own, he finds that he relies upon a broken reed, that
not only basely fails, but also cruelly pierces the hand that
rests upon it. It is from this that when a man thinks he
has a servant or dependent, an instrument of his affairs and
a defense of his person, he finds a traitor and a Judas, an
enemy that eats his bread and lies under his roof; and perhaps readier to do him a mischief and a shrewd turn than an
open and professed adversary. And lastly, from this deceit
and falsehood it is, that, when a man thinks himself matched
to one who, by the laws of God and nature, should be a comfort to him in all conditions, a consort of his cares, and a
companion in all his concerns, instead thereof, he finds in his
bosom a beast, a serpent, and a devil.
In a word: he that has to do with a liar, knows not where
he is, nor what he does, nor with whom -he deals. He walks
upon bogs and whirlpools; wheresoever he treads he sinks,
and converses with a bottomless pit, where it is impossible
for him to fix, or to be at any certainty. In fine, he catches
at an apple of Sodom, which, though it may entertain his eye
with a florid, jolly white and red, yet upon the touch it shall
fill his hand only with stench and foulness; fair in look and
rotten at heart; as the gayest and most taking things and
persons in the world generally are.
4. And lastly: deceit and falsehood do, of all other ill
qualities, most peculiarly indispose the hearts of men to the
impressions of religion. For these are sins perfectly spiritual,
and so prepossess the proper seat and place of religion, which
is the soul or spirit: and, when that is once filled and taken
up with a lie, there will hardly be admission or room for truth.
Christianity is known in scripture by no name so significantly
as by the simplicity of the gospel.
And if so, does it not look like the greatest paradox and




PROV. xii. 22.] Of the base Sins of Falsehood and Lying.   243
prodigy in nature, for- any one to pretend it lawful to- equivocate or lie for it P To face God and outface man, with the
sacrament and a lie in one's mouth togetherP Can a good
intention, or rather a very wicked one, so miscalled, sanctify
and transform perjury and hypocrisy into merit and perfection P  Or can there be a greater blot cast upon any church
or religion (whatsoever it be) than by such a practice? For
will not the world be induced to look upon my religion as a
lie, if I allow myself to lie for my religion P
The very life and soul of all religion is sincerity. And
therefore the good ground, in which alone the immortal seed
of the word sprang up to perfection, is said, in St. Luke viii.
15, to have been those that received it into am honest heart,
that is, a plain, clear, and well-meaning heart; an heart not
doubled, nor cast into the various folds and windings of a
dodging, shifting hypocrisy. For the truth is, the more spiritual and refined any sin is, the more hardly is the soul cured
of it; because the more difficultly convinced. And in all our
spiritual maladies, conviction must still begin the cure.
Such sins indeed as are acted by the body, do quickly show
and proclaim themselves; and it is no such hard matter to
convince or run down a drunkard, or an unclean person, and
to stop their mouths, and to answer any pretenses that they
can allege for their sin. But deceit is such a sin as a Pharisee may be guilty of, and yet stand fair for the reputation
of zeal and strictness, and a more than ordinary exactness in
religion. And though some have been apt to account none
sinful, or vicious, but such as wallow in the mire and dirt of
gross sensuality, yet no doubt deceit, falsehood, and hypocrisy
are more directly contrary to the very essence and design of
religion, and carry in them more of the express image and
superscription of the devil, than any bodily sins whatsoever.
How did that false, fasting, imperious, self-admiring, or
rather self-adoring hypocrite, in St. Luke xviii. 11, crow and
exult over the poor publican! God, I thank thee, says he, that
I am not like other men; and God forbid, say I, that there
should be many others like him, for a glistering outside and
a noisome inside, for tithing mint and cumminz, and for devoring widows' houses; that is, for taking ten parts from his
neighbor, and putting God off with one. After all which,




244      Of the base Sins of Falsehood and ijying. [SERM. XII.
had this man of merit and mortification being called to account for his ungodly swallow in gorging down the estates of
helpless widows and orphans, it is odds but he would have
told you that it was all for charitable uses, and to afford
pensions for spies and proselytes. It being no ordinary piece
of spiritual good husbandry to be charitable at, other men's
cost.
But such sons of Abraham, how highly soever they may
have the luck to be thought of, are far from being Israelites
indeed; for the character that our Saviour gives us of such,
in the person of Nathanael, in John i. 47, is, that they are
without guile. To be so, I confess, is generally reckoned (of
late times especially) a poor, mean, sneaking thing, and the
contrary, reputed wit and parts, and fitness for business, as
the word is: though I doubt not but it will be one day found
that only honesty and integrity can fit a man for the main
business that he was sent into the world for; and that he
certainly is the greatest wit who is wise to salvation.
And thus much for the second general thing proposed,
which was to show the pernicious effects of lying and falsehood. Come we now to the
Third and last, which is to lay before you the rewards or
punishments that will assuredly attend, or at least follow, this
base practice.
I shall mention three: as,
1. An utter loss of all credit and belief with sober and
discreet persons; and consequently of all capacity of being
useful in the prime and noblest concerns of life. For there
can not be imagined in -nature a more forlorn, useless, and
contemptible tool, or more unfit for any thing, than a discovered cheat. And let men rest assured of this, that there will
be always some as able to discover and find out deceitful
tricks as others can be to contrive them.  For God forbid
that all the wit and cunning of the world should still run on
the deceiver's side; and when such little shifts and shuffling
arts come once to be ripped up and laid open, how poorly and
wretchedly must that man needs sneak, who finds himself
both guilty and baffled too! a knave without luck is certainly
the worst trade in the world. But truth makes the face of
that person shine who speaks and owns it: while a lie is like




PROV. xii. 22.] Of:the.base Sins of Falsehood and Lying.    245
a vizard, that may cover the face indeed, but can never become it; nor yet does it cover it so but that it leaves it open
enough for shame. It brands a man with a lasting, indelible
character of ignominy and reproach, and that indeed so foul
and odious, that those usurping hectors, who pretend to
honor without religion, think the charge of a lie a blot upon
them not to be washed out but by the blood of him that
gives it.
For what place can that man fill in a commonwealth, whom
nobody will either believe or employ? And no man can be
considerable in himself, who has not made himself useful
to others: nor' can any man be so, who is incapable of a
trust. He is neither fit for counsel or friendship, for service
or command, to be in office or in honor, but, like salt that has
lost its savor, fit only to rot and perish upon a dunghill.
For no man can rely upon such an one, either with safety
to his affairs or without a slur to his reputation; since he
that trusts a knave has no other recompense but to be accounted a fool for his pains. And if he thrusts himself into
ruin and beggary, he falls unpitied, a sacrifice to his own folly
and credulity; for he that suffers himself to be imposed upon
by a known deceiver, goes partner in the cheat, and deceives
himself. He is despised and laughed at as a soft and easy
person, and as unfit to be relied upon for his weakness, as the
other can be for his falseness.
It is really a great misery not to know whom to trust, but
a much greater to behave one's self so as not to be trusted.
But this is the liar's lot; he is accounted a pest and a nuisance; a person marked out for infamy and scorn, and abandoned by all men of sense and worth, and such as will not
abandon themselves.
2. The second reward or punishment that attends the lying
and deceitful person, is the hatred of all those whom he either
has or would have deceived. I do not say that a Christian
can lawfully hate any one; and yet I affirm that some may
very worthily deserve to be hated; and of all men living, who
may or do, the deceiver certainly deserves it most. To which
I shall add this one remark further; that though men's persons ought not to be hated, yet without all peradventure their
practices justly may, and particularly that detestable one
which we are now speaking of.




246     Of the base Sins of Falsehood and Lying. [SERM. XII.
For whosoever deceives a man, does not only do all that he
can to ruin him, but, which is yet worse, to make him ruin
himself; and by causing an error in the great guide of all his
actions, his judgment, to cause an error in his choice too;
the misguidance of which must naturally engage him in those
courses that directly tend to his destruction. Loss of sight
is the misery of life, and usually the forerunner of death;
when the malefactor comes once to be muffled, and the fatal
cloth drawn over his eyes, we know that he is not far from his
execution.
And this is so true, that whosoever sees a man who would
have beguiled and imposed upon him, by making him believe
a lie, he may truly say of that person, That's the man who
would have ruined me, who would have stripped me of the
dignity of my nature, and put out the eyes of my reason, to
make himself sport with my calamity, my folly, and my dishonor. For so the Philistines used Samson, and every man
in this sad case has enough of Samson to be his own executioner. Accordingly, if ever it comes to this, that a man
can say of his confidant, he would have deceived me, he has
said enough to annihilate and abolish all pretenses of friendship. And it is really an intolerable impudence, for any one
to offer at the name of friend, after such an attempt. For
can there be any thing of friendship in snares, hooks, and
trepans P And therefore, whosoever breaks with his friend
upon such terms, has enough to warrant him in so doing,
both before God and man; and that without incurring either
the guilt of unfaithfulness before the one, or the blemish- of
inconstancy before the other. For this is not properly to
break with a friend, but to discover an enemy, and timely to
shake the viver off from one's hand.
What says the most wise author of that excellent book of
Ecclesiasticus, Ecclus. xxii. 21, 22 P Though thou drewest a
sword at thy friend, yet despair not: for there may be a returning to favor. If thou hast opened thy mouth against thy friend,
fear not; for there may be a reconciliation. That is, an hasty
word or an indiscreet action does not presently dissolve the
bond, or root out a. well-settled habit, but that friendship
may be still sound at heart, and so outgrow and wear off
these little distempers. But what follows P Except for up



PROV. xii. 22.] Of the base Sins of Falsehood and Lying.   247
braiding, or disclosing of secrets, or a treacherous wound, (mark
that:) for for these things, says he, every friend will depart.
And surely it is high time for him to go, when such a devil
drives him away. Passion, anger, and unkindness may give
a wound that shall bleed and smart, but it is treachery only
that makes it fester.
And the reason of the difference is manifest; for hasty
words or blows may be only the effects of a sudden passion,
during which a man is not perfectly himself: but no man
goes about to deceive, or ensnare, or circumvent another in a
passion; to lay trains, and set traps, and give secret blows in
a present huff. No; this is always done with forecast and
design with a steady aiming; and a long projecting malice,
assisted with all the skill and art of an expert and well-managed hypocrisy; and, perhaps, not without the pharisaical
feigned guise of something like self-denial and mortification;
which are things in which the whole man, and the whole
devil too, are employed, and all the powers and faculties of
the mind are exerted and made use of.
But for all these masks and vizards, nothing certainly can
be thought of or imagined more base, inhuman, or diabolical,
than for one to abuse the generous confidence and hearty
freedom of his friend, and to undermine and ruin him in
those very concerns which nothing but too great a respect
to, and too good an opinion of the traitor, made the poor
man deposit in his hollow and fallacious breast. Such an
one, perhaps, thinks to find some support and shelter in my
friendship, and I take that opportunity to betray him to his
mortal enemies. He comes to me for counsel, and I show
him a trick. He opens his bosom to me, and I stab him to
the heart.
These are the practices of the world we live in; especially
since the year sixty, the grand epoch of falsehood, as well as
debauchery. But God, who is the great guarantee for the
peace, order, and good behavior of mankind, where laws can
not secure it, may some time or other think it the concern
of his justice and providence too, t'o revenge the affronts put
upon them, by such impudent defiers of both, as neither believe a God, nor ought to be believed by man.
In the mean time, let such perfidious wretches know, that




248     Of the base Sins of Falsehood and Lying. [SERM. XII.
though they believe a devil no more than they do a God, yet
in all this scene of refined treachery, they are really doing the
devil's journey-work, who was a liar and a murderer from the
beginning, and therefore a liar, that he might be a murderer:
and the truth is, such an one does all towards his brother's
ruin that the devil himself could do. For the devil can but
tempt and deceive, and if he can not destroy a man that way,
his power is at an end.
But I can not dismiss this head without one further note,
as very material in the case now before us. Namely, that
since this false, wily, doubling disposition of mind is so intolerably mischievous to society, God is sometimes pleased, in
mere pity and compassion to men, to give them warning of it,
by setting some odd mark upon such Cains. So that, if a
man will be but so true to himself as to observe such persons
exactly, he shall generally spy such false lines, and such a
sly, treacherous leer upon their face, that he shall be sure to
have a cast of their eye to warn him, before they give him a
cast of their nature to betray him. And in such cases, a man
may see more and better by another's eye than he can by his
own.
Let this, therefore, be the second reward of the lying and
deceitful person, that he is the object of a just hatred and
abhorrence. For as the devil is both a liar himself and the
father of liars, so I think that the same cause that has
drawn the hatred of God and man upon the father, may justly
entail it upon his offspring too; and it is pity that such an
entail should ever be cut off. But,
3. And lastly, The last and utmost reward, that shall infallibly reach the fraudulent and deceitful, (as it will all other
obstinate and impenitent sinners,) is a final and eternal separation from God, who is truth itself, and with whom lno
shadow  of falsehood can dwell. le that telleth lies, says
David, in Psalm ci. 7, shall not tarry in my sight; and if not
in the sight of a poor mortal man, (who could sometimes lie
himself,) how much less in the presence of the infinite and
all-knowing God! A wise and good prince, or governor, will
not vouchsafe a liar the countenance of his eye, and much
less the privilege of his ear. The Spirit of God seems to
write this upon the very gates of heaven, and to state the




PROV Xii. 22.] Of the base Sins of Falsehood and Lying.   249
condition of men's entrance into glory chiefly upon their
veracity. In Psalm xv. 1, Who shall ascend into thy holy hill?
says the Psalmist. To which it is answered, in ver. 2, He
that worketh righteousness, and that speaketh the truth from his
heart.
And, on the other side, how emphatically is hell described
in the two last chapters of the Revelation; by being the great
receptacle and mansion-house of liars, whom we shall find
there ranged with the vilest and most detestable of all sinners, appointed to have their portion in that horrid place;
Rev. xxi. 8; The unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers,
and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars,
shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and
brimstone: and in Rev. xxii. 15, Without are dogs and sorcerers,
&c., and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.
Now let those consider this, whose tongue and heart hold
no correspondence: who look upon it as a piece of art and
wisdom, and the masterpiece of conversation, to overreach
and deceive, and make a prey of a credulous and well-meaning honesty. What do such persons think P Are dogs,
whoremongers, and sorcerers such desirable company to take
up with forever P Will the burning lake be found so tolerable P  Or will there be any one to drop refreshment upon the
false tongue, when it shall be tormented in those flames P Or
do they think that God is a liar like themselves, and that no
such things shall ever come to pass, but that all these fiery
threatenings shall vanish into smoke, and this dreadful sentence blow off without execution P Few certainly can lie to
their own hearts so far as to imagine this: but hell is, and
must be granted to be, the deceiver's portion, not only by the
judgment of God, but of his own conscience too. - And, comparing the malignity of his sin with the nature of the punishment allotted for him, all that can be said of a liar lodged
in the very nethermost hell, is this; that if the vengeance of
God could prepare any place or condition worse than hell for
sinners, hell itself would be too good for him.
And now to sum up all in short; I have shown what a lie
is, and wherein the nature of falsehood does consist; that it
is a thing absolutely and intrinsically evil; that it is an act
of injustice, and a violation of our neighbor's right.




250      Of the base Sins of Falsehood and Lying. [SERM. xII.
And that the vileness of its nature is equalled by the malignity of its effects. It being this that first brought sin into
the world, and is since the cause of all those miseries and
calamities that disturb it; and further, that it tends utterly
to dissolve and overthrow society, which is the greatest temporal blessing and support of mankind: and, which is yet
worst of all, that it has a strange and particular efficacy, above
all other sins, to indispose the heart to religion.
And lastly, that it is as dreadful in its punishments as it
has been pernicious in its effects. Forasmuch as it deprives
a man of all credit and belief, and consequently, of all capacity of being useful in any station or condition of life
whatsoever; and next, that it -draws upon him the just and
universal hatred and abhorrence of all men here; and finally
subjects him to the wrath of God and eternal damnation
hereafter.
And now, if none of all these considerations can recommend and endear truth to the words and practices of men,
and work upon their double hearts so far as to convince and
make them sensible of the baseness of the sin and greatness
of the guilt that fraud and falsehood leaves upon the soul;
let them lie and cheat on, till they receive a fuller and more
effectual conviction of all these things, in that place of torment and confusion prepared for the devil and his angels,
and all his lying retinue, by the decree and sentence of that
God who, in his threatenings as well as in his promises, will
be true to his word, and can not lie.
To whom be rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all praise,
might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for evermore.
Amen.




SERMON XIII.: —
THE PRACTICE OF RELIGION ENFORCED BY REASON:
IN A SERMON PREACHED AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 1667.
TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.*
REVEREND AND LEARNED SIRS,
THESE discourses (most of them at least) having by the favor
of your patience had the honor of your audience, and being
now published in another and more lasting way, do here humbly
cast themselves at your feet, imploring the yet greater favor and
honor of your patronage, or at least the benevolence of your pardon.
Amongst which, the chief design of some of them is, to assert
the rights and constitutions of our excellently reformed church,
which of late we so often hear reproached (in the modish dialect
of the present times) by the name of little things; and that in order
to their being laid aside, not only as little, but superfluous. But for
my own part, I can account nothing little in any church which has
the stamp of undoubted authority, and the practice of primitive
antiquity, as well as the reason and decency of the thing itself, to
warrant and support it. Though, if the supposed littleness of these
matters should be a sufficient reason for the laying them aside, I fear
our church will be found to have more little men to spare than little
things.
But I have observed all along, that while this innovating spirit
has been striking at the constitutions of our church, the same has
been giving several bold and scurvy strokes at some of her articles
too: an evident demonstration to me, that whensoever her discipline
shall be destroyed, her doctrine will not long survive it: and I doubt
not but it is for the sake of this, that the former is so much maligned
and shot at.  Pelagianism  and Socinianism, with several other
heterodoxies cognate to and dependent upon them, which of late,
* This dedication refers to the twelve sermons next following.




252              The Epistle Dedicatory.
with so much confidence and scandalous countenance, walk about
daring the world, are certainly no doctrines of the church of England. And none are abler and fitter to make them appear what they
are, and whither they tend, than our excellent and so well stocked universities; and if these will but bestir themselves against all innovators whatsoever, it will quickly be seen, that our church needs none,
either to fill her places or to defend her doctrines, but the sons whom
she herself has brought forth and bred up. Her charity is indeed
great to others, and the greater, for that she is so well provided of
all that can contribute either to her strength or ornament without
them. The altar receives and protects such as fly to it, but needs
them not.
We are not so dull, but we perceive who are the prime designers,
as well as the professed actors against our church, and from what
quarter the blow chiefly threatens us. We know the spring as well
as we observe the motion, and scent the foot which pursues, as well
as see the hand which is lifted up against us. The'pope is an experienced workman; he knows his tools, and knows them to be but
tools, and knows withal how to use them, and that so, that they shall
neither know who it is that uses them, or what he uses them for;
and we can not in reason presume his skill now in ninety-three, to
be at all less than it was in forty-one. But God, who has even to a
miracle protected the church of England hitherto, against all the
power and spite both of her open and concealed enemies, will, we
hope, continue to protect so pure and rational, so innocent and selfdenying a constitution still. And next, under God, we must rely'
upon the old church of England clergy, together with the two universities, both to support and recover her declining state. For so
long as the universities are sound and orthodox, the church has both
her eyes open; and while she has so, it is to be hoped that she will
look about her, and consider again and again what she is to change
from, and what she must change to, and where she shall make an
end of changing, before she quits her present constitution.
Innovations about religion are certainly the most efficacious, as
well as the most plausible way of compassing a total abolition of it.
One of the best and strongest arguments we have against popery
is, that it is an innovation upon the Christian church; and if so, I
can not see why that, which we explode in the popish church, should
pass for such a piece of perfection in a reformed one. The papists
I am sure (our shrewdest and most designing enemies) desire and
push on this to their utmost; and for that very reason one would
think that we (if we are not besotted) should oppose it to our utmost too. However, let us but have our liturgy continued to us as




The Epistle Dedicatory.                253
it is, till the persons are born who shall be able to mend it, or make
a better, and we desire no greater security against either the altering
this, or introducing another.
The truth is, such as would new model the church of England
ought not only to have a new religion, (which some have been so
long driving at,) but a new reason likewise, to proceed by: since
experience (which was ever yet accounted one of the surest and best
improvements of reason) has been always for acquiescing in things
settled with sober and mature advice, (and, in the present case also,
with the very blood and martyrdom of the advisers themselves,)
without running the risk of new experiments; which, though in
philosophy they may be commendable, yet in religion and religious
matters are generally fatal and pernicious. The church is a royal
society for settling old things, and not for finding out new. In a
word, we serve a wise and unchangeable God, and we desire to do it
by a religion and in a church (as like him as may be) without changes
or alterations.
And now, as in so important a matter I would interest both universities, so I do it with the same honor and deference to both;
as abhorring from my heart the pedantic partiality of preferring one
before the other: since (if my relation to one should never so much
incline me so to do) I must sincerely declare, that I can not see how
to place a preference where I can find no preeminence. And therefore, as they are both equal in fame, and learning, and all that is
great and excellent, so I hope to see them always one in judgment
and design, heart and affection; without any strife, emulation, or
contest between them except this one, (which I wish may be perpetual,) viz., which of the two best universities in the world shall be
most serviceable to the best church in the world, by their learning,
constancy, and integrity.
But to conclude, there remains no more for me to do, but to beg
pardon of that august body to which I belong, if I have offended in
assuming to myself the honor of mentioning my relation to a society
which I could never reflect the least honor upon, nor contribute the
least advantage to.
All that I can add is, that as it was my fortune to serve this noble
seat of learning for many years, as her public, though unworthy orator, so upon that, and other innumerable accounts, I ought forever
to be, and to acknowledge myself,
Her most faithful, obedient,
and devoted servant,
Westminster Abbey,                     ROBERT SOUTH.
Nov. 17, 1693.




254  The Practice of Religion enforced by Reason. [SERM. XIII.
Pnov. x. 9. —He that walketh uprightly walketh surely.
AS it were easy to evince, both from reason and experience,
that there is a strange, restless activity in the soul of
man, continually disposing it to operate, and exert its faculties, so the phrase of scripture still expresses the life of man
by walking; that is, it represents an active principle in an
active posture. And because the nature of man carries him
thus out to action, it is no wonder if the same nature equally
renders him solicitous about the issue and event of his actions; for every one, by reflecting upon the way and method
of his own workings, will find that he is still determined in
them  by a. respect to the consequence of what he does;
always proceeding upon this argumentation: If I do such a
thing, such an advantage will follow from it, and therefore
I will do it. And if I do this, such a mischief will ensue
thereupon, and therefore I will forbear. Every one, I say, is
concluded by this practical discourse; and for a man to bring
his actions to the event proposed and designed by him, is to
walk surely. But since the event of an action usually follows
the nature or quality of it, and the quality follows the rule
directing it, it concerns a man, by all means, in the framing
of his actions, not to be deceived in the rule which he proposes for the measure of them; which, without great and
exact caution, he may be these two ways:
1. By laying false and deceitful principles.
2. In case he lays right principles, yet by mistaking in the
consequences which he draws from them.
An error in either of which is equally dangerous; for if a
man is to draw a line, it is all one whether he. does it by a
crooked rule, or by a straight one misapplied. He who fixes
upon false principles treads upon infirm ground, and so sinks,
and he who fails in his deductions from right principles,
stumbles upon firm ground, and so falls; the disaster is not
of the same kind, but of the same mischief in both.
It must be confessed, that it is sometimes very hard to
judge of the truth or goodness of principles, considered barely
in themselves, and abstracted from their consequences. But
certainly he acts upon the surest and most prudential grounds




PROV. x. 9.] The Practice of Religion enforced by Reason. 255
in the world, who, whether the principles which he acts upon
prove true or false, yet secures an happy issue to his actions.
Now he who guides his actions by the rules of piety and
religion, lays these two principles as the great ground of all
that he does:
1. That there is an infinite, eternal, all-wise mind governing the affairs of the world, and taking such an account of
the actions of men as, according to the quality of them, to
punish or reward them.
2dly, That there is an estate of happiness or misery after
this life, allotted to every man, according to the quality of his
actions here. These, I say, are the principles which every
religious man proposes to himself; and the deduction which
he makes from them is this: That it is his grand interest and
concern so to act and behave himself in this world, as to
secure himself from an estate of misery in the other. And
thus to act, is, in the phrase of scripture, to walk uprightly;
and it is my business to prove, that he who acts in the
strength of this conclusion, drawn fromn the two forementioned
principles, walks surely, or secures an happy event to his ac-tions, against all contingencies whatsoever.
And to demonstrate this, I shall consider the said principles under a threefold supposition:
1st, As certainly true;
2dly, As probable; and,
3dly, As false.
And if the pious man brings his actions to an happy end,
which soever of these suppositions his principles fall under,
then certainly there is none who walks so surely, and upon
such irrefragable grounds of prudence, as he who is religious.
1. First of all therefore we will take these principles (as
we may very well do) under the hypothesis of certainly true:
where, though the method of the ratiocination which I have
cast the present discourse into, does not naturally engage
me to prove them so, but only to show what directly and
necessarily follows upon a supposal that they are so; yet to
give the greater perspicuity and clearness to the prosecution
of the subject in hand, I shall briefly demonstrate them thus.
It is necessary that there should be some first mover; and,
if so, a first being; and the first being must infer an infinite,




256  TDe Practice of Religion enforced by Reason. [sERM. XIII.
unlimited perfection in the said being: forasmuch as if it
were finite or limited, that limitation must have been either
from' itself or from  something else. But not from  itself,
since it is contrary to reason and nature, that any being
should limit its own perfection; nor yet from something else,
since then it should not have been the first, as supposing
some other thing coevous to it; which is against the present
supposition. So that it being clear, that there must be a first
being, and that infinitely perfect, it will follow that all other
perfection that is, must be derived from it; and so we infer
the creation of the world: and then supposing the world
created by God, (since it is noways reconcilable to God's
wisdom that he should not also govern it,) creation must
needs infer providence: and then it being granted that God
governs the world, it will follow also that he does. it by means
suitable to the natures of the things he governs, and to the
attainment of the proper ends of government: and moreover,
man being by nature a free moral agent, and so capable of deviating from his duty, as well as performing it, it is necessary
that he should be governed by laws: and since laws require
that they be enforced with the sanction of rewards and punishments, sufficient to sway and work upon the minds of such
as are to be governed by them; and lastly, since experience
shows that rewards and punishments, terminated only within
this life, are not sufficient for that purpose, it fairly and rationally follows that the rewards and punishments, which
God governs mankind by, do and must look beyond it.
And thus I have given a brief proof of the certainty of
these principles; namely, that there is a supreme governor
of the world; and that there is a future estate of happiness
or misery for men after this life: which principles, while a
man steers his course by, if he acts piously, soberly, and temperately, I suppose there needs no further arguments to
evince that he acts prudentially and safely. For he acts as
under the eye of his just and severe Judge, who reaches to
his creature a command with one hand, and a reward with
the other. He spends as a person who knows that he must
come to a reckoning. He sees an eternal happiness or misery
suspended upon a few days' behavior; and therefore he lives
every hour as for eternity. His future condition has such a




PROV. x. 9.] The Practice of Religion enforced by Reason. 257
powerful influence upon his present practice, because he enteritains a continual apprehension and a firm persuasion of it.
If a man walks over a narrow bridge when he is drunk, it is
no wonder that he forgets his caution, while he overlooks his
danger. But he who is sober, and views that nice separation
between himself and the devouring deep, so that if he should
slip, he sees his grave gaping under him, surely must needs
take every step with horror, and the utmost caution and solicitude.
But for a man to believe it as the most undoubted certainty
in the world, that he shall be judged according to the quality
of his actions here, and after judgment receive an eternal
recompense, and yet to take his full swing in all the pleasures
of sin, is it not a greater. frenzy, than for a man to take a
purse at Tyburn, while he is actually seeing another hanged
for the same fact P -- It is really to dare and defy the justice of
Heaven, to laugh at right-aiming thunderbolts, to puff at
damnation, and, in a word, to bid Omnipotence do its worst.
He indeed who thus walks, walks surely; but it is because he
is sure to be damnled.
I confess it is hard to reconcile such a stupid course to the
natural way of the soul's acting; according to which, the will
moves according to the proposals of good and evil, made by
the understanding: and therefore for a man to run headlong
into the bottomless pit, while the eye of a seeing conscience
assures him  that it is bottomless and open, and all return
from.it desperate and impossible; while his ruin stares him
in the face, and the sword of vengeance points directly at his
heart, still to press on to the embraces of his sin, is a problem unresolvable upon any other ground, but that sin infatuates before it destroys. For Judas to receive and swallow
the sop, when his master gave it him seasoned with those
terrible words, It had been good for that man that he had never
been born; surely this argued a furious appetite. and a strong
stomach, that could thus catch at a morsel with the fire and
brimstone all flaming about it, and, as it were, digest death
itself, and make a meal upon perdition.
I could wish that every bold sinner, when he is about to
engage in the commission of any known. sin,. would arrest his
confidence, and for a while stop the execution of his purpose,
VOL. I.         17




258  The Practice of Religion enforced by Reason. [SERM. XIII.
with this short question, Do I believe that it is really true,
that God has denounced death to such a practice, or do I not P
If he does not, let him renounce his Christianity, and surrender back his baptism, the water of which might better
serve him to cool his tongue in hell, than only to consign him
over to the capacity of so black an apostasy. But if he does
believe it, how will he acquit himself upon the accounts of
bare reason?  For does he think that if he pursues the
means of death, they will not bring him to that fatal end P
Or does he think that he can grapple with divine vengeance,
and endure the everlasting burnings, or arm himself against
the bites of the never-dying worm P No, surely, these are
things not to be imagined; and therefore I can not conceive
what security the presuming sinner can promise himself, but
upon these two following accounts:
1. That God is merciful, and will not be so severe as his
word; and that his threatenings of eternal torments are not
so decretory and absolute but that there is a very comfortable
latitude left in them for men of skill to creep out at. And
here it must indeed be confessed that Origen, and some
others, not long since, who have been so officious as to furbish
up and reprint his old errors, hold that the sufferings of the
damned are not to be, in a strict sense, eternal; but that,
after a certain revolution and period of time, there shall be a
general jail-delivery of the souls in prison, and that not for
a further execution, but a final release. And it must be further acknowledged that some of the ancients, like kindhearted men, have talked much of annual refrigeriums, respites, or intervals of punishment to the damned, as particularly on the great festivals of the resurrection, ascension,
pentecost, and the like. In which, as these good men are
more to be commended for their kindness and'compassion
than to be followed in their opinion; (which may be much
better argued by wishes than demonstrations;) so, admitting
that it were true, yet what a pitiful, slender comfort would
this amount to! much like the Jews abating the punishment
of malefactors from forty stripes to forty save one. A great
indulgence indeed, even as great as the difference between
forty and thirty-nine; and yet much less considerable would
that indulgence be of a few holidays in the measures of




PROv. x. 9.]  The Practice of Religion enforced by Reason.  259
eternity, of some hours' ease, compared with infinite ages of
torment.
Supposing, therefore, that few sinners relieve themselves
with such groundless, trifling considerations as these, yet may
they not however fasten a rational hope upon the boundless
mercy of God, that this may induce him to spare his poor
creature, though by sin become obnoxious to his wrath? To
this I answer, that the divine mercy is indeed large, and far
surpassing all created measures, yet nevertheless it has its
proper time; and after this life it is the time of justice; and
to hope for the favors of mercy then, is to expect an harvest
in the dead of winter. God has cast all his works into a certain, inviolable order; according to which, there is a time to
pardon and a time to punish;. and the time of one is not the
time of the other. When corn has once felt the sickle, it has
no more benefit from the sunshine. But,
2dly, If the conscience be too apprehensive (as for the most
part it is) to venture the final issue of things upon a fond
persuasion that the great Judge of the world will relent, and
not execute the sentence pronounced by him; as if he had.
threatened men with hell rather to fright them from sin than
with an intent to punish them for it; I say, if the conscience
can not find any satisfaction or support from such reasonings
as these, yet may it not, at least, relieve itself with the purposes of a future repentance, notwithstanding its present
actual violations of the law? I answer, that this certainly is
a confidence of all others the most ungrounded and. irrational.
For upon what. ground can a man promise himself a future
repentance, who can not promise himself a futurity.? whose
life depends upon his breath, and is so restrained to the present that it can not secure to itself the reversion of the very
next minute. Have not many died with the guilt of impenitence and the designs of repentance together P If a man
dies to-day,- by the prevalence of some ill humors, will it
avail him.that he intended to have bled and purged tomorrow P
But how dares sinful dust and ashes invade the prerogative
of Providence, and carve out to himself the.seasons and issues
of life and death, which the Father keeps wholly within
his own power P  How does that man, who thinks. he sins




260  The Practice of Religion enforced by Reason. [SERM. XIII.
securely under the shelter of some remote purposes of amendment, know  but that the decree above may be already
passed against him, and his allowance of mercy spent; so
that the bow in the clouds is now drawn, and the arrow levelled at his head: and not many days like to pass, but perhaps an apoplexy, or an imposthume, or some sudden disaster,
may stop his breath, and reap him down as a sinner ripe for
destruction.
I conclude, therefore, that, upon supposition of the certain
truth of the principles of religion,:;he who walks not uprightly has neither from the presumption of God's mercy
reversing the decree of his justice, nor from his own purposes of a future repentance, any sure ground to set his foot
upon, but in this whole course acts as directly in contradiction to nature as he does in defiance of grace. In a word,
he is besotted, and has lost his reason; and what then can
there be for religion to take hold of him by P Come we now
to the
2d supposition, under which we show, That the principles
of religion laid down by us might be considered, and that is,
as only probable. Where we must observe that probability
does not properly make any alteration, either in the truth or
falsity of things but only imports a different degree of their
clearness or appearance to the understanding. So that that
is to be accounted probable, which has more and better arguments producible.for it than can be brought against it; and
surely such a thing at least is religion. For certain it is, that
religion is universal, I mean the first rudiments and general
notions of religion, called natural religion, and consisting in
the acknowledgment of a Deity, and of the common principles of morality, and a future estate of souls after death, (in
which also we have all that some reformers and refiners
amongst us would reduce Christianity itself to.) This notion
of religion, I say, has diffused itself in some degree or other,
greater or less, as far as human nature extends. So that
there is no nation in the world, though plunged into never
such gross and absurd idolatry, but has some awful sense of a
Deity, and a persuasion of a state of retribution to men after
this life.
But now, if there are really no such things, but all is a




PROV. x. 9.]  The Practice of Religion enforced by Reason.  261
mere lie and a fable, contrived only to chain up the liberty
of man's nature from  a freer enjoyment of those things,
which otherwise it would have as full a right to enjoy as to
breathe, I demand whence this persuasion could thus come to
be universal? For was it ever known, in any other instance,
that the whole world was brought to conspire in the belief of
a lie P Nay, and of such a lie as should lay upon men such
unpleasing abridgments, tying them up from a full gratification of those lusts and appetites which they so impatiently
desire to satisfy, and consequently, by all means,.to remove
those impediments that might any way obstruct their satisfaction P  Since therefore it can not be made out upon any
principle of reason, how all the nations in the world, otherwise
so distant in situation, manners, interests, and inclinations,
should, by design or combination, meet in one persuasion;
and withal that men, who so mortally hate to be deceived and
imposed upon, should yet suffer themselves to be deceived
by such a persuasion as is false; and not only false, but also
cross and contrary to their strongest desires; so that if it
were false, they would set the utmost force of their reason on
work to discover that falsity, and thereby disinthrall themselves; and further, since there is nothing false, but what
may be proved to be so; and yet, lastly, since all the power
and industry of man's mind has not been hitherto able to
prove a falsity in the principles of religion, it irrefragably follows, (and that, I suppose, without gathering any more into
the conclusion than has been made good in the premises,) that
religion is at least a very high probability.
And this is that which I here contend for, That it is not
necessary to the obliging men to believe religion to be true,
that this truth be made out to their reason by arguments demonstratively certain; but that it is sufficient to render their
unbelief inexcusable, even upon the account of bare reason,
if -so be the truth of religion carry. in it a much greater
probability than any of those ratiocinations that pretend
the contrary: and this I prove in the strength of these two
considerations.
1st, That no man, in matters of this life, requires an assurance either of the good which he, designs, or of the evil
which he avoids, from  arguments demonstratively certain;




:262  The Practice of Religion enforced by Reason. [SERM. XIII.
but judges himself to have sufficient ground to act upon,
from a probable persuasion of the event of things. No man
who first traffics into a foreign country has any scientific
evidence that there is such a country, but by report, which
can produce no more than a moral certainty; that is, a very
high probability, and such as there can be no reason to except
against. He who has a probable belief that he shall meet
with thieves in such a road, thinks himself to have reason
enough to decline it, albeit he is sure to sustain some less
(though yet considerable) inconvenience by his so doing.
But perhaps it may be replied, (and it is all that' can be replied,) that a greater assurance and evidence is required of
the things and concerns of the other world than of the interests of this. To which I answer, that assurance and evidence
(terms, by the way, extremely different; the first, respecting
properly the ground of our assenting to a thing; and the
other, the clearness of the thing or object assented to) have
no place at all here, as being contrary to our present supposition; according to which, we are now treating of the practical principles of religion only as probable, and falling under
a probable persuasion. And for this I affirm, that where the
case is about the hazarding an eternal or a temporal concern,
there a less degree of probability ought to engage our caution
against the loss of the former, than is necessary to engage it
about preventing the loss of the latter. Forasmuch as where
things are least to be put to the venture, as the eternal interests of the other world ought to be, there every, even the
least, probability or likelihood of danger, should be provided
against; but where the loss can be but temporal, every small
probability of it need not put us so anxiously to prevent it,
since, though it should happen, the loss might be repaired
again; or if not, could not however destroy us, by reaching
us in our greatest and highest concern; which no temporal
thing whatsoever is or can be. And this directly introduces
the.
2d consideration or argument, viz. That bare reason, discoursing upon a principle of self-preservation, (which surely
is the fundamental principle which nature proceeds by,) will
oblige a man voluntarily and by choice to undergo any less
evil to secure himself but from the probability of an evil in



PRov. x. 9.]  The Practice of Religion enforced by Reason.  263
comparably greater, and that also such an one, as, if that
probability passes into a certain event, admits of no reparation
by any after-remedy that can be applied to it.
Now that religion, teaching a future estate of souls, is a
probability; and that its contrary can not with equal probability be proved, we have already evinced.  This therefore
being supposed, we will suppose yet further, that for a man
to abridge himself in the full satisfaction of his appetites and
inclinations, is an evil, because a present pain and trouble:
but then it must likewise be granted, that nature must needs
abhor a state of eternal pain and misery much more; and
that if a man does not undergo the former less evil, it is
highly probable that such an eternal estate of misery will be
his portion; and if so, I would fain know whether that man
takes a rational course to preserve himself, who refuses the
endurance of these lesser troubles, to secure himself from a
condition infinitely and inconceivably more miserable.
But since probability, in the nature of it, supposes that a
thing may or may not be so, for any thing that yet appears,
or is certainly determined on either side, we will here consider
both sides of this probability: as,
1st, That it is one way possible, that there may be no such
thing as a future estate of happiness or misery for those who
have lived well or ill here; and then he who, upon the
strength of a contrary belief, abridged himself in the gratification of his appetites, sustains only this evil; viz. That he
did not please his senses and unbounded desires, so much as
otherwise he might and would have done, had he not lived
under the captivity and check of such a belief. This is the
utmost which he suffers: but whether this be a real evil or
no, (whatsoever vulgar minds may commonly think it,) shall
be discoursed of afterwards.
2. But then again, on the other side, it is probable that
there will be such a future estate; and then how miserably is
the voluptuous, sensual unbeliever left in the lurch!  For
there can be no retreat for him then, no mending of his
choice in the other world, no after-game to be played in hell.
It fares with men, in reference to their future estate, and the
condition upon which they must pass to it, much as it does
with a merchant having a vessel richly fraught at sea in a




264  The Practice of Religion enforced by Reason. [SERM. xIn.
storm: the storm grows higher and higher, and threatens the
utter loss of the ship: but there is one, and but one certain
way to save it,.which is, by throwing its rich lading overboard; yet still, for all this, the man knows not but possibly
the storm may cease, and so all be preserved. However, in
the mean time, there is little, or no probability that it will do
so; and in case it should not, he is then assured that he
must lay his life, as well as his rich commodities, in the cruel
deep. Now in this case, would this nlan, think we, act rationally, should he, upon the slender possibility of escaping
otherwise, neglect the sure, infallible preservation of his life,
by casting away his rich goods P No certainly, it would be so
far from it, that should the storm, by a strange hap, cease
immediately after he had thus thrown away his riches, yet the
throwing them away was infinitely more rational and eligible,
than the retaining or keeping them could have been.
For a man, while he lives here in the world, to doubt
whether there be any hell or no; and thereupon to live so,
as if absolutely there were none; but when he dies, to find
himself confuted in the flames; this, surely, must be the
height of woe and disappointment, and a bitter conviction of
an irrational venture and an absurd choice. In doubtful cases,
reason still determines for the safer side; especially if the
case be not only doubtful, but also highly concerning, and the
venture be of a soul and an eternity.
He who sat at a table, richly and deliciously furnished, but
with a sword hanging over his head by one single thread or
hair, surely had enough to check his appetite, even against
all the ragings of hunger and temptations of sensuality. The
only argument that could any way encourage his appetite
was, that possibly the sword might not fall; but when his
reason should encounter it with another question, What if it
should fall P and moreover, that pitiful stay by which it hung
should oppose the likelihood that it would, to a mere possibility that it might not; what could the man enjoy or taste
of his rich banquet, with all this doubt and horror working in
his mind P?
Though a man's condition should be really in itself never
so safe, yet an apprehension and surmise that it is not safe, is
enough to make a quick and a tender reason sufficiently mis



PROV. X. 9.] The Pracicet  of Religion enforced by Reason.  265
erable. Let the most acute and learned unbeliever demonstrate that there is no hell: and if he can, he sins so much
the more rationally; otherwise, if he can not, the case remains doubtful at least: but he who sins obstinately, does not
act as if it were so much as doubtful; for if it were certain
and evident to sense, he could do no more; but for a man to
found a confident practice upon a disputable principle, is
brutishly to outrun his reason, and to build ten times wider
than his foundation. In a word, I look upon this one:short
consideration, were there no more, as a sufficient ground for
any rational man to take up his religion upon, and which I
defy the subtlest atheist in the world solidly to answer or
confute; namely, That it is good to be sure. And so I proceed to the
Third and last supposition, under which the principles of
religion may, for argument sake, be considered; and that is,
as false; which surely must reach the utmost thoughts of any
atheist whatsoever.  Nevertheless even upon this account
also, I doubt not but to evince that he who walks uprightly
walks much more surely than the wicked and profane liver;
and that with reference to the most valued temporal enjoyments, such as are reputation, quietness, health, and the like,
which are the greatest which this life affords, or is desirable
for. And,
1st, For reputation or credit. Is any one had in greater
esteem than the just person; who has given the world an
assurance, by the constant tenor of his practice, that he makes
a conscience of his ways; that he scorns to do an unworthy
or a base thing; to. lie, to defraud, to undermine another's
interest, by any sinister and inferior arts P And is there any
thing which reflects a greater lustre upon a man's person,
than a severe temperance, and a restraint of himself from
vicious and unlawful pleasures? Does any thing shine so
bright as virtue, and that even in the eyes of those who are
void of it? For hardly shall you find any one so bad, but he
desires the credit of being thought what his vice will not let
him be; so great a pleasure and convenience is it, to live
with honor and a fair acceptance amongst those whom we
converse with; and a being without it is not life, but rather
the skeleton or caput nwrtuunm of life; like time without day,
or day itself without the shining of the sun to enliven it.




266   The Practice of Religion enforced by Reason. [SERM. XIII.
On the other side, is there any thing that more embitters
all the enjoyments of this life than shame and reproach 
Yet this is generally the lot and portion of the impious and
irreligious; and of some of them more especially.
For how infamous, in the first place, is the false, fraudulent,
and unconscionable person! and how quickly is his character
known! For hardly ever did any man of no conscience continue a man of any credit long. Likewise, how odious, as
well as infamous, is such an one! Especially if he be arrived
at that consummate and robust degree of falsehood, as to play
in and out, and show tricks with oaths, the sacredest bonds
which the conscience of man can be bound with; how is such
an one shunned and dreaded, like a walking pest! What
volleys of scoffs, curses, and satires, are discharged at him!
so that let never so much honor be placed upon him, it cleaves
not to him, but forthwith ceases to be honor, by being so
placed; no preferment can sweeten him, but the higher he
stands, the further and wider he stinks.
In like manner for the drinker and debauched person: is
any thing more the object of scorn and contempt than such
an one?  His company is justly looked upon as a disgrace:
and nobody can own a friendship for him without being an
enemy to himself. A drunkard is, as it were, outlawed from
all worthy and creditable converse. Men abhor, loathe, and
despise him, and would even spit at him as they meet him,
were it not for fear that a stomach so charged should something more than spit at them.
But not to go over all the several kinds of vice and wickedness, should we set aside the consideration of the glories of a
better world, and allow this life for the only place and scene
of man's happiness, yet surely Cato will be always more honorable than Clodius, and Cicero than Catiline. Fidelity, justice, and temperance will always draw their own reward after
them, or rather carry it with them, in those marks of honor
which they fix upon the persons who practice and pursue
them. It is said of David in 1 Chron. xxix. 28, that he died
full of days, riches, and honor: and there was no need of an
heaven, to render him in all respects a much happier man
than Saul. But in the
2d place, The virtuous and religious person walks upon




PRov. x. 9.] The Practice of Religion enforced by Reason.  267
surer grounds than the vicious and irreligious, in respect of
the ease, peace, and quietness which he enjoys in this world;
and which certainly make no small part of human felicity.
For anxiety and labor are great ingredients of that curse
which sin has entailed upon fallen man. Care and toil came
into the world with sin, and remain ever since inseparable
from it, both as to its punishment and effect.
The service of sin is perfect slavery; and he who will pay
obedience to the commands of it shall find it an unreasonable
taskmaster, and an unmeasurable exactor.
And to represent the case in some particulars. The ambitious person must rise early and sit up late, and pursue
his design with la constant, indefatigable attendance; he must
be infinitely patient and servile, and obnoxious to all the cross
humors of those whom he expects to rise by; he must endure
and digest all sorts of affronts; adore the foot that kicks him,
and kiss the hand that strikes him: while, in the mean time,
the humble and contented man is virtuous at a much easier
rate: his virtue bids him sleep and take his rest, while the
other's restless sin bids him sit up and watch. He pleases
himself innocently and easily, while the ambitious man attempts to please others sinfully and difficultly, and perhaps in
the issue unsuccessfully too.
The robber, and man of rapine, must run, and ride, and
use all the dangerous and even desperate ways of escape;
and probably, after all, his sin betrays him to a jail, and
from thence advances him to the gibbet: but let him carry off
his booty with as much safety and success as he can wish, yet
the innocent person, with never so little of his own, envies
him not, and, if he has nothing, fears him not.
Likewise the cheat and fraudulent person is put to a thousand shifts to palliate his fraud, and to be thought an honest
man: but surely there can be no greater labor than to be
always dissembling, and forced to maintain a constant disguise, there being so many ways by which a smothered truth
is apt to blaze and break out; the very nature of things making it not more natural for them to be, than to appear as
they be. But he who will be really honest, just, and sincere
in his dealings, needs take no pains to be thought so; no
more than the sun needs take any pains to shine, or, when
he is up, to convince the world that it is day.




268 The Practice of Religion enforced by Reason. [SERM. XIII.
And here again to bring in the man of luxury and intemperance for his share in the pain and trouble, as well as in
the forementioned shame and infamy of his vice. Can any
toil or day-labor equal the fatigue or drudgery which such an
one undergoes, while he is continually pouring in draught
after draught, and cramming in morsel after morsel, and that
in spite of appetite and nature, till he becomes a burden
to the very earth that bears him; though not so great an
one to that, but that (if possible) he is yet a greater to himself?
And now, in the last place, to mention one sinner more,
and him a notable, leading sinner indeed, to wit, the rebel.
Can any thing have more of trouble, hazard, and anxiety in
it, than the course which he takes P? For, in the first place,
all the evils of war must unavoidably be endured, as the necessary means and instruments to compass and give success
to his traitorous designs. In which, if it is his lot to be conquered, he must expect that vengeance that justly attends a
conquered, disarmed villain; for when such an one is vanquished, his sins are always upon him. But if, on the contrary, he proves victorious, he will yet find misery enough in
the distracting cares of settling an ungrounded, odious, detestable interest, so heartily, and so justly maligned, abhorred, and oftentimes plotted against; so that, in effect, he is
still in war, though he has quitted the field. The torment
of his suspicion is great, and the courses he must take to
quiet his jealous, suspicious mind, infinitely troublesome and
vexatious.
But in the mean time, the labor of obedience, loyalty, and
subjection is no more, but for a man honestly and discreetly
to sit still, and to enjoy what he has, under the protection of
the laws. And when such an one is in his lowest condition,
he is yet high and happy enough to despise and pity the most
prosperous rebel in the world: even those famous ones of
forty-one (with all due respect to their flourishing relations
be.it spoke) not excepted. In the
Third and last place, the religious person walks upon surer
grounds than the irreligious, in respect of the very health of
his body. Virtue is a friend and an help to nature; but it is
* See above, pp. 14, 15.




PROV. x. 9.]  The Practice of Religion enforced by Reason. 269
vice and luxury that destroys it, and the diseases of intemperance are the natural product of the sins of intemperance.
Whereas, on the other side, a temperate, innocent use of
the creature, never casts any one into a fever or a surfeit.
Chastity makes no work for a chirurgeon, nor ever ends in,
rottenness of bones. Sin is the fruitful parent of distempers,
and ill lives occasion good physicians. Seldom shall one see
in cities, courts, and rich families, (where men live plentifully,
and eat and drink freely,) that perfect health, that athletic
soundness and vigor of constitution, which is commonly seen
in the country, in poor houses and cottages, where nature is
their cook, and necessity their caterer, and where they have
no other doctor but the sun and the fresh air, and that such
an one as never sends them to the apothecary. It has been
observed in the earlier ages of the church, that none lived such
healthful and long lives as monks and hermits, who had sequestered themselves from the pleasures and plenties of the
world, to a constant ascetic course, of the severest abstinence
and devotion.
Nor is excess the only thing by which sin mauls and breaks
men in their health, and the comfortable enjoyment of themselves thereby, but many are also brought to a very ill and
languishing habit of body by mere idleness; and idleness is
both itself a great sin, and the cause of many more. The
husbandman returns from the field, and from manuring his
ground, strong and healthy, because innocent and laborious;
you will find no diet-drinks, no boxes of pills, nor gallipots,
amongst his provisions; no, he neither speaks nor lives
French, he is not so much a gentleman, forsooth. His
meals are coarse and short, his employment warrantable, his
sleep certain and refreshing, neither interrupted with the
lashes of a guilty mind, nor the aches of a crazy body. And
when old age comes upon him, it comes alone, bringing no
other evil with it but itself: but when it comes to wait upon
a great and worshipful sinner, (who for many years together
has had the reputation of eating well and doing ill,) it comes
(as it ought to do, to a person of such quality) -attended with
a long train and retinue of rheums, coughs, catarrhs, and
dropsies, together with many painful girds and achings,
which are at least called the gout. How does such an one




270  The Practice of Religion enforced by Reason. [SERM. XIII.
go about, or is carried rather, with his body bending inward,
his head shaking, and his eyes always watering (instead of
weeping) for the sins of his ill-spent youth. In a word, old
age seizes upon such a person, like fire upon a rotten house;
it was rotten before, and must have fallen of itself; so that it
is no more but one ruin preventing another.
And thus I have shown the fruits and effects of sin upon
men in this world. But peradventure it will be replied, that
there are many sinners who'escape all these calamities, and
neither labor under any shame or disrepute, any unquietness
of condition, or more than ordinary distemper of body, but
pass their days with as great a portion of honor, ease, and
health, as any other men whatsoever. But to this I answer,
First, That those sinners who are in such a temporally
happy condition, owe it not to their sins, but wholly to th/eir
luck, and a benign chance that they are so. Providence often
disposes of things by a method beside and above the discourses
of man's reason.
Secondly, That the number of those sinners, who by their
sins have been directly plunged into all the forementioned
evils, is incomparably greater than the number of those
who, by the singular favor of providence, have escaped them.
And,
Thirdly and lastly, That notwithstanding all this, sin has
yet in itself a natural tendency to bring men under all these
evils; and, if persisted in, will infallibly end in them, unless
hindered by some unusual accident or other, which no man,
acting rationally, can steadily build upon. It is not impossible but a man may practice a sin secretly to his dying day;
but it is ten thousand to one, if the practice be constant, but
that some time or other it will be discovered; and then the
effect of sin discovered, must be shame and confusion to the
sinner. It is possible also, that a man may be an old healthful epicure; but I affirm also, that it is next to a miracle, if
he be so, and the like is to be said of the several instances of
sin, hitherto produced by us. In short, nothing can step between them and misery in this world, but a very great,
strange, and unusual chance, which none will presume of who
talks surely.
And so, I suppose, that religion can not possibly be enforced




PROV. X. 9.] The Practice of Religion enforced by Reason.  271
(even in the judgment of its best friends and most professed
enemies) by any further arguments than what have been produced, (how much better soever the said arguments may be
managed by abler hands.) For I have shown and proved,
that, whether the principles of it be certain or but probable,
nay, though supposed absolutely false, yet a mal is sure of
that happiness in the practice, which he can not be in the
neglect of it; and consequently, that, though he were really a
speculative atheist, (which there is great reason to believe
that none perfectly are,) yet if he would but proceed rationally, that is, if (according to his own measures of reason) he
would but love himself, he could not however be a practical
atheist, nor live without God in this world, whether or no he
expected to be rewarded by him in another.
And now, to make some application of the foregoing discourse, we may, by an easy but sure deduction, conclude and
gather from it these two things:
First, That that profane, atheistical, epicurean rabble, whom
the whole nation so rings of, and who have lived so much to
the defiance of God, the dishonor of mankind, and the disgrace of the age which they are cast upon, are not indeed
(what they are pleased to think and vote themselves) the
wisest men in the world; for in matters of choice, no man
can be wise in any course or practice in which he is not safe
too. But calln these high assumers, and pretenders to reason,,
prove themselves so amidst all those liberties and latitudes of
practice which they take P?. Can they make it out against the
common sense and opinion of all mankind, that there is no
such thing as a future estate of misery for such as have lived
ill here P Or can they persuade themselves, that their own
particular reason, denying or doubting of it, ought to be
relied upon as a surer argument of truth than the universal,
united reason of all the world besides affirming it?  Every
fool may believe and pronounce confidently; but wise men
will, in matters of discourse, conclude firmly, and, in matters
of practice, act surely: and if these will do so too in the case
now before us, they must prove it, not only probable, (which
yet they can never do,) but also certain, and past all doubt,
that there'is no hell, nor place of torment for the wicked; or
at least that they.themselves, notwithstanding all their vil



272  Thze Practice of Religion enforced by Reason. [SERM. XIII.
lainous and licentious practices, are not to be reckoned of that
number and character, but that, with a non obstante to all
their revels, their profaneness, and scandalous debaucheries
of all sorts, they continue virtuosos still, and are that in
truth which the world in favor and fashion (or rather by an
antiphrasis) is pleased- to call them.
~In the meantime, it can not but be matter of just indignation to all knowing and good men, to see a company of lewd,
shallow-brained huffs, making atheism and contempt of religion the sole badge and character of wit, gallantry, and
true discretion; and then over their pots and pipes, claiming
and engrossing all these wholly to themselves; magisterially
censuring the wisdom of all antiquity, scoffing at all piety,
and, as it were, new modeling the whole world.  When
yet such as have had opportunity to sound these braggers
throughly, by having sometimes endured the penance of their
sottish company, have found them in converse so empty and
insipid, in discourse so trifling and contemptible, that it is
impossible but that they should give a credit and an honor
to whatsoever and whomsoever they speak against: they are
indeed such as seem wholly incapable of entertaining any
design above the present gratification of their palates, and
whose very souls and thoughts rise no higher than their
throats; but yet withal of such a clamorous and provoking
impiety, that they are enough to make the nation like Sodom
and Gomorrah in their punishment, as they have already
made it too like them in their sins. Certain it is, that blasphemy and irreligion have grown to that daring height here
of late years, that had men in any sober civilized heathen
nation spoke or done half so much in contempt of their false
gods and religion, as some in our days and nation, wearing
the name of Christians, have spoke and done against God and
Christ, they would have been infallibly burnt at a stake, as
monsters and public enemies of society.
The truth is, the persons here reflected upon are of such
a peculiar stamp of impiety, that they seem to be a set of
fellows got together, and formed into a kind of diabolical
society, for the finding out new experiments in vice; and
therefore they laugh at the dull, unexperienced, obsolete
sinners of former times; and scorning to keep themselves




Pnov. x. 9.] The Practice of Religion enforced by Reason. 273
within the common, beaten, broad way to hell, by being vicious only at the low rate of example and imitation, they are
for searching out other ways and latitudes, and obliging posterity with unheard of inventions and discoveries in sin;
resolving herein to admit of no other measure of good and
evil but the judgment of sensuality, as those who prepare
matters to their hands allow no other measure of the philosophy and truth of things but the sole judgment of sense.
And these, forsooth, are our great sages, and those who must
pass for the only shrewd, thinking, and inquisitive men of
the age; and such, as by a long, severe, and profound speculation of nature, have redeemed themselves from the pedantry
of being conscientious and living virtuously, and from such
old-fashioned principles and creeds as tie up the minds of
some narrow - spirited, uncomprehensive zealots, who know
not the world, nor understand that he only is the truly wise
man who, per fas et nefas, gets as much as he can.
But for all this, let atheists and sensualists satisfy themselves as they are able. The former of which will find, that
as long as reason keeps her ground, religion neither can nor
will lose hers. And for the sensual epicure, he also will find,
that there is a certain living spark within him, which all the
drink he can pour in will never be able to quench or put out;
nor will his rotten abused body have it in its power to convey
any putrefying, consuming, rotting quality to the soul: no,
there is no drinking, or swearing, or ranting, or fluxing a
soul out of its immortality. But that must and will survive
and abide, in spite of death and the grave; and live forever
to convince such wretches to their eternal woe, that the so
much repeated ornament and flourish of their former speeches
(God damn'em) was commonly the truest word they spoke,
though least believed by them while they spoke it.
2dly, The other thing deducible from the foregoing particulars shall be to inform us of the way of attaining to that
excellent privilege, so justly valued by those who have it, and
so much talked of by those who have it not; which is assurance. Assurance is properly that persuasion or confidence
which a man takes up of the pardon of his sins, and his interest in God's favor, upon such grounds and terms as the
scripture lays down. But now, since the scripture promises
VOL. I.          18




274  The Practice of Religion enforced by Reason. [SERM. XIII.
eternal happiness and pardon of sin, upon the sole condition
of faith and sincere obedience, it is evident that he only can
plead a title to such a pardon, whose conscience impartially
tells him that he has performed the required condition. And
this is the only rational assurance which a man can with any
safety rely or rest himself upon.
He who in this case would believe surely, must first walk
surely; and to do so is to walk uprightly. And what that
is, we have sufficiently marked out to us in those plain and
legible lines of duty, requiring us to demean ourselves to
God humbly and devoutly; to our governors obediently; and
to our neighbors justly; and to ourselves soberly and temperately. All other pretenses being infinitely vain in themselves
and fatal.in their consequences.
It was indeed the way of many in the late times, to bolster
up their crazy, doting consciences, with (I know not what)
odd confidences, founded upon inward whispers of the Spirit,
stories of something which they called conversion and marks
of predestination: all of them  (as they understood them)
mere delusions, trifles, and fig-leaves; and such as would be
sure to fall off and leave them naked, before that fiery tribunal which knows no other way of judging men but according to their works.
Obedience and upright walking are such substantial, vital
parts of religion as, if they be wanting, can never be made
up, or commuted for, by any formalities of fantastic looks or
language. And the great question, when we come hereafter
to be judged, will not be, How demurely have you looked?
or, How boldly have you believed P With what length have
you prayed? and, With what loudness and vehemence have
you preached? But, How holily have you lived? and, How
uprightly have you walkedP For this, and this only, (with
the merits of Christ's righteousness,) will come into account
before that great Judge who will pass sentence upon every
man according to what he has done here in the flesh, whether
it be good, or whether it be evil; and there is no respect of
persons with him.
To whom therefore be rendered and ascribed, as is most due,
all praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for
evermore. Amen.




SERMON XIV.
A SERMON PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY, AT
CHRIST CHURCH, OXON, 1664.
JOHN xv. 156; -Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what
his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my
Father I have made known unto you.
~W      E  have here an account of Christ's friendship to his
disciples; that is, we have the best of things represented in the greatest of examples. In other men we see
the excellency, but in Christ the divinity of friendship. By
our baptism and church-communion we are made one body
with Christ; but by this we become one soul.
Love is the greatest of human affections, and friendship is
the noblest and most refined improvement of love; a quality
of the largest compass. And it is here admirable to observe
the ascending gradation of the love which Christ bore to his
disciples. The strange and superlative greatness of which
will appear from those several degrees of kindness that it
has manifested to man in the several periods of his condition. As,
1st, If we consider him antecedently to his creation, while
he yet lay in the barren womb of nothing, and only in the
number of possibilities: and consequently could have nothing
to recommend him to Christ's affection, nor show any thing
lovely, but what he should afterwards receive from the stamp
of a preventing love. Yet even then did the love of Christ
begin to work, and to commence in the first emanations and
purposes of goodness towards man; designing to provide
matter for itself to work upon, to create its own object, and,
like the sun in the production of some animals, first to give a
being, and then to shine upon it.




276       Of the Love of Christ to his Disciples.  SERM. XIV.
2dly, Let us take the love of Christ as directing itself to
man actually created and brought into the world; and so all
those glorious endowments of human nature in its original
state' and innocence, were so many demonstrations of the
munificent goodness of him by whom God first made, as well
as afterwards redeemed the world. There was a consult of
the whole Trinity for the making of man, that so he might
shine as a masterpiece, not only of the art, but also of the
kindness of his Creator; with a noble and a clear understanding, a rightly disposed will, and a train of affections
regular and obsequious, and perfectly conformable to the dictates of that high and divine principle, right reason. So
that, upon the whole matter, he stepped forth, not' only the
work of God's hands, but also the copy of his perfections; a
kind of image or representation of the Deity in small. Infinity contracted into flesh and blood; and (as I may so speak)
the preludium and first essay towards the incarnation of the
divine nature. But,
3dly and lastly, Let us look upon man, not only as created,
and brought into the world, with all these great advantages
superadded to his being, but also as depraved, and fallen
firom them, as an outlaw and a rebel, and one that could plead
a title to nothing but to the highest severities of a sin-revenging justice. Yet even in this estate also, the boundless
love of Christ began to have warm thoughts and actings towards so wretched a creature, at this time not only not amiable, but highly odious.
While indeed man was yet uncreated and unborn, though
he had no positive perfection to present and set him off to
Christ's view, yet he was at least negatively clear: and, like
unwritten paper, though it has no draughts to entertain, yet
neither has it any blots to offend the eye; but is white, and
innocent, and fair for an after-inscription. But man, once
fallen, was nothing but a great blur; nothing but a total universal pollution, and not to be reformed by any thing under a
new creation.
Yet, see here the ascent and progress of Christ's love. For
first, if we consider man in such a loathsome and provoking:condition, was it not love enough that he was spared and
permitted to enjoy a being Psince, not to put a traitor to




JOHN XV. 15.] Of the Love of Christ to his Disciples.  277
death is a singular mercy. But then, not only to continue
his being, but to adorn it with privilege, and from the number of subjects to take him into the retinue of servants, this
was yet a greater love. For every one that may be fit to be
tolerated in a prince's dominions, is not therefore fit to be
admitted into his family; nor is any prince's court to be commensurate to his kingdom. But then further, to advance
him from a servant to a friend; from only living in his house,
to lying in his bosom; this is an instance of favor above the
rate of a created goodness, an act for none but the Son of
God, who came to do every thing in miracle, to love supernaturally, and to pardon infinitely, and even to lay down the
sovereign, while he assumed the savior.
The text speaks the winning behavior and gracious condescension of Christ to his disciples, in owning them for his
friends, who were more than sufficiently honored by being
his servants. For still these words of his must be understood, not according to the bare rigor of the letter, but according to the arts and allowances of expression: not as if
the relation of friends had actually discharged them from
that of servants; but that of the two relations, Christ was
pleased to overlook the meaner, and without any mention of
that, to entitle and denominate them solely from the more
honorable.
For the further illustration of which, we must premise this,
as a certain and fundamental truth, that, so far as service imports duty and subjection, all created beings, whether men or
angels, bear the necessary and essential relation of servants
to God, and consequently to Christ, who is God blessed forever: and this relation is so necessary, that God himself can
not dispense with it, nor discharge a rational creature from
it: for although consequentially indeed he may do so, by the
annihilation of such a creature, and the taking away his
being, yet, supposing the continuance of his being, God can
not effect that a creature which has his being from, and his
dependence upon, him, should not stand obliged to do him
the utmost service that his nature enables him to do. For to
suppose the contrary, would be irregular, and opposite to the
law of nature, which, consisting in a fixed unalterable relation of one nature to another, is upon that account, even by




278       Of the Love of Christ to his Disciples. [SERM. XIV.
God himself, indispensable. Forasmuch as having once made
a creature, he can not cause that that creature should not
owe a natural relation to his Maker, both of subjection and
dependence, (the very essence of a creature importing so
much,) to which relation if he behaves himself unsuitably, he
goes contrary to his nature, and the laws of it; which God,
the author of nature, can not warrant without being contrary to himself. From all which it follows, that even in our
highest estate of sanctity and privilege, we yet retain the unavoidable obligation of Christ's servants; though still with
an advantage as great as the obligation, where the service is
perfect freedom: so that, with reference to such a Lord, to
serve, and to be free, are terms not consistent only, but absolutely equivalent.
Nevertheless, since the name of servants has of old been
reckoned to imply a certain meanness of mind, as well as
lowness of condition, and the ill qualities of many who served
have rendered the condition itself not very creditable-; especially in those ages and places of the world in which the
condition of servants was extremely different from what it is
now amongst us; they being generally slaves, and such as
were bought and sold for money, and consequently reckoned
but amongst the other goods and chattels of their lord or
master: it was for this reason that Christ thought fit to waive
the appellation of servant here, as, according to the common
use of it amongst the Jews, (and at that time most nations
besides,) importing these three qualifications, which, being
directly contrary to the spirit of Christianity, were by no
means to be allowed in any of Christ's disciples.
1st, The first whereof is that here mentioned in the text;
viz., an utter unacquaintance with his master's designs, in
these words: -The servant knows not what his lord doeth. - For
seldom does any man of sense make his servant his counsellor, for fear of making him his governor too. A master
for the most part keeps his choicest goods locked up from his
servant, but much more his mind.  A servant is to know
nothing but his master's commands; and in these also, not
to know the reason of them.
Neither is he to stand aloof off from his counsels only, but
sometimes from his presence also; and so far as decency is




JOHNXv. 15.] Of the Love of Christ to his Disciples.  279
duty, it is sometimes his duty to avoid him. But the voice
of Christ in his gospel is, Come to me all ye that are heavy
laden. The condition of a servant staves him off to a distance; but the gospel speaks nothing but allurement, attractives, and invitation. The magisterial law bids the person
under it, Go, and he must go; but the gospel says to every
believer, Come, and he cometh. A servant dwells remote from
all knowledge of his lord's purposes. He lives as a kind of
foreigner under the same roof; a domestic, and yet a stranger
too.
2dly, The name of servant imports a slavish and degenerous awe of mind; as it is in Rom. viii. 5, God has not given
us the spirit of bondage again to fear. He who serves, has
still the low and ignoble restraints of dread upon his spirit;
which in business, and even in the midst of action, cramps
and ties up his activity. He fears his master's anger, but
designs not his favor. Quicken me, says David, with thyfree,
spirit. It is the freedom of the spirit that gives worth and
life to the performance. But a servant commonly is less free
in mind than in condition; his very will seems to be in bonds
and shackles, and desire itself under a kind of durance and
captivity. In all that a servant does, he is scarce a voluntary agent, but when he serves himself: all his services otherwise, not flowing naturally from propensity and inclination,
but being drawn and forced from him by terror and coaction.
In any work he is put to, let the master withdraw his eye,
and he will quickly take off his hand.
3dly, The appellation of servant imports a mercenary temper and disposition; and denotes such an one as makes his
reward both the sole motive and measure of his obedience.
He neither loves the thing commanded, nor the person who
commands it, but is wholly and only intent upon his own
emolument. All kindnesses done him, and all that is given
him, over and above what is strictly just and his due, makes
him rather worse than better.  And this is an observation
that never fails, where any one has so much bounty and so
little wit as to make the experiment. For a servant rarely
or never ascribes what he receives to the mere liberality and
generosity of the donor, but to his own worth and merit, and
to the need which he supposes there is of him; which opinion




280        Of the Love of Christ to his Disciples. [SERM. XIv.
alone will be sure to make any one of a mean servile spirit,
insolent and intolerable.
And thus I have shown what the qualities of a servant
usually are, (or at least were in that country where our
Saviour lived and conversed, when he spake these words,)
which, no doubt, were the cause why he would not treat his
disciples (whom he designed to be of a quite contrary disposition) with this appellation.
Come we therefore now, in the next place, to show what is
included in that great character and privilege which he was
pleased to vouchsafe both to them, and to all believers, in
calling and accounting them his friends. It includes in it, I
conceive, these following things:
1. Freedom of access. House, and heart, and all, are open
for the reception of a friend. The entrance is not beset
with solemn excuses and lingering delays; but the passage is
easy, and free from all obstruction, and not only admits, but
even invites the comer. How different, for the most part, is
the same man from himself, as he sustains the person of a
magistrate, and as he sustains that of a friend! As a magistrate or great officer, he locks himself up from all approaches
by the multiplied formalities of attendance, by the distance
of ceremony and grandeur; so many hungry officers to be
passed through, so many thresholds to be saluted, so many
aays to be spent in waiting for an opportunity of, perhaps,
but half an hour's converse.
But when he is to be entertained, whose friendship, not
whose business, demands an entrance, those formalities presently disappear, all impediments vanish, and the rigors of the
magistrate submit to the endearments of a friend. He opens
and yields himself to the man of business with difficulty and
reluctancy, but offers himself to the visits of a friend with
facility, and all the meeting readiness of appetite and desire.
The reception of one is as different from the admission of the
other as when the earth falls open under the incisions of the
plow, and when it gapes and greedily opens itself to drink
in the dew of heaven, or the refreshments of a shower: or
there is as much difference between them as when a man
reaches out his arms to take up a burden, and when he
reaches them out to embrace.




3OHNXVv. 15.] Of the Love of Christ to his Disciples.  281
It is confessed that the vast distance that sin had put be-tween the offending creature and the offended Creator, required the help of some great umpire and intercessor, to open
him a new way of access to God; and this Christ did for us
as Mediator.  But we read of no mediator to bring us to
Christ; for though, being God by nature, he dwells in the
bight of majesty, and the inaccessible glories of a Deity,
yet, to keep off all strangeness between himself and the sons
of men, he has condescended to a cognation and consanguinity with us, he has clothed himself with flesh and blood,
that so he might subdue his glories to a possibility of human
converse. And therefore he that denies himself an immediate
access to Christ, affronts him in the great relation of a friend,
and as opening himself both to our persons and to our wants,
with the greatest tenderness and the freest invitation. There
is none who acts a friend by a deputy, or can be familiar by
proxy.
2. The second privilege of friendship is a favorable construction of all passages between friends, that are not of so
high and so malign a nature as to dissolve the relation. Love
covers a multitude of sins, says the apostle, 1 Pet. iv. 8. When
a scar can not be taken away, the next kind office is to hide
it. Love is never so blind as when it is to spy faults. It is
like the painter, who, being to draw the picture of a friend
having a blemish in one eye, would picture only the other
side of his face. It is a noble and a great thing to cover the
blemishes and to excuse the failings of a friend; to draw a
curtain before his stains, and to display his perfections; to
bury his weaknesses in silence, but to proclaim his virtues
upon the house-top. It is an imitation of the charities of
heaven, which, when the creature lies prostrate in the weakness of sleep and weariness, spreads the covering of night
and darkness over it, to conceal it in that condition; but as
soon as our spirits are refreshed, and nature returns to its
morning vigor, God then bids the sun rise, and the day shine
upon us, both to advance and to show that activity.
It is the ennobling office of the understanding to correct
the fallacious and mistaken reports of sense, and to assure us
that the staff in the water is straight, though our eye would
tell us it is crooked. So it is the excellency of friendship to




282       Of the Love of Christ to his Disciples. [SERM. xrV.
rectify, or at least to qualify, the malignity of those surmises
that would misrepresent a friend, and traduce him in our
thoughts. Am I told that my friend has done me an injury,
or that he has committed any undecent action P Why, the
first debt that I both owe to his friendship, and that he may
challenge from mine, is rather to question the truth of the
report than presently to believe my friend unworthy. Or, if
matter of fact breaks out and blazes with too great an evidence to be denied, or so much as doubted of, why still there
are other lenitives that friendship will apply, before it will be
brought to the decretory rigors of a condemning sentence.
A friend will be sure to act the part of an advocate, before
he will assume that of a judge. And there are few actions so
ill (unless they are of a very deep and black tincture indeed)
but will admit of some extenuation at least from those common topics of human frailty; such as are ignorance or inadvertency, passion or surprise, company or solicitation; with
many other such things, which may go a great way towards
an excusing of the agent, though they can not absolutely
justify the action. All which apologies for, and alleviations of,
faults, though they are the hights of humanity, yet they are
not the favors, but the duties of friendship. Charity itself
commands us, where we know no ill, to think well of all. But
friendship, that always goes a pitch higher, gives a man a
peculiar right and claim to the good opinion of his friend.
And if we justly look upon a proneness to find faults, as a very
ill and a mean thing, we are to remember that a proneness
to believe them is next to it.
We have seen here the demeanor of friendship between
man and man: but how is it, think we now, between Christ
and the soul that depends upon him P Is he anyways short
in these offices of tenderness and mitigation P No, assuredly,
but by infinite degrees superior. For where our heart does
but relent, his melts; where our eye pities, his bowels yearn.
How many frowardnesses of ours does he smother, how many
indignities does he pass by, and how many affronts does he
put up at our hands, because his love is invincible, and his
friendship unchangeable P He rates every'action, every sinful infirmity, with the allowances of mercy; and never
weighs the sin, but together with it he weighs the force




JOHN XV. 15.] Of the Love of Christ to his Disciples.  283
of the inducement; how much of it is to be attributed to
choice, how much to the violence of the temptation, to the
stratagem of the occasion, and the yielding frailties of weak
nature.
Should we try men at that rate that we try Christ, we
should quickly find that the largest stock of human friendship would be too little for us to spend long upon. But his
compassion follows us with an infinite supply. He is: God in
his friendship, as well as in his nature, and therefore we sinful creatures are not took upon advantages, nor consumed in
our provocations.
See this exemplified in his behavior to his disciples, while
he was yet upon earth: how ready was he to excuse and
cover their infirmities! At the last and bitterest scene of
his life, when he was so full of agony and horror upon the
approach of a dismal death, and so had most need of the
refreshments of society, and the friendly assistances of his
disciples; and when also he desired no more of them but
only for a- while to sit up and pray with him: yet they, like
persons wholly untouched with his agonies, and unmoved
with his passionate entreaties, forget both his and their own
cares, and securely sleep away all concern for him or themselves either. Now, what a fierce and sarcastic reprehension
may we imagine this would have drawn from the friendships
of the world, that act but to an human pitch! and yet what
a gentle one did it receive from Christ! In Matt. xxvi. 40,
no more than, What, could you not watch with me for one
hour? And when from this admonition they took only occasion to redouble their fault, and to sleep again, so that
upon a second and third admonition they had nothing to
plead for their unseasonable drowsiness, yet then Christ, who
was the only person concerned to have resented and aggravated this their unkindness, finds an extenuation for it, when
they themselves could not. The spirit indeed is willing, says
he, but the flesh is weak. As if he had said, I know your
hearts, and am satisfied of your affection, and therefore accept your will, and compassionate your weakness. So benign, so gracious is the friendship of Christ, so answerable
to our wants, so suitable to our frailties. Happy that man
who has a friend to point out to him the perfection of duty;
and yet to pardon him in the lapses of his infirmity!




284        Of the Love of Christ to his Disciples. [SERm. XIV.
3. The third privilege of friendship is a sympathy in joy
and grief. When a man shall have diffused his life, his self,
and his whole, concernments so far that he can weep his
sorrows with another's eyes; when he has another heart besides his own, both to share and to support his griefs; and
when, if his joys overflow, he can treasure up the overplus
and redundancy of them in another breast; so that he can,
as it were, shake off the solitude of a single nature, by dwelling in two bodies at once, and living by another's breath; this
surely is the hight, the very spirit and perfection of all human felicities.
It is a true and happy observation of that great philosopher the Lord Verulam, that t-his is the benefit of communication of our minds to others, that sorrows by being communicated grow less, and joys greater. And indeed sorrow,
like a stream, loses itself in many channels; and joy, like a
ray of the sun, reflects with a greater ardor and quickness
when it rebounds upon a man from the breast of his friend.
Now friendship is the only scene upon which the glorious
truth of this great proposition can be fully acted and drawn
forth. Which indeed is a summary description of the sweets
of friendship: and the whole life of a friend, in the several
parts and instances of it, is only a more diffuse comment
upon, and a plainer explication of, this divine aphorism.
Friendship never restrains a pleasure to a single fruition.
But such is the royal nature of this quality, that it still expresses itself in the style of kings, as, we do this or that; and,
this is our happiness; and, such or such a thing belongs to
us; when the immediate possession of it is vested only in one.
Nothing certainly in nature can so peculiarly gratify the noble
dispositions of humanity as for one man to see another so
much himself as to sigh his griefs, and groan his pains, to
sing his joys, and, as it were, to do and feel every thing by
sympathy and secret inexpressible communications. Thus it
is upon an human account.
Let us now see how Christ sustains and makes good this
generous quality of a friend. And this we shall find fully set
forth to us in Heb. iv. 15, where he is said to be a merciful
high-priest, touched with the feeling of our infirmities; and that
in all our afflictions he is afflicted, Isa. lxiii. 9. And, no doubt,




JOHN xv. 15.] Of the Love of Christ to his Disciples.  285
with the same bowels and meltings of affection, with which
any tender mother hears and bemoans the groanings of her
sick child, does Christ hear and sympathize with the spiritual
agonies of a soul under desertion, or the pressures of some
stinging affliction. It is enough that he understands the
exact measures of our strengths and weaknesses; that he
knows our frame; as it is in Psalm ciii. 14; and that he does
not only know, but emphatically, that he remembers also, that
we are but dust.  Observe that signal passage of his loving
commiseration; as soon as he had risen from the dead, and
met Mary Magdalen, in Mark xvi. 7, he sends this message
of his resurrection by her: Go, tell my disciples, and Peter,
that I am risen. What, was not Peter one of his disciples P
Why then is he mentioned particularly and by himself, as if
he were exempted out of their number P Why, we know into
what a plunge he had newly cast himself by denying his
Master: upon occasion of which he was now struggling with
all the perplexities and horrors of mind imaginable, lest
Christ might in like manner deny and disown him before his
Father, and so repay one denial with another. Hereupon
Christ particularly applies the comforts of his resurrection
to him, as if he had said, Tell all my disciples, but be sure
especially to tell poor Peter, that I am risen from the dead;
and that, notwithstanding his denial of me, the benefits of
my resurrection belong to him, as much as to any of the rest.
This is the privilege of the saints, to have a companion and
a supporter in all their miseries, in all the doubtful turnings
and doleful passages of their lives. In sum, this happiness
does Christ vouchsafe to all his, that as a savior he once
suffered for them, and that as a friend he always suffers with
them.
4. The fourth privilege of friendship is that which is here
specified in the text, a communication of secrets. A bosom
secret and a bosom friend are usually put together. And this
from Christ to the soul is not only kindness, but also honor
and advancement; it is for him to vouch it one of his privy
council. Nothing under a jewel is taken into the cabinet.
A secret is the apple of our eye; it will bear no touch nor
approach; we use to cover nothing but what we account a
rarity. And therefore to communicate a secret to any one,




286       Of the Love of Christ to his Disciples. [SERM. XIV.
is to exalt him to one of the royalties of heaven. For none
knows the secrets of a man's mind, but his God, his conscience, and his fiiend. Neither would any prudent man let
such a thing go out of his own heart, had he not another
heart besides his own to receive it.
Now it was of old a privilege, with which God was pleased
to honor such as served him at the rate of an extraordinary
obedience, thus to admit them to a knowledge of many of his
great counsels locked up from the rest of the world. When
God had designed the destruction of Sodom, the scripture
represents him as unable to conceal that great purpose from
Abraham, whom he always treated as his friend and acquaintance; that is, not only with love, but also with intimacy and
familiarity, in Gen. xviii. 17. And the Lord said, Shall I hide
from Abraham the thing that I go about to do? He thought it
a violation of the rights of friendship to reserve his design
wholly to himself. And St. James tells us, in James ii. 23,
that Abraham was called the friend of God; and therefore had
a kind of claim to the knowledge of his secrets, and the
participation of his counsels. Also, in Exodus xxxiii. 11, it
is said of God, that he spoke to Moses as a man speaketh to his
friend. And that, not only for the familiarity and facility ofaddress, but also for the peculiar communications of his
mind. Moses was with him in the retirements of the mount,
received there his dictates and his private instructions, as his
deputy and viceroy; and when the multitude and congregation of Israel were thundered away, and kept off from any
approach to it, he was honored with an intimate and immediate admission. The priests indeed were taken into a near attendance upon God; but still there was a degree of a nearer
converse, and the interest of a friend was above the privileges of the highest servant. In Exod. xix. 24, Thou shalt
come up, says God, thou, and Aaron with thee: buttlet not the
priests and the people break through to come up unto the Lord,
lest the Lord break forth upon them. And if we proceed further, we shall still find a continuation of the same privilege;
Psalm xxv. 14; The secret of the Lord is with them that fear
him. Nothing is to be concealed from the other self. To be
a friend, and to be conscious, are terms equivalent.
Now if God maintained such intimacies with those whom




JOHN Xv. 15.]  Of the -Love of Christ to his Disciples.  287
he loved under the law, (which was a dispensation of greater
distance,) we may be sure that under the gospel, (the very
nature of which imports condescension and compliance,) there
must needs be the same, with much greater advantage. And
therefore when God had manifested himself in the flesh, how
sacredly did he preserve this privilege!  How freely did
Christ unbosom himself to his disciples, in Luke viii. 10.
Unto you, says he, it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but unto others in parables; that seeing they might
not see: such shall be permitted to cast an eye into the ark,
and to look into the very holy of holies. And again, in Matt.
xiii. 17, Many prophets and righteous men have desired to see
those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear
those things which ye hear and have not heard them. Neither
did he treat them with these peculiarities of favor in the extraordinary discoveries of the gospel only, but also of those
incommunicable revelations of the divine love, in reference to
their own personal interest in it. In Rev. ii. 17; To him that
overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give'him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no
man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it. Assurance is a rarity
covered from the inspection of the world. A secret that
none can know but God, and the person that is blessed with
it. It is writ in a private character, not to be read nor understood but by the conscience, to which the Spirit of God
has vouchsafed to decipher it. Every believer lives upon an
inward provision of comfort that the world is a stranger to.
5. The fifth advantage of friendship is counsel and advice.
A man will sometimes need not only another heart, but also
another head besides his own. In solitude there is not only
discomfort, but weakness also. And that saying of the wise
man, Eccles. iv. 10, Woe to him that is alone, is verified upon
none so much as upon the friendless person: when a man
shall be perplexed with knots and problems of business and
contrary affairs, where the determination is dubious, and both
parts of the contrariety seem equally weighty, so that, which
way soever the choice determines, a man is sure to venture agreat concern: how happy then is it to fetch in aid from another person, whose judgment may be greater than my own,
and whose concernment is sure not to be less! There are




288       Of the Love of Christ to his Disciples.  [SERM. XIV.
some passages of a man's affairs that would quite break a
single understanding. So many intricacies, so many labyrinths,
are there in them, that the succors of reason fail, the very
force and spirit of it being lost in an actual intention scattered
upon several clashing objects at once; in which case, the interposal of a friend is like the supply of a fresh party to a
besieged yielding city.
Now Christ is not failing in this office of a friend also.
For in that illustrious prediction of Esay ix. 6, amongst the
rest of his great titles, he is called mighty Counsellor. And
his counsel is not only sure, but also free. It is not under
the gospel of Christ, as under some laws of men, where you
must be forced to buy your counsel, and oftentimes pay dear
for bad advice. -No, he is a light to those that sit in darkness.
And no man fees the sun, no man purchases the light, nor
errs, if he walks by it. The only price that Christ sets upon
his counsel is, that we follow it, and that we do that which
is best for us to do. He is not only light for us to see by,
but also light for us to see with; He is understanding to the
ignorant, and eyes to the blind: and whosoever has both a faithful and a discreet friend, to guide him in the dark, slippery,
and dangerous passages of his life, may carry his eyes in another man's head, and yet see never the worse. In 1 Cor. i.
30, the Apostle tells us, that Christ is made to us not only
sanctification and redemption, but wisdom too: we are his members; and it is but natural that all the members of the body
should be guided by the wisdom of the head.
And therefore let every believer comfort himself in this
high privilege, that in the great things that concern his
eternal peace he is not left to stand or fall by the uncertain
directions of his own judgment. No, sad were his condition
if he should be so; when he is to encounter an enemy made
up of wiles and stratagems, an old serpent, and a long-experienced deceiver, and successful at the trade for some thousands of years.
The inequality of the match between such an one and the
subtilest of us, would quickly appear by a fatal circumvention: there must be a wisdom from above, to overreach and
master this hellish wisdom from beneath. And this every
sanctified person is sure of in his great friend, in whom all




JOHN XV. 15.] Of the Love of Christ to his Disciples.  289
the treasures of wisdom dwell; treasures that flow out, and are
imparted freely, both in direction and assistance, to all that
belong to him.  He never leaves any of his, perplexed,
amazed, or bewildered, where the welfare of their souls requires a better judgment than their own, either to guide them
in their duty, or to disentangle them from a temptation.
Whosoever has Christ for his friend, shall be sure of counsel;
and whosoever is his own friend, will be sure to obey it.
6. The last and crowning privilege, or rather property, of
friendship is constancy.  He only is a friend whose friendship lives as long as himself, and who ceases to love and to
breathe at the same instant. Not that I yet state constancy
in such an absurd, senseless, and irrational continuance in
friendship, as no injuries or provocations whatsoever can break
off. For there are some injuries that extinguish the very relation between friends. In which case, a man ceases to be a
friend, not from any inconstancy in his friendship, but from
defect of an object for his friendship to exert itself upon. It
is one thing for a father to cease to be a father by casting off
his son; and another for him to cease to be so, by the death
of his son. In this, the relation is at an end for want of a
correlate: so in friendship there are some passages of that
high and hostile nature, that they really and properly constitute and denominate the person guilty of them, an enemy;
and if so, how can the other person possibly continue a friend,
since friendship essentially requires that it be between two at
least; and there can be no friendship, where there are not
two friends?
Nobody is bound to look upon his backbiter or his underminer, his betrayer or his oppressor, as his friend. Nor indeed is it possible that he should do so, unless he could alter:the constitution and order of things, and establish a new nature and a new morality in the world. For to remain unsensible of such provocations, is not constancy, but apathy. And
therefore they discharge the person so treated from the proper
obligations of a friend; though Christianity, I confess, binds
him to the duties of a neighbor.
But to give you the true nature and measures of constancy;
it is such a stability and firmness of friendship, as overlooks
and passes by all those lesser failures of kindness and respect,
VOL. I.          19




290       Of the Love of Christ to his Disciples. [SERM. XIV.
that, partly through passion, partly through indiscretion, and
such other frailties incident to human nature, a man may be
sometimes guilty of, and yet still retain the same habitual
good-will and prevailing propensity of mind to his friend,
that he had before. And whose friendship soever is of that
strength and duration as to stand its ground against, and remain unshaken by, such assaults, (which yet are strong enough
to shake down and annihilate the friendship of little puny
minds,) such an one, I say, has reached all the true measures
of constancy: his friendship is of a noble make and a lasting
consistency; it -resembles marble, and deserves to be wrote
upon it.
But how few tempers in the world are of that magnanimous
frame as to reach the hights of so great a virtue: many offer
at the effects of friendship, but they do not last; they are
promising in the beginning, but they fail, and jade, and tire
in the prosecution. For most people in the world are acted
by levity and humor, by strange and irrational changes.
And how often may we meet with those who are one while
courteous, civil, and obliging, (at least to their proportion,)
but within a small time after are so supercilious, sharp, troublesome, fierce, and exceptions, that they are not only short
of the true character of friendship, but become the very sores
and burdens of society! Such low, such worthless dispositions, how easily are they discovered, how justly are they
despised! But now, that we may pass from one contrary to
another, Christ, who is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever in
his being, is so also in his affection. He is not of the number
or nature of those pitiful, mean pretenders to friendship, who
perhaps will love and smile upon you one day, and not so much
as know you the next: many of which sort there are in the
world, who are not so much courted outwardly, but that inwardly they are detested much more.
Friendship is a kind of covenant; and most covenants run
upon mutual terms and conditions. And therefore, so long
as we are exact in fulfilling the condition on our parts, (I
mean, exact according to the measures of sincerity, though
not of perfection,) we may be sure that Christ will not fail in
the least iota to fulfil every thing on his. The favor of relations, patrons, and princes, is uncertain, ticklish, and vari



JOHNXV. 15.] Of the Love of Christ to his Disciples.  291
able; and the friendship which they take up, upon the accounts of judgment and merit, they most times lay down out
of humor. But the friendship of Christ has none of these
weaknesses, no such hollowness or unsoundness in it. For
neither principalities, nor powers, things present, nor things to
come, no, nor all the rage and malice of hell, shall be able to
pluck the meanest of Christ's friends out of his bosom: for,
whom he loves, he loves to the end.
Now, from the particulars hitherto discoursed of, we may
infer and learn these two things: 1. The excellency and
value of friendship. Christ the Son of the most high God,
the second person in the glorious Trinity, took upon him our
nature, that he might give a great instance and example of
this virtue; and condescended to be a man, only that. he
niight be a friend. Our Creator, our Lord and King, he was
before; but he would needs come down from all this, and in
a sort become our equal, that he might partake of that noble
quality that is properly between equals. Christ took not
upon him flesh and blood that he might conquer and rule
nations; lead armies, or possess palaces; but that he might
have the relenting, the tenderness, and the compassions of
human nature, which render it properly capable of friendship; and, in a word, that he might have our heart, and we
have his. God himself sets friendship above all considerations of kindred or consanguinity, as the greatest ground and
argument of mutual endearment, in Deut. xv. 6: If thy
brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or
the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul,
entice thee to go and serve other gods, thoug shalt not consent unto
him. The emphasis of the expression is very remarkable; it
being a gradation or ascent, by several degrees of dearness,
to that which is the highest of all. Neither wife nor brother,
son nor daughter, though the nearest in cognation, are allowed to stand in competition with a friend; who, if he fully
answers the duties of that great relation, is indeed better
and more valuable than all of them put together, and may
serve instead of them; so that he who has a firm, a worthy,
and sincere friend, may want all the rest, without missing
them. That which lies in a man's bosom should be dear to
him, but that which lies within his heart ought to be much
dearer.




292        Of the Love of Christ to his Disciples. [SERM. XIV.
2. In the next place, we learn from hence the- high advantage of becoming truly pious and religious. When we have
said and done all, it is only the true Christian and the religious person who is or can be sure of a friend; sure of obtaining, sure of keeping him. But as for the friendship of
the world; when a man shall have done all that he can to
make one his friend, employed the utmost of his wit and
labor, beaten his brains, and emptied his purse, to create an
endearment between him and the person whose friendship he
desires, he may, in the end, upon all these endeavors and attempts, be forced to write vanity and frustration: for by them
all he may at last be no more able to get into the other's
heart than he is to thrust his hand into a pillar of brass.
The man's affection, amidst all these kindnesses done him,
remaining wholly unconcerned and impregnable; just like a
rock, which, being plied continually by the waves, still throws
them back again into the bosom of the sea that sent them,
but is not at all moved by any of them.
People at first, while they are young and raw, and softnatured, are apt to think it an easy thing to gain love, and
reckon their own friendship a sure price of another man's.
But when experience shall have once opened their eyes, and
showed them the hardness of most hearts, the hollowness of
others, and the baseness and ingratitude of almost all, they
will then find that a friend is the gift of God; and that he
only, who made hearts, can unite them. For it is he who
creates those sympathies and suitableness of nature, that are
the foundation of all true friendship, and then by his providence brings persons so affected together.
It is an expression frequent in scripture, but infinitely
more significant than at first it is usually observed to be;
namely, that God gave such or such a person grace or favor
in another's eyes. As for instance, in Gen. xxxix. 21, it is
said of Joseph, that the Lord was with him, and gave him
favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. Still it is an
invisible hand from heaven that ties this knot, and mingles
hearts and souls, by strange, secret, and unaccountable conjunctions.
That heart shall surrender itself and its friendship to one
man, at first view, which another has in vain been laying




JOHN XV. 15.] Of the Love of Christ to his Disciples.  293
siege to for many years, by all the repeated acts of kindness
imaginable.
Nay, so far is friendship from being of any human production, that, unless nature be predisposed to it by its own propensity or inclination, no arts of obligation shall be able to
abate the secret hatreds and hostilities of some persons towards others. No friendly offices, no addresses, no benefits
whatsoever, shall ever alter or allay that diabolical rancor
that frets and ferments in some hellish breasts, but that upon
all occasions it will foam out at its foul mouth in slander and
invective, and sometimes bite too in a shrewd turn or a secret
blow. This is true and undeniable upon frequent experience;
and happy those who can learn it at the cost of other men's.
But now, on the contrary, he who will give up his name to
Christ in faith unfeigned, and a sincere obedience to all his
righteous laws, shall be sure to find love for love, and friendship for friendship. The success is certain and infallible;
and none ever yet miscarried in the attempt. For Christ
freely offers his friendship to all, and sets no other rate upon
so vast a purchase, but only that we would suffer him to be
our friend.  Thou perhaps spendest thy precious time in
waiting upon such a great one, and thy estate in presenting
him, and probably, after all, hast no other reward but sometihhes to be smiled upon, and always to be smiled at; and
when thy greatest and most pressing occasions shall call for
succor and relief, then to be deserted and cast off, and not
known.
Now, I say, turn the stream of thy endeavors another way,
and bestow but half that hearty, sedulous attendance upon
thy Saviour in the duties of prayer and mortification, and be
at half that expense in charitable works, by relieving Christ
in his poor members; and, in a word, study as much to
please him who died for thee, as thou dost to court and
humor thy great patron, who cares not for thee, and thou
shalt make him thy friend forever; a friend who shall own
thee in thy lowest condition, speak comfort to thee in all thy
sorrows, counsel thee in all thy doubts, answer all thy wants,
and, in a word, never leave thee, nor forsake thee. But when
all the hopes that thou hast raised upon the promises or supposed kindnesses:of the fastidious and fallacious great ones




294        Of the Love of Christ to his Disciples  [SERM. XIV.
of the world shall fail, and upbraid thee to thy face, he shall
then take thee into his bosom, embrace, cherish, and support
thee, and, as the Psalmist expresses it, he shall guide thee with
his counsel here, and afterwards receive thee into glory.
To which God of his mercy vouchsafe to bring us all; to whom
be rendered and ascribed, &c. Amen.




SERMON XV.
A DISCOURSE AGAINST LONG EXTEMPORARY PRAYERS.
ECCLESIASTES V. 2.- Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to
utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let
thy words befew.
W        E  have here the wisest of men instructing us how to
behave ourselves before God in his own house; and
particularly when we address to him in the most important of
all duties, which is prayer. Solomon had the honor to be
spoken to by God himself, and therefore, in'all likelihood,
none more fit to teach us how to speak to God. A great
privilege certainly for dust and ashes to be admitted to; and
therefore it will concern us to manage it so, that in these our
approaches to the King of heaven, his goodness may not
cause us to forget his greatness, nor (as it is but too usual for
subjects to use privilege against prerogative) his honor suffer
by his condescension.
In the words we have these three things observable:
1st, That whosoever appears in the house of God, and
particularly in the way of prayer, ought to reckon himself,
in a more especial manner, placed in the sight and presence
of God.
2dly, That the vast and infinite distance between God and
him ought to create in him all imaginable awe and reverence
in such his addresses to God.
3dly and lastly, That this reverence required of him is to
consist in a serious preparation of his thoughts, and a sober
government of his expressions: neither is his mouth to be rash,
nor his heart to be hasty, in uttering any thing before God.
These things are evidently contained in the words, and do




296          Against long extempore Prayers.    [SERM. XV.
as evidently contain the whole sense of them. But I shall
gather them all into this one proposition; namely,
That premeditation of thought, and brevity of expression,
are the great ingredients of that reverence that is required to
a pious, acceptable, and devout prayer.
For the better handling of which, we will, in the first place,
consider how, and by what way it is, that prayer works upon,
or prevails with, God, for the obtaining of the things we pray
for. Concerning which, I shall lay down this general rule,
That the way by which prayer prevails with God is wholly
different from that by which it prevails with men. And to
give you this more particularly.
1. First of all, it prevails not with God by way of information or notification of the thing to him, which we desire of
him. With men indeed this is the comlmon, and with wise
men the chief, and should be the only way of obtaining what
we ask of them. We represent and lay before them our wants
and indigences, and the misery of our condition.  Which
being made known to them, the quality and condition of the
thing asked for, and of the persons who ask it, induces them
to give that to us, and to do that for us, which we desire and
petition for: but it is not so in our addresses to God; for he
knows our wants and our conditions better than we ourselves:
he is beforehand with all our prayers; Matt. vi. 8; Your
Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him;
and in Psalm cxxxix. 2, Thou understandest my thought afar
of. God knows our thoughts before the, very heart that conceives them. And how then can he, who is but of yesterday,
suggest any thing new to that eternal mind! how can ignorance inform omniscience!
2dly, Neither does prayer prevail with God by way of persuasion, or working upon the affections, so as thereby to move
him to pity or compassion. This indeed is the most usual
and most effectual way to prevail with men; who, for the generality, are one part reason, and nine parts affection. So
that one of a voluble tongue, and a dexterous insinuatioi, may
do what he will with vulgar minds, and with wise men too,
at their weak times. But God, who is as void of passion or
affection as he is of quantity or corporeity, is not to be dealt
with this way. He values not our rhetoric, nor our patheti



EccLES..: 2.]    Against long extempore Prayers.     297
cal harangues. He who applies to God, applies to an infinite
almighty reason, a pure act, all intellect, the first mover, and
therefore not to be moved or wrought upon himself. In all
passion, the mind suffers, (as the very signification of the
word imports,) but absolute, entire perfection can not suffer;
it is and must be immovable, and by consequence impassible.
And therefore,
In the third and last place, much less is God to be prevailed upon by importunity, and, as it were, wearying him
into a concession of what we beg of him. Though with menl
we know this also is not unusual. A notable instance of
which we have in Luke xviii. 4, 5, where the unjust judge
being with a restless vehemence sued to for justice, says thus
within himself- Though I fear not God, nor regard man, yet
because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her
continual coming she weary me.
In like manner, how often are beggars relieved only for
their eager and rude importunity; not that the person who
relieves them is thereby informed or satisfied of' their real
want, nor yet moved to pity them by all their cry and cant,
but to rid himself from their vexatious noise and din; so that
to purchase his quiet by a little alms he gratifies the beggar,
but indeed relieves himself. But now this way is further from
prevailing with God than either of the former. For as omniscience is not to be informed, so neither is omnipotence to
be wearied. We may much more easily think to clamor the
sun and stars out of their courses than to word the great
Creator of them out of the steady purposes of his own will by
all the vehemence and loudness of our petitions. Men may tire
themselves with their own prayers, but God is not to be tired.
The rapid motion and whirle of things her below interrupts
not the inviolable rest and calmness of the nobler beings
above. While the winds roar and bluster here in the first
and second regions of the air, there is a perfect serenity in
the third. Men's desires can not control God's decrees.
And thus I have shown that the three ways by which men
prevail'with men in their prayers and applications to them,
have no place. at all in giving any efficacy to their addresses
to God.
But you will ask then, Upon what account is it that prayer




298          Against long extempore Prayers.    [SERM.,XV.
becomes prevalent and efficacious with God, so as to procure
us the good things we pray for? I answer, Upon this, that it
is the fulfilling of that condition upon which God has freely
promised to convey his blessings to men. God of his own
absolute, unaccountable good-will and pleasure, has thought
fit to appoint and fix upon this as the means by which he will
supply and answer the wants of mankind. As for instance,
suppose a prince should declare to any one of his subjects,
that if he shall appear before him every morning in his bedchamber, he shall receive of him a thousand talents. We
must not here imagine that the subject, by making this appearance, does either move or persuade his prince to give himnt
such a sum of money: no, he only performs the condition of
the promise, and thereby acquires a right to the thing promised. He does indeed hereby engage his prince to give him
this sum, though he does by no means persuade him: or
rather, to speak more strictly and properly, the prince's own
justice and veracity is an engagement upon the prince himself, to make good his promise to him who fulfills the conditions of it.
But you will say, that upon this ground it will follow, that
when we obtain any thing of God by prayer, we have it upon
claim of justice, and not by way of gift, as a free result of his
bounty.
I answer, that both these are very well consistent; for
though he who makes a promise upon a certain condition is
bound in justice upon the fulfilling of that condition to perform his promise, yet it was perfectly grace and goodness,
bounty and free mercy, that first induced him to make the
promise, and particularly to state the tenor of it upon such a
condition. If we confess our sins, says the apostle, 1 Johni. 9, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. Can any
thing be freer and more the effect of mere grace than the
forgiveness of sins? And yet it is certain from this scripture
and many more, that it is firmly promised us upon condition
of a penitent, hearty confession of them, and consequently as
certain it is that God stands obliged here even by his faithfulness and justice, to make good this his promise of forgiveness to those who come up to the terms of it by such a
confession.




EccLES. v. 2.]    Against long: extempore Prayers.   299!
In like manner, for prayer, in reference to the good things
prayed for. He who prays for a thing as God has appointed
him, gets thereby a right to the thing prayed for: but it is a
right, not springing from any merit or condignity, either in
the prayer itself, or the person who makes it, to the blessing
which he prays for, but from God's veracity, truth, and justice, who, having appointed prayer as the condition of that
blessing, can not but stand to what he himself had appointed;
though that he did appoint it was the free result and determination of his own will.
We have a full account of this whole matter from God's
own mouth, in Psalm 1. Call upon me, says God, in the day.
of trouble, and I will deliver thee. These are evidently the
terms upon which God answers prayers: in which case there:
is no doubt but the deliverance is still of more worth than the'
prayer; and there is as little doubt also, that, without such:
a previous declaration made on God's part, a person so in
trouble or distress might pray his heart out, and yet God not
be in the least obliged by all his prayers, either in justice or
honor, or indeed so much as in mercy, to deliver him; for
-mercy is free, and misery can not oblige it. In a word,
prayer procures deliverance from trouble, just as Naaman's
dipping himself seven times in Jordan procured him a deliverance from his leprosy; not by any virtue in itself adequate
to so great an effect, you may be sure; but from this, that it
was appointed by God as the condition of his recovery; and
so obliged the power of him, who appointed it, to give force
and virtue to his own institution, beyond what the nature of
the thing itself could otherwise have raised it to.
Let- this therefore be fixed upon, as the groundwork of
what we are to say upon this subject: that prayer prevails
with God for the blessing that we pray for, neither by way
of information, nor yet of persuasion, and much less by the
importunity of him who prays, and least of all by any worth
in the prayer itself, equal to the thing prayed for; but it prevails solely and entirely upon this account, that it is freely
appointed by God, as the stated, allowed condition upon which
he will dispense his' blessings to mankind.
But before I dismiss this consideration, it may be inquired,
whence it is that prayer, rather than any other thing, comes




300.Against long extempore Prayers.    [SERM. XV.
to be appointed by God for this condition. In answer to
which; Though God's sovereign will be a sufficient reason
of its own counsels and determinations, and consequently a
more than sufficient answer to all our inquiries, yet, since
God in his infinite wisdom still adapts means to ends, and
never appoints a thing to any use but what it has a particular and a natural fitness for, I shall therefore presume to
assign a reason why prayer, before all other things, should be
appointed to this noble use of being the condition and glorious conduit, whereby to derive the bounties of heaven upon
the sons of men: and it is this; because prayer, of all other
acts of a rational nature, does most peculiarly qualify a man
to be a fit object of the divine favor, by being most eminently
and properly an act of dependence upon God; since to pray,
or beg a thing of another, in the very nature and notion of
it, imports these two things: 1. That the person praying
stands in need of some good, which he is not able by any
power of his own to procure for himself: and, 2. That he acknowledges it in the power and pleasure of the person whom
he prays to, to confer it upon him. And this is properly that
which men call to depend.
But some may reply, There is an universal dependence of
all things upon God; forasmuch as he, being the great fountain and source of being, first created, and- since supports
them by the word of his power; and consequently that this
dependence belongs indifferently to the wicked as well as to
the just, whose prayer nevertheless is declared an abomination
to God.
But to this the answer is obvious, That the dependence
here spoken of is meant, not of a natural, but of a moral
dependence.  The first is necessary, the other voluntary.
The first common to all, the other proper to the pious. The
first -respects God barely as a Creator, the other addresses to
him as: a Father. Now such a dependence upon God it is,
that is properly seen in prayer. And being so, if we should
in all humble reverence set ourselves to examine the wisdom
of the divine proceeding in this matter, even by the measures
of our own reason, what could be more rationally thought of
for the properest instrument to bring down God's blessings
upon the world, than such a temper of mind as makes:a




ECCFs..V. 2.]    Against long extempore Prayers.    301
man disown all ability in himself to supply his own wants,
and at the same time own a transcendent fullness and sufficiency in God to do it for him? And what can be more agreeable to all principles both of reason and religion than that a
creature endued with understanding and will should acknowledge that dependence upon his Maker, by a free act of choice,
which other creatures have upon him, only by necessity of
nature?
But still, there is one objection more against our foregoing
assertion, viz., That prayer obtains the things prayed for, only
as a condition, and not by way of importunity or persuasion;
for is not prayer said to prevail by frequency, Luke xviii. 7,
and by fervency, or earnestness, in James v. 16, and is not this
a fair proof that God is importuned and persuaded into a grant
of our petitions P
To this I answer two things; 1. That wheresoever God is
said to answer prayers, either for their frequency or fervency,
it is spoken of him only avmpwroraOcs, according to the manner of men; and consequently ought to be understood only
of the effect or issue of such prayers, in the success certainly
attending them, and not of the manner of their efficiency,
that it is by persuading or working upon the passions: as if
we should say, frequent, fervent, and importunate prayers
are as certainly followed with God's grant of the thing prayed
for, as men use to grant that which, being overcome by
excessive importunity and persuasion, they can not find in
their hearts to deny. 2. I1 answer further, That frequency
and fervency of prayer prove effectual to procure of God the
things prayed for, upon no other account but as they are acts
of dependence upon God: which dependence we have already
proved to be that thing essentially included in prayer, for
which God has been pleased to make prayer the condition,
upon which he determines to grant men such things as they
need and duly apply to him for. So that still there is nothing
of persuasion in the case.
And thus having shown (and I hope fully and clearly) how
prayer operates towards the obtaining of the divine blessings;
namely, as a condition appointed by God for that purpose, and
no otherwise: and withal, for what reason it is singled out
of all other acts of a rational nature, to be this condition;




302          Against long extempore Prayers.    [SERM. XV.
namely, because it is the grand instance of such a nature's
dependence upon God: we shall now from the same principle
infer also, upon what account the highest reverence of God
is so indispensably required of us in prayer, and all sort of
irreverence so diametrically opposite to, and destructive of,
the very nature of it. And it will appear to be upon this,
that in what degree any one lays aside his reverence of God,
in the same he also quits his dependence upon him: forasmuch as in every irreverent act, a man treats God as if he
had indeed no need of him, and behaves himself as if he stood
upon his own bottom, absolute and self-sufficient. This is the
natural language, the true signification and import of all
irreverence.
Now in all addresses, either to God or man, by speech, our
reverence to them must consist of, and show itself in these
two things:
First, A careful regulation of our thoughts, that are to dictate and to govern our words; which is done by premeditation: and secondly, a due ordering of our words, that are to
proceed from and to express our thoughts; which is done by
pertinence and brevity of expression.
David, directing his prayer to God, joins these two together as the two great integral parts of it, in Psalm xix. 14.
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of my heart,
be acceptable in thy sight, 0 Lord. So that it seems his prayer
adequately and entirely consisted of those two things, meditation and expression, as it were the matter and form of that
noble composure. There being no mention at all of distortion
of face, sanctified grimace, solemn wink, or foaming at the
mouth, and the like; all which are circumstances of prayer
of a later date, and brought into request by those fantastic
zealots who had a way of praying, as astonishing to the eyes,
as to the ears of those that heard them. Well then, the first
ingredient of a pious and reverential prayer is a previous
regulation of the thoughts, as the text expresses it most
emphatically; Let not thy heart be hasty to utter any thing
before God; that is, in other words, let it not venture to
throw  out its crude, extemporary, sudden, and misshapen
conceptions in the face of infinite perfection. Let not thy
heart conceive and bring forth together: this is monstrous




ECCLES. v. 2.]   Against long extempore Prayers.     303
and unnatural. All abortion is from  infirmity and defect.
And time is required to form the issue of the mind, as well
as that of the body. The fitness or unfitness of the first
thoughts can not be judged of but by reflection of the second: and be the invention never so fruitful, yet in the mind,
as in the earth, that which is cast into it must lie hid and
covered for a while, before it can be fit to shoot forth. These
are the methods of nature, and it is seldom but the acts of
religion conform to-them.
He who is to pray, would he seriously judge of the work
that is before him, has more to consider of than either his
heart can hold, or his head well turn itself to. Prayer is
one of the greatest and the hardest works that a man has to
do in this world; and was ever any thing difficult or glorious
achieved by a sudden cast of a thought P a flying stricture
of the imagination P Presence of mind is indeed good, but
haste is not so. And therefore, let this be concluded upon,
that in the business of prayer, to pretend to reverence when
there is no premeditation, is both impudence and contradiction.
Now this premeditation ought to respect these three things:
1. The person whom we pray to; 2. The matter of our prayers;
and 3. The order and disposition of them.
1. And first, for the person whom we pray to. The same
is to employ, who must needs also nonplus and astonish thy
meditations, and be made the object of thy thoughts, who
infinitely transcends them. For all the knowing and reasoning faculties of the soul are utterly baffled and at a loss when
they offer at any idea of the great God. Nevertheless, since
it is hard, if not impossible, to imprint an awe upon the affections, without suitable notions first formed in the apprehensions, we must in our prayers endeavor at least to bring these
as near to God as we can, by considering such of his divine
perfections as have, by their effects, in a great measure, manifested themselves to our senses, and, in a much greater, to
the discourses of our reason.
As first; consider with thyself how great and glorious a
Being that must needs be, that raised so vast and beautiful a
fabric as this of the world out of nothing with the breath
of his mouth, and can and will, with the same, reduce it to




304          Against long extempore Prayers.    [SERM. XV.
nothing again; and then consider that this is that high,
amazing, incomprehensible Being whom thou addressest thy
pitiful self to in prayer.
Consider next, his infinite, all-searching knowledge, which
looks through and through the most secret of our thoughts,
ransacks every corner of the heart, ponders the most inward
designs and ends of the soul in all a man's actions. And
then consider, that this is the God whom thou hast to deal
with in prayer; the God who observes the postures, the frame
and motion of thy mind in all thy approaches to him, and
whose piercing eye it is impossible to elude or escape by all
the tricks and arts of the subtilest and most refined hypocrisy.
And lastly, consider the great, the fiery, and the implacable
jealousy that he has for his honor; and that he has no other
use of the whole creation, but to serve the ends of it: and,
above all, that he will, in a most peculiar manner, be honored
of those who draw near to him; and will by no means suffer
himself to be mocked and affronted, under a pretense of being
worshiped; nor endure that a wretched, contemptible, sinful
creature, who is but a piece of living dirt at best, should at
the same time bend the knee to him, and spit in his face.
And now consider, that this is the God whom thou prayest to,
and whom thou usest with such intolerable indignity in every
unworthy prayer thou puttest up to him; every bold, saucy,
and familiar word that (upon confidence of being one of God's
elect) thou presumest to debase so great a majesty with: and
for an instance of the dreadful curse that attends such a
daring irreverence, consider how God used Nadab and Abihu
for venturing to offer strange fire before him; and then know,
that every unhallowed, unfitting prayer is a strange fire; a
fire that will be sure to destroy the offering, though mercy
should spare the offerer.  Consider these things seriously,
deeply, and severely, till the consideration of them affects thy
heart, and humbles thy spirit, with such awful apprehensions
of thy Maker, and such abject reflections upon thyself, as
may lay thee in the dust before him: and know, that the
lower thou fallest, the higher will thy prayer rebound; and
that thou art never so fit to pray to God as when a sense of
thy own unworthiness makes thee ashamed even to speak to
him.




ECCLES. v. 2.]   Against long extemzpore Prayers.       305
2. The second object of our premeditation is, the matter
of our prayers. For, as we are to consider whom we are to
pray to, so are we to consider also what we are to pray for;
and this requires no ordinary application of thought to distinguish or judge of. Men's prayers are generally dictatedby their- desires, and their desires are the issues of their
affections; and their affections are, for the most part, influenced by their corruptions. The first constituent principle
of a well-conceived prayer is, to know what not to pray for:
which the scripture assures us that some do not, while they
pray for what they may spend upon their lusts, James iv. 3, asking such things as it is a contumely to God to hear, and damnation to themselves to receive. No man is to pray for any
thing either sinful, or directly tending to sin. No man is to
pray for a temptation, and much less to desire God to be his
tempter; which he would certainly be, should he, at the instance of any man's prayer, administer fuel to his sinful or
absurd appetites. Nor is ally one to ask of God things mean
and trivial, and beneath the majesty of Heaven to be concerned about,: or solemnly addressed to for. Nor, lastly, is
any one to admit into his petitions things superfluous or extravagant; such as wealth, greatness, and honor: which we
are so far from being warranted to beg of God, that we are
to beg his grace to despise and undervalue them: and it were
much if the same things should be the proper objects both
of our self-denial and of our prayers too; and that we should
be allowed to solicit the satisfaction, and enjoined to endeavor
the mortification, of the same desires.
The things that we are to pray for are either, 1st, Things
of absolute necessity; or, 2dly, Things of unquestionable charity.  Of the first sort are all spiritual graces required in us,
as the indispensable conditions of our salvation; such as are,
repentance, faith, hope, charity, temperance, and all other
virtues that are either the parts or principles of a pious life.
These are to be the prime subject-matter of our prayers; and
we shall: find that nothing comes this way so easily from
heaven as those things that will assuredly bring us to it.
The spirit dictates all such' petitions): and God himself is first
the author, and then the fulfiller of them; owning and accepting them, both as our duty and his own production.  The
VOL. 1.           20




306          Against long extempore Prayers.    [SERM. XV
other sort of things that may allowably -be prayed for, are
things of manifest, unquestionable charity: such as are a
competent measure of the innocent comforts of life, as health,
peace, maintenance, and a success of our honest labors: and
yet even these but conditionally, and with perfect resignation
to the will and wisdom of the sovereign disposer of all that
belongs to us; who (if he finds it more for his honor to have
us serve him with sick, crazy, languishing bodies; with poverty, and extreme want of all things; and lastly, with our
country all in a flame about our ears) ought, in all this, and
much more, to overrule our prayers and desires into an absolute acquiescence in his all-wise disposal of things; and to
convince us that our prayers, are sometimes best answered
when our desires are most opposed.
In fine, to state the whole matter of our prayers in one
word; Nothing can be fit for us to pray for, but what is fit
and honorable for our great mediator and master of requests,
Jesus Christ himself, to intercede for.  This is to be the
unchangeable rule and measure of all our petitions. And
then, if Christ is to convey these our petitions. to his Father,
can any one dare to make him, who was holiness and purity
itself, an advocate and solicitor for his lusts P Him, who was
nothing but meekness, lowliness, and humility, his providetore for such things as can only feed his pride and flush his
ambition P No, certainly; when we come as suppliants to the
throne of grace, where Christ sits as intercessor at God's right
hand, nothing can be fit to proceed out of our mouth but
what is fit to pass through his.
3dly, The third and last thing that calls for a previous
meditation to our prayers is, the order and disposition of
them; for though God does not command us to set off our
prayers with dress and artifice, to flourish it in trope and
metaphor, to beg our daily bread in blank verse, or to show
any thing of the poet in our devotions but indigence and
want; I say, though God is far from requiring such things of
us in our prayers, yet he requires that we should manage
them with sense and reason. Fineness is not expected, but
decency is; and though we can not declaim as orators, yet he
will have us speak like men, and tender him the results of
that understanding and judgment that essentially constitute
a rational nature.




ECCLES. v. 2.]    Against long extempore Prayers.       307
But I shall briefly cast what I have to say upon this particular into these following assertions:
1st, That nothing can express our reverence to God in
prayer, that would pass for irreverence towards a great man.
Let any subject tender his prince a petition fraught with nonsense and incoherence, confusion and impertinence, and can
he expect that majesty should answer it with any thing but a
deaf ear, a frowning eye, or, (at best,) vouchsafe it any other
reward but, by a gracious oblivion, to forgive the person, and
forget the petition P
2dly, Nothing absurd and irrational, and such as a wise
man would despise, can be acceptable to God in prayer.  Solomon expressly tells us in Ecclesiastes v. 4, that God has no
pleasure in fools; nor is it possible that an infinite wisdom
should. The scripture all along expresses sin and wickedness
by the name of folly; and therefore certainly folly is too near
of kin to it to find any approbation from God in so great a
duty: it is the simplicity of the heart, and not of the, head,
that is the best inditer of our petitions. That which proceeds
from the latter is undoubtedly the sacrifice of fools; and God
is never more weary of sacrifice than when a fool is the priest,
and folly the oblation.
3dly and lastly, Nothing rude, slight, and careless, or indeed less than the very best that a man can offer, can be
acceptable or pleasing to God in prayer.  If ye offer the blind
for sacrifice, is it not evil?  If ye ofer the lame and the sick,
is it not evil?  Offer it now to thy governor, and see whether he
will be pleased with thee, or accept thy person, saith the Lord
of hosts. Malachi i. 8. God rigidly expects a return of his
own gifts; and where he has given ability, mwi1 be served by
acts proportionable to it. And he who has parts to raise and
propagate his own honor by, but none to employ in the:worship of him that gave them, does (as I may so express it)
refuse to wear God's livery in his own service, adds sacrilege
to profaneness, strips and starves his devotions, and, in a
word, falls directly under the dint of that curse,denounced
in the last verse of the first of Malachi, Cursed be the deceiver,
that hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth to the
Lord a corrupt thing.  The same is here, both the deceiver
and the deceived too; for God very well knows what he gives




308:          Against long extempore Prayers.    [SERM. XV.
men, and why; and where'he has bestowed judgment, learning, and utterance, will not. endure that men should be accurate in their discourse, and loose in their devotions; or
think that the great author of every good and perfect gift will
be put off with ramble, and confused talk, babble, and tautology.
And thus much for the order and disposition of our
prayers, which certainly requires precedent thought and meditation. God has'declared himself the God of order in all
things; and will have it observed in what he commands
others, as well as in what he does himself.  Order.is the
great rule or art by which God made the world, and by which
he still governs it: nay, the world itself is nothing else; and
all this glorious system.of things is but the chaos put into
order: and how. then can God, who has so eminently.owned
himself concerned for this excellent.thing, brook such absurdity and confusion as the slovenly and profane negligence of.
some' treats him with in their most solemn addresses to him P
All which' is the natural unavoidable consequent of. unpreparedness: and want of premeditation; without which, whosoever.presumes to pray can not be so properly said to approach
to, as to break in upon God. And surely he who is so hardy
as to do so, has no reason in the earth to expect that the success which follows. his prayers should be greater than the
preparation that goes before them.
Now from what has -been hitherto', discoursed of, this first
and.grand qualification of a pious and devout prayer, to wit,
premeditation of thought, what can be so naturally and so
usefully inferred, as the high expediency, or rather the absolute necessity of a set form of prayer to guide our devotions
by:We. have lived in an age that has despised, contradicted,
and,counteracted all the principles and practices of the primitive Christians, in taking the measures of their duty both to
God: and man, and of,their behavior both in matters civil
and religious;. but in nothing more scandalously than in their
vile abuse. of, the.. great. duty of prayer; concerning which,
though it may:with the clearest truth be affirmed, that there
has been no church yet of any account in the Christian world,
but what has governed its public worship of God by a liturgy
or set'form of prayer; yet these:enthusiastic innovators,




ECCLES. v. 2.]   Against long extempore Prayers.     309:
the bold and blind reformers of all antiquity, and wiser than
the whole catholic church besides, introduced into the room
of it a saucy, senseless, extemporary way of speaking to God;
affirming that this was a praying by the Spirit; and that the
use of all set forms was stinting of the Spirit. A pretense, I
confess, popular and plausible enough with such idiots as take
the sound of words for the- sense of them. But for the full
confutation of it, (which, I hope, shall be done both easily and
briefly: too,) I shall advance this one assertion in direct contradiction to that; namely,
That the praying by a set form is not a stinting of the
Spirit; and the praying extempore truly and properly is so.
For the proving and making out of which, we will first
consider, what it is to pray by the Spirit: a thing much talked
of, but not so convenient for the talkers of it, and pretenders
to it, to have it rightly stated and understood. In short, it
includes in it these two things:
Ist, A praying with the heart, which is sometimes called
the spirit, or inward man; and so it is properly opposed to
hypocritical lip-devotions, in which the heart or spirit does
not go along with a man's words.
2dly, It includes in it also a praying according to the rules
prescribed by God's holy Spirit, and held forth to us in his
revealed word, which word was both dictated and confirmed
by this Spirit; and so it is opposed to the praying unlawfully,
or unwarrantably; and that either in respect of:the matter or
manner of our prayers. As, -when we desire of God such
things, or in such a way, as the Spirit of God, speaking in his
holy word, does by no means warrant or approve of. So that
to pray by the Spirit, signifies neither more nor less but to
pray knowingly, heartily, and affectionately for such things,
and in such a manner, as the Holy Ghost in scripture either
commands or allows of. As for" any other kind of praying by
the Spirit, upon the best inquiry that I can make into these
matters, I can find none. And if some say: (as I know, they
both impudently and blasphemously do) that, to pray by the
Spirit is to have the Spirit immediately inspiring them, and
by - such- inspirati6n speaking within them, and so dictating
their prayers to them, let them either produce:plain scripture,
or do a miracle to prove this by. But till then, he who shall




310          Against long extempore Prayers.    [SERM. XV.
consider what kind of prayers these pretenders to the Spirit
have been notable for, will find that they have as little cause
to father their prayers, as their practices, upon the Spirit of
God..
These two things are certain, and I do particularly recommend them to your observation. One, That this way of
praying by the Spirit, as they call it, was begun and first
brought into use here in England in Queen Elizabeth's days,
by a Popish priest and Dominican fiiar, one Faithful Commin by name; who counterfeiting himself a Protestant, and a
zealot of the highest form, set up this new spiritual way of
praying, with a design to bring the people first to a contempt,
and from thence to an utter hatred and disuse of our common
prayer; which he still reviled as only a translation of the
mass, thereby to distract men's minds, and to divide our
church. And this he did with such success, that we have
lived to see the effects of his. labors in the utter subversion
of church and state. Which hellish negotiation, when this
malicious hypocrite came to Rome to give the pope an account of, he received of.him, (as so notable a service well
deserved,) besides a thousand thanks, two thousand ducats
for his'pains. So that now you see here the original of this
extempore way of praying by the Spirit. The other thing
that I would observe to you is, that in the neighbor nation
of Scotland, one of the greatest * monsters of men that, I
believe, ever lived, and actually in league with the devil, was
yet, by the confession of all that heard him, the most excellent at this extempore way of praying by the Spirit of any
man in his time; none was able to come near him, or to coinpare with him. But surely now, he who shall venture to ascribe the prayers of such a wretch, made up of adulteries,
incest, witchcraft, and other villainies not to be named, to
the Spirit of God, may as well strike in with the Pharisees,
and ascribe the miracles of Christ to the devil. And thus
having shown both what ought to be meant by praying by
the Spirit, and what ought not, can not be meant by it, let
us now see whether a.set form, or this extemporary way, be
the greater hinderer and'stinter of it:- in order to which, I
shall lay down these three assertions:
*- Majobr John Weyer. See Ra~vaillac Rediviv.




ECCLES. v. 2.]    Against long extempore Prayers.    311
lst, That the soul or mind of man is but of a limited nature in all its workings, and consequently can not supply two
distinct faculties at the same time, to the same hight of
operation.
2dly, That the finding words and expressions for prayer is
the proper business of the brain and the invention; and that
the finding devotion and affection to accompany and go along
with those expressions is properly the work and business of
the heart.
3dly, That this devotion and' affection is indispensably required in prayer, as the principal and most essential part of
it, and that in which the spirituality of it does most properly
consist.
Now fronm these three things put together, this must naturally and necessarily follow:- that as spiritual prayer, or praying by the Spirit, taken in the right sense of the word, consists properly in that affection and devotion that the heart
exercises and employs in the work of prayer, so, whatsoever
gives the soul scope and liberty to exercise and employ this
affection and devotion, that does most effectually help and
enlarge the spirit of prayer; and whatsoever diverts the soul
from employing such affection and devotion, that does most
directly stint and hinder it. Accordingly, let this now be our
rule whereby to judge of the efficacy of a set form, and of
the extemporary way in the present business. As for a set
form, in which the words are ready prepared to our hands,
the soul has nothing, to do but to attend to the work of raising the affections and devotions, to go along with those words;
so that all the powers of the soul are took up in applying the
heart to this great duty; and it is the exercise of the heart
(as has been already shown) that is truly and properly a praying by the Spirit. On the contrary, in all extempore prayer,
the powers and faculties of the soul are called off from dealing
with the heart and the affections; and that both in the
speaker and in the hearer; both in him who makes, and in
him who is to join in such prayers.
And first, for the minister who makes and utters such extempore prayers. He is wholly employing his invention, both
to conceive matter, and to find words and' expressions to clothe
it in: this is certainly the work which takes up his mind in




312          Against long extempore Prayers.    [SERM. XV.
this exercise; and since the nature of man's mind is such
that it can not with the same vigor, at the same time, attend
the work of invention and that of raising. the affections also,
nor measure out the same supply of spirits and intention for
the carrying on the operations of the head and those of the
heart too, it is certain that, while the head is so much employed, the heart must be idle and very little employed, and
perhaps not at all; and consequently, if to pray by the Spirit
be to pray with the heart and the affections, it is also as
certain that while a man prays extempore, he does not pray
by the Spirit; nay, the very truth of it is, that while he is so
doing, he is not praying at all, but he is studying; he is beating his brain, while he should be drawing out his affections.
And then for the people that are to hear and join with him
in such prayers; it is manifest that they, not knowing beforehand what the minister will say, must, as soon as they do
hear him, presently busy and bestir their minds both to apprehend and understand the meaning of what they hear; and
withal, to judge whether it be of such a nature as to be fit
for them to join and concur with him in. So that the people
also are, by this course, put to study, and to employ their apprehending and judging faculties, while they should be exerting their affections and devotions; and consequently, by this
means, the spirit of prayer is stinted, as well in the congregation that follows, as in the minister who first conceives a
prayer after. their extempore way: which is a truth so clear,
and indeed self-evident, that it is impossible that it should
need any further arguments to demonstrate or make it out.
The sum of all this is: That, since a set form of prayer
leaves the soul wholly free to employ its affections and devotions, in which the spirit of prayer does most properly consist, it follows, that the spirit of prayer is thereby, in a singular manner, helped, promoted, and enlarged; and since, on
the other hand, the extempore way withdraws and takes off
the soul from employing its affections, and engages it chiefly,
if not wholly, about the use of its invention, it as plainly
follows, that the spirit of prayer is by this means unavoidably
cramped and hindered, and (to' use their own word) stinted:
which was the proposition that I undertook to prove. But
there are two things, I confess, that are extremely hindered




E CLc:S. v. 2.]   Against long extempore Prayers.    313
and stinted by a set form of prayer, and equally furthered
and enlarged by the extempore way; which, without all doubt,
is the true cause why the former is so much decried, and the
latter so much extolled, by the men whom we are now pleading with. The first of which is pride and ostentation; the
other, faction and sedition.
1. And first for pride.- I do not in the least question, but
the chief design of such as use the extempore way is to
amuse the unthinking rabble with an admiration of their
gifts; their whole devotion proceeding from no other principle but only a love to hear themselves talk. And I believe
it would put Lucifer himself hard to it, to outvie the pride of
one of those fellows pouring out his extempore stuff amongst
his ignorant, whining, factious followers, listening to, and
applauding his copious flow and cant with the ridiculous
accents of their impertinent groans. And, the truth is, extempore prayer, even when best and most dexterously performed, is nothing else but a business of invention and wit,
(such as it is,) and requires no more to it but a teeming imagination, a bold front, and a ready expression; and deserves
much the same commendation (were it not in a matter too
serious to be sudden upon) which is due to extempore verses:
only with this difference, that there is necessary to these
latter a competent measure of wit and learning, whereas the
former may be done with very little wit, and no learning at all.
And now,:can any sober person think it reasonable, that the
public devotions of a whole congregation should be under the
conduct and at the mercy of a pert, empty, conceited holderforth, whose chief (if not sole) intent is to vaunt his spiritual
clack, and (as I may so speak) to pray prizes; whereas prayer
is a duty that recommends itself to the acceptance of Almighty God by no other qualification so much as by the profoundest humility, and the lowest esteem that a man can possibly have of himself P
Certainly the extemporizing faculty is never more out of its
element than in the pulpit; though even here it is much
more excusable in a sermon than in a prayer; forasmuch as
in that, a man addresses himself but to men - men like himself, whom he may therefore:make bold with; as no doubt
for so doing they will- also make bold with him. Besides the




314          Against long extempore Prayers.    [SERM. XV.
peculiairadvantage attending all such sudden conceptions,
that, as; they are quickly born, so they quickly die: it being
seldom known, where the speaker has so very fluent an invention, but the hearer also has the gift of as fluent a memory.
2dly, The other thing that has been hitherto so little befriended by a set form of prayer, and so very much by the
extempore way, is faction and sedition. It has been always
found an excellent way of girding at the government in scripture phrase. And we all know the common dialect in which
the great masters of this art used to pray for the king, and
which may justly pass for only a cleanlier and more refined
kind of libelling him in the Lord. As, that God would turn his
heart, and open his eyes: as if he were a pagan yet to be converted to Christianity; with many other sly, virulent, and
malicious insinuations, which we may every day hear of from
(those mints of treason and rebellion) their conventicles; and
for which, and a great deal less, some princes and governments would make them not only eat their words, but the
tongue that spoke them too. In fine, let all their extempore
harangues be considered and duly weighed, and you shall find
a spirit of-pride, faction, and sedition predominant in them
all; the only spirit which those impostors do really and indeed pray by.
I have been so much the longer and the earnester against
this intoxicating, bewitching cheat of extempore prayer,
being fully satisfied in my conscience that it has been all
along the devil's masterpiece and prime engine to overthrow
our church by. For I look upon this as a most unanswerable
truth, that whatsoever renders the public worship of God contemptible amongst us, must, in the same degree, weaken and
discredit our whole religion. And I hope I have also proved
it to be a truth altogether as clear, that this extempore way
naturally brings all the contempt upon the worship of God,
that both the folly and faction of men can possibly expose it
to: and therefore, as a thing neither subservient to the true
purposes of religion, nor grounded upon principles of reason,
nor, lastly, suitable to the practice of antiquity, ought by all
means to be exploded and cast out of every sober and wellordered church; or that will be sure to throw the church
itself, out of doors.




ECCLES. v. 2.]   Against long extempore Prayers.     315
And thus I have at length finished what I had to say of
the first ingredient of a pious and reverential prayer, which
was premeditation of thought, prescribed to us in these words,
Let not thy mouth be rash, nor thy heart be hasty to utter any
thing before God. Which excellent words and most wise advice of Solomon, whosoever can reconcile to the expediency,
decency, or usefulness of extempore prayer, I shall acknowledge him  a man of greater ability and parts of mind than
Solomon himself.
The other ingredient of a reverential and duly qualified
prayer is a pertinent brevity of expression, mentioned and recommended in that part of the text, Therefore let thy words be
few. But this I can not dispatch now, and therefore shall
not enter upon at this time.
Now to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost,
three Persons and one God, be rendered and ascribed, as is
most due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now
and for evermore. Amen.




SERMON XVI.
A DISCOURSE AGAINST LONG AND EXTEMPORE PRAYERS:
IN BEHALF OF THE LITURGY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.
UPON THE SAME TEXT.
-4 —
ECCLESIASTES v. 2. -Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to
uitter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let
thy words be few.
I  FORMERLY began a discourse upon these words, and
observed in them these three things:
1st, That whosoever appears in the house of God, and particularly in the way of prayer, ought to reckon himself, in a
more especial manner, placed in the sight and presence of
God; and,
2dly, That the vast and infinite distance between God and
him ought to create in him, all imaginable awe and reverence
in such his addresses to God.
3dly and lastly, That this reverence required of him is to
consist in a serious preparation of his thoughts, and a sober
government of his expressions: neither is his mouth to be
rash, nor his heart to be hasty in uttering any thing before God.
These three things I show, were evidently contained in
the words, and did as evidently contain the whole sense of
them.  But I gathered them  all into this one proposition;
namely,
That premeditation of thought and brevity of expression
are the great ingredients of that reverence that is required
to a pious, acceptable, and devout prayer.
The first of these, which is premeditation of thought, I
then fully treated of, and dispatched; and shall now proceed:




ECCLES. v. 2.]    Against long extempore Prayers.        317
to the other, which is a pertinent brevity of expression; therefore let thy words be few.
Concerning which we shall observe, first, in general, that
to be able to express our minds briefly, and fully too, is absolutely the greatest perfection and commendation that speech
is capable of;: such a mutual communication of our thoughts
being (as I may so speak) the next approach to intuition, and
the nearest imitation of the converse of blessed spirits made
perfect, that our condition in this world can possibly raise us
to.  Certainly the greatest and the wisest conceptions that
ever issued from the mind of man, have been couched under,
and delivered in, a few, close, home, and significant words.
But, to. derive the credit of this way of speaking much
higher, and from  an example infinitely greater than the
greatest human wisdom, was it not authorized. and ennobled
by God himself in his making of the world? Was not the
work of all the six days transacted in so many words P There
was no circumlocution or amplification in the case; which
makes the rhetorician Longinus, in his book of the Loftiness
of Speech, so much admire the hight and grandeur of Moses's
style in his first chapter of Genesis:'O  ov,'IovSat'wv OEo/oOrETr, ox 6 O vx v dVp. v    "The lawgiver of the Jews," says. he,
(meaning Moses,) " was no ordinary man," ErtL& rTv rTO ~EOv
vYa/ltv Kara iT1V  ~tlav EyvLhptEL Ka4EfivVE'  A" because," says he, "he
set forth the divine power suitably to the "majesty and greatness of it."  But how did he this?  Why; Ev Vs ev Tj d0EioXj
7ypaJa/c asrev VO'Atov, E-rev o ~O", 0crl, 7t ri-; reve"'o0) 0s K'a E7EYETO
yEvEcOO 7, Ka'L EyEvro, &c.; "for that," says he, " in the very
entrance of -his laws he gives us this short and pleasant
account of the whole creation: God said, Let there be light,
and there was light: Let there be an earth,- a sea, and a firmament; and there was so."  So that all this high elogy and
encomium, given by this heathen of Moses, sprang only from
the majestic brevity of this one expression; an expression
so suited to the greatness of a creator, and so expressive
of his boundless, creative power, as a power infinitely above
all control or possibility of finding the least obstacle or delay in achieving its mightiest- and most stupendous works.
Heaven and earth, and: all the host of both, as it were,
dropped from his mouth, and nature itself was but the product




318          Against long extempore Prayers.    [SERM. XVI.
of a word; a word not designed to express, but to constitute
and give a being; and not so much the representation as the
cause of what it signified.
This was God's way of speaking in liis first forming of the
universe: and was it not so in the next grand instance of his
power, his governing of it too P For are not the great instruments of government, his laws, drawn up and digested
into a few sentences; the whole body of them containing but,
ten commandments, and some of those commandments not
so: many words P Nay, and have we not these also brought.
into yet a narrower compass by Himn who best understood;
them P Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,,
and with all thy soul, and thy neighbor as thyself: precepts
nothing like the tedious, endless, confused trash of human
laws; laws so numerous, that they not only exceed men's
practice, but. also surpass their arithmetic; and so voluminous, that no mortal head, nor shoulders neither, must ever
pretend themselves able to bear them. In God's laws, the
words are few, the sense vast and infinite. In human laws,
you shall be sure to have words enough; but, for the most
part, to discern the sense and reason of them, you had need
read them with a microscope.
And thus having shown how the Almighty utters himself.
when he speaks, and that upon the greatest occasions, let us
now descend from heaven to earth, from God to man, and
show that it is no presumption for us to conform our words,
as well as our actions, to the supreme pattern, and, according
to our poor measures, to imitate the wisdom that we adore.
And for this, has it not been noted by the best observers and.
the ablest judges both of things and persons, that the wisdom
of any people or nation has been most seen in the proverbs
and short sayings commonly received amongst them P And
what is a proverb but the experience and observation of
several ages, gathered and summed up into one expression P
The scripture vouches Solomon for the wisest of men: and.
they are his Proverbs that prove him so. The seven wise
men of Greece, so famous for their wisdom all the world over,
acquired all that fame each of them by a single sentence,
consisting of two or three words: and 7yv0&L rcavrov still lives
and flourishes. in the mouths of all, while many vast volumes




ECCLES. v. 2.]   Against long extempore Prayers.     319
are extinct, and sunk into dust and utter oblivion. And then,
for books; we shall generally find,.that the most excellent, in
any art or science, have been still the smallest and most compendious: and this not without ground; for it is an argument that the author was a master of what he wrote, and had
a clear notion and a full comprehension of the subject before
him. For the reason of things lies in a little compass, if
the mind could at any time be so happy as to light upon it.
Most of the writings and discourses in the world are but
illustration and rhetoric, which signifies as much as nothing
to a mind eager in pursuit after the causes and philosophical
truth of things. It is the work of fancy to enlarge, but of
judgment to shorten and contract; and therefore this must
needs be as far above the other, as judgment is a greater and
a nobler faculty than fancy or imagination. All philosophy
is reduced to a few principles, and those principles comprised
in a few propositions. And as the whole structure of speculation rests upon three or four axioms or maxims, so that of
practice also bears upon a very small number of rules. And
surely there was never yet any rule or maxim that filled a
volume, or took up a week's time to be got by heart. No,
these are the apices rerum, the tops and sums, the very spirit
and life of things extracted and abridged; just as all the
lines drawn from the vastest circumference do at length meet
and unite in the smallest of things, a point: and it is but a
very little piece of wood with which a true artist will measure all the timber in the world. The truth is, there could
be no such thing as art or science, could not the mind of man
gather the general natures of things out of the numberless
heap of particulars, and then bind them up into such short
aphorisms or propositions; that so they may be made portable to the memory, and thereby become ready and at hand
for the judgment to apply and make use of, as there shall be
occasion.
In fine, brevity and succinctness of speech is that which
in philosophy or speculation we call maxim, and first principle:
in the counsels and resolves of practical wisdom, and the
deep mysteries of religion,, oracle; and lastly, in matters of
wit, and the finenesses of imagination, epigram. All of them,
severally and in their kinds, the greatest and the noblest




320          Against long extempore Prayers.   [SERM. XVI.
things that the mind of man can show the force and dexterity
of its faculties in.
And now, if this be the highest excellency and perfection
of speech in all other things, can we assign any true, solid
reason why it should not be so likewise in prayer?  Nay, is
there not rather the clearest reason imaginable why it should
be much more so; since most of the forementioned things
are but addresses to an human understanding, which may
need as many words as may fill a volume, to make it understand the truth of one line P whereas prayer is an address
to that eternal mind which, as we have shown before, such as
rationally invocate pretend not to inform. Nevertheless, since
the nature of man is such, that, while we are yet in the body,
our reverence and worship of God must of necessity proceed in
some analogy to the reverence that we show to the grandees
of this world, we will here see what the judgment of all wise
men is concerning fewness of words, when we appear as suppliants before our earthly superiors; and we shall find that
they generally allow it to import these three things: 1. Modesty; 2. Discretion; and 3dly, Hight of respect to the person addressed to. And first, for modesty. Modesty is a kind
of shame or bashfulness,:proceeding from the sense a man
has of his own defects, compared with the perfections of him
whom he comes before. And that which is modesty towards
men, is worship and devotion towards God.  It is a virtue
that makies a man unwilling to be seen, and fearful to be
heard; and yet, for that very cause, never fails to make him
both seen with favor, and heard with attention. It loves not
many words, nor indeed needs them. For modesty, addressing to any one of a generous worth and honor, is sure to have
that man's honor for its advocate, and his generosity for its
intercessor. And how then is it possible for such a virtue to
run out into words P Loquacity storms the ear, but modesty
takes the heart; that is troublesome, this gentle but irresistible. Much speaking is always the effect of confidence; and
confidence still presupposes, and springs from, the persuasion
that a man has of his own worth: both of them certainly very
unfit qualifications for a petitioner.
2dly, The second thing that naturally shows itself in paucity of words is, discretion; and particularly that prime and.




E'CLES. v. 2.]   Against long extempore Prayers.     321
eminent part of it, that consists in a care of offending: which
Solomon assures us, that in much speaking it is hardly possible for us to avoid; in Prov. x. 19, In the multitude of words,
says he, there wanteth not sin. It requiring no ordinary skill
for a man to make his tongue run by rule, and, at the same
time, to give it both its lesson and its liberty too. For seldom
or never is there much spoke, but something or other had
better been not spoke; there being nothing that the mind
of man is so apt to kindle and take distaste at as at words:
and therefore, whensoever any one comes to prefer a suit to
another, no doubt the fewer of them the better; since, where
so very little is said, it is sure to be either candidly accepted,
or, which is next, easily excused: but at the same time to
petition and to provoke too, is certainly very preposterous.
3dly, The third thing that brevity of speech commends
itself by in all petitionary addresses is, a peculiar respect to
the person addressed to: for whosoever petitions his superior
in such a manner, does, by his very so doing, confess him
better able to understand than he himself can be to express
his own case. He owns him as a patron of a preventing
judgment and goodness, and, upon that account, able, not
only to answer, but also to anticipate his requests. For, according to the most natural interpretation of things, this is to
ascribe to him a sagacity so quick and piercing, that it were
presumption to inform; and a benignity so great, that it were
needless to importune him. And calln there be a greater and
more winning deference to a superior than to treat him
under such a character P  Or can any thing be imagined so
naturally fit and efficacious, both to enforce the petition and
to endear the petitioner? A short petition to a great man
is not only a suit to him for his favor, but also a panegyric
upon his parts.
And thus I have given you the three commendatory qualifications of brevity of speech in our applications to the great
ones of the world. Concerning which, as I showed before
that it was impossible for us to form our addresses, even to
God himself, but with some proportion and resemblance to
those that we make to our fellow-mortals in a condition much
above us, so it is certain, that whatsoever the general judgment and consent of mankind allows to be expressive and
VOL. I.         21




322          Against long extempore, Prayers.   [SERM. XVI.
declarative of our honor to those, must (only with due allowance of the difference of the object) as really and properly
declare and signify that honor and adoration that is due from
us to the great God. And, consequently, what we have said
for brevity of speech with respect to the former, ought equally
to conclude for it with relation to him too.
But to argue more immediately and directly to the point
before us, I shall now produce five arguments, enforcing brevity, and cashiering all prolixity of speech, with peculiar reference to our addresses to God.
1. And the first argument shall be taken from this consideration, That there is no reason allegeable for the use of
length or prolixity of speech, that is at all applicable to prayer.
For whosoever uses multiplicity of words, or length of discourse, must of necessity do it for one of three purposes:
either to inform, or persuade; or, lastly, to weary and overcome the person whom he directs his discourse to. But the
very first foundation of what I had to say upon this subject
was laid by me in demonstrating that prayer could not possibly prevail with God any of these three ways. Forasmuch
as, being omniscient, he could not be informed; and, being
void of passion or affections, he could not be persuaded; and,
lastly, being omnipotent and infinitely great, he could not,
by any importunity, be wearied or overcome. And if so, what
use then can there be of rhetoric, harangue, or multitude of
words in prayer? For, if they should be designed for information, must it not be infinitely sottis~ and unreasonable to
go about to inform him, who can be ignorant of nothing?
Or to persuade him, whose unchangeable nature makes it
impossible for him to be moved or wrought upon P Or, lastly,
by long and much speaking, to think to weary him out, whose
infinite power all the strength of men and angels, and the
whole world put together, is not able to encounter or stand
before P So that the truth is, by loquacity and prolixity of
prayer, a man does really and indeed (whether he thinks so
or no) rob God of the honor of those three great attributes,
and neither treats him as a person omniscient, or unchangeable, or omnipotent: for, on the_ other side, all the usefulness
of long speech, in human converse, is founded only upon the
defects and imperfections of human nature. For he, whose




EccLEs. v. 2.]   Against long extempore Prayers.    323
knowledge is at best but limited, and whose' intellect, both in
apprehending and judging, proceeds by a small diminutive
light, can not but receive an additional light by the conceptions of another man, clearly and plainly expressed, and by
such expression conveyed to his apprehension. And he again,
whose nature subjects him to want and weakness, and consequently to hopes and fears, can not but be moved this way
or.that way, according as objects suitable to those passions
shall be dexterously represented and set before his imagination, by the arts of speaking; which is that that we call
persulasion. And lastly, he whose soul and body receive their
activity from, and perform all their functions by, the mediation of the spirits, which ebb and flow, consume, and are
renewed again, can not but find himself very uneasy upon
any tedious, verbose application made to him; and that sometimes to such a degree, that, through mere fatigue, and even
against judgment and interest both, a man shall surrender
himself, as a conquered person, to the overbearing vehemence
of such solicitations: for when they ply him so fast, and pour
in upon him so thick, they can not but wear and waste the
spirits, as unequal to so pertinacious a charge; and this is
properly to weary a man. But now all weariness, we know,
presupposes weakness; and consequently, every long, importune, wearisome petition is truly and properly a force upon
him that is pursued with it; it is a following blow after blow
upon the mind and affections, and may, for the time, pass for
a real, though short persecution.
This is the state and condition of hurnan nature; and prolixity or importunity of speech is still the great engine to
attack it by, either in its blind or weak side: and I thini~ I
may venture to affirm, that it is seldom that any man is prevailed upon by words; but, upon a true and philosophical
estimate of the whole matter, he is either deceived or wearied
before he is so, and parts with the thing desired of him upon
the very same terms that either a child parts with a jewel for
an apple, or a man parts with his sword, when it is forcibly
wrested or took from him. And that he who obtains what
he has been rhetorically or importunately begging'for, goes
away really a conqueror, and triumphantly carrying off the
spoils of his neighbor's understanding, or his will; baffling




324          Against long extempore Prayers.    [SERM. XVI.
the former,%or wearying the latter, into a grant of his restless
petitions.
And now, if this be the case, when any one comes with a
tedious, long-winded harangue to God, may not God properly answer him with those words in Psalm  1. 21, Surely
thou thinkest I am altogether such an one as thyself? And perhaps, upon a due and rational examination of all the follies
and indecencies that men are apt to be guilty of in prayer,
they will be all found resolvable into this one thing, as the
true and sole cause of them; namely, That men, when they
pray, take God to be such an one as themselves; and so treat
him accordingly. The malignity and mischief of which gross
mistake may reach further than possibly at first they can
well be aware of. For if it be idolatry to pray to God the
Father, represented under the shape of a man, can it be at
all better to pray to him as represented under the weakness
of a man? Nay, if the misrepresentation of the object makes
the idolatry; certainly, by how much the worse and more
scandalous the misrepresentation is, by so much the grosser
and more intolerable must be the idolatry.  To confirm
which, we may add this consideration, that Christ himself,
even now in his glorified estate in heaven, wears the body,
and consequently the shape, of a man, though he is far from
any of his infirmities or imperfections: and therefore, no
doubt, to represent God to ourselves under these latter must
needs be more absurd and irreligious than to represent him
under the former.. But to one particular of the preceding
discourse some may reply and object, that, if God's omniscience, by rendering it impossible for him to be informed,
be a sufficient reason against prolixity, or length of prayer,
it will follow, that it is equally a reason against the using any
words at all in prayer, since the proper use of words is to inform the person whom we speak to; and consequently, where
information is impossible, words must needs be useless and
superfluous.
To which I answer, first by concession, That, if the sole
use of words or speech were to inform the person whom we
speak to, the consequence would be firm and good, and
equally conclude against the use of any words at all in
prayer.  But therefore, in -the second place, I deny infor



ECCLES. v. 2.]   Against long extempore Prayers.   325
mation to be the sole and adequate use of words or speech, or
indeed any use of them at all, when either the person spoken
to needs not to be informed, and withal is known not to need
it, as sometimes it falls out with men: or, when he is incapable of being informed, as it is always with God.. But
the proper use of words, whensoever we speak to God in
prayer, is thereby to pay him  honor and obedience. God
having, by an express precept, enjoined us the use of words
in prayer, commanding us in Psalm 1. 15, and many other
scriptures, to call upon hinm: and in Luke xi. 21, When we
pray, to say, Our Father, &c.  But nowhere has he commanded us to do this with prolixity, or multiplicity of words.
And though it must be confessed, that we may sometimes
answer this command of calling upon God, and saying, Our
Father, &c., by mental or inward prayer, yet, since these
words, in their first and most proper signification, import a
vocal address, there is no doubt but the direct design of the
command is to enjoin this also, wheresoever there is ability
and power to perform it. So that we see here the necessity
of vocal prayer, founded upon the authority of a divine precept; whereas, for long prolix prayer, no such precept can
be produced; and consequently, the divine omniscience may
be a sufficient reason against multiplicity of words in prayer,
and yet conclude nothing simply or absolutely against the
bare use of them. Nevertheless, that we may not seem to
allege bare command, unseconded by reason, (which yet, in
the divine commands, it is impossible to do,) there is this
great reason for, and use of, words in prayer, without the
least pretense of informing the person whom we pray to; and
that is, to acknowledge and own those wants before God that
we supplicate for a relief of. It being very proper and rational to own and acknowledge a thing, even to him who
knew it before; forasmuch as this is so far from offering to
communicate or make known to him the thing so acknowledged, that it rather presupposes in him  an antecedent
knowledge of it, and comes inonly as a subsequent assent
and subscription to the reality and truth of such a knowledge. For to acknowledge a thing, in the first sense of the
word, does by no means signify a design of notifying that
thing to another, but is truly and properly a man's passing




326          Against long extempore Prayers.   [SERM. XVI.
sentence upon himself and his own condition: there being no
reason in the world for a man to expect that God should relieve and supply those wants that he himself will not own nor
take notice of; any more than for a man to hope for a pardon
of those sins that -he can not find in his heart to confess,
And yet, I suppose, no man in his right senses does or can
imagine, that God is informed or brought to the knowledge
of those sins by-any such confession.
And so much for the clearing of this objection; and, in the
whole, for the first argument produced by us for brevity, and
against prolixity of prayer; namely, That all the reasons that
can be assigned for prolixity of speech in our converse with
men cease, and become no reasons for it at all, when we are
to speak or pray to God.
2dly, The second argument for paucity of words in prayer
shall be taken from the paucity of those things that are necessary to be prayed for. And surely, where few things are
necessary, few words should be sufficient.  For where the
matter is not commensurate to the words, all speaking is but
tautology; that being truly and really tautology where the
same thing is repeated, though under never so much variety
of expression; as it is but the same man still, though he appears every day or every hour in a new and different suit of
clothes.
The adequate subject of our prayers (I showed at first)
comprehended in it things of necessity and things of charity.
As to the first of which, I know nothing absolutely necessary
but grace here and glory hereafter. And for the other, we
know what the Apostle says, 1 Tim. vi. 8; Having food and
raiment, let us be therewith content. Nature is satisfied with
a little, and grace with less. And now, if the matter of our
prayers lies within so narrow a compass, why should the dress
and outside of them spread and diffuse itself into so wide
and disprop6rtioned a largeness P by reason of which our
words will be forced to hang loose and light, without any
matter to support them; much after the same rate that it is
said to be in transubstantiation, where accidents are left in
the lurch by their proper subject, that gives them the slip,
and so leaves those poor slender beings to uphold and shift for
themselves.




EccLES. v. 2.]   Against long extempore Prayers.     327
Ill brevity of speech, a man does not so much speak words
as things; things in their precise and naked truth, and
stripped of their rhetorical mask and their fallacious gloss;
and therefore in Athens they circumscribed the pleadings of
their orators by a strict law, cutting off prologues and epilogues, and commanding them to an' immediate representation of the case, by an impartial and succinct declaration of
mere matter of fact. And this was, indeed, to speak things
fit for. a judge to hear, because it argued the pleader also a
judge of what was fit for him to speak.
And now, why should not this be both decency and devo.
tion too, when we come to plead for our poor souls before
the great tribunal of heaven P It was the saying of Solomon,
A word to the wise; and if so, certainly there can be no necessity of many words to Him who is wisdom itself. For can
any man think that God delights to hear him make speeches,
and to show his parts, (as the word is,) or to jumble a multitude of misapplied scripture-sentences together, interlarded
with a frequent, nauseous repetition of " Ah Lord!" which
some call exercising their gifts, but with a greater exercise of
their hearers' patience P Nay, does not he present his Maker,
not only with a more decent, but also a more free and liberal
oblation, who tenders him much in a little, and brings him
his whole heart and soul wrapt up in three or four words,
than he who, with full mouth and loud lungs, sends up whole
volleys of articulate breath to the throne of grace P  For
neither in the esteem of God or man ought multitude of words
to pass for any more. In the present case, no doubt, God accounts and accepts of the former, as infinitely a more valuable
offering than the latter. As that subject pays a prince a
much nobler and more acceptable tribute, who tenders him a
purse of gold, than he who brings him a whole cart-load of
farthings, in which there is weight without worth, and number without account.
3dly, The third argument for brevity, or contractedness of
speech in prayer, shall be taken from the very nature and
condition of the person who prays; which makes it impossible for him to keep up the same fervor and attention in a
long prayer, that he may in a short. For as I first observed,
that the mind of man can not with the same force and vigor




328           Against long extempore Prayers.    [SERM.XVI.
attend to several objects at the same time, so neither can it
with the same force and earnestness exert itself upon one and
the same: object for any long  time: great intention of mind
spending the spirits too fast to continue its first freshness
and agility long. For while the soul is a retainer to the
elements, and a sojourner in the body, it must be content to
submit its own quickness and spirituality to the dullness of its
vehicle, and to comply with the pace of its inferior companion.
Just like a man shut up in a coach, who, while he is so, must
be willing to go no faster than the motion of the coach will
carry him. He who does all by the help of those subtile, refined parts of matter, called spirits, must not think to persevere at the same pitch of acting while those principles of
activity flag. No man begins and ends a long journey with
the samne pace.
But now, when prayer has lost its due fervor and attention,
(which indeed are the very vitals of it,) it is but the carcass
of a prayer, and consequently must needs be loathsome and
offensive to God: nay, though the greatest part of it should
be enlivened and carried on with an actual attention, yet, if
that attention fails to enliven any one part of it, the whole is
but a joining of the living and the dead together; for which
conjunction the dead is not at all the better, but the living
very much the worse. It is not length, nor copiousness of
language, that is devotion, any more than bulk and bigness is
valor, or flesh the measure of the spirit. A short sentence
may be oftentimes a large and a mighty prayer. Devotion so
managed being like water in a well, where you have fullness
in a little compass; which surely is much nobler than the
same carried out into many petit, creeping rivulets, with
length and shallowness together. Let him who prays bestow
all that strength, fervor, and attention upon shortness and
significance, that would- otherwise run out and lose itself in
length and luxuriancy of speech to no purpose. Let not his
tongue outstrip his heart, nor presume to carry a message to
the throne of grace, while that stays behind. Let him not
think to support so hard and weighty a duty with a tired,
languishing, and bejaded devotion: to avoid which, let a man
contract his expression, where he can not enlarge his affection; still remembering that nothing can be more absurd in




EccLEEs. v.2.]   Against long extempore Prayers.    329
itself, nor more unacceptable to God, than for one engaged
in the great work of prayer to hold on speaking, after he has
left off praying, and to keep the lips at work when the spirit
can do no more.
4thly, The fourth argument for shortness or conciseness of
speech in prayer shall be drawn from this, That it is the
most natural and lively way of expressing the utmost agonies
and outcries of the soul to God upon a quick, pungent sense,
either of a pressing necessity, or an approaching calamity;
which, we know, are generally the chief occasions of prayer,
and the most effectual motives to bring men upon their knees
in a vigorous application of themselves to this great duty. A
person ready to sink under his wants has neither time nor
heart to rhetoricate or make flourishes. No man begins a
long grace when he is ready to starve: such an one's prayers
are like the relief he needs, quick and sudden, short and immediate: he is like a man in torture upon the rack; whose
pains are too acute to let his words be many, and whose desires of deliverance too impatient to delay the things he begs
for by the manner of his begging it.
It is a common saying, "If a man does not know how to
pray, let him go to sea, and that will teach him." And we
have a notable instance of what kind of prayers men are
taught in that school, even in the disciples themselves, when
a storm arose, and the sea raged, and the ship was ready to
be cast away, in the eighth of Matthew. In which case we
do not find that they fell presently to harangue it about seas
and winds, and that dismal face of things that must needs
appear all over the devouring element at such a time: all
which, and the like, might no doubt have been very plentiful
topics of eloquence to a man who should have looked upon
these things from the shore, or discoursed of wrecks and
tempests safe and warm  in his parlor.  But these poor
wretches, who were now entering, as they thought, into the
very jaws of death, struggling with the last efforts of nature
upon the sense of a departing life, and consequently could
neither speak nor think any thing low or ordinary in such a
condition, presently rallied up, and discharged the whole concern of their desponding souls in that short prayer of but
three words, though much fuller and more forcible than one




330          Against long extempore Prayers.    [SERM. XVI.
of three thousand, in the 25th verse of the forementioned
chapter; Save us, Lord, or we perish. Death makes short
work when it comes, and will teach him who would prevent
it to make shorter. For surely no man who thinks himself
a-perishing can be at leisure to be eloquent, or judge it either
sense or devotion to begin a long prayer, when, in all likelihood, he shall conclude his life before it.
5thly, The fifth and last argument that I shall produce for:brevity of speech, or fewness of words in prayer, shall be
taken from the examples which we find in scripture, of such
as have been remarkable for brevity, and of such as have been
noted for prolixity of speech, in the discharge of this duty.
I. And first for brevity. To omit all those notable examples which the Old Testament affords us of it, and to confine
ourselves only to the New, in which we are undoubtedly most
concerned; was not this way of praying not only warranted
but sanctified, and set above all that the wit of man could
possibly except against it, by that infinitely exact form of
prayer prescribed by the greatest, the holiest, and the wisest
man that ever lived, even Christ himself, the.Son of God and
Saviour of the world?  Was it not an instance both of the
truest devotion and the fullest and most comprehensive reason
that ever proceeded from the mouth of man P and yet, withal,
the shortest and most succinct model that ever grasped all the
needs and occasions of mankind, both spiritual and temporal,
into so small a compass P Doubtless, had our Saviour thought
fit to amplify or be prolix, He, in whom were hid all the treasures of wisdom, could not want matter; nor he who was himself the Word, want variety of the fittest to have expressed
his mind by. But he chose rather to contract the whole concern of both worlds into a few lines, and to unite both heaven
and earth in his prayer, as he had done before in his person.
And indeed one was a kind of copy or representation of the
other.
So then we see here brevity in the rule or pattern; let us
see it next in the practice; and, after that, in the success of
prayer. And first, we have the practice, as well as the pattern of it, in our S'aviour himself; and that.in the most signal passage of his whole life, even his preparation for his approaching death. In which dolorous scene, when his whole




EccIa. v. 2.]    Against long extempore Prayers.       331
soul was nothing but sorrow, (that great moving spring of
invention and elocution,) and when nature was put to its last
and utmost stretch, and so had no refuge or relief but in
prayer, yet even then all this horror, agony, and distress of
spirit delivers itself but in two very short sentences, in Matt.
xxvi. 39:; O: my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from
me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt. And again,
the second time, with the like brevity and the like words:
O my Father, if this cup may not pass from me, except I drink
it, thy will be done. And lastly, the third time also, he used
the same short form again; and yet in all this he was (as we
may say without a metaphor) even praying for life, so far as
the great business he was then about, to wit, the redemption
of the world, would suffer him  to pray for it. All which
prayers of our Saviour, and others of like brevity, are properly
such as we call ejaculations; an elegant similitude from a
dart or arrow, shot or thrown out; and such an one (we
know) of a yard long, will fly further, and strike deeper, than
one of twenty.
And then, in the last place, for the success of such brief
prayers, I shall give you but three instances of this; but they
shall be of persons praying under the pressure of as great
miseries as human nature could well be afflicted with. And
the first shall be of the leper, Matt. viii. 2, or, as St. Luke
describes him, a man full of leprosy, who came to our Saviour,
and worshipped him; and, as St. Luke again has it more particularly, fell on, his face before him, (which is the lowest and
most devout of all postures of worship,) saying, Lord, if thou
wilt, thou canst make me clean. This was all his prayer: and
the answer to it was, that he was immediately cleansed. The
next instance shall be of the poor blind man, in Luke xviii.
38, following our Saviour with this earnest prayer: Jesus,
thou son of David, have mercy upon me. His whole prayer was
no more: for it is said in the next verse, that he went on
repeating it again and again: Jesus, thou son of David, have
mercy upon me. And the answer'he received was, that his
eyes were opened and his sight restored.
The third and last instance shall be of the publican, in the
same chapter of St. Luke, praying under a lively sense of as
great a leprosy and blindness of soul as the other two could




332          Against long extempore Prayers.    [SERM. XVI.
have of body: in the 13th verse, he smote upon his breast,
saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. He spoke no more;
though it is said in the 10th verse, that he went solemnly
and purposely up to the temple to pray: the issue and success of which prayer was, that he went home justified, before
one of those whom all the Jewish church revered as absolutely the highest and most heroic examples of piety, and
most beloved fovorites of Heaven, in the whole world. And
now, if the force and virtue of these short prayers could rise
so high as to cleanse a leper, to give sight to the blind, and
to justify a publican; and if the worth of a prayer may at all
be measured by the success of it, I suppose no prayers whatsoever can do more; and I never yet heard or read of any
long prayer that did so much. Which brings on the other
part of this our fifth and last argument, which was to be
drawn from the examples of such as have been noted in scripture for prolixity or length of prayer. And of this there are
only two mentioned, the heathens and the Pharisees. The
first, the grand instance of idolatry; the other, of hypocrisy:
but Christ forbids us the imitation of both; When ye pray,
says our Saviour in the 6th of Matthew, be ye not like the
heathens: but in what P Why in this, That they think they shall
be heard for their much speaking; in the 7th verse. It is not
the multitude that prevails in armies, and much less in words.
And then for the Pharisees, whom our Saviour represents as
the very vilest of men, and the greatest of cheats. We have
them amusing the world with pretenses of a more refined
devotion, while their heart was all that time in their neighbor's coffers. For does not our Saviour expressly tell us in:Luke xx. and the two last verses, that the great tools, the
hooks or engines, by which they compassed their worst, their
wickedest, and most rapacious designs, were long prayers?
prayers made only for a show or color; and that to the basest
and most degenerous sort of villainy, even the robbing the
spittal, and devouring the houses of poor, helpless, forlorn
widows. Their devotion Served all along but as an instrument to their avarice, as a factor or under-agent to their extortion.  A practice which, duly seen into, and stripped of
its hypocritical blinds, could not but look very odiously and
ill-favoredly; and therefore in come their long robes, and




ECCLES. v. 2.]   Against long extempore Prayers.    333
their long prayers together, and cover all. And the truth is,
neither the length of one nor of the other is ever found so
useful as when there is something more than ordinary that
would not be seen. This was the gainful godliness of the
Pharisees; and, I believe, upon good observation, you will
hardly find any like the Pharisees for their long prayers, who
are not also extremely like them for something else. And
thus having given you five arguments for brevity, and against
prolixity of prayer, let us now make this our other great rule
whereby to judge of the prayers of our church, and the
prayers of those who dissent and divide from it. And,
First, for that excellent body of prayers contained in our
liturgy, and both compiled and enjoined by public authority.
Have we not here a great instance of brevity and fullness
together, cast into several short significant collects, each containing a distinct, entire, and well-managed petition? the
whole set of them being like a string of pearls, exceeding
rich in conjunction; and therefore of no small price or value,
even single and by themselves. Nothing could have been
composed with greater judgment; every prayer being so
short, that it is impossible it should weary; and withal so
pertinent, that it is impossible it should cloy the devotion.
And indeed so admirably fitted are they all to the common
concerns of a Christian society, that'when the rubric enjoins
but the use of some of them, our worship is not imperfect;
and when we use them all, there is none of them superfluous.
And the reason assigned by some learned men for the preference of many short prayers before a continued long one
is unanswerable; namely, that by the former there is a more
fi-equently repeated mention made of the name, and some
great attribute of God, as the encouraging ground of our
praying to him; and withal, of the merits and mediation of
Christ, as the only thing that can promise us success in
what we pray for: every distinct petition beginning with the
former and ending with the latter: by thus annexing of
which to each particular thing that we ask for, we do manifestly confess and declare that we can not expect to obtain
any one thing at the hands of God, but with a particular renewed respect to the merits of a Mediator; and withal,
remind the congregation of the same, by making it their part
to renew a distinct Amen to every distinct petition.




334          Against long extempore Prayers.   [SERM. XV.
Add to this the excellent contrivance of a great part of our
liturgy, into alternate responses; by which means the people
are put to bear a considerable share in the whole service:
which makes it almost impossible for them to be only idle
hearers, or, which is worse, mere lookers-on: as they are
very often, and may be always, (if they can but keep their
eyes open,) at the long tedious prayers of,the nonconformists.
And this indeed is that which makes and denominates our
liturgy truly and properly a book of common prayer. For I
think I may truly avouch, (how strange soever it may seem
at first,) that there is no such thing as common or joint
prayer anywhere amongst the principal dissenters from the
church of England: for in the Romish communion, the
priest says over the appointed prayers only to himself; and
the rest of the people, not hearing a word of what he says,
repeat also their own particular prayers to themselves, and
when they have done, go their way: not all at once, as neither do they come at once, but scatteringly, one after another,
according as they have finished their devotions. And then,
for the nonconformists, their prayers being all extempore, it
is, as we have shown before, hardly possible for any, and utterly impossible for all, to join in them: for surely people can
not join in a prayer before they understand it; nor can it be
imagined that all capacities should presently and immediately
understand what they hear, when, possibly, Holder-forth himself understands not what he says. From all which we may
venture to conclude, that that excellent thing, common prayer,
which is the joint address of an whole congregation with
united voice, as well as heart, sending up their devotions to
Almighty God, is nowhere to be found in these kingdoms, but
in that best and nearest copy of primitive Christian worship,
the divine service, as it is performed according to the orders
of our church.
As for those long prayers so frequently used by some before
their sermons; the constitution and canons of our church
are not at all responsible for them, having provided us better
things, and with great wisdom appointed a form of prayer
to be used by all before their sermons. But as for this way
of praying, now generally in use, as it was first took up upon
an humor of novelty and popularity, and by the same carried




ECCLES. v. 2.]    Against long extempore Prayers.    335
on till it had passed into a custom, and so put the rule of
the church first out of use, and then out of countenance
also, so, if it be rightly considered, it will, in the very nature
of the thing itself, be found a very senseless and absurd practice. For can there be any sense or propriety in beginning
a new, tedious prayer in the pulpit, just after the church has,
for near an hour together, with great variety of offices, suitable to all the needs of the congregation, been praying for
all that can possibly be fit for Christians to pray for? P othing certainly can be more irrational.  For which cause,
amongst many more, that old sober form of bidding prayer,
which, both against law and reason, has been justled out of
the church by this upstart, puritanical encroachment, ought,
with great reason, to be restored by authority; and both the
use and users of it, by a strict and solemn reinforcement of
the canon upon all, without exception, be rescued from that
unjust scorn of the factious and ignorant, which the tyranny
of the contrary usurping custom will otherwise expose them
to. For surely it can neither be decency nor order for our
clergy to conform to the fanatics, as many in their prayers
before sermon nowadays do.
And thus having accounted for the prayers of our church,
according to the great rule prescribed in the text, Let thy
words be few, let us now, according to the same, consider
also the way of praying, so much used and applauded by
such as have renounced the communion and liturgy of our
church; and it is but reason that they should bring us something better, in the room of what they have so disdainfully
cast off. But, on the contrary, are not all their prayers
exactly after the heathenish and pharisaical copy? always
notable for those two things, length and tautology? Two
whole' hours for one prayer, at a fast, used to be reckoned
but a moderate dose; and that, for the most part, fraught
with such irreverent, blasphemous expressions, that to repeat
them would profane the place I am speaking in; and indeed
they seldom "carried on the work of such a day," (as their
phrase was,) but they left the church in need of a new consecration. Add to this the incoherence and confusion, the
endless repetitions, and the insufferable nonsense that never
failed to hold out, even with their utmost prolixity; so that




336          Against long extemnpore Prayers.   [SERM. XVI.
in all their long fasts, from first to last, fromn seven in the
morning to seven in the evening, (which was their measure,)
the pulpit was always the emptiest thing in the church: and
I never knew such a fast kept by them, but their hearers had
cause to begin a thanksgiving as soon as they had done.
And the truth is, when I consider the matter of their prayers,
so full of ramble and inconsequence, and in every respect so
very like the language of a dream; and compare it with their
carriage of themselves in prayer, with their eyes for the most
part shut, and their arms stretched out in yawning posture,
a man that should hear any of them pray, might, by a very
pardonable error, be induced to think that he was all the
time hearing one talking in his sleep: besides the strange
virtue which their prayers had to procure sleep in others too.
So that he who should be present at all their long cant, would
show a greater ability in watching, than ever they could pretend to in praying, if he could forbear sleeping, having so
strong a provocation to it, and so fair an excuse for it. In a
word, such were their prayers, both for matter and expression,
that, could any one truly and exactly write them out, it would
be the shrewdest and most effectual way of writing against
them that could possibly be thought of.
I should not have thus troubled either you or myself, by:
raking into the dirt and dunghill of these men's devotions,
upon the account of any thing either done or said by them in
the late times of confusion; for as they have the king's, so I
wish them God's pardon also, whom, I am sure, they have
offended much more than they have both kings put together.
But that which has provoked me thus to rip up and expose
to you their nauseous and ridiculous way of addressing to
God, even upon the most solemn occasions, is, that intolerably
rude and unprovoked insolence and scurrility with which
they are every day reproaching and scoffing at our liturgy,
and the users of it, and thereby alienating the minds of the
people from it, to such a degree, that many thousands are
drawn by them into a fatal schism; a schism that, unrepented of, and continued in, will as infallibly ruin their souls,
as theft, whoredom, murder, or any other of the most crying,
damning sins whatsoever. But leaving this to the justice of
the government, to which it belongs to protect us in our




ECCLES. v. 2.]   Against: long extempore Prayers.    337
spiritual as well as in our temporal concerns, I shall only say
this, that nothing can be more for the honor of our liturgy
than to find it despised only by those who have made themselves remarkable to the world for despising the Lord's prayer
as much.
In the mean time, for ourselves of the church of England,
who, without pretending to any new lights, think it equally a
duty and commendation to be wise, and to be devout only to
sobriety, and who judge it no dishonor to God himself to be
worshiped according to law and rule. If the directions of
Solomon, the precept and example of our Saviour, and lastly,
the piety and experience of those excellent men and martyrs,
who first composed, and afterwards owned our liturgy with
their dearest blood, may be looked upon as safe and sufficient
guides to us in our public worship of God; then, upon the:joint authority of all these, we may pronounce our liturgy
the greatest treasure of rational devotion in the Christian
world. And I know no prayer necessary, that is not in the
liturgy, but one, which is this; That God would vouchsafe to
continue the liturgy itself in use, honor, and veneration in this
church forever. And I doubt not but all wise, sober, and
good Christians will with equal judgment and affection give
it their Amen.
-Now to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost,
three Persons and one God, be rendered and ascribed, as is
most due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now
and for evermore. Amen.
VOL. I.         22




SERMON XVII.
THE FIRST SERMON PREACHED UPON ROMANS I. 32.
Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of
death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
EFROM  the beginning of the 18th verse to the end of the
31st, (the verse immediately going before the text,) we
have a catalogue of the blackest sins that human nature, in
its highest depravation, is capable of committing; and this
so perfect, that there seems to be no sin imaginable but what
may be reduced to, and comprised under, some of the sins
here specified. In a word, we have an abridgment of the
lives and practices of the whole heathen world; that is, of all
the baseness and villainy that both the corruption of nature
and the instigation of the devil could for so many ages, by all
the arts and opportunities, all the motives and incentives of
sinning, bring the sons of men to. And yet, as full and
comprehensive as this catalogue of sin seems to be, it is but
of sin under a limitation; and universality of sin under a certain kind, that is, of all sins of direct and personal commission. And you will say, is not this a sufficient comprehension
of allP For is not a man's person the compass of his actions P Or, can he operate further than he does exist P Why
yes, in some sense he may; he may not only commit such
and such sins himself, but also take pleasure in others that
do commit them; which expression implies these two things:
first, That thus to take pleasure in other men's sins, is a
distinct sin from all the former; and, secondly, That it is
much greater than the former. Forasmuch as these terms,
not only do the same, but also take pleasure, &c., import aggravation as well as distinction, and are properly an advance




ROM. i. 32.]  Of taking Pleasure in other Men's Sins.  339
a minore ad najus, a progress to a further degree. And this
indeed is the furthest that human pravity can reach, the highliest point of villainy that the debauched powers of man's mind
can ascend unto. For surely that sin that exceeds idolatry,
monstrous unnatural lusts, covetousness, maliciousness, enry,
murder, deceit, backbiting, hatred of God, spitefulness, pride,
disobedience to parents, covenant-breaking, want of natural
affection, implacableness, unmercifulness, and the like: I say,
that sin, that is a pitch beyond all these, must needs be such
an one as must nonplus the devil himself to proceed further:
it is the very extremity, the fullness, and the concluding period
of sin, the last line and finishing stroke of the devil's image
drawn upon the soul of man.
Now the sense of the words may be fully and naturally
cast into this one proposition, which shall be the subject of
the following discourse; viz.,
That the guilt arising from a man's delighting or taking
pleasure in other men's sins, or (which is all one) in other
men for their sins, is greater than he can possibly contract by
a commission of the same sins in his own person.
For the handling of which, I can not but think it superfluous to offer at any explication of what it is, to take pleasure
in other men's sins; it being impossible for any man to be so
far unacquainted with the motions and operations of his own
mind as not to know how it is affected and disposed, when
any thing pleases or delights him. And therefore I shall
state the prosecution of the proposition upon these following
things:
1. I shall show what it is that brings a man to such a disposition of mind as to take pleasure in other men's sins.
II. I shall show the reasons why a man's being disposed to
do so, comes to be attended with such an extraordinary guilt;
and,
III. and lastly, I shall declare what kind of persons are to
be reckoned under this character.  Of each of which in their
order.
And first, for the first of these, What it is that brings a
man, &c.
In order to which, I shall premise these four considerations:




340              Of the Heinous GtUilt of       [SERM. XVII.
1. That every man naturally has a distinguishing sense
of turpe et honestum; of what is honest and what is dishonest;
of what is fit, and what is not fit to be done. There are those
practical principles and rules of action, treasured up in that
part of man's mind, called by the schools crvv'rpTo-ts, that, like
the candle of the Lord, set up by God himself in the heart
of every man, discovers to him both what he is to do, and
what to avoid: they are a light, lighting every man, that cometh
into the world;
And in respect of which principally it is, that God is said
not to have left himself without witness in the world; there
being something fixed in the nature of man that will be sure
to testify and declare for him.
2. The -second thing to be considered is, That there is
consequently upon this distinguishing' principle an inward
satisfaction or dissatisfaction arising in the heart of every
man, after he has -done a good or an evil action; an action
agreeable to, or deviating from, this great rule. And this, no
doubt, proceeds not only from  the real unsuitableness that
every thing. sinful or dishonest bears to the nature of man,
but also from a secret, inward, foreboding fear, that some
evil or other will follow the doing of that which a man's own
conscience disallows him in. For no man naturally is or can
be cheerful immediately upon the doing of a wicked action:
there being something within him that presently gives sentence against him for it: which, no question, is the voice of
God himself, speaking. in the hearts of men, whether they
understand it or no; and by secret intimations giving the
sinner a foretaste of that direful cup which he is like to
drink more deeply of hereafter.
3. The third thing to be considered is, That this distinguishing sense of good and evil, and this satisfaction or dissatisfaction of mind consequent upon a man's acting suitably
or unsuitably to it, is a principle neither presently nor easily
to be worn out or extinguished.  For besides that it is
founded in nature, (which kind of things are always most
durable and lasting,) the great important end that God designs it for, (which is no less than the government of the
noblest part of the world, mankind,) sufficiently shows the
necessity of its being rooted deep in the heart, and put be



ROM. i. 32.]  taking Pleasure in other Men's Sins.    341
yond the -danger of being torn up by any ordinary violence
done to it.
4. The fourth and last thing to be considered is, That that
which weakens, and directly tends to extinguish this principle,
(so far as it is capable of being extinguished,) is an inferior,
sensitive principle, which receives its gratifications from objects clean contrary to the former; and which affect a man in
the state of this present life much more warmly and vividly
than those which affect only his nobler part, his mind. So
that there being a contrariety between those things that conscience inclines to and those that entertain the senses, and
since the more quick and affecting pleasure still arises from
these latter, it follows that the gratifications of these are more
powerful to command the principles of action than the other,
and consequently are, for the most part, too hard for, and
victorious over, the dictates of right reason.
Now fi-om these four considerations, thus premised, we naturally infer these two things:
First, That no man is quickly or easily brought to take a
full pleasure and delight in his own sins. For though sin'
offers itself in never so pleasing and alluring a dress at first,
yet the remorse, and inward regrets of the soul, upon the
commission of it, infinitely overbalance those faint and transient gratifications it affords the senses. So that, upon the
whole matter, the sinner, even at his highest pitch of enjoyment, is not pleased with it so much, but he is afflicted more.
And, as long as these inward rejolts and recoilings of the mind
continue, (which they will certainly do for a considerable part
of a man's life,) the sinner will find his accounts of pleasure
very poor and short, being so mixed and indeed overdone with
the contrary impressions of trouble upon his mind, that it is
but a bitter-sweet at best; and the fine colors of the serpent
do by no means make amends for the smart and poison of his
sting.
Secondly, The other thing to be inferred is, that, as no man
is quickly or easily brought to take a full pleasure or delight
in his own sins, so much less easily can he be brought to take
pleasure in those of other men. The reason is, because the
chief motive, as we have observed, that induces a man to sin,
which is the gratification of his sensitive part, by a sinful act,




342              Of the Heinous Guilt of      [SERM. XVII.
can not be had from the sins of another man; since naturally,
and directly, they affect only the agent that commits them.
For certainly another man's intemperance can not affect my
sensuality, any more than the meat and drink that I take into
my mouth can please his palate: but of this more fully in
some of the following particulars.
In the mean time, it is evident from reason, that there is a
considerable difficulty in a man's arriving to such a disposition
of mind as shall make him take pleasure in other men's sins;
and yet it is also as evident from the text, and from experience
too, that some men are brought to do so. And therefore,
since there is no effect, of what kind soever, but is resolvable
into some cause, we will. inquire into the cause of this vile
and preternatural temper of mind, that should make a man
please himself with that which can noways reach or affect
those faculties and principles which nature has made the
proper seat and subject of pleasure. Now the causes (or at
least some of the causes) that debauch and corrupt the mind
of man to such a degree as to take pleasure in other men's
sins, are these five:
I. A commission of the same sins in a man's own person.
This is imported in the very words of the text; where it is
said of such persons, that they not only do the same things;
which must therefore imply that they do them. It is conversation and acquaintance, that must give delight in things
and actions, as well as in persons: and it is trial that must
begin the acquaintance. It being hardly imaginable, that
one should be delighted with a sin at second hand, till he has
known it at the first. Delight is the natural result of practice
and experiment; and when it flows from any thing else, so
far it recedes from nature. None look with so much pleasure
upon the works of art as those who are artists themselves.
They are therefore their delight, because they were heretofore
their employment; and they love to see such things, because
they once loved to do them. In like manner, a man must sin
himself into a love of other men's sins; for a bare notion
or speculation of this black art will not carry him so far. No
sober, temperate person in the world, (whatsoever other sins
he may be inclinable to, and guilty of,) can look with any
complacency upon the drunkenness and sottishness of his




RoM. 1. 2.]   taking Pleasure in other Men's Sins.   343
neighbor; nor can any chaste person (be his other failings
what they will) reflect with any pleasure or delight upon the
filthy, unclean conversation of another, though never so much
in fashion, and vouched, not by common use only, but applause. No, he must be first an exercised, thorough-paced
practitioner of these vices himself, and they must have endeared themselves to him by those personal gratifications he
had received from them, before he can come to like them so
far as to be pleased and enamored with them wheresoever he
sees them. It is possible indeed, that a sober or a chaste:
person, upon the stock of ill-will, envy, or spiritual pride,
(which is all the religion that some have,) may be glad to see
the intemperance and debauchery of some about them; but
it is impossible that such persons should take any delight
in the men themselves for being so. The truth is, in such a
case, they do not properly delight in the vice itself, though'
they inwardly rejoice (and after a godly sort, no doubt) to see
another guilty of it; but they delight in the mischief and
disaster which they know it will assuredly bring upon him.
whom they hate and wish ill to: they rejoice not in it, as in
a delightful object, but as in a cause and means of their
neighbor's ruin. So grateful, nay, so delicious, are even the,
horridest villainies committed by others to the pharisaical
piety of some; who in the mean time can be wholly unconcerned for the reproach brought thereby upon the name of
God and the honor of religion, so long as by the same their
sanctified spleen is gratified in their brother's infamy and destruction.
This therefore we may reckon upon, that scarce any man
passes to a liking of sin in others, but by first practicing it
himself; and consequently may take it for a shrewd indication
and sign, whereby to judge of the manners of those who have
sinned with too much art and caution to suffer the eye of the
world to charge some sins directly upon their conversation.
For though such kind of men have lived never so much upon
the reserve, as to their personal behavior, yet, if they be observed to have a particular delight in, and fondness for, persons noted for any sort of sin, it is ten to one but there-was
a communication in the sin, before there was so in affection.
The man has, by this, directed us to a copy of himself; and




344             Of the Heinous Guilt of       [SERaM. XVII.
though we can not always come to a sight of the original, yet
by a true copy we may know all that is in it.
2dly, A second cause that brings a man to take pleasure in
other men's sins is, not only a commission of those sins in his
own person, but also a commission of them against the full
light and conviction of his conscience. For this also is expressed in the text; where the persons charged with this
wretched disposition of mind are said to have been such as
knew the judgment of God, that they who committed such things
were worthy of death. They knew that there was a righteous
and a searching law, directly forbidding such practices; and
they knew that it carried with it the divine stamp, that it
was the law of God; they. knew also, that the sanction of it
was under the greatest and dreadfullest of all penalties, death.
And this surely, one would think, was knowledge enough to
have opened both a man's eyes, and his heart too; his eyes
to see, and his heart to consider, the intolerable mischief that
the commission of the sin set before him must infallibly
plunge him into. Nevertheless, the persons here mentioned
were resolved to venture, and to commit the sin, even while
conscience stood protesting against it. They were such as
broke through all mounds of law, such as laughed at the
sword of vengeance, which divine justice brandished in their
faces. For we must know that God has set a flaming sword,
not only before paradise, but before hell itself also, to keep
men out of this, as well as out of the other. And conscience
is the angel into whose hand this sword is put. But if now
the sinner shall not only wrestle with this angel, but throw
him too, and win so complete a victory over his conscience
that all these considerations shall be able to strike no terror
into his mind, lay no restraint upon his lusts, no control
upon his appetites, he is certainly too strong for the means
of grace, and his heart lies open, like a broad and high road,
for all the sin and villainy in the world freely to pass through.
The truth is, if we impartially consider the nature of these
sins against conscience, we shall find them such strange
paradoxes, that a man must balk all common principles, and
act contrary to the natural way and motive of all human actions, in the commission of them.; For that which naturally
moves a man to do any thing, must be the apprehension and




RoM. i. 32.]  taking- Pleasure in -other Men's Sins.  345
expectation of- some good from the thing which he is about
to do; and that which naturally keeps a mall from doing of
a thing must be the apprehension and fear of some mischief
likely to ensue from that thing or action that he is ready to
engage in. But now, for a man to do a thing, while his
conscience, the best light that he has to judge by, assures
him that he shall be infinitely, unsupportably miserable if he
does it, this is certainly unnatural, and, one would imagine,
impossible.
And therefore, so far as one may judge, while a man acts
against his conscience, he acts by a principle of direct infidelity, and does not really believe that those things that God
has thus threatened shall ever come to pass. For, though he
may yield a general faint assent to the truth of those propositions, as they stand recorded in scripture, yet, for a thorough, practical belief, that those general propositions shall
be particularly made good upon his person, no doubt, for the
time that he is sinning against conscience, such a belief has
no place in his mind. Which being so, it is easy to conceive
how ready -and disposed this must needs leave the soul to
admit of any, even the most horrid, unnatural proposals that
the devil himself can suggest: for conscience being once
extinct, and the Spirit of God withdrawn, (which never stays
with a man, when conscience has once left him,) the soul,
like the first matter to all forms, has an universal propensity
to  all lewdness. For every violation of conscience proportionably wears off something of its native tenderness; which
tenderness being the'cause of that anguish and remorse that
it feels upon the commission of sin, it follows that, when by
degrees it comes to have worn off all this tenderness, the
sinner will find no trouble of mind upon his doing the very
wickedest and worst of actions; and consequently, that -this
is the most direct and effectual introduction to all sorts and
degrees of sin.
For which reason it was that I alleged sinning against
conscience for one of the causes of this vile temper and habit
of mind, which we are now discoursing of: not that it has
any special productive efficiency of this particular sort of sinning, more than of any other, but that it is a: general cause
of this, as of all* other great vices; and that it is impossible




346              Of the Heinous Guilt of       [SERM. XVII.
but a man must have first passed this notable stage, and got
his conscience throughly debauched and hardened, before he
can arrive to the hight of sin; which I account the delighting in other men's.sins to be.
3dly, A third cause of this villainous disposition of mind,
besides a man's personal commission of such and such sins,
and his commission of them against conscience, must be also
his continuance in them. For God forbid that every single
commission of a sin, though great for its kind, and withal
acted against conscience for its aggravation, should so far
deprave the soul, and bring it to such a reprobate sense and
condition, as to take pleasure in other men's sins.  For we
know what a foul sin David committed, and what a crime St.
Peter himself fell into; both of them, no doubt, fully and
clearly against the dictates of their conscience; yet we do not
find that either of them was thereby brought to such an
impious frame of heart as to delight in their own sins, and
much less in other men's. And therefore it is not every sinful violation of conscience that can quench the Spirit to such
a degree as we have been speaking of; but it must be a long
inveterate course and custom of sinning after this manner,
that at length produces and ends in such a cursed effect.,
For this is so great a masterpiece in sin, that no man begins
with it: he must have passed his tyrocinium, or novitiate, in
sinning, before he can come to this, be he never so quick a
proficient. No man. can mount so fast as to set his foot upon
the highest step of the ladder at first. Before a man can
come to be pleased with a sin, because he sees his neighbor
commit it, he must have had such a long acquaintance with it
himself as to create a kind of intimacy or friendship between.
him and that; and then, we know, a man is naturally glad to
see his old friend not only at his own house, but wheresoever
he meets him. It is generally the property of an old sinner
to find a delight in reviewing his own villainies in the practice of other men; to see his sin and himself, as it were, in
reversion; and to find a greater satisfaction in beholding him
who succeeds him in his vice, than him who is to succeed him
in his estate. In the matter of sin, age makes a greater
change upon the soul than it does or can upon the body.,
And as in this, if we compare the picture of a man, drawn at




ROM. i. 32.]  taking Plefasure in other Men's Sins.  347
the years of seventeen or eighteen, with a picture of the same
person at threescore and ten, hardly the least trace or similitude of one face can be found in the other. So for the soul,
the difference of the dispositions and qualities of the inner
man will be found much greater. Compare the harmlessness,
the credulity, the tenderness, the modesty, and the ingenuous
pliableness to virtuous counsels, which is in youth, as it comes
fresh and untainted out of the hands of nature, with the mischievousness, the slyness, the craft, the impudence, the falsehood, and the confirmed obstinacy in most sorts of sin, that
is to be found in an aged, long-practiced sinner, and you will
confess the complexion and hue of his soul to be altered more
than that of his face. Age has given him another body, and
custom another mind. All those seeds of virtue and good
morality, that were the natural endowments of our first years,
are lost, and dead forever. And in respect of the native
innocence of childhood, no man, through old age, becomes
twice a child. The vices of old age have in them the stiffness
of it too. And as it is the unfittest time to learn in, so the
unfitness of it to unlearn will be found much greater.
Which considerations, joined with that of its imbecility,
make it the proper season for a superannuated sinner to enjoy the delights of sin in the rebound; and to supply the
impotence of practice by the airy, fantastic pleasure of
memory and reflection. For all that can be allowed him now,
is to refresh his decrepit, effete sensuality with the transcript
and history of his former life, recognized, and read over by
him, in the vicious rants of the vigorous youthful debauchees
of the present time, whom  (with an odd kind of passion,
mixed of pleasure and envy too) he sees flourishing in all the
bravery and prime of their age and vice. An old wrestler
loves to look on, and to be near the lists, though feebleness
will not let him offer at the prize. An old huntsman finds
a music in the noise of hounds, though he can not follow the
chase. An old drunkard loves a tavern, though he can not
go to it, but as he is supported, and led by another, just as
some are observed to come from thence. And an old wanton
will be doting upon women, when he can scarce see them
without spectacles. And to show the true love and faithful
allegiance that the old servants and subjects of vice ever after




348              Of the Heinous Guilt of      [SERM. XVII.
bear to it, nothing is more usual and frequent than to hear
that such as have been strumpets in their youth, turn procurers in their age. Their great concern is, that the vice
may still go on.
4thly, A fourth cause of men's taking pleasure in the sins
of others, is from that meanness and poor-spiritedness that
naturally and inseparably accompanies all guilt. Whosoever
is conscious to himself of sin, feels in himself (whether he
will own it or no) a proportionable shame, and.a secret depression of spirit thereupon. And this is so irksome, and
uneasy to man's mind, that he is restless to relieve and rid
himself from it: for which he finds no way so effectual as to
get company in the same sin. For company, in any action,
gives both credit to that, and countenance to the agent; and
so much as the sinner gets of this, so much he casts off of
shame. Singularity in sin puts it out of fashion; since to be
alone in any practice seems to make the judgment of the
world against it; but the concurrence of others is a tacit approbation of that in which they concur. Solitude is a kind
of nakedness, and the result of that, we know, is shame. It
is company only that can bear a man out in an ill thing; and
he who is to encounter and fight the law, will be sure to need
a second. No wonder therefore if some take delight in the
immoralities and baseness of others; for nothing can support their minds drooping, and sneaking, and inwardly reproaching them, from a sense of their own guilt, but to see
others as bad as themselves.
To be vicious amongst the virtuous, is a double disgrace
and misery; but where the whole company is vicious and
debauched, they presently like, or at least easily pardon one
another. And as it is observed by some that there is none
so homely but loves a looking-glass, so it is certain that
there is no man so vicious, but delights to see the image of
his vice reflected upon him, from one who exceeds, or at least
equals him in the same.
Sin in itself is not only shameful, but also weak; and it
seeks a remedy for both in society: for it is this that must
give it both color and support. But on the contrary, how
great and (as I may so speak) how self-sufficient a thing is
virtue! It needs no credit from abroad, no countenance from




RoM. i. 32.]  taking Pleasure in other- Men's Sins.  849
the multitude. Were there but one virtuous -man in the
world, he would hold up his head with confidence and honor;
he would shame the world, and not the world him. For, according to that excellent and great saying, Prov. xiv. 14, A
good man shall be satisfied from himself. He needs look no
further. But if he desires to see the same virtue propagated
and diffused to those about him, it is for their sakes, not his
own. It is his charity that wishes, and not his necessity that
requires it. For solitude and singularity can neither daunt
nor disgrace him; unless we could suppose it a disgrace for
a man to be singularly good.
But a vicious person, like the basest sort of beasts, never
enjoys himself but in the herd. Company, he thinks, lessens
the shame of vice, by sharing it; and abates the torrent of
a common odium, by driving it into many channels; and
therefore, if he can not wholly avoid the eye of the observer,
he hopes to distract it at least by a multiplicity of the object.
These, I confess, are poor shifts, and miserable shelters, for a
sick and a self-upbraiding conscience to fly to; and yet they
are some of the best that the debauchee has to cheer up his
spirits with in this world. For if, after all, he must needs be
seen and took notice of, with all his filth and noisomeness
about him, he promises himself however, that it will be some
allay to his reproach to be but one of many, to march in a
troop, and by a preposterous kind of ambition to be seen in
bad company.
5. The fifth and last cause, (that I shall mention,) inducing
men to take pleasure in the sins of others, is a certain, peculiar, unaccountable malignity that is in some natures and dispositions. I know no other name or word to express it by.
But the thing itself is frequently seen in the temporal concerns of this world. For are there not some who find an
inward, secret rejoicing in themselves, when they see or hear
of the loss or calamity of their neighbor, though no imaginable interest or advantage of their own is or can be served
therebyP But it seems there is a base, wolfish principle
within, that is fed and gratified with another's misery; and
no other account or reason in the world can be given of its
being so, but that it is the nature of the beast to delight in
such things.




350             Of the Heinous Guilt of       [SEM. XVII.
And as this occurs frequently in temporals, so there is no
doubt but that with some few persons it acts the same way
also in spirituals. I say, with some few persons; for, thanks
be to God, the common, known corruption of human nature,
upon the bare stock of its original depravation, does not
usually proceed so far. Such an one, for instance, was that
wretch who made a poor captive renounce his religion, in
order to the saving of his life; and when he had so done,
presently run him through, glorying that he had thereby destroyed his enemy, both body and soul. But more remarkably
such was that monster of diabolical baseness here in England,
who, some years since, in the reign of King Charles the First,
suffered death for crimes scarce ever heard of before; having frequently boasted, that as several men had their several
pleasures and recreations, so his peculiar pleasure and recreation was to destroy souls, and accordingly to put men upon
such practices as he knew would assuredly do it. But above
all, the late saying of some of the dissenting brotherhood
ought to be proclaimed and celebrated to their eternal honor;
who, while there was another new oath preparing, which they
both supposed and hoped most of the clergy would not take,
in a most insulting manner gave out thereupon, that they
were resolved either to have our livings, or to damn our souls.
An expression, so fraught with all the spite and poison which
the devil himself could infuse into words, that it ought to remain as a monument of the humanity, charity, and Christianity of this sort of men forever.
Now such a temper or principle as these and the like pas-,
sages do import, I call a peculiar malignity of nature; since
it is evident, that neither the inveterate love of vice, nor yet
the long practice of it, and that even against the reluctancies
and light of conscience, can of itself have this devilish effect
upon the mind, but as it falls in with such a villainous preternatural disposition as I have mentioned. For to instance in
the particular case of parents and children, let a father be
never so vicious, yet, generally speaking, he would not have
his child so. Nay, it is certain that some, who have been as
corrupt in their morals as vice could make them., have yet
been infinitely solicitous to have their children soberly, virtuously, and piously brought up: so that, although they have




ROM. i. 32.1  taking Pleasure in other Men's Sins.  351
begot sons after their own likeness, yet they are not willing to
breed them so too.
Which, by the way, is the most pregnant demonstration in
the world, of that self-condemning sentence, that is perpetually sounding in every great sinner's breast; and of that inward, grating dislike of the very thing he practices, that he
should abhor to see the same in any one whose good he
nearly tenders, and whose person he wishes well to. But if
now, on the other side, we should. chance to find a father corrupting his son, or a mother debauching her daughter, (as
God knows such monsters have been seen within the four
seas,) we must not charge this barely upon an high predominance of vice in these persons, but much more upon a peculiar
anomaly and baseness of nature: if the name of nature may
be allowed to that which seems to be an utter cashiering of
it; a deviation from, and a contradiction to, the common
principles of humanity. For this is such a disposition as
strips the father of the man; as makes him sacrifice his children to Moloch; and as much outdo the cruelty of a cannibal
or a Saturn, as it is more barbarous and inhuman to damn a
child than to devour him. We sometimes read and hear of
monstrous births, but we may often see a greater monstrosity
in educations: thus when a father has begot a man, he trains
him up into a beast, making even his own house a stews, a
bordel, and a school of lewdness, to instill the rudiments of
vice into the unwary, flexible years of his poor children, poisoning their tender minds with the irresistible, authentic
venom of his base example; so that all the instruction they
find within their father's walls shall be only to be disciplined
to an earlier practice of sin, to be catechized into all the
mysteries of iniquity, and, at length, confirmed into a mature,
grown-up, incorrigible state of debauchery. And this some
parents call a-teaching their children to know the world, and
to study men: thus leading them, as it were, by the hand,
through all the forms and classes, all the varieties and modes
of villainy, till at length they make them ten times more the
children of the devil than of themselves. Now, I say, if the
unparalleled wickedness of the age should at any time cast us
upon such blemishes of mankind as these, who, while they
thus treat their children, should abuse and usurp the name




352              Of the Heinous Guilt of      [SERM. XV1I.
of parents, by assuming it to themselves; let us not call them
by the low, diminutive term or title of sinful, wicked, or ungodly men, but let us look upon them as so many prodigious
exceptions from our common nature, as so many portentous
animals, like the strange unnatural productions of Africa,
and fit to be publicly shown, were they not unfit to be seen:
for certainly where a child finds his own parents his perverters, he can not be so properly said to be born, as to be
damned into the world; and better were it for him by far to
have been unborn, and unbegot, than to come to ask blessing
of those whose conversation breathes nothing but contagion
and a curse. So impossible, and so much a paradox is it,
for any parent to impart to his child his blessing and his vice
too.
And thus I have dispatched the first general thing proposed for the handling of the words, and shown in five several
particulars, what it is that brings a man to such a disposition
of mind as to take pleasure in other men's sins. I proceed
now to the
Second, which is, To show the reasons why a man's being
disposed to do so, comes to be attended with such an extraordinary guilt. And the first shall be taken from this, that
naturally there is no motive to induce or tempt a man to this
way of sinning. And this is a most certain truth, that the
lesser the temptation is, the greater is the sin. For in every
sin, by how much the more free the will is in its choice, by
so much is the act the more sinful. And where there is
nothing to importune, urge, or provoke it to any act, there
is so much an higher and perfecter degree of freedom about
that act. For albeit the will is not capable of being compelled to any of its actings, yet it is capable of being made
to act with moreor less difficulty, according to the different
impressions it receives from motives or objects. If the object be extremely pleasing, and apt to gratify it, there,
though the will has still a power of refusing it, yet it is not
without some difficulty: upon which accounht it is that men
are so strongly carried out to, and so hardly took off from,
the practice of vice; namely, because the sensual pleasure
arising from it is still importuning and drawing them to it.
But now, from whence springs this pleasureP Is it not




RoM. i. 32.]  taking Pleasure in other Men's Sins.    353
from the gratification of some desire founded in nature P  An
irregular gratification it is indeed very often; yet still the
foundation of it is, and must be, something natural: so that
the sum of all is this, that the naturalness of a desire is the
cause that the satisfaction of it is pleasure, and pleasure importunes the will; and that which importlnnes the will, puts
a difficulty in the will's refusing or forbearing it. Thus
drunkenness is an irregular satisfaction of' the appetite of
thirst; uncleanness an unlawful gratification of the appetite
of procreation; and covetousness a boundless, unreasonable
pursuit of the principle of self-preservation.  So that all
these are founded in some natural desire, a;nd are therefore
pleasurable, and upon that account tempt, solicit, alnd entice
the will. In a word, there is hardly any one vice or sin of
direct and personal commission, but what is the irregularity
and abuse of one of those two grand natural principles;
namely, either that which inclines a man to preserve himself,
or that which inclines him to please himself
But now, what principle, faculty, or desire, by which nature
projects either its own pleasure or preservation, is or can
be gratified by another man's personal pursuit of his own
vice P  It is evident that all the pleasure that naturally can
be received from a vicious action can immediately and personally affect none but him who does it; for it is an application of the pleasing object only to his own sense; and no
man feels by another man's senses. And therefore the lelight that a man takes from  another's sin can be nothing
else but a fantastical, preternatural complacency arising from
that which he has really no sense or feeling of. It is properly a love of vice, as such; a delighting in sin for its own
sake; and is a direct imitation, or rather an exemplification
of the malice of the devil; who delights in seeing those sins
committed which the very condition of his nature renders
him incapable of committing himself.  For the devil can
neither drink, nor whore, nor play the epicure, though he
enjoys the pleasures of all these at a second hand, and by
malicious approbation. If a man plays the thief, says Solomon, and steals to satisfy his hunger, Prov. vi. 30, though it
can not wholly excuse the fact, yet it sometimes extenuates
the guilt. And we know there are some corrupt affections in
VOL.!.            23




354              Of the Heinous Guilt of     [SEBRM. XVII.
the soul of man, that urge and push him on to their satisfaction with such an. impetuous fury, that.when we see a man
overborne and run down by them, considering the frailty of
human nature, we can not but pity the person, -while we
abhor the crime. It being like one ready to drink poison,
rather than to die with thirst.
But when. a man shall, with a sober, sedate, diabolical rancor, look upon and enjoy himself in the sight of his neighbor's sin and shame, and secretly hug himself upon the ruins
of his brother's virtue, and the dishonors of his reason, can
he plead the instigation of any appetite in nature inclining
him to this; and that would otherwise render him uneasy to
himself, should he not thus triumph in another's folly and
confusion P No, certainly; this can not be so much as pretended. For he may aswell: carry his eyes in another man's:
head, and run races with another man's feet, as directly and.
naturally taste the pleasures that spring from the gratification
of another man's appetites.
Nor can that person, whosoever he is, who accounts it his
recreation and diversion to see one man wallowing in his
filthy revels, and another made infamous and noisome by his
sensuality, be so impudent as to allege for a reason of his so
doing, that either all the enormous draughts of the one do,
or can leave the least relish upon the tip- of his tongue, or
that all the fornications and whoredomns of the other do or
can quench or cool the boilings of his own lust. No, this is
impossible. And if so,.-what can we then assign for the cause
of this monstrous disposition P Why, all that can be said in
this case is, that nature proceeds by quite another method;
having given men such and such appetites, and allotted to
each of them their respective pleasures; the appetite and the
pleasure still cohabiting in the same subject: but the devil
and long custom of sinning have superinduced upon the soul
new, unnatural, and absurd desires; desires that have no real
object; desires that relish things not at all desirable; but,
like the sickness and distemper of the soul, feeding only uponfilth and corruption, fire and brimstone, and giving a; man
the devil's nature and the devil's delight; who has no other
joy or happiness but to dishonor his Maker, and to destroy
his fellow-creature.; to corrupt him here, and to torment him




RoE. i. 32.1  taking Pleasure in other Men's Sins.  355
hereafter. In fine, there is as much difference between the
pleasure a man takes in his own sins, and that which he takes
in other men's, as there is between the wickedness of a man
and the wickedness of a devil.
2. A second reason why a man's taking pleasure in the sins
of others comes to be attended with such an extraordinary
guilt, is, from the boundless, unlimited nature of this way of
sinning. For by this a man contracts a kind of an universal
guilt, and, as it were, sins over the sins of all other men;
so that while the act is theirs, the guilt of it is equally his.
Consider any man as to his personal powers and opportunities
of sinning, and comparatively they are not great:; for at
greatest they must still be limited by the measure of a man's
acting, and the term of his duration. And a man's active
powers are but weak, and his continuance in the world but
short. So that nature is not sufficient to keep pace with his
corruptions, by answering desire with proportionable practice.
For to instance in those two grand extravagances of lust
and drunkenness: surely no man is of so general and diffusive a lust as to prosecute his amours all the world over; and
let it burn never so outrageously for the present, yet age will
in time chill those heats; and the impure flame will either
die of itself, or consume the body that harbors it. And so
for intemperance in drinking; no man can be so much a
swine as to be always pouring in, but in the compass of some
years he will drown his health and his strength in his own
belly; and after all his drunken trophies, at length drink
down himself too; and that certainly will and must put an
end to the debauch.
But now, for the way of sinning which we have been speaking of, it is neither confined by place, nor weakened by age;
but the bed-rid, the gouty, and the lethargic may, upon this
account, equal the activity of the strongest and the most
vegete sinner. Such an one may take his brother by the
throat, and act the murderer, even while he can neither stir
a hand nor a foot; and he may invade his neighbor's bed,
while weakness has tied him down to his own. He may sin
over all the adulteries and debauches, all the frauds and oppressions of the whole neighborhood, and, as I may so speak,
he may break every command of God's law by proxy, and it




356              Of the Heinous Guilt of     [SERM. XVII.
were well for him if he could be damned by proxy too. A
man, by delight and fancy, may grasp in the sins of all countries and ages, and by an inward liking of them communicate
in their guilt. He may take a range all the world over, and
draw in all that wide circumference of sin and vice, and centre it in his own breast. For whatsoever sin a man extremely
loves, and would commit if he had opportunity, and, in the
mean time, pleases himself with the speculation of the same,
whether ever he commits it or no, it leaves a stain and a guilt
upon his conscience; and, according to the spiritual and severe accounts of the law, is made, in a great respect, his own.
So that by this means there is a kind of transmigration of
sins, much like that which Pythagoras held of souls. Such
an one to be sure it is, as makes a man not only: (according
to the apostle's phrase) a partaker of other men's sins, but also
a deriver of the whole entire guilt of them to himself; and
yet so as to leave the committer of them as full of guilt as
he was before.
From whence we see the infinitely fruitful and productive
power of this way of sinning; how it can increase and multiply beyond all bounds and measures of actual commission,
and how vastly it swells the sinner's account in an instant.
So that a man shall, out of all thevarious and even numberless kinds of villainy, acted by all the people and nations
round about him, as it were, extract one mighty, comprehensive guilt, and adopt it to himself; and so become chargeable
with, and accountable for, a world of sin without a figure.
3. The third and last reason that I shall assign of the
extraordinary guilt attending a man's being disposed to take
pleasure in other men's sills, shall be taken from the soul's
preparation and'passage to such a disposition. For that it
presupposes and includes in it the guilt of many preceding
sins. For, as it has been shown, a man must have passed many
periods of sin before he can arrive to it, and have served a
long apprenticeship to the devil before he can come to such
a perfection and maturity in vice as this imports.  It is a
collection of the guilt of a long and numerous train of villainies, the compendium and sum total of several particular
impieties, all united and cast up into one. It is, as it were,
the very quintessence and sublimation of vice, by which, as




ROM. i. 32.]  taking Pleasure in other Men's Sins.    357
in the spirit of liquors, the malignity of many actions is contracted into a little compass, but with a greater advantage of
strength and force, by such a contraction.
In a word, it is the wickedness of a whole life discharging
all its filth and foulness into this one quality, as into a great
sink or common shore. So that nothing is or can be so properly and significantly called the very sinfulness of sin, as this.
And therefore no wonder if, containing so many years' guilt
in the bowels of it, it stands here stigmatized by the apostle
as a temper of mind rendering men so detestably bad, that
the great enemy of mankind, the devil himself, neither can
nor desires to make them worse. I can not, I need not say
any more of it. It is indeed a condition not to be thought
of (by persons serious enough to think and consider) without
the utmost horror. But such as truly fear God shall both be
kept from it and from those sins that lead to it.
To which God, infinitely wise, holy, and just, be rendered and
ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen.




SERMON XVIII.
THE SECOND SERMON PREACHED UPON ROMANS I. 32.
Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of
death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
THE sense of these words I show, in the preceding discourse, fell naturally into this one proposition: viz.
That the guilt arising from a man's delighting or taking
pleasure in other men's sins, or (which is all one) in other
men fortheir sins, is greater than he can possibly contract by
a commission of the same sins in his own person.
The prosecution of which I stated upon these three things:
First, To show what it is that brings a man to such a disposition of mind as to take pleasure in other men's sins.
Secondly, To show the reasons why a man's being disposed
to do so comes to be attended with such an extraordinary
guilt.
Thirdly and lastly, To declare what kind of persons are to
be reckoned under this character.
The two first of which being dispatched already, I proceed
now to the third and last.  Concerning which I shall lay
down this general assertion; That whosoever draws others to
sin ought to be looked upon as one delighting in those sins
that he draws them to. Forasmuch as no man is brought to
do any thing, especially if it be ill or wicked, but in order
to the pleasing of himself by it: it being absurd and incredible that any one should venture to damn himself hereafter
for that which does not some way or other gratify and please
him'here. But to draw forth this general into particulars.
1. First of all: Those are to be accounted to take pleasure
in other men's sins who teach doctrines directly tending to




Rox. i. 32.] Of taking Pleasure in other Men's Sins.  359
engage such as believe them in a sinful course. For there is
none so compendious and efficacious a way to prepare a man
for all sin as this: this being properly to put out the eyes of
that which is to be his guide, by perverting his judgment;;
and when that is once done, you may carry him whither you
will. Chance must be his rule, and present appetite his director. A man's judgment or conscience is the great spring
of all his actions; and consequently to corrupt or pervert this
is to derive a contagion upon all that he does. And therefore we see how high a guilt our Saviour charges upon this
in Matt. v. 19; Whosoever -shall break one of these least cormmandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called the least in the
kingdom of heaven: that is, in truth shall never come thither.
And we find the great sin of the Pharisees was, that they
promoted and abetted the sins of other ~men, taught: the
devil's doctrine out of Moses's chair, and by false descants
upon the divine precepts cut asunder the binding force of
them: so that, according to their wretched comments, men
might break the law, and yet never sin against it. For in
Matt. xv. 5, 6, they had taught men how to dishonor their
parents, without any violation of the fifth commandment.
Thus they preached: and what design can any one imagine
the authors of such doctrines could have, but the depravation
of men's manners! For, if some men teach wicked things,
it must be that others should practice them. And if one man
sets another a copy, it is no doubt with a purpose that he
should write after it.
Now these doctrines are of two sorts:
1. Such as represent actions that are in themselves really
wicked and sinful, as not so.
2. Such as represent them much less sinful as to their kind
or degrees than indeed they are.
For the first of which; to instance in one very gross one,
instead of many, take the doctrine of those commonly called
Antinomians, who assert positively that believers, or persons
regenerate, and within the covenant of grace, can not sin.
Upon which account, no wonder if some very liberally assume
to themselves the condition and character of believers; for
then they know that other mighty privilege belongs to them
Of course.  But what  may not these believers cheat and




360              Of the Heinous Guilt of     [SERM. XVIIL
lie, commit adultery, steal, murder, and rebel P Why, yes;
they may, and nothing is more common than to see such believers do such things. But how then can, they escape the
charge of all that guilt that naturally follows from such
enormities P Why, thus; you must in this case with great
care and accuracy distinguish between the act of lying and
the sin of lying, the act of stealing and the sin.of stealing,
and the act of rebellion and the sin of rebellion. Now,
though all these acts are frequent and usual with such persons,, yet they are sure (as they order the matter) never to
beguilty of the sin. And the reason is, because it is not the
quality of the action that derives a qualification upon the
person, so as to render him such or such, good or bad; but it
is the antecedent quality or condition of the person that denominates his actions, and stamps them good or evil. So
that they are those only who are first wicked, that do wicked
actions. But believers, and the godly, though they do the
very same things, yet they so much outwit the devil in the
doing of. them, that they never commit the same sins. But.you will say, how came they by such a great and strange
privilege P- Why, they will tell you, it is because they-are not
under the obliging: power of the law. And if you ask further, how they come to get fromn under that common obligation that lies so hard and heavy upon all the rest of the
world; they will.tell you, it is from this,.that believers, instead of the law, have.the. Spirit actually dwelling in them,
and by an admirable kind of invisible clock-work moving
them, just as a spring does a watch; and that immediately
by himself alone, without the meditation of any written law
or rule to guide, or direct, and much less to commnand or
oblige them. So that the Spirit, we see, is to be their sole
director, without, and very often contrary to, the written law.
An excellent contrivance, doubtless, to authorize and sanctify
the blackest and most flagitious actions that can proceed firom
man. For since the motions of the Spirit (which they so
confidently suppose themselves to have) can not so much as
in things good and lawful, by any certain diagnostic, be distinguished from the motions of a man's own heart, they very
easily make a step further, and even in things unlawful conclude the motions of their own hearts to be the impulse of




RoM. i. 32.]  taking Pleasure in other Men's Sins.    361
the Spirit; and this presently alters the whole complexion of
an action that would otherwise look but very scurvily; and
makes it absolutely pure and unblamable, or rather perfect
and meritorious. So that let a man have but impudence and
wickedness enough to libel his Maker, and to entitle the
Spirit of God to all that he does or desires, surnaming his
own inclinations and appetites (though never so irregular
and impure) the Holy Ghost; and you may, upon very sure
grounds, turn him loose, and bid him sin if he can. And
thus much for the first sort of doctrines, which once believed,
like. the floodgates of hell pulled up, lets in a deluge and
inundation of all sin and vice upon the lives of men. And
if this be the natural effect of the doctrines themselves, we
can not in all reason but infer, that the interest of the teachers of them must needs be agreeable.
2. The other sort of doctrines tending to engage such as
believe them in a sinful course, are such as represent mnany
sins much less, as to their kind or degree, than indeed they
are. Of which number is that doctrine, that asserts all sins
committed by believers, or persons in a state of grace, to be
but infirmities. That there are such things as sins of infirmity, in contradistinction to those of presumption, is a truth not
to be questioned; but in hypothesi, to state exactly which are
sins of infirmity, and which are not, is not so easy a work.
This is certain, that there is a vast difference between them;
indeed, as vast as between inadvertency and deliberation,
between surprise and set purpose: and that persons truly
regenerate have sinned this latter way, and consequently
may sin so again, is as evident as the story (already referred
to by us) of David's murder and adultery: sins acted not only
with deliberation, but with artifice, study, and deep contrivance. And can sins, that carry such dismal marks and black
symptoms upon them, pass for infirmities? for sins of daily
incursion, and such as human frailty, and the very condition
of our nature in this world, is so unavoidably liable to, (for so
are sins of infirmity,) that a righteous man may Jfill into them
seven times in a day; and yet, according to the merciful tenor
of the covenant of grace, stand accepted before God as a
righteous man still? No, certainly, if such are infirmities,
it will be hard to assign what are presumptions. And what. a




362              Of the Heinous Guilt of      [SEaM. XVIII.
sin-encouraging doctrine that is, that avouches them for such,
is sufficiently manifest from hence; that although every sin
of infirmity, in its own nature and according to the strict
rigor of the law, merits eternal death, yet it is certain firom
the gospel, that no man shall actually suffer eternal death
barely for sins of infirmity: which being so,:persuade but a
man, that a regenerate person may cheat and lie, steal, murder, and rebel, by way of infirmity, and at the same time you
persuade him also that he may do all this without any danger
of damnation. And then, since these are oftentimes such
desirable privileges to flesh and blood; and since withal, every
man by nature is so very prone to think the best of himself
and of his own condition; it is odds but he will find a shrewd
temptation to believe himself regenerate,; rather than forbear
a pleasurable or profitable sin, by thinking that: he shall. go to
hell for committing it. Now this being such a direct manuduction to all kind of sin, by abusing the conscience with
undervaluing persuasions concerning the malignity and guilt
even of the foulest, it is evident that such as teach and
promote the belief of such doctrines are to be looked upon
as the devil's prophets and apostles; and there is no doubt
but the guilt of every sin, that either from pulpit or from
press they influence men to the commission of, does as certainly rest upon them, and will one day be as severely exacted
of them, as if they had actually and personally committed it
themselves.
And thus I have instanced in two notable doctrines, that
may justly be looked upon: as, the general inlets, or two great
gates, through which all vice, and villainy rush in upon the
manners of men professing religion.  But the:: particulars
into which these generals diffuse themselves, you may look
for and find in those well-furnished magazines and storehouses of all immorality and baseness, the books and writings
of some: modern casuists; who, like the devil's amanuenses,
and secretaries to the prince of darkness, have published to
the world such notions and intrigues of sin out of his cabinet,
as neither the wit or wickedness of man, upon the bare natural stock either of invention or corruption, could ever have
found out.
The writings both of the Old and New Testament make it




ROM. i. 32.]  taking Pleasure in other Men's Sins.   363
very difficult for a man to be saved; but the writings of these
men make it more difficult, if not impossible, for any one to
be damned: for where there is no sin, there can be no damnation. And-as these men have obscured and confounded the
natures and properties of things by their false principles and
wretched sophistry, though an act be never so sinful, they will
be sure to strip it of its guilt; and to make the very law and
rule of, action so pliable and bending, that it shall be impossible to be broke. So that he who goes to hell must pass
through a narrower gate than that which the gospel says
leads to heaven. For that, we are told, is only strait, but this
is absolutely shut; and so shut that sin can not pass it, and
therefore it is much if a sinner should.
So insufferably have these impostors poisoned the fountains
of morality, perverted and embased the very standard and
distinguishing rule of good and evil. So that all their books
and writings are but debauchery upon record, and impiety
registered and consigned over to posterity.
In every volume there is a nursery and plantation of vice,
where it is sure to thrive, and from thence to be transplanted
into men's practice. For here it is manured.with airt and
argument, sheltered with fallacy and distinction, and thereby
enabled both to annoy others and to defend itself.
And to show how far the malignity of this way of sinning
reaches, he who has vented a pernicious doctrine, or published an ill book, must know that his guilt and his life determine not together: no, such an one, as the apostle says, being
dead, yet speaketh; he sins in his very grave, corrupts others
while he is rotting himself, and has a growing account in the
other world after he has paid nature's last debt in this; and,
in a word, quits this life like a man- carried off by the plague,
who, though he dies himself, yet does execution upon others
by a surviving infection.
2. Such also are to be reckoned to -take pleasure in other
men's sins, as endeavor by all- means to allure men to sin;
and that either by formal persuasion, importunity, or desire,
as we find the harlot described, enticing the young man, in
Prov. vii. from ver. 13 to 22; or else by administering objects
and occasions fit to inflame and draw forth a man's corrupt
affections; such as are the drinking of a choleric or revenge



364             Of the Heinous Guilt of      [SERM. XVIII.
ful person into a fit of rage and violence against the person
of his neighbor; thus heating one man's blood, in order to
the shedding of another's. Such also as the provoking of a
lustful, incontinent person, by filthy discourse, wanton books
and pictures, and, that which equals and exceeds them all,
the incentives of the stage; till a man's vice and folly works
over all bounds, and grows at length too mad and outrageous
to be either governed or concealed.
Now, with great variety of such kind of traders for hell as
these has the nation of late years abounded. Wretches who
live upon the'shark, and other men'; sins, the common poisoners of youth, equally desperate in their fortunes and their
manners, and getting their very bread by the damnation of
souls. So. that if any inexperienced young novice happens
into the fatal neighborhood of such pests, presently they are
upon him, plying his full purse and his empty pate with addresses suitable to his vanity; telling him, what pity it is
that one so accomplished for parts and person should smother
himself in the country, where he can learn nothing of gallantry or behavior; as, how to make his court, to hector a
drawer, to cog the die, or storm a whorehouse; but must of
necessity live and die ignorant of what it is to trepan or be
trepanned, to sup or rather dine at midnight in a tavern, with
the noise of oaths, blasphemies, and fiddlers about his ears,
and to fight every watch and constable at his return from
thence, and to be beaten by them: but must at' length, poor
man! die dully of old. age at home; when here he might so
fashionably and genteelly, long before that time, have been
duelled or fluxed into another world.
If this be not the guise and practice of the times, especially
as to the principal cities of the kingdom, let any one judge;
and whether for such a poor deluded wretch, instead of growing rusty in the country, (as some call it,) to be thus brought
by a company of indigent, debauched, soul-and-body-destroying harpies, to lose his estate, family, and virtue, amongst
them in the city, be not-a much greater violation of the public weal and justice of any government, than most of those
crimes that bring the commnitters of them to the gallows, we
may at present easily see, and one day perhaps sadly feel.
Nor is this trade of corrupting the gentry and nobility, and




ROM. i. 32.]  taking Pleasure in other Men's Sins.   365
seasoning them with the vices of the gi'eat town, as soon as
they set foot into it, carried on secretly, and in a corner, but
openly, and in the face of the sun; by persons who have
formed themselves into companies, or rather corporations.
So that a man may as easily know where to find one to teach
him to debauch, whore, game, and blaspheme, as to teach
him to write or cast accompt: it is their support and business; nay, their very profession and livelihood; getting their
living by those practices, for which they deserve to forfeit
their lives.
Now these are another sort of men, who are justly charged
with the guilt and character of delighting in other men's
sins: men, who are the devil's setters; who contrive, study,
and beat their brains how to draw in some poor, innocent,
unguarded heir into their hellish net, learning his humor,
prying into his circumstances, and observing his weak side;
and all this to plant the snare and apply the temptation effectually and successfully; and when by such insinuations
they have once got within him, and are able to drill him on
from one lewdness to another, by the same arts corrupting and
squeezing him as they please; no wonder if they rejoice to
see him guilty of all sorts of villainy, and take pleasure in
those sins in which they find their profit too.
3. Such as affect the company of infamous and vicious persons are also to be reckoned in the numiber of those who take
pleasure in such men's vices. For otherwise, what is there
in such men which they can pretend to be pleased with P For
generally such sots have neither parts nor wit, ingenuity of
discourse, nor fineness of conversation, to entertain or delight
any one, that, coming into their company, brings but his
reason along with him.  But, on the contrary, their rude,
impertinent loudness, their quarrels, their nastiness, their
dull, obscene talk and ribaldry, (which from them you must
take for wit, or go without it,) can not but be very nauseous
and offensive to any one who does not balk his own reason,
out of love to their vice, and, for the sake of the sin itself,
pardon the ugliness of its circumstances: as a father will hug
and embrace his beloved son, for all the dirt and foulness of
his clothes; the dearness of the person easily apologizing fof
the disagreeableness of the habit.




366             Of the Heinous Guilt of     [SERM. XVIIL
One would think it should be no easy matter to bring any
man of sense to love an alehouse; indeed of so much sense,
as seeing and smelling amounts to; there being such strong
encounters of both as would quickly send him packing, did
not the love of good fellowship reconcile him to these nuisances, and the deity he adored compound for the homeliness
of its shrine.
It is clear therefore, that where a man can like and love
the conversation of lewd, debauched persons, amidst all the
natural grounds and motives of loathing and dislike, it can
proceed from nothing but the inward affection he bears to
their lewd, debauched humor. It is this that he enjoys, and,
for the sake of this, the rest he endures.
4thly and lastly, Such as encourage, countenance, and support men in their sins, are to be reckoned in the number of
those who take pleasure in other men's sins. Now this may
be done two ways:
First, By commendation. Concerning which, we may take
this for granted; that no man commends another any further
than he likes him: for indeed to commend any one, is to
vbuch him to the world, to undertake for his worth, and, in a
word, to own the thing which he is chiefly remarkable for.
He who writes an encomium JXeronis, if he does it heartily,
is himself but a transcript of Nero in his mind; and would
no doubt gladly enough see such pranks as he was famous
for, acted again, though he dares not be the actor of them
himself.
From whence we see the reason of some men's giving such
honorable names and appellations to the worst of men and
actions, and blase, reproachful titles to the best: such as are
calling faction, and a spitting in their prince's face, petitioning; fanaticism and schism, true Protestantism; sacrilege and
rapine, -thorough reformation, and the like. As, on the contrary, branding conformity to the rules and rites of the best
church in the world with the false and odious name of formtality; and traducing all religious, conscientious observers
of them, as mongrel Protestants, and Papists in masquerade.
And indeed many are and have been called Papists of late
years, whom those very persons who call them so know to be
far from being so. But what then do they mean by fixing




ROM. i. 32.]  taking Pleasure in other Men's Sins.  367
such false characters upon men, even against their own consciences P Why, they mean and design this: they would set
such a mark upon those whom they hate, as may cause their
throats to be cut, and their estates to be seized upon, when
the rabble shall be let loose upon the, government once again;
which such beggarly, malicious fellows impatiently hope and
long for.
Though I doubt not (how much soever knaves may abuse
fools with words for a time):but there will come a day, in
which the most active Papists will be found under the Puritan
mask; in which it will appear, that the conventicle has been
the Jesuits' safest kennel, and the Papists themselves, as well
as the fanatics, have been managers of all those monstrous
outcries against Popery, to the ruin of those Protestants
whom they most hate, and whom alone they fear. It being. no
unheard-of trick for a thief, when he is closely pursued, to
cry out, Stop the thief, and thereby diverting the suspicion
from himself, to get clear away. It is also worth our while
to consider with what terms of respect and commendation
knaves and sots will speak of their own fraternity.: As, What
an honest, what a worthy man is such an one! And, What a
good-natured person is another! According to which terms,
such as are factious, by worthy men mean only such as are of
the same faction, and united in the same designs against the
government; with themselves. And such as are brothers of
the pot, by a good-natured person mean only a true, trusty debauchee, who never stands out at a merry-meeting, so long as
he is able to stand at all; nor ever refuses an health, while he
has enough of his own to pledge it with; and, in a word, is
as honest as drunkenness and debauchery, want of sense and
reason, virtue and sobriety, can possibly make him.
2dly, The other way by which some men encourage others
in their sins is, by preferment. As, when men shall be advanced to places of trust and honor for those qualities that
render them unworthy of so much as sober and civil company.
When a lord or master shall cast his favors and rewards upon
such beasts and blemishes of society, as live only to the dishonor of Him who made them, and the reproach of him who
maintains them. None certainly can love to see vice in power
but such as love to see it also in practice. Place and honor




368              Of the Heincous Guilt of     [SERM. XVIII.
do of all things most misbecome it; and a goat or a swine in
a chair of state can not be more odious than ridiculous.
It is reported of Caesar, that, passing through a certain
town, and seeing all the women of it standing at their doors
with monkeys in their arms, he asked, whether the women
of that country used to have any children or no P thereby
wittily and sarcastically reproaching them for misplacing that
affection upon brutes, which could only become a mother to
her child. So, when we come into a great family or government, and see this place of honor allotted to a murderer,
another filled with an atheist or blasphemer, and a third with
a filthy parasite, may we not as appositely and properly ask
the question, whether there be any such thing as virtue, sobriety, or religion amongst such a people, with whom vice
wears those rewards, honors, and privileges, which in other
nations the common judgment of reason awards only to the
virtuous, the sober, and religious P And certainly it is too
flagrant a demonstration, how much vice is the darling of any
people, when many amongst them are preferred for those
practices for which, in, other places, they can scarce be pardoned.
And thus I have finished the third and last general thing
proposed, for the handling of the words, which was, to show
the several sorts or kinds of men which fall under the charge
and character of taking pleasure in other men's sins.
Now the inferences from the foregoing particulars shall be
twofold:
1. Such as concern particular persons; and,
2. Such as concern communities, or bodies of men.,
And first for the malignity of such a disposition of mind
as induces a man to deliglht in other men's sins, with reference to the effects of it upon particular persons. As,
1. It quite alters and depraves the natural frame of a man's
heart: for there is that naturally in the heart of man, which
abhors sin, as sin; and consequently would make him detest
it, both in himself and in others too. The -first and most
genuine principles of reason are certainly averse to it, and
find a secret grief and remorse from every invasion that sin
makes upon a man's innocence; and that must needs render
the first entrance and' admission of sin uneasy, because dis



ROM. 1.32.]  taking Pleasure in other Men's Sins.     369
agreeable. Yet time, we see, and custom of sinning, can
-bring a man to such a pass, that it shall be more difficult
and grievous to him to part with his sin, than ever it -was to
him to admit it. It shall get so far into, and lodge itself so
deep within, his heart, that it shall be his business and his
recreation, his companion and his other self; and the very
dividing between his flesh and his bones, or rather, between
his body and his soul, shall be less terrible and afflictive to
him than to be took off from his vice.
Nevertheless, as unnatural as this effect of sin is, there is
one yet more so: for, that innate principle of self-love, that
very easily and often blinds a man, as to any impartial reflection upon himself, yet, for the most part, leaves his eyes open
enough to judge truly of the same thing in his neighbor, and
to hate that in others which he allows and cherishes in himself. And therefore, when it shall- come to this, that he
also approves, embraces, and delights in sin, as he observes
it even in the person and practice of other men, this shows
that the man is wholly transformed from the creature that
God first made him; nay, that he has consumed those poor
remainders of good that the sin of Adam left him; that he
has worn off the very remote dispositions and possibilities to
virtue; and, in a word, turned grace first, and afterwards
nature itself, out of doors. No man knows, at his first entrance upon any sin, how far it may carry him and where it
will stop; the commission of sin being generally like the
pouring out of water, which, when once poured out, knows
no other bounds but to run as far as it can.
2dly, A second effect of this disposition of mind is, that it
peculiarly indisposes a man to repent, and recover himself
from it.  For the first step to repentance is a man's dislike
of his sin: and how can we expect that a man should conceive any thorough dislike of that which has took such an
absolute possession of his heart and affections, that he likes
and loves it, not only in his own practice, but also in other
men's? nay, that he is pleased with it, though he is past
the practice of it.  Such a temper of mind is a downright
contradiction to repentance; as being founded in the destruction of those qualities which are the only dispositions and
preparatives to it. For that natural tenderness of conscience,
VOL. I.          24




370              Of the Heinous G6uilt of     [SERM. XVIIn.
which must first create in the soul a sense of sin, and from
thence produce a sorrow for it, and at length cause a relinquishment of it; that, I say, (we have already shown,) is took
away by a customary, repeated course of sinning against conscience: so that the very first foundation of virtue, which is
the natural power of distinguishing between the moral good
and evil of any action, is, in effect, plucked up and destroyed;
and the Spirit of God finds nothing in the heart of such an
one to apply the means of grace to; all taste, relish, and
discernment of the suitableness of virtue, and the unsuitableness of vice, being utterly gone from it.
And as thisis a direct bar to that part of repentance which
looks back with sorrow and indignation upon what is past, so
is it equally such to that greater part of repentance which is
to look forward, and to prevent sin for the future. For this
properly delivers a man up to sin; forasmuch as it leaves his
heart destitute of all those principles which should resist it.
So that such an one must be as bad as the devil will have him,
and can be no better than the devil will let him. In both he
must submit to his measures. And what is this but a kind
of entrance into, or rather an anticipation of hell?  What
is it but judgment and damnation already begun P For a
man in such a case is as sure of it as if he were actually in
the flames.
3dly, A third effect of this disposition of mind (which also
naturally follows from the former) is, that the longer a man
lives the wickeder he grows, and his last days are certainly
his worst. It has been observed, that to delight in other
men's sins was most properly the vice of old age; and we shall
also find that it may be as truly and properly called the old
age of vice. For, as first, old age necessarily implies a man's
having lived so many years before it comes upon him; and
withal, this sort of viciousness supposes the precedent commission of many sins, by which a man arrives to it; so it has
this further property of old age: that, as when a man comes
once to be old, he never retreats, but still goes on, and grows
every day older and older; so when a man comes once to such
a degree of wickedness as to delight in the wickedness of
other men, it is more than ten thousand to one odds, if he
ever returns to a better mind, but grows every day worse and




RoM. i. 32.]  taking Pleasure in other Men's Sins.   371
worse. For he has nothing else to take up his thoughts, and
nothing to entertain his desires with; which, by a long estrangement from better things, come at length perfectly to
loathe and fly off from them.
A notable instance of which we have in Tiberius Coesar,
who was bad enough in his youth, but superlatively and monstrously so in his old age: and the reason of this was, because
he took a particular pleasure in seeing other men do vile and
odious things. So that all his diversion at his beloved Capreae,
was to be a spectator of the devil's actors, representing the
worst of vices upon that infamous stage.
And therefore let not men flatter themselves, (as no doubt
some do,) that though they find it difficult at present to combat and stand out against an ill practice, and upon that account give way to a continuance in it, yet that old age shall
do that for them which they in their youth could never find
in their heart to do for themselves; I say, let not such persons mock and abuse themselves with such false and absurd
presumptions. For they must know that a habit may con*tinue when it is no longer able to act; or rather the. elicit,
internal acts of it may be quick and vigorous, when the external, imperate acts of the same habit utterly cease: and let
men but reflect upon their own observation, and consider
impartially with themselves, how few in the world they have
known made better by age. Generally they will see, that such
leave not their vice, but their vice leaves them; or rather
retreats from  their practices, and retires into their fancy;
and that, we know, is boundless and infinite: and when vice
has once settled itself there, it finds a vaster and a wider
compass to act in than ever it had before. I scarce know
any thing that calls for.a more serious consideration from us
than this; for still men are apt to persuade themselves that
they shall find it an easy matter to grow virtuous as they grow
old. But it is a way of arguing highly irrational and fallacious. For this is a maxim of eternal truth; that nothing
grows weak with age but that which will at length die with
age, which sin never does. The longer a blot continues, the
deeper it sinks. And it will be found a work of no small difficulty to dispossess and throw out a vice from that heart
where long possession begins to plead prescription.. It is




372              Of the Heinous Guilt of      [SERM. XVIII.
naturally impossible for, an old man to grow young again; and
it is next to impossible for a decrepit aged sinner to become a
new creature, and be born again.
4thly and lastly, We need no other argument of the malign
effects of this disposition of mind, than this one consideration,
that many perish eternally who never arrived to such a pitch
of wickedness as to take any pleasure in, or indeed to be at all
concerned about, the sins of other men.. But they perish in
the pursuit of their own lusts, and the obedience they personally yield to their own sinful appetites: and that, questionless, very often not without a considerable mixture of inward
dislike of themselves for what they do: yet for all that, their
sin, we see, proving too hard for them, the overpowering
stream carries them away, and down they sink into the bottomless pit, though under the weight of a guilt by vast degrees inferior to that which we have been discoursing of.
For doubtless many men are finally lost, who yet have no
men's sins to answer for but their own: who never enticed
nor perverted others to sin, and much less applauded or encouraged them in their sin: but only being slaves to their
-own corrupt affections, have lived and died under the- killing
power of them, and so passed to a sad eternity.
But that other devilish way of sinning, hitherto' spoken of,
is so far beyond this, that this is a kind of innocence, or
rather a kind of charity, compared to it. For this is a solitary, single, that a complicated, multiplied guilt. And indeed, if we consider at what a rate some men sin nowadays,
that man sins charitably who damns nobody but himself.
But the other sort of sinners, who may properly enough be
said to people hell, and, in a very ill sense, to bear the sins of
many; as they have a guilt made up of many guilts, so what
can they reasonably expect but a damnation equivalent to
many damnations P
And thus much for the first general inference from the
foregoing discourse, showing the malignity of such a disposition of mind as induces a man to delight in other men's sins
with reference to particular persons.
2dly, The other inference shall be with reference to com-:munities, or bodies of men; and so such a disposition has a
most direct and efficacious influence to propagate, multiply,




RoM.:i. 32.]  taking Pleasure in other Men's Sins.   373
and spread the practice of any sin, till it becomes general and
national. For this is most certain, that some men's taking
pleasure in other men's sins, will cause many men to sin, to
do them a pleasure; and this will appear upon these three
accounts. 1. That it is seldom or never that any man comes
to such a degree of impiety as to take pleasure in other men's
sins, but he also shows the world by his actions and behavior
that he does so., 2. That there are few men in the world so
inconsiderable, but there are some or other who have an
interest to serve by them. And, 3. That the natural course
that one man takes to serve his interest by another is, by applying himself to him in such a way as may most gratify and
delight him.
Now from these three things put together, it is not only
easy, but necessary to infer, that since the generality of men
are wholly acted by their present interest, if they find those
who can best serve them in this their interest, most likely
also to be gained over so to do by the sinful and vile practices
of those who address to them; no doubt such practices shall
be pursued by such persons, in order to the compassing their
desired ends. Where greatness takes no delight in goodness,
we may be sure there shall be but little goodness seen in the
lives of those who have an interest to serve by such an one's
greatness. For take any illustrious, potent sinner, whose
power is wholly employed to serve his pleasure, and whose
chief pleasure is to see others as bad and wicked as himself;
and there -is no question but in a little time he will also make
them so; and his dependents shall quickly become his proselytes.  They shall sacrifice their virtue to his humor, spend
their credit and good name, nay, and their very souls too, to
serve him; and that by the worst and basest of services,
which is, by making themselves like him. It is but too notorious how long vice has reigned, or rather raged amongst us;
and with what a bare face and a brazen forehead it walks
about the nation, as it were, elato capite, and looking down
with scorn upon virtue as a contemptible and a mean thing.
Vice could not come to this pitch by chance. But we have
sinned apace, and at an higher strain of villainy than the fops
our ancestors (as some are pleased to call them) could ever
arrive to. So that we daily see maturity and age in vice




374              Ofthe Heinous Guilt of      [SERM. XVIII
joined with youth and greenness of years; a manifest argument, no doubt, of the great docility and pregnancy of
parts, that is, in the present age, above all the former.
For, in respect of vice, nothing is more usual nowadays
than for boys illico nasci senes. They see their betters delight
in ill things; they observe reputation and countenance to attend the practice of. them; and this carries them on furiously
to that which, of themselves, they are but too much inclined
to; and which laws were purposely made by wise men to keep
them from. They are glad, you may be sure, to please and
prefer themselves at once, and to serve their interest and
their sensuality together.
And as they are come to this heght and rampancy of vice,
in a great measure, from the countenance of their betters and
superiors, so they have took some steps higher in the same
from this, That the follies and extravagances of the young too
frequently carry with them the suffrage and approbation of
the old. For age, which naturally and unavoidably is but one
remove from death, and consequently should have nothing
about it but what looks like a decent preparation for it, scarce
ever appears of late days but in the high mode, the flaunting
garb, and utmost gaudery of youth; with Clothes as ridiculously, and as much in the fashion, as the person that wears
them is usually grown out of it. The eldest equal the youngest in the vanity of their dress, and no other reason can be
given of it, but that they equal, if not surpass them in the
vanity of their desires. So that those who by the majesty
and, as I may so say, the prerogative of their age, should even
frown youth into sobriety and better manners, are now striving all they can to imitate and strike in with them, and to
be really vicious, that they may be thought to be young.
The sad and apparent truth of which makes it very superfluous to inquire after any further cause of that monstrous
increase of vice, that like a torrent, or rather a breaking in of
the sea upon us, has of late years overflowed and victoriously
carried all before it. Both the honorable and the aged have
contributed all they could to the promotion of it; and, so far
as they are able, to give the best color to the worst of things.
This they have endeavored, and thus much they have effected,
that men now see that vice makes them acceptable to those




ROM. i. 32.  taking Pleasure in other Men's Sins.    375
who are able to make them considerable. It is the key that
lets them into their very heart, and enables them to command
all that is there. And if this be the price of favor, and the
market of honor, no doubt where the trade is so quick, and
withal so certain, multitudes will be sure to follow it.
This is too manifestly our present case. All men see it;
and wise and good men lament it: and where vice, pushed on
with such mighty advantages, will stop its progress, it is hard
to judge: it is certainly above all human remedies to control
the prevailing course of it; unless the great Governor of the
world, who quells the rage and swelling of the sea, and sets
bars and doors to it, beyond which the proudest of its waves
can not pass, shall, in his infinite compassion to us, do the
same to that ocean of vice which now swells, and roars, and
lifts up itself above all banks and bounds of human laws;
and so, by his omnipotent word, reducing its power, and abasing its pride, shall at length say to it, Hitherto shalt thou come,
and no further. Which God in his good time effect.
To whom be rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all praise,
might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for evermore.
Amen.




SERMON XIX.
NATURAL RELIGION, WITHOUT REVELATION, SHOWN ONLY
SUFFICIENT TO RENDER A SINNER INEXCUSABLE:
IN A SERMON PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY, AT CHRIST CHURCH, OXON,
NOVEMBER 2, 1690.
ROMANS i. 20... So that they are without excuse.
THIS excellent epistle, though in the front of it it bears
a particular inscription, yet, in the drift and purpose of
it, is universal; as designing to convince all mankind (whom
it supposes in pursuit of true happiness) of the necessity of
seeking for it in the Gospel, and the impossibility of finding
it elsewhere. All without the church, at that time, were
comprehended under the division of Jews and Gentiles, called
here by the apostle, Greeks; the nobler and more noted part
being used for the whole. Accordingly, from the second
chapter, down along, he addresses himself to the Jews, showing the insufficiency of their law to justify, or make them
happy, how much soever they doated upon it. But here, in
this first chapter, he deals with the Greeks, or Gentiles, who
sought for and promised themselves the same happiness from
the dictates of right reason, which the Jews did from the
Mosaic law. Where, after he had took an account of what
their bare reason had taught them in the things of God, and
compared the superstructure with the foundation, their practice with their knowledge, he finds them so far from arriving
at the happiness which they aspire to by this means, that upon
a full survey of the whole matter, the result of all comes to
this sad and deplorable issue, that they were sinful and miserable, and that without excuse. In the words, taken with the




RoM. i. 20.]   Natural Religion without Revelation.  377
coherence of- the precedent and subsequent verses, we have
these four things considerable:
I. The sin here followed upon a certain sort of men, with
this so severe a judgment; namely, that knowing God, they did
not glorify him as God, ver. 21.
II. The persons guilty of this sin; they were such as professed themselves wise, ver. 22.
III. The cause or reason of their falling into this sin;
which was their holding the truth in unrighteousness, ver. 18,
And,
IV. and lastly, The judgment, or rather the state and condition, penally consequent upon these sinners; namely, that
they were without excuse, ver. 20.
Of each of which in their order: and first, for the first of
them.
The sin here followed with so severe a judgment, and so
highly aggravated and condemned by the apostle, is, by
the united testimony of most divines upon this place, the sin
of idolatry; which the apostle affirms to consist in this:
That the Gentiles glorified not God, as God. Which general
charge he also draws forth into particulars; as, that they
changed his glory into the similitude and images of men, and
beasts, and birds; where, by glory, he means God's worship,
to wit, that by which men glorify him, and not the essential glory of his nature; it being such a glory as was in
men's power to change and to debase; and therefore must
needs consist, either in those actions, or those means, which
they performed the divine worship by. I know no place from
which we may more clearly gather what the scripture accounts idolatry, than from this chapter. From whence, that
I may represent to you what idolatry is, and wherein one sort
of it, at least, does consist, you may observe, that the persons
who are here charged with it are positively affirmed to have
known and acknowledged the true God. For it is said of
them, that they knew his eternal power and godhead, in this
twentieth verse; nay, and they worshiped him  too.  From
whence this undeniably and invincibly follows, that they did
not look upon those images which they addressed to, as
gods, nor as things in which the divine nature did or could
enclose itself; nor, consequently, to which they gave, or ulti



378        Natural Religion without Revelation  [SERM. XIX.
mnately designed their religious worship. This conclusion
therefore I infer, and assert, that idolatry is not only an accounting or worshiping that for God which is not God, but it
is also a worshiping the true God in a way wholly unsuitable
to his nature; and particularly by the mediation of images
and corporeal resemblances of him. This is idolatry: for the
persons here spoken of pretended to glorify the true God,
but they did not glorify him as God, and upon that account
stand arraigned for idolaters. Common sense and experience
will Iand must evince the truth of this. For can any one
imagine that men of reason, who had their senses quick,
and their wits and discourse entire, could take that image or
statue, which they fell down before, to be a god?  Could
they think that to be infinite and immense, the ubiquity of
which they could thrust into a corner of their closet P Or,
could they conceive that to be eternal, which a few days before they had seen a log, or a rude trunk, and perhaps the
other piece of it a joint-stool in the workman's shop P
The ground and reason of all worship is, an opinion of
power and will in the person worshiped to answer and supply our desires; which he can not possibly do, unless he first
apprehend them.  But can any man, who is master of
sense himself, believe the rational heathens so void of it, as
to think that those images could fulfill the petitions which
they could not hear, pity the wants they could not see, do
all things when they could not stir an hand or a foot P It is
impossible they should; but it is also certain that they were
idolaters.
And therefore it is clear that their idolatry consisted in
something else, and the history of it would demonstrate so
much, were it proper to turn a sermon into a history. So
that we see here, that the sin condemned in the text was the
worshiping of the true God by images. For the defense of
which there is no doubt but they might have pleaded, and
did plead for those images, that they used them not as objects, but only as means and instruments of divine worship,
not as what they worshiped, but as that by which they directed their worship to God. Though still, methinks it is
something hard to conceive, that none of the worship should
fall upon the image by the way, or that the water can be con



RoM. i. 20.]   renders a Sinner inexcusable,         379
veyed into the sea, without so much as wetting the channel
through which it passes. But however, you see it requires
a very distinguishing head, and an even hand, and no small
skill in directing the intention, to carry a prayer quite
through to its journey's end: though, after all, the mischief
of it is, that the distinction, which looks so fine in the theory,
generally miscarries in the practice; especially where the
ignorant vulgar are the practicers, who are the worst in the
world at distinguishing, but yet make far the greatest part
of mankind, and are as much concerned and obliged to pray
as the wisest and the best; but withal, infinitely unhappy,
if they can not perform a necessary duty without school-distinctions, nor beg their daily bread without metaphysics.
And thus much for the first thing proposed; namely, the sin
here spoken against by the apostle in the text; which was
idolatry.
2. The second is the persons charged with this sin. And
they were not the Gnostics, as some whimsically imagine,
who can never meet with the words yIVJwaKOVTE3, yLVWO(KELV,
yyr~Lo, or -voeTv, but presently the Gnostics must be drawn
in by the head and shoulders; but the persons here meant
were plainly and manifestly the old heathen philosophers; such
as not only in the apostle's, but also in their own phrase, professed themselves to be wise. Their great title was aobol, and
the word of applause still given to their lectures was aoowbfs.
And Pythagoras was the first who abated of the invidiousness of the name, and from croos brought it down to OtXO'okoo,
from a master to a lover of wisdom, fiom a professor to a candidate.
These were the men here intended by St. Paul; men famous in their respective ages; the great favorites of nature,
and the top and masterpiece of art; men whose aspiring
intellectuals had raised them above the common level, and
made them higher by the head than the world round about
them. Men of a polite reason, and a notion refined and enlarged by meditation. Such, as with all these advantages of
parts and study, had been toiling and plodding many years,
to outwit and deceive themselves; sat up many nights, and
spent many days to impose a fallacy upon their reason; and,
in a word, ran the round of all the arts and sciences to arrive,




380         Natural Religion without Revelation  [SERM. XIX.
at length, at a glorious and elaborate folly; even these, I say,
these grandees and giants in knowledge, who thus looked
down, as it were, upon the rest of mankind, and laughed at
all besides themselves, as barbarous and insignificant, (as
quick and sagacious as they were to look into the little intrigues of matter and motion, which a man might salva scientia, or at least, salva anima ignorare,) yet blundered and stumbled about their grand and principal concern, the knowledge
of their duty to God, sinking into the meanest and most ridiculous instances of idolatry; even so far as to worship the
great God under the form of beasts and creeping things; to
adore eternity and immensity in a brute or a plant, or some
viler thing; bowing down, in their adoration, to, such things
as they would scarce otherwise have bowed down to take up.
Nay, and to rear temples, and make altars to fear, lust, and
revenge; there being scarce a corrupt passion of the mind, or
a distemper of the body, but what they worshiped. So that
it could not be expected that they should ever repent of those
sins which they thought fit to deify, nor mortify those corrupt
affections to which they ascribed a kind of divinity and immortality.. By all which they fell into a greater absurdity in
matter of practice, than ever any one of. them did in point of
opinion; (which yet certainly was very hard;) namely, that
having confessed a God, and allowed him the perfections of a
God, to wit, an infinite power and an eternal godhead, they
yet denied him the worship of God: thus reversing the great
truths they had subscribed to in speculation, by a brutish,
senseless devotion, managed with a greater prostration of reason than of body..Had the poor vulgar rout'only, who were held under the
prejudices and prepossessions of education, been abused into
such idolatrous superstitions as to adore a marble or a golden
deity, it might -have been detested indeed, or pitied, but not
so much to be wondered at: but for the stoa, the academy, or
the peripatot to own such a paradox; for an Aristotle or a
Plato to think their Nov &t&os, their eternal mind or universal
spirit, to be found in, or served by, the images of four-footed
beasts; for the Stagirite to recognize his gods in his own
book de Animalibus; this, as the apostle says, was without
excuse: and how will these men answer for their sins, who




ROM. i. 20.]   renders a Sinner inexcusable,         381
stand thus condemned for their devotions P And thus, from
the persons here charged by the apostle with the sin of idolatry, pass we now to the
3d thing proposed; namely, the cause or reason of their
falling into this sin; and that was their holding of the truth
in unrighteousness. For the making out of which, we must
inquire into these two things:
1. What was the truth here spoken of.
2. How they held it in unrighteousness.
For the first of them; there were these six great truths,
the knowledge of which the Gentile philosophers stood accountable for: as,
1. That there was a God; a being distinct from this visible,
material world; infinitely perfect, omniscient, omnipotent,
eternal, transcendently good and holy. For all this is included in the very notion.of a God. And this was a truth
wrote with a sunbeam, clear and legible to all mankind, and
received by universal consent.
2. That this God was the maker and governor of this vis-y
-ible world. The first of which was evident from  the very
order of causes; the great argument by which natural reason
evinces a God. It being necessary, in such an order or chain
of causes, to ascend to, and terminate in, some fi-st: which
should be the original of motion, and the cause of all other
things, but itself be caused by none. And then, that God
also governed the world, this followed from the other; for
that a creature should not depend upon its Creator in all respects in which it is capable of depending upon him, (amongst
which, to be.governed by him, is certainly one,) is contrary
to the common order and nature of things, and those essential relations which (by virtue thereof) they bear to one another; and consequently absurd and impossible.  So that
upon a bare principle of reason, creation must needs infer
providence; and God's making the world, irrefragably prove
that he governs it too; or that a Being of a dependent nature
remains nevertheless independent upon him in that respect.
Besides all which, it is also certain that the heathens did actually acknowledge the world governed by a supreme- mind;
which knowledge, whether they had it from tradition or the
discourses of reason, they stood however equally accountable
for upon either account.




382 2N2atural Religion without Revelation  [SERM. XIX.
3dly, That this God, or supreme Being, was to be worshiped. For this was founded upon his omnipotence and his
providence. Since he, who would preserve or destroy as he
pleased, and withal governed the world, ought surely to be
depended upon by those who were thus obnoxious to his power
and subject to his government; which dependence could not
manifest itself but by acts of worship, homage, and address
to the person thus depended upon.
4thly, That this God was to be worshiped, or addressed to,
by virtuous and pious practices. For so much his essential
holiness required, and those innate notions of turpe et honestunm,
wrote in the consciences of all men, and joined with the apprehensions they had of the infinite purity of the divine
nature, could not but suggest.
5thly, That upon any deviation from virtue and piety, it
was the duty of every rational creature so deviating, to condemn, renounce, and be sorry for every such deviation: that
is, in other words, to repent of it. What indeed the issue or
effect of such a repentance might be, bare reason could not
of itself discover, but that: a peccant creature should disapprove, and repent of every violation of, and declination from,
the rules of just and honest, this, right reason, discoursing
upon the stock of its own principles, could not but infer.
And the conscience of every man, before it is debauched and
hardened by habitual sin, will recoil after the doing of an evil
action, and acquit him after a good.
6thly and lastly, That every such deviation from duty rendered the person so deviating liable and obnoxious to punishment. I do not say that it made punishment necessary, but
that it made the person so transgressing worthy of it; so
that it might justly be inflicted on him, and consequently
ought rationally to be feared and expected by him. And
upon this notion, universally fixed in the minds of men, were
grounded all their sacrifices, and rites of expiation, and lustration; the use of which has be.en so general, both as to
times and places, that there is no age or nation of the world
in which they have not been used as principal parts of religious worship.
Now these six grand truths were the talent intrusted and
-deposited by God in the hands of the Gentiles for them to




Rom. i. 20.]  renders a Sinner inexcusable.       383
traffic with, to his honor and their own happiness.  But
what little improvement they made of this noble talent, shall
now be shown in the next particular; namely, their holding
of it in unrighteousness: which they did several ways. As,,1. By not acting up to what they knew. As in many
things their knowledge was short of the truth, so, almost in
all things, their practice fell short of their knowledge. The
principles by which they walked were as much below those
by which'they judged as their feet were below their head.
By the one they looked upwards, while they placed the other
in the dirt. Their writings sufficiently show what raised and
sublime notions they had of the divine nature, while they
employed their reason about that glorious object, and what
excellent discourses of virtue and morality the same reason
enabled them  to furnish the world with. But when they
came to transcribe these theories into practice, one seemed to
be of no other use to them at all, but only to reproach them
for the other. For they neither depended upon this God as
if he were almighty, nor worshiped him as if they believed
him holy; but in both prevaricated with their own principles
to that degree, that their practice was a direct contradiction
to their speculations. For the proof of which, go over all the
heathen temples, and take a survey of the absurdities and
impieties of their worship, their monstrous sacrifices, their
ridiculous rites and ceremonies. In all which, common sense
and reason could not but tell them, that the good and gracious God could not be pleased, nor consequently worshiped,
with any thing barbarous or cruel; nor the most holy God
with any thing filthy and unclean; nor a God infinitely wise
with any thing sottish or ridiculous; and yet these were the
worthy qualifications of the heathen worship, even amongst
their greatest and most reputed philosophers.
And then, for the duties of morality; surely they never
wanted so much knowledge as to inform and convince them
of the unlawfulness of a man's being a murderer, a hater
of God, a covenant-breaker, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful. These were enormities branded and condemned by the first and most natural verdict of common humanity; and so very gross and foul, that no man could pretend ignorance that they ought to be avoided by him: and




384       N2atural Religion without Revelation   [SERM. XIX.
yet the apostle tells us, in the last verse of this chapter, that
they practiced so much short of their knowledge, even as to
these particulars, That though they knew the judgment of God,
that those who committed such things were worthy of death, yet
not only did the same themselves, but also had pleasure in those
that did them. Which certainly is the greatest demonstration
of a mind wholly possessed and even besotted with the love
of vice,~ that can possibly be imagined. So notoriously did
these wretches balk the judgment of their consciences, even
in the plainest and most undeniable duties relating to God,
their neighbor, and themselves, as if they had owned neither
God nor neighbor, but themselves.
2dly, These men held the truth in unrighteousness, by not
improving those known principles into the proper consequences deducible from  theim.  For surely had they discoursed rightly but upon this one principle, that God was a
being infinitely perfect, they could never have been brought
to assert or own a multiplicity of gods. For can one god
include in him all perfection, and another god include in him
all perfection too P Can there be any more than all?P and if
*this all be in one, can it be also in another P Or, if they allot
and parcel out several perfections to several deities, do they
not, by this,' assert contradictions, making a deity only to
such a measure perfect; whereas a deity, as such, implies
perfection beyond all measure or limitation P Nor could they,
in the next place, have slid into those brutish immoralities
of life, had they duly manured those first practical notions
and dictates of right reason, which the nature of  man is
originally furnished with; there being not any one of them
but what is naturally productive of many more. But they
quickly: stifled and overlaid those infant principles, those
seeds of piety and virtue sown by God and nature in their
own hearts; so that they brought a voluntary darkness and
stupidity upon their minds; and, by not exercising their senses
to discern between good and evil, came at length to lose all
sense and discernment of either:A whereupon, as the apostle
says of them in the 21st verse of this chapter to the Romans,
their foolish heart was darkened: and that, not only by the
just judgment of God, but also by the very course of nature;
nothing being more evident from experience than that the




RoM. i. 20.]  renders a Sinner inexcusable.          385
not using or employing any faculty or power, either of body
or soul, does insensibly weaken and impair that faculty; as a
sword by long lying still will contract a rust, which shall not
only deface its brightness, but by degrees also consume its
very substance.  Doing nothing, naturally ends in being
nothing.
It holds in all operative principles whatsoever, but especially
in such as relate to morality; in which, not to proceed is
certainly to go backward; there being nlo third estate between
not advancing and retreating in a virtuous course. Growth
is of the very essence and nature of some things. To be and
to thrive is all one with them; and they know no middle season between their spring and their fall.
And therefore, as it is said in Matt. xiii. 12, that from him
who hath not, shall be taken away even that which he hath: so
he, who neglects the practice, shall in the end also lose the
very power and faculty of doing well. That which stops a
man's actual breathing very long, will, in the issue, take away
his very power of breathing too. To hide one's talent in the
ground is to bury it; and the burial of a thing either finds it
dead, or will quickly make it so.
3dly, These men held the truth in unrighteousness by concealing what they knew. For how rightly soever they might
conceive of God and of virtue, yet the illiterate multitude,
who, in such things, must see with better eyes than their
own, or see not at all, were never the wiser for it. Whatsoever the inward sentiments of those sophisters were, they
kept them wholly to themselves; hiding all those important
truths, all those useful notions from the people, and teaching
the world much otherwise from what they judged themselves.
Though I think a greater truth than this can not well be uttered; That never any thing or person was really good, which
was good only to itself. But from hence it was that, even in
a literal sense, sin came to be established by a law. For
amongst the Gentiles the laws themselves were the greatest
offenders. They made little' or no provision for virtue, but
very much for vice: for the early and universal practice of sin
had turned it into a custom, and custom, especially in sin,
quickly passed into common law.
Socrates was the only martyr for the testimony of any truth
VOL. 1.       25




386        Natural Religion without Revelation.  [SERM. XIX.
that we read of amongst the heathens, who chose rather to
be condemned, and to die, than either to renounce or conceal
his judgment touching the unity of the Godhead. But as for
the rest of them, even Zeno and Chrysippus, Plato and Aristotle, and generally all those heroes in philosophy, they swam
with the stream, (as foul as it ran,) leaving the poor vulgar as
ignorant and sottish, as vicious and idolatrous, as they first
found them.
But it has been always the practice of the governing cheats
of all religions, to keep the people in as gross ignorance as
possibly they could; for, we see, the heathen impostors used
it before the Christian impostors took it up and improved it.
Si populus decipi vult, decipiatur, was ever a gold and silver
rule amongst them all; though the pope's legate first turned
it into a benediction: and a very strange one it was, and
enough, one would think, to have made all that heard it look
about them, and begin to bless themselves. For as Demetrius,
a great master in such arts, told his fellow-artists, Acts xix.
25, it was by this craft that they got their wealth: so long experience has found it true of the unthinking mobile; that the
closer they shut their eyes, the wider they open their hands.
But this base trade the church of England always abhorred;
and for that cause, as to its temporal advantages, has fared
accordingly; and, by this time, may be thought fit for another
reformation,
And thus I have shown three notable ways by which the
philosophers and learned men amongst the Gentiles held the
truth in unrighteousness: as first, That they did not practice
up to it; 2dly, That they did not improve it; and 3dly and
lastly, That they concealed and dissembled it. And this was
that which prepared and disposed them to greater enormities:
for, changing the truth of God into a lie, they became like those
who, by often repeating a lie to others, came at length to believe it themselves. They owned the idolatrous worship of
God so long, till, by degrees, even in spite of reason and nature, they thought that he. ought so to be worshiped. But
this stopped not here: for as one wickedness is naturally a
step and introduction to-another, so, from absurd and senseless devotions, they passed into vile affections, practicing vices
against nature, and'that in such strange and abominable




RoM. i. 20.]  renders a Sinner inexcusable.         387
instances of sin, that nothing could equal the corruption
of their manners but the delusion of their judgments; both
of them the true and proper causes of one another.
The consideration of which, one would think, should make
men cautious and fearful how they suppress or debauch that
spark of natural light which God has set up in their souls.
When nature is in the dark, it will venture to do any thing.
And God knows how far the spirit of infatuation may prevail
upon the heart, when it comes once to court and love a
delusion. Some men hug an error, because it gratifies them
in a freer enjoyment of their sensuality: and for that reason,
God in judgment suffers them to be plunged into fouler and
grosser errors, such as even unman and strip them of the
very principles of reason and sober discourse. For surely it
could be no ordinary declension of nature that could bring
some men, after an ingenuous education in arts and philosophy,
to place their srummum bonum upon their trenchers, and their
utmost felicity in wine and women, and those lusts and pleasures which a swine or a goat has as full and quick a sense
of as the greatest statesmen or the best philosopher in the
world.
Yet this was the custom, this the known voice of most of
the Gentiles; Duzm vivimus vivarmus; Let us eat and drink today, for to-morrow we must die. That soul which God had
given them, comprehensive of both worlds, and capable of
looking into the great mysteries of nature, of diving bito the
depths beneath, and of understanding the motions and influences of the stars above; even this glorious, active thing did
they confine within the pitiful compass of the present fruition, forbidding it to take a prospect so far as into the morrow; as if to think, to contemplate, or be serious, had been
high treason against the empire and prerogative of sense,
usurping the throne of their baffled and deposed reason.
And how comes it to pass that even nowadays there is
often seen such a vast difference between the former and the
latter part of some men's lives P that those who first stepped
forth into the world with high and promising abilities, vigorous intellectuals, and clear morals, come at length to grow
sots and epicures, mean in their discourses, and dirty in their
practices; but that, as by degrees, they remitted of their in



388        Natural Religion without Revelation   [SERM. XIX.
dustry, loathed their business, and gave way to their pleasures,
they let fall those generous principles which in their youthful days had borne them upon the wing, and raised them to
worthy and great thoughts; which thoughts and principles
not being kept up and cherished, but smothered in sensual
delights, God, for that cause, suffered them to flag and sink
into low and inglorious satisfactions, and to enjoy themselvesmore in a revel or a merry-meeting, a strumpet or a tavern,
than in being useful to a church or a nation, in being a public
good to society, and a benefit to mankind. The parts that
God gave them they held in unrighteousness, sloth, and sensuality; and this made God to desert and abandon them to
themselves; so that they have had a doting and a decrepit
reason long before age had given them such a body.
And therefore I could heartily wish that such young persons as hear we now would lodge this one observation deep
in their minds; viz., that God and nature have joined wisdom
and virtue by such a near cognation, or rather such an inseparable connection, that a wise, a prudent, and- an honorable
old age is seldom or never found but as the reward and effect
of a sober, a virtuous, and a well-spent youth.
4. I descend now to the fourth and last thing proposed;
namely, The judgment, or rather the state and condition penally consequent upon the persons here charged by the apostle
with idolatry; which is, That they were without excuse.
After the commission of sin, it is natural for the sinner to
apprehend himself in danger, and, upon such apprehension,
to provide for his safety and defense; and that must be one
of these two ways: viz., either by pleading his innocence, or
by using his power. But since it would be infinitely in vain
for a finite power to contend with an infinite, innocence, if
any thing, must be his plea; and that must be either by an
absolute denial, or, at least, by an extenuation or diminution
of his sin. Though indeed this course will be found altogether as absurd as the other could be; it being every whit
as irrational for a sinner to plead his innocence before otnniscience, as it would be-to oppose his power to omnipotence.
However, the last refuge of a guilty person is to take shelter
under an excuse; and so to mitigate, if he can not divert, the
blow. It was the method of the great pattern and parent of




RoM. i. 20.]   renders a Sibner inexcusable.          389
all sinners, Adam, first to hide, and then to excuse himself;
to wrap the apple in the leaves, and to give his case a gloss at
least, though not a defense. But now, when the sinner shall
be stripped of this also, have all his excuses blown away, be
stabbed with his own arguments, and, as it were, sacrificed
upon that very altar which he fled to for succor, this surely
is the hight and crisis of a forlorn condition. Yet this was
the case of the malefactors who stand here arraigned in the
text; this was the consummation of their doom, that they
were persons, not only unfit for a pardon, but even for a plea.
Now  an excuse, in the nature of it, imports. these two
things:
I. The supposition of a sin.
2. The extenuation of its guilt.
As for the sin itself, we have already heard what that was,
and we will now see how able they are to acquit themselves
in point of its extenuation. In which, according to the two
grand principles of human actions which determine their
morality, the understanding and the will, the excuse must
derive either from ignorance or unwillingness.
As for unwillingness, (to speak of this last first,) the heathen
philosophers generally asserted the freedom of the will, and
its inviolable dominion over its own actions; so that no force
or coaction from without could intrench upon the absolute
empire of this faculty.
It must be confessed indeed, that it hath been something
lamed in this its freedom by original sin; of which defect the
heathens themselves were not wholly ignorant, though they
were of its cause. So that hereupon, the will is not able to
carry a man out to a choice so perfectly, and in all respects
good, but that still there is some adherent circumstance of
imperfection, which, in strictness of morality, renders every
action of it evil; according to that known and most true rule,
Malum ex quolibet defectu.
Nevertheless, the will has still so much freedom left as to
enable it to choose any act in its kind good, whether it be an
act of temperance, justice, or the like; as also to refuse any
act in its kind evil, whether of intemperance, injustice, or
the like; though yet it neither chooses one, nor refuses the
other, with such a perfect concurrence of all due ingredients




390       N2atural Religion without Revelation   [SER:M. XIX.
of action, but that still, in the sight of God, judging according to the rigid measures of the law, every such choice or
refusal is indeed sinful and imperfect. This is most certain,
whatsoever Pelagius and his brethren assert to the contrary.
But however, that measure of freedom which the will still
retains, of being able to -choose any act materially, and in its
kind good, and to refuse the contrary, was enough to cut off
all excuse froin the heathen, who never duly improved the
utmost of such a power, but gave themselves up to all the filthiness and licentiousness of life imaginable. In all which it
is certain that they acted willingly and without compulsion,
or rather indeed greedily, and without control.
The only persons amongst the heathens who sophisticated
nature and philosophy in this particular, were the Stoics;
who affirmed a fatal, unchangeable concatenation of causes,
reaching even to the elicit acts of man's will. So that according to them there was no act of volition exerted by it,
but, all circumstances considered, it was impossible for the
will not to exert that volition. But these were but one sect
of philosophers; that is, but a handful in comparison of the
rest; of the Gentiles: ridiculous enough for what they held
and taught, and consequently not to be laid in the balance
with the united judgment of all other learned men in the
world unanimously exploding this opinion.  Questionless
therefore, a thing so deeply engraven upon the first and most
inward notions of man's mind, as a persuasion of the will's
freedom, would never permit the heathens (who are here
charged by the apostle) to patronize and excuse their sills
upon this score, that they committed them against their will,
and that they had no power to do otherwise. In which, every
hour's experience, and reflection upon the method of their
own actings, could not but give them the lie to their face.
The only remaining plea therefore, which- these men can
take sanctuary in, must be that of ignorance; since there
could be no pretense for unwillingness.  But. the apostle divests them even of this also: for he says expressly, in verse
19, that what might be known of God, that famous and so much
disputed of To yvwoo-v o0V ~EOv^, was manifested in them; and
in verse 21, their inexcusableness is stated upon the supposition of this very thing, that they knew God, but, for all that,




ROM. i. 20.]  renders a Sinner inexcusable.         391
did not glorify him as God. This was the sum of their charge;
and how it has been made good against them we have already
shown, in what we have spoken about their idolatry, very
briefly, I confess, but enough..to show its absurdity, though
not to account for its variety, when Vossius's very abridgment of it makes a thick volume in folio.
The plea of ignorance therefore is also taken out of their
hands; forasmuch as they knew that there was a God; and
that this God made and governed the world; and upon that
account was to be worshiped and addressed to; and that
with such a worship as should be agreeable to his nature,
both in respect of the piety and virtue of the worshiper, and
also of the means of the worship itself.. So that he was
neither to be worshiped with impious.and immoral practices,
nor with corporeal resemblances.: For how could an image.help men.in directing their thoughts to a Being which bore
no similitude or cognation to that image at all P And what
resemblance could wood or stone bear to a spirit void of all
sensible qualities and. bodily dimensions P How could they
put men in mind of infinite power, wisdom, and holiness, and
such other attributes, of which they had not the least mark or
character P
But now, if these things could not possibly resemble any
perfection of the Deity, what use could they be of to men in
their addresses to God? For can a man's devotions be helped
by that which brings an error upon his thoughts P And certain it is, that it is natural for a man, by directing his prayers
to an image, to suppose the Being he prays to represented by
that image. Which how injurious, how contumelious it must
needs be to the glorious, incomprehensible nature of God, by
begetting such false and low apprehensions of him in the minds
of his creature, let common sense, not perverted by interest
and design, be judge. From all which it follows, that the
idolatrous heathens, and especially the most learned of them,
not being able to charge their idolatry either upon ignorance
or unwillingness, were wholly without excuse. So that it is to
be feared that Averroes had,not the right way of blessing
himself, when, in defiance of Christianity, he wished, Sit anima
mea cum philosophis.
And now, after all, I can not but take notice, that all that




392        Natural. Religion without Revelation   [SERM. XIX.
I have said of the heathen idolatry is so exactly applicable to
the idolatry of another sort of men in the world, that one
would think this first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans
were not so much an address to:the ancient Romans,- as a description of the modern.
But to draw towards a close. The use and improvement of
the foregoing discourse shall be briefly to inform us of these
two things:
1st, The signally great and peculiar mercy of God to those
to whom he has revealed the gospel, since there was nothing
that could have obliged him to it upon the account of his justice: for if there had, the heathens, to whom he revealed it
not, could not have been thus without excuse, but might very
rationally have expostulated the case with their great Judge,
and demurred to the equity of the sentence, had they been
condemned by him. But it appears from hence, that' what
was sufficient to render men inexcusable, was not therefore
sufficient to save them.
It is not said by the apostle, nor can it be proved by any
one else, that God vouchsafed to the heathens the means of
salvation, if so be the gospel be the only means of it. And
yet I will not, I dare not affirm, that God will save none of
those to whom the sound of the gospel never reached: though
this is evident, that if he does save any of them, it must not
be by that ordinary, stated, appointed method, which the
scripture has revealed to us, and which they were wholly
ignorant of. For grant that the heathens knew that there
was a God, who both made and governed the world, and who,
upon that account, was to be worshiped, and that with such
a worship as should be suitable to such a Being; yet what
principle of mere reason could assure them, that this God
would be a rewarder of such as diligently sought and served him?
For certain it is that there is nothing in the nature of God
to oblige him to reward any service of his creature; forasmuch as all that the creature can do is but duty; and even
now, at this time, God has no other obligation upon him but
his own free promise to reward.the piety and obedience of his
servants; which promise reason of itself could never have
found out, till God made it known by revelation. And moreover, what principle of reason could assure a man that God




Rom. i. 20.]  renders a Sinner; inexcusable.        393
would pardon sinners upon any terms whatsoever P? Possibly
it might know that God could do so; but this was no sufficient
ground for men to depend upon. And then, last of all, as for
the way of his pardoning sinners, that he should do it upon a
satisfaction paid to his justice by such a Saviour as should be
both God and man; this was utterly impossible for all the
reason of mankind to find out.
For that these things could be read in the book of nature,
or the common works of God's providence, or be learned
by the sun and moon's preaching the gospel, as some have
fondly (not to say profanely) enough asserted, it is infinitely
sottish to imagine, and can indeed be nothing else but the
turning the grace of God into wanton and unreasonable propositions.
It is clear therefore, that the heathens had no knowledge
of that way by which alone we expect salvation. So that all
the hope which we can have for them is, that the gospel may
not be the utmost limit of the divine mercy; but that the
merits of Christ may overflow, and run over the pale of the
church, so as to reach even many of those who lived and'died
invincibly ignorant of him.
But whether this shall be so, or no, God alone knows, who
only is privy to the great counsels of his own will. It is a
secret hid from us; and therefore, though we may hope
compassionately, yet I am  sure we can pronounce nothing
certainly: it is enough for us that God has asserted his justice, even in his dealing with those whom he treats not upon
terms of evangelical mercy. So that such persons can neither
excuse themselves, nor yet accuse him; who, in the severest
sentence that he can pronounce upon the sinner, will (as the
Psalmist tells us) be justified when he speaks, and clear when he
is judged.
2dly, In the next place, we gather hence the unspeakably
wretched and deplorable condition of obstinate sinners under
the gospel. The sun of mercy has shined too long and too
bright upon such, to leave them any shadow of excuse. For,
let them argue over all the topics of divine goodness and
human weakness, and whatsoever other pretenses poor sinking sinners are apt to catch at, to support and save themselves
by, yet how trifling must be their plea! how impertinent their
defense!




394      Ncatural Religion without Revelation    [SERM. XIX.
For admit an impenitent heathen to plead, that, albeit his
conscience told him that he had sinned, yet it could not tell
him that there was any provision of mercy for him upon his
repentance. He knew not whether amendment of life would
be accepted, after the law was once broke; or that there
was any other righteousness to atone or merit for him, but
his own.
But no Christian, who has been taken into the arms of a
*better covenant, and grown up in the knowledge of a Saviour,
and the doctrine of faith and repentance from dead works,
can speak so much as one plausible word for his impenitence.
And therefore it was said of him who came to the marriagefeast without a wedding-garment, that, being charged, and apprehended for it,'O#t08, he was speechless, struck with shame
and silence, the proper effects of an overpowering guilt, too
manifest to be denied, and too gross to be defended. His
reason deserted, and his voice failed him, finding himself arraigned, convicted, and condemned in the court of his own
conscience.
So that if, after all this, his great Judge had freely asked
him what he could allege or say for himself, why he should
not have judgment to die eternally, and sentence to be
awarded according to the utmost rigors of the law, he could
not, in this forlorn case, have made use of the very last plea
of a cast criminal: nor so much as have cried, Mercy, Lord,
mercy. For still his conscience would have replied upon him,
that mercy had been offered and abused; and that the time
of mercy was now past. And so, under this overwhelming
conviction, every gospel-sinner must pass to,his eternal execution, taking the whole load of his own damnation solely
and entirely upon himself, and acquitting the most just God,
who is righteous in all his works, and holy in all his ways.
To whom, therefore, be rendered and ascribed, as is most due,
all praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for
evermore. Amen.




SERMON XX.
SACRAMENTAL PREPARATION:
SET FORTH IN A SERMON PREACHED AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY,
APRIL 8, 1688; BEING PALM SUNDAY.
MATTHEW XXii. 12. - And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither, not
having a wedding-garment?
THE whole scheme of these words is figurative, as being a
parabolical description of God's youchsafing to the world
the invaluable blessing of the gospel, by the similitude of a
king, with great magnificence, solemnizing his son's marriage,
and with equal bounty bidding and inviting all about him to
that royal solemnity; together with his severe animadversion,
both upon those who would not come, and upon one who did
come in a very unbeseeming manner.
For the better understanding of which words, we must
observe, that in all parables two things are to be considered:
First, The scope and design of the parable; and,
Secondly, The circumstantial passages, serving only to complete and make up the narration.
Accordingly, in our application of any parable to the thing
designed and set forth by it, we must not look for an absolute
and exact correspondence of all the circumstantial or subservient passages of the metaphorical part of it, with just
so many of the same or the like passages in the thing intended by it; but it is sufficient that there be a certain analogy or agreement between them, as to the principal scope
and design of both.
As for the design of this parable, it is, no doubt, to set




396           Of Sacramental Preparation.      [SERM. XX.
forth the free offer of the gospel, with all its rich privileges,
to the Jewish church and nation, in the first place; and upon
their refusal of it, and God's rejection of them for that refusal,
to declare the calling of the Gentiles in their room, by a free,
unlimited tender of the gospel to all nations whatsoever;
adding withal a very dreadful and severe sentence upon those
who, being so freely invited and so generously admitted to
such high and undeserved privileges, should nevertheless abuse
and despise them by an unworthy, wicked, and ungrateful deportment under them.
For men must not think that the gospel is all made up of
privilege and promise, but that there is something of duty to
be performed, as well as of privilege to be enjoyed. No welcome to a wedding-supper without a wedding-garment; and
no coming by a wedding-garment for nothing. In all the
transactions between God and the souls of men, something
is expected on both sides; there being a fixed, indissoluble,
and (in the language of the parable) a kind of marriagetie between duty and privilege, which renders them inseparable.
Now, though I question not but that this parable of the
wedding-supper comprehends in it the whole complex of all
the blessings and privileges exhibited by the gospel, yet I
conceive that there is one principal privilege amongst all the
rest, that it seems more peculiarly to aim at, or at least may
more appositely and emphatically be applied to, than to any
other whatsoever: and that is the blessed sacrament of the
eucharist, by which all the benefits of the gospel are in a
higher, fuller, and more divine manner conveyed to the faithful, than by any other duty or privilege belonging to our excellent religion. And for this I shall offer these three following reasons:
1. Because the foundation of all parables is, as we have
shown, some analogy or similitude between the, tropical or
allusive part of the parable, and the thing couchied under it
and intended by it. But now, of all the benefits, privileges,
or ordinances of the gospel, which of them is there that carries so natural a resemblance to a wedding-supper as that
which every one of a very ordinary, discerning faculty may
observe in the sacrament of the eucharist P For, surely, nei



MATT. xxii. 12.]    Of Sacramental Preparation.      397
ther the preaching of the word, nor yet the sacrament of baptism, bears any such resemblance or affinity to it. But, on
the other side, this sacrament of the eucharist so lively resembles, and so happily falls in with it, that it is indeed itself a supper, and is called a supper, and that by a genuine,
proper, as well as a common and received appellation.
2. This sacrament is not only with great propriety of speech
called a supper, but moreover, as it is the grand and prime
means of the nearest and most intimate union and conjunction
of the soul with Christ, it may, with a peculiar significancy,
be called also-a-wedding-supper.  And as Christ frequently
in scripture owns himself related to the church as a husband to a spouse, so, if these nuptial endearments, by which
Christ gives himself to the soul, and the soul mutually gives
itself to Christ, pass between Christ and believers in any
ordinance of the gospel, doubtless it is most eminently and
effectually in this: which is another pregnant instance of the
notable resemblance between this divine sacrament and the
wedding-supper in the parable, and consequently a farther
argument of the elegant and expressive signification of one
by the other.
3dly and lastly, The very manner of celebrating this sacrament, which is by the breaking of bread, was the way and
manner of transacting marriages in some of the eastern countries. Thus Q. Curtius reports, that.when:'Alexander the
Great married the Persian Roxana, the ceremony they used
was no other but this; panem gladio divisum uterque libabat;
he divided a piece of bread with his sword, of which each of
them took a part, and so thereby the nuptial rites were performed.  Besides, that this ceremony of feasting belongs
most properly both to marriage and to the eucharist, as both
of them  have the nature of a covenant. And all covenants
were, in old times, solemnized and accompanied with festival
eating and drinking; the persons newly confederate always
thereupon feasting together in token of their full and perfectaccord, both as to interest and affection.And now these three considerations together, so exactly
suiting the parable of the wedding-supper to this spiritual,
divine banquet of the gospel, if it does not primarily, and in
its first design, intend it, yet certainly it may. with. greater




398            Of Sacramental Preparation.      [SERM. XX.
advantage of resemblance be applied to it than to any other
duty or privilege belonging to Christianity.
Upon the warrant of which so very particular and extraordinary a cognation between them, I shall at present treat
of the words wholly with reference to this sacred and divine
solemnity, observing and gathering from them, as they lie in
coherence with the foregoing and following parts of the parable, these two propositions:
1. That to a worthy participation of the holy mysteries and
great privileges of the gospel, and particularly that of the
Lord's supper, there is indispensably required a suitable preparation.
2. That God is a strict observer of, and a severe animadverter upon, such as presume to partake of those mysteries
without such a preparation.
And first, for the first of these; viz. That to a worthy participation of the holy mysteries, &c.
Now this proposition imports in it two things:
1. That to a right discharge of this duty a preparation is
necessary.
2. That every preparation is not sufficient. And first, for
the
First of these: That a preparation is necessary. And this,
I confess, is a subject which I am  heartily sorry that any
preacher should find.it needful to speak so much as one word
upon. For would any man in his wits venture to die without
preparation P And if not, let me tell you that nothing less
than that which will fit a man for death, can fit him for the
sacrament. The truth is, there is nothing great or considerable in the world, which ought to be done, or ventured upon,
without preparation; but, above all, how dangerous, sottish,
and irrational is it, to engage in any thing or action extempore, where the concern is eternity!
None but the careless and the confident (and few are confident but what are first careless) would rush rudely into the
presence of a great man:' and shall we, in our applications to
the great God, take that to be religion which the common
reason of mankind will not allow to be manners P The very
rules of worldly civility might instruct men how to order
their addresses to God. For who, that is to appear before




MATT. XXii. 12.]    Of Sacramental Preparation.      399
his prince or patron, would not view and review himself over
and over, with all imaginable care and solicitude, that there
be nothing justly offensive in his habit, language, or behavior P But especially, if he be vouchsafed the honor of his
table, it would be infinitely more absurd and shameful to appear foul and sordid there, and in the dress of the kitchen
receive the entertainments of the parlor.
What previous cleansings and consecrations, and what peculiar vestments were the priests, under the law, enjoined to
use, when they were to appear before God in the sanctuary!
And all this upon no less a penalty than death.  This and
this they were to do, lest they died, lest God should strike
them dead upon the spot; as we read in Levit. viii. 35, and
in many other places in the books of Moses. And so exact
were the Jews. in their preparations for the solemn times of
God's worship, that every cra7faarov had its rporaf3IfaTrov or 7rapUXaYKevm, that is, a part of the sixth day, from the hour of six in
the evening, to fit them for the duties of the seventh day:
nor was this all; but they had also a Vrpo7rapacrKEvr, beginning
about three in the afternoon, to prepare them for that: and
indeed the whole day was, in a manner, but preparative to
the next; several works being disallowed and forborne amongst
them on that day, which were not so upon any of the foregoing five: so careful, even to scrupulosity, were they to keep
their sabbath with due reverence and devotion, that they
must not only have a time to prepare them for that, but a
further time also to prepare them for their very preparations.
Nay, and the heathens, (many of them at least,) when they
were to sacrifice to their greatest and most revered deities,
used, on the evening before, to have a certain preparative rite
or ceremony, called by them Ecena pura; that is, a supper,
consisting of some peculiar meats, in which they imagined a
kind of holiness; and by eating of which they thought themselves sanctified, and fitted to officiate about the mysteries of
the ensuing festival.  And what were all their lustrations
but so many solemn purifyings, to render both themselves and
their sacrifices acceptable to their gods P
So thatwe see here a concurrence both of the Jews and
heathens in this practice, before Christianity ever appeared:
which to me is a kind of demonstration that the necessity of




400            Of Sacramental Preparation.      [SERIr. XX.
men's preparing themselves for the sacred offices of religion
was a lesson which the mere light and dictates of common
reason, without the help of revelation, taught all the knowing
and intelligent part of the world.
I will wash my hands in innocency, sayrs David, and so will
Icompass thihe altar, Psalm xxvi. 6. And as the apostle told
the Hebrews, Heb. xiii. 10, Wle also, we Christians, have an
altar as well as they; an altar as sacred, an altar to be approached with as much awe and reverence; and though there
be no fire, upon it, yet there is a dreadful one that follows it;
a fire, that does not indeed consume the offering, but such
an one as will be sure to seize and prey upon the unworthy
offerer. I will be sanctified, says God, in them that come nigh
me, Levit. x. 3. And God then accounts himself sanctified in
such persons, when they sanctify themselves. Nadab- and
Abihu were a dreadful exposition of this text.
And for what concerns ourselves; he that shall thoroughly
consider what the heart of man is, what sin and the world is,
and what it is to approve one's self to an all-searching eye, in
so sublime a duty as the sacrament, must acknowledge that a
man may as well go about it without a soul, as without preparation.
For the holiest man living, by conversing with the world,
insensibly draws something of soil and taint from it: the very
air and mien, the way and business of the world, still, as it
were, rubbing something upon the soul, which must be
fetched off again, before it can be able heartily to converse
with God. Many secret indispositions, coldnesses, and aversions to duty will undiscernibly steal upon it; and it will
require both time and close application of mind to recover it
to such a frame as shall dispose and fit it for the spiritualities
of religion.
And such as have made trial find it neither so easy nor so
ready a passage from the noise, the din, and hurry of business
to the retirements of devotion, from  the exchange to the
closet, and friom the freedoms of conversation to the recollections and disciplines of the spirit.
The Jews, as soon as they came from markets, or any other
such promiscuous resorts, would be sure to use accurate and
more than ordinary washings.  And had their washings




MATT, xxii. 12.]    Of Sacramental Preparation.      401
soaked through the body into the soul, and had not their
inside reproached their outside, I see nothing in this custom
but what was allowable enough, and (in a people which needed
washing so much) very commendable. Nevertheless, whatsoever it might have in it peculiar to the genius of that nation,
the spiritual use and improvement of it, I am sure, may very
well reach the best of us. So that if the Jews thought this
practice requisite before they sat down to their own tables,
let us Christians think it absolutely necessary, when we come
to God's table, not to eat till we have washed. And when I
have said so, I suppose I need not add, that our washing is
to be like our eating, both of them spiritual; that we are to
carry it from the hand to the heart, to improve a ceremonial
nicety into a substantial duty, and the modes of civility into
the realities of religion.
And thus much for the first thing, that a preparation in
general is necessary. But then, 2dly, the other thing imported in the proposition is, That every preparation is not
sufficient.  It must be a suitable preparation; none but a
wedding-garment will serve the turn; a garment as much
fitted to the solemnity as to the body itself that wears it.
Now all fitness lies in a particular commensuration, or proportion of one thing to another; and that such an one as is
founded in the very nature of things themselves, and not in
the opinions of men concerning them. And for this cause it
is that the soul, no less than the body, must have its several
distinct postures and dispositions, fitting it for several distinct
offices and performances. And as no man comes with folded
arms to fight or wrestle, nor prepares himself for the battle as
he would compose himself to sleep, so, upon a true estimate
of things, it will be found every whit as absurd and irrational
for a man to discharge the most extraordinary duty of his religion at the rate of an ordinary devotion. For this is really
a paradox in practice, and men may sometimes do, as well as
speak, contradictions.
There is a great festival now drawing on; a festival designed chiefly for the acts of a joyful piety, but generally made
only an occasion of bravery. I shall say no more of it at
present, but this; that God expects from men something more
than ordinary at such times, and that it were much to be
VOL. 1.          26




402            Of Sacramental Preparation.      CSErm. XX.
wished, for the credit of their religion, as well as the satisfaction of their consciences, that their Easter devotions would,
in some measure come up to their Easter dress.
Now that our preparation may answer the important work
and duty which we are to engage in, these two conditions, or
qualifications, are required in it.
1. That it be habitual.
2. That it be also actual.
For it is certain that there may both be acts which proceed
not from any preexisting habits; and, on the other side,
habits which lie for a time dormant, and do not at all exert
themselves in action. But in the case now before us, there
must be a conjunction of both; and one without the other
can never be effectual for that purpose for which both together are but sufficient.  And,
First, For habitual preparation. This consists in a standing, permanent habit, or principle of holiness, wrought chiefly
by God's Spirit, and instrumentally by his word, in the heart
or soul of manll: such a principle as is called, both by our
Saviour and his apostles, the snew birth, the new man, the immortal seed, and the like; and by which a man is so universally
changed and transformed in the whole frame and temper of
his soul, as to have a new judgment and sense of things, new
desires, new appetites and inclinations.
And this is first produced in him by that mighty spiritual
change which we call conversion: which, being so rarely and
seldom  found in the hearts of men, (even where it is most
pretended to,) is but too full and sad a demonstration of the
truth of that terrible saying, That few are chosen, and consequently, but few saved. For who almost is there, of whom
we can with any rational assurance, or perhaps so much as
likelihood, affirm, Here is a man, whose nature is renewed,
whose heart is changed, and the stream of whose appetites
is so turned, that he does with as high and quick a relish
taste the ways of duty, holiness, and strict living, as others,
or as he himself before this, grasped at the most enamoring proposals of sin; who almost, I say, is there, who can
reach and verify the hight of this character  and yet, without which, the scripture absolutely affirms, that a man cannot see the kingdom of God, John iii. 3. For, let preachers say




MATT. xxii. 12. - Of Sacramental Preparation.        403
and suggest what they will, men will'do as they use to do;
and custom generally is too hard for conscience, in spite of
all its convictions. Possibly sometimes in hearing or reading
the word, the conscience may be alarmed, the affections
warmed, good desires begin to kindle, and to form themselves
into some degrees of resolution; but the heart remaining all
the time unchanged, as soon as men slide into the common
course and converse of the world, all those resolutions and
convictions quickly cool and languish, and after a few days
are dismissed as troublesome companions. But assuredly no
man was ever made a true convert, or a new creature, at so
easy a rate; sin was never dispossessed, nor holiness introduced, by such feeble, vanishing impressions. Nothing under
a total, thorough change will suffice; neither tears, nor
trouble of mind, neither good desires nor intentions, nor yet
the relinquishment of some sins, nor the performance of
some good works will avail any thing, but a new creature: a
word that comprehends more in it than words can well express; and perhaps, after all that can be said of it, never
thoroughly to be understood by what a man hears from others,
but by what he must feel within himself.
And now, that this is required as the groundwork of all
our preparations for the sacrament, is evident from hence:
because this sacrament is not first designed to make us holy,
but rather supposes us to be so; it is not a converting, but a
confirming ordinance: it is properly our spiritual food. And,
as all food presupposes a principle of life in him who receives
it, which life is, by this means, to be continued and supported, so the sacrament of the Lord's supper is originally
intended to preserve and maintain that spiritual life which we
do or should receive in baptism, or at least by a thorough
conversion after it. Upon which account, according to the
true nature and intent of this sacrament, men should not
expect life, but growth from it: and see that there be something to be fed, before they seek out for provision. For the
truth is, for any one who is not passed from death to life, and
has not in him that new living principle which we have been
hitherto speaking of, to come to this spiritual repast, is upon
the matter as absurd and preposterous as if he who makes a
feast should send to the graves and the churchyards for guests,
or entertain and treat a corpse at a banquet.




404           Of Sacramental Preparation.      [SERM. XX.
Let men therefore consider, before they come hither,
whether they havi any thing besides the name they received
in baptism to prove their Christianity by. Let them consider
whether, as by their baptism  they formerly washed away
their original guilt, so they have not since, by their actual
sins, washed away their baptism. And, if so, whether the
converting grace of God has set them upon their legs again,
by forming in them a new nature. And that such an one
as exerts and shows itself by the sure, infallible effects of a
good life: such an one, as enables them to reject and trample
upon all the alluring offers of the world, the flesh, and the
devil, so as not to be conquered or enslaved by them; and to
choose the hard and rugged paths of duty, rather than the
easy and voluptuous ways of sin: which every Christian, by
the very nature of his religion, as well as by his baptismal
vow, is strictly obliged to do: and if, upon an impartial survey
of themselves, men find that no such change has passed upon
theam, either let them prove that they may be Christians upon
easier terms, or have a care how they intrude upon so great
and holy an ordinance, in which God is so seldom mocked but
it is to the mocker's confusion. And thus much for habitual
preparation. But,
2dly, Over and above this, there is required also an actual
preparation; which is, as it were, the furbishing or rubbing
up of the former habitual principle.
We have both of them excellently described in Matt. xxv.
in the parable of the ten virgins; of which the five wise
are said to have had oil in their lamps; yet, notwithstanding
that, midnight and weariness was too hard for them, and they
all slumbered and slept, and their lamps cast but a dim and a
feeble light till the bridegroom's approach; but then, upon
the first alarm of that, they quickly rose, and trimmed their
lamps, and without either trimming or painting themselves,
(being as much too wise as some should be too old for such
follies,) they presently put themselves into a readiness to
receive their surprising guest. Where, by their having oil
in their lamps, no doubt, must be understood a principle of
grace infused into their hearts, or the new nature formed
within them; and, by their trimming their lamps, must be
meant their actual exercise and improvement of that standing




MATT. xxii. 12.]    Of Sacramental Preparation.      405
principle, in the particular instances of duty suitable and appropriate to the grand solemnity of the bridegroom's reception. In like manner, when a man comes to this sacrament,
it is not enough that he has an habitual stock of grace, that
he has the immortal seed of a living faith sown in his heart.
This indeed is necessary, but not sufficient; his faith must be,
not only living, but lively too; it must be brightened and
stirred up, and, as it were, put into a posture by a particular
exercise of those several virtues that are specifically requisite
to a due performance of this duty: habitual grace is the life,
and actual grace the beauty and ornament of the soul; and
therefore, let people in this high and great concern be but so
just to their souls as, in one much less, they never fail to be
to their bodies; in which the greatest advantages of natural
beauty make none think the further advantage of a decent
dress superfluous.
Nor is it at all strange, if we look into the reason of things,
that a man habitually good and pious should, at some certain
turns and times of his life, be at a loss how to exert the highest acts of that habitual principle. For no creature is perfect and pure in act; especially a creature so compounded of
soul and body, that body seems much the stronger part in the
composition.
Common experience shows that the wisest of men are not
always fit and disposed to act wisely, nor the most admired
speakers to speak eloquently and exactly. They have indeed
an acquired, standing ability.of wisdom and eloquence within
them, which gives them an habitual sufficiency for such performlances. But, for all that, if the deepest statesman should
presume to go to council immediately from his cups, or the
ablest preacher think himself fitted to preach, only by stepping
up to the pulpit, notwithstanding the policy of the one, and
the eloquence of the other, they may chance to get the just
character of bold fools for venturing, whatsoever good fortune
may bring them off.
And therefore the most active powers and faculties of the
mind require something besides themselves, to raise them to
the full hight of their natural activity; something to excite
and quicken, and draw them  forth into immediate action.
And this holds proportionably in all things, animate or inani



406            Of Sacramental Preparation.     [SERM. XX.
mate, in the world. The bare nature and essential form of
fire will enable it to burn; but there must be an enlivening
breath of air besides, to make it flame. A man has the same
strength, sleeping and waking; but while he sleeps, it fits him
no more for business than if he had none. Nor is it the having of wheels and springs, though never so curiously wrought
and artificially set, but the winding of them up, that must
give motion to the watch. And it would be endless to illustrate this subject by all the various instances that art and
nature could supply us with.
But the case is much the same in spirituals: for grace in
the soul, while the soul is in the body, will always have the
ill neighborhood of some remainders of corruption; which,
though they do not conquer and extinguish, yet will be sure
to slacken and allay the vigor and briskness of the renewed
principle; so that when this principle is to engage in any
great duty, it will need the actual intention, the particular
stress and application of the whole soul, to disencumber and
set it free, to scour off its rust, and remove those hinderances
which would otherwise clog and check the freedom of its
operations.
And thus having shown, that to fit us for a due access to
the holy sacrament, we must add actual preparation to habitual, I shall now endeavor to show the several parts or ingredients of which this actual preparation must consist.
And here I shall not pretend to give an account of every
particular duty that may be useful for this purpose, but shall
only mention some of the principal, and such as may most
peculiarly contribute towards it: as,
First, Let a man apply himself to-the great and difficult
work of self-examination by a strict scrutiny into, and survey
of, the whole estate of his soul, according to that known and
excellent rule of the apostle, in the very case now before us,
1 Cor. xi. 28, Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of
that bread, &c. If a man would have such a wedding-garment
as may fit him exactly, let self-examination take the measure,
a duty of so mighty an influence upon all that concerns the
soul, that it is indeed the very root and groundwork of all
true repentance, and the necessary antecedent, if not also the
direct cause, of a sinner's return to God.




MATT. xxii. 12.]    Of Sacramental Preparation.     407
For, as there are some sins which require a particular and
distinct repentance by themselves, and can not be accounted
for in the general heap of sins known and unknown, so, how
is it possible for a man to repent rightly of such sins, unless,
by a thorough search into the nature, number, and distinguishing circumstances of them, he comes to see how, and in
what degree, they are to be repented of P
But the sovereign excellency and necessity of this duty
needs no other nor greater proof of it, than this one consideration, That nothing in nature can be more grievous and
offensive to a sinner than to look into himself; and generally
what grace requires, nature is most averse to. It is indeed
as offensive as to rake into a dunghill; as grievous, as for one
to read over his debts, when he is not able to pay them; or
for a bankrupt to examine and look into his accounts, which
at the same time that they acquaint, must needs also upbraid
him with his condition.
But as irksome as the work is, it is absolutely necessary.
Nothing can well be imagined more painful than to probe
and search a purulent old sore to the bottom; but for all that
the pain must be endured, or no cure expected. And men
certainly have sunk their reason to the very gross, low, and
absurd conceptions of God, when in the matter of sin they
can make such false and short reckonings with him and their
own hearts; for can they imagine that God has therefore
forgot their sins, because they are not willing to remember
them P or will they measure his pardon by their own oblivion P'What pitiful fig-leaves, what senseless and ridiculous shifts
are these, not able to silence, and much less satisfy, an accusing conscience!
But now for the better management of this examination of
our past lives, we must thoroughly canvass them with these
and the like questions.
As for instance; let a man inquire what sins he has committed, and what breaches he has made upon those two great
standing rules of duty, the decalogue, and our Saviour's
divine sermon upon the mount. Let him inquire also what
particular aggravations lie upon his sins; as, whether they
have not been committed against strong reluctancy and light
of conscience? after many winning calls of mercy to reclaim,




408            Of Sacramental Preparation.     [SERM. XX.
and many terrible warnings of judgment to affright- him P
Whether resolutions, vows, and protestations have not been
made against them P Whether they have not been repeated
frequently, and persisted in obstinately P And lastly, whether
the same appetites to sin have not remained as active and unmortified after sacraments, as ever they had been before?
How important these considerations and heads of inquiry
are, all who understand any thing will easily perceive. For
this we must know, that the very same sin, as to the nature
of it, stamped with any one of these aggravations, is, in effect,
not the same. And he who has sinned the same great sin,
after several times receiving the sacrament, must not think
that God will accept him under ten times greater repentance
and contrition for it than he brought with him to that duty
formerly. Whether God, by his grace, will enable him to
rise up to such a pitch, or no, is uncertain; but most certain,
that both his work is harder, and his danger greater, than it
was or could be at the first.
Secondly, When a man has, by such a close and rigorous
examination of himself, found out the accursed thing, and dis-'covered his sin, the next thing in order must be, to work up
his heart to the utmost hatred of it, and the bitterest sorrow
and remorse for it. For self-examination having first presented it to the thoughts, these naturally transmit and hand it
over to the passions. And this introduces the next ingredient
of our sacramental preparations, to wit, repentance. Which
arduous work I will suppose not now to begin, but to be renewed; and that with special reference to sins not repented
of before; and yet more especially to those new scores which
we still run ourselves upon since the last preceding sacrament. Which method, faithfully and constantly observed,
must needs have an admirable and mighty effect upon the
conscience, and keep a man from breaking, or running behindhand in his spiritual estate, which, without frequent accountings, he will hardly be able to prevent.
But, because this is a duty of such high consequence, I
would by all means'warn men of one very common, and yet
very dangerous mistake about it; and that is, the- taking of
mere sorrow for sin for repentance. It is indeed a good
introduction to it; but the porch, though never so fair and




MATT. xxii. 12.]   Of Sacramental Preparation,      409
spacious, is not the house itself., Nothing passes in the
accounts of God for repentance, but change of life: ceasing
to do evil, and doing good, are the two great integral parts
that complete this duty. For not to do evil is much better
than the sharpest sorrow for having done it; and to do good
is better and more valuable than both.
When a man has found-out sin in his actions, let him resolutely arrest it there; but let him also pursue it home to his
inclinations, and dislodge it thence; otherwise it will be all
to little purpose; for the root being still left behind, it is odds
but in time it will shoot out again.
Men befool themselves infinitely, when, by venting a few
sighs or groans, putting the finger in the eye, and whimpering out a few melancholy words; and lastly, concluding all
with, "I wish I had never done so, and I am resolved never
to do so more;" they will needs persuade themselves that
they have repented; though perhaps in this very thing their
heart all the while deceives them, and they neither really
wish the one nor resolve the other.
But whether they do or no, all true penitential sorrow will
and must proceed much further. It must force and make its
way into the very inmost corners and recesses of the soul; it
must shake all the powers of sin, producing in the heart
strong and lasting aversions to evil, and equal dispositions to
good, which, I must confess, are great things; but if the
sorrow which we have been speaking of carry us not so far,
let it express itself never so loudly and passionately, and discharge itself in never so many showers of tears and volleys
of sighs, yet by all this it will no more purge a man's heart
than the washing of his hands can cleanse the rottenness of
his bones. But,
Thirdly, When self-examination has both shown us our sin,
and repentance has disowned and cast it out, the next thing
naturally consequent upon this is, with the highest importunity to supplicate God's pardon for the guilt, and his grace
against the power of it. And this brings in prayer as the
third preparative for the sacrament: a duty, upon which all
the blessings of both worlds are entailed; a duty, appointed
by God himself as the great conduit and noble instrument of
commerce between heaven and earth; a duty, founded on




410            Of Sacramental Preparation.      [SERM. XX.
man's essential dependence upon God; and so, in the ground
and reason of it, perpetual, and consequently in the practice
of it indispensable.
But I shall speak of it now only with reference to the sacrament. And so, whatsoever other graces may furnish us
with a wedding-garment, it is certain that prayer must put it
on. Prayer is that by which a man engages all the auxiliaries of omnipotence itself against his sin; and is so utterly
contrary to and inconsistent with it, that the same heart can
not long hold them both, but one must soon quit possession
of it to the other; and either praying make a man leave off
sinning, or sinning force him to give over praying.
Every real act of hatred of sin is, in the very nature of the
thing, a partial mortification of it; and it is hardly possible
for a man to pray heartily against his sin, but he must at the
same time hate it too. I know a man may think that he
hates his sin when indeed he does not; but then it is also as
true that he does not sincerely pray against it, whatsoever he
may imagine.
Besides, since the very life and spirit of prayer consists
in an ardent, vehement desire of the thing prayed for, and
since the nature of the soul is such that it strangely symbolizes with the thing it mightily desires, it is evident, that if a
man would have a devout, humble, sin-abhorring, self-denying
frame of spirit, he can not take a more efficacious course to
attain it than by praying himself into it. And so close a
connection has this duty with the sacrament, that whatsoever
we receive in the sacrament is properly in answer to our prayers. And consequently we may with great assurance conclude,
that he who is not frequently upon his knees before he comes
to that holy table, kneels to very little purpose when he is
there. But then,
Fourthly, Because prayer is not only one of the highest
and hardest duties in itself, but ought to be more than ordinarily fervent and vigorous before the sacrament, let the body
be also called in as an assistant to the soul, and abstinence
and fasting added to promote and highten her devotions.
Prayer is a kind of wrestling with God; and he who would
win the prize at that exercise, must be severely dieted for that
purpose.




MATT. xxii. 12.]    Of Sacramental Preparation.      411
The truth is, fasting was ever acknowledged by the church,
in all ages, as a singular instrument of religion, and a particular preparative to the sacrament. And hardly was there
ever any thing great or heroic either done or attempted in
religion without it. Thus, when Moses received the law from
God, it was with fasting, Deut. ix. 9. When Christ entered
upon the great office of his mediatorship, it was with fasting,
Matt. iv. 2. And when Paul and Barnabas were separated to
that high and difficult charge of preaching to the Gentiles,
Acts xiii. 2, still it was managed with fasting. And we know
the rubric of our own church always, almost, enjoins a fast to
prepare us for a festival.
Bodily abstinence is certainly a great help to the spirit;
and the experience of all wise and good men has ever found
it so. The ways of nature and the methods of grace are
vastly different.  Good men themselves are never so surprised as in the midst of their jollities; nor so fatally overtaken and caught as when their table is made the snare.
Even our first parents ate themselves out of paradise; and
Job's children junketed and feasted together often, but the
reckoning cost them dear at last. The heart of the wise, says
Solomon, is in the house of mourning; and the house of fasting adjoins to it.
In a word, fasting is the diet of angels, the food and refection of souls, and the richest and highest aliment of grace.
And he who fasts for the sake of religion, hungers and thirsts
after righteousness, without a metaphor.
Fifthly, Since every devout prayer is designed to ascend
and fly up to heaven; as fasting (according to St. Austin's
allusion) has given it one wing, so let almsgiving to the poor
supply it with another. And both these together will not
only carry it up triumphant to heaven, but, if need require,
bring heaven itself down to the devout person who sends it
thither; as, while Cornelius was fasting and praying, (to
which he still joined giving alms,) an angel from heaven was
dispatched to him with this happy message, Acts x. 4, Thy
prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God.
And nothing certainly can give a greater efficacy to prayer,
and a more peculiar fitness for the sacrament, than a hearty
and conscientious practice of this duty; without which all




412           Of Sacramental Preparation.     [SERM. XX.
that has been mentioned hitherto is nothing but wind and
air, pageantry and hypocrisy: for if there be any truer measure of a man than by what he. does, it must be by what he
gives. He who is truly pious will account it a wedding-supper to feed the hungry, and a-wedding-garment to clothe the
naked. And God and man will find it a very unfit garment
for such a purpose, which has not in it a purse or pocket for
the poor.
But so far are some from considering the poor before the
sacrament, that they have been observed to give nothing to
the poor, even at the sacrament: and those such, that if rich
clothes might pass for a wedding-garment, none could appear
better fitted for such a solemnity than themselves; yet some
such, I say, I myself have seen at a communion, drop nothing
into the poor's basin.
But, good God! what is the heart of such worldlings made
of, and what a mind do they bring with them to so holy an
ordinance! an ordinance in which none can be qualified to
receive, whose heart does not serve them also to give.
From such indeed as have nothing, God expects nothing;
but where God has given, as I may say, with both hands,
and men return with none, such must know that the poor
have an action of debt against them, and that God himself
will undertake and prosecute their suit for them: and if he
does, since they could not find in their hearts to proportion
their charity to their estates, nothing can be more just than
for God to proportion their estates to their charity; and by
so doing, he can not well give them a shrewder and a shorter
cut.
In the mean time, let such know further, that whosoever
dares, upon so sacred and solemn an occasion, approach the
altar with bowels so shut up as to leave nothing behind
him: there for the poor, shall be sure to carry something
away with him from  thence which will do him  but little
good.
Sixthly, Since the charity of the hand signifies but little,
unless it springs from the heart and flows through the mouth,
let the pious communicant, both in heart and tongue, thoughts
and speech, put on a charitable, friendly, Christian temper of
mind and carriage  towards all. Wrath and envy, malice and




MAT. xxii. 12.1   Of Sacramental Preparation.      413
backbiting, and the like, are direct contradictions to the very
spirit of Christianity, and fit a man for the sacrament just
as much as a stomach overflowed with gall would help him to
digest his meat. St. Paul often rebukes and schools such
disturbers of the world very sharply, correcting a base humor
by a very generous rule, Phil. ii. 3; Let each, says he, esteem
others better than themselves. No man, doubtless, shall ever be
condemned of God for not judging his brother: for, be thy
brother or neighbor never so wicked and ungodly, satisfy thyself with this, that another's wickedness shall never damn
thee; but thy own bitterness and rancor may, and, continued
in, certainly will: rather let his want of grace give thee occasion to exercise thine, if thou hast any, in thinking and
speaking better of him than he deserves: and if thy charity
proves mistaken, assure thyself that God will accept the
charity, and overlook the mistake. But if in judging him
whom thou hast nothing to do with, thou chancest to judge
one way, and God and truth to judge another, take heed ofthat dreadful tribunal, where it will not be enough to say
that "I thought this," or "I heard that;" and where no
man's mistake will be able to warrant an unjust surmise, and
much less justify a false censure. Such would find it much
better for them to retreat inwards, and view themselves in the
law of God and their own consciences; and that will tell
them their own impartially, that will fetch off all their paint,
and show them a foul face in a true glass. Let them read
over their catechism, and lay aside spite and virulence, gossiping and meddling, calumny and detraction; and let not
all about them be villains and reprobates, because they themselves are envious and forlorn, idle and malicious: such vermin are to be looked upon by all sober Christians as the very
cankers of society, and the shame of any religion; and so far
from being fit to come to the sacrament, that really they are
not fit to come to church;; and would much better become
the house of correction than the house of prayer.
Nevertheless, as custom in sin makes people blind, and
blindness makes them bold, none come more confidently to
the sacrament than such wretches. But when I consider the
pure and blessed body of our Saviour, passing- through the
open sepulchres of such throats, into the noisome receptacles




414            Of Sacracmetal Preparation.      [SERM. XX.
of their boiling, fermenting breasts, it seems to me a lively
but sad representation of Christ's being first buried, and then
descending into hell. Let this diabolical leaven therefore
be purged out; and while such pretend to be so busy in
cleansing their hearts, let them  not forget to wash their
mouths too.
Seventhly and lastly; As it is to be supposed that the pious
communicant has all along carried on, so let him likewise in
the issue close his preparatory work with reading and meditation. Of which, since the time will not serve me to speak
more now, I shall only remark this, that they are duties of so
near an import to the wellbeing of the soul, that the proper
office of reading is to take in its spiritual food, and of meditation to digest it.
And now, I hope, that whosoever shall in the sincerity of
his heart acquit himself as to all the foregoing duties, and
thereby prepare and adorn himself to meet.and converse
with his Saviour at this divine feast, shall never be accosted
with the thunder of that dreadful increpation from  him,
Friend, how camest thou in hither, not having a wedding-garment?
But because I am  very sensible that all the particular
instances of duty, which may one way or other contribute to
the fitting of men for this great one, can hardly be assigned,
and much less equally and universally applied, where the conditions of men are so very different, I shall gather them all
into this one plain, full, and comprehensive rule; namely, That
all those duties which common Christianity always obliges a
Christian to, ought most eminently, and with a higher and
more exalted pitch of devotion, to be performed by him before
the sacrament; and convertibly, whatsoever duties divines
prescribe to be observed by him with a peculiar fervor and application of mind upon this occasion, ought, in their proportion, to be practiced by him through the whole course of his
Christian conversation.
And this is a solid and sure rule; a rule that will never
deceive or lurch the sincere communicant; a rule, that by
adding discretion to devotion, will both keep him from being
humorsome, singular, and fantastic in his preparations before the sacrament, and (which is worse, and must fatally




MATT. xxii. 12.]    Of Sacramental Preparation.      415
unravel all again) from being, as most are, loose and remiss
after it; and thinking that, as soon as the sacrament is
over, their great business is done, whereas indeed it is but
begun.
And now I fear, that as I have been too long upon the
whole, so I have been but too brief upon so many, and those
such weighty particulars. But I hope you will supply this
defect, by enlarging upon them in your practice, and make
up the omissions of the pulpit by the meditations of the
closet. And God direct and assist us all in so concerning a
work.
To whom be rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all praise,
might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for evermore.
Amen.




SERMON XXI.
THE FATAL IMPOSTURE AND FORCE OF WORDS:
SET FORTH IN A SERMON PREACHED ON ISAIAH V. 20.
MAY 9, 1686.
ISAIAe v. 20. - Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil, &c.
THESE words contain in them two things:
1. A woe denounced; and,
2. The sin for which it is denounced; to wit, the calling
evil good, and good evil: which expression may be taken two
ways:
First, In a judicial and more restrained sense; as it signifies the pronouncing of a guilty person innocent, and an
innocent, guilty, in the course of judgment. But this I take
to be too particular to reach the design of the words here.
Secondly, It may be taken in a general and more enlarged
sense; as it imports a misrepresentation of the qualities of
things and actions to the common apprehensions of men,
abusing their minds with false notions, and so by this artifice
making evil pass for good, and good for evil, in all the great
concerns of life. Where, by good, I question not, but good
morally so called, bonum honestum, ought, chiefly at least, to
be understood; and that the good of profit, or pleasure, the
bonum utile, or jucundum, hardly come into any account here,
as things extremely below the principal design of the Spirit of
God in this place.
It is wonderful to consider, that, since good is the natural
and proper object which all human choice is carried out to;
and evil, that which with all its might it shuns and flies from;
and since withal there is that controlling worth and beauty in




ISAIAH V. 20.] Of the fatal Imposture and Force of Words. 417
goodness, that, as such, the will can not but like and desire
it; and, on the other side, that odious deformity in vice, that
it never so much as offers itself to the affections or practice
of mankind, but under the disguise and colors of the other;
and since all this is easily discernible by the ordinary discourses of the understanding; and lastly, since nothing passes
into the choice of the will, but as it comes conveyed and
warranted by the understanding, as worthy of its choice; I
say, it is wonderful to consider, that, notwithstanding all this,
the lives and practices of the generality of men (in which
men certainly should be most in earnest) are almost wholly
took up in a passionate pursuit of what is evil, and in an
equal neglect, if not also an abhorrence, of what is good.
This is certainly so; and experience, which is neither to be
confuted nor denied, does every minute prove the sad truth
of this assertion.
But now, what should be the cause of all thisP For so
great, so constant, and so general a practice must needs have
not only a cause, but also a great, a constant, and a general
cause; a cause every way commensurate to such an effect:
and this cause must of necessity be from one of those two
commanding powers of the soul, the understanding or the
will. As for the will, though its liberty be such, that, a suitable or proper good being proposed to it, it has a power to
refuse, or not to choose it, yet it has no power to choose
evil, considered absolutely as evil, this being directly against
the nature and natural method of its workings.
Nevertheless it is but too manifest that things evil, extremely evil, are both readily chosen, and eagerly pursued
and practiced by it. And therefore this must needs be from
that other governing faculty of the soul, the understanding,
which represents to the will things really evil under the
notion and character of good. And this, this is the true
source and original of this great mischief. The will chooses,
follows, and embraces things evil and destructive; but it is
because the understanding first tells it that they are good
and wholesome, and fit to be chosen by it. One man gives
another a cup-of poison, a thing as terrible as death; but
at the same time he tells him that it is a cordial; and so
he drinks it off, and dies.
VOL. 1.           27




418              Of the fatal Imposture      [SERM. XXI.
From the beginning of the world to this day, there was
never any great villainy acted by men, but it was in the
strength of some great fallacy put upon their minds by a false
representation of evil for good, or good for evil. In the day
that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die, says God to Adam;
and so long as Adam believed this, he did not eat. But, says
the devil, in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt be
so far from surely dying, that thou shalt be immortal, and
from a man grow into an angel; and upon this different
account of the thing, he presently took the fruit, and ate
mortality, misery, and destruction to himself and his whole
posterity.
And now, can there be a woe or curse in all the stores and
magazines of vengeance, equal to the malignity of such a
practice; of which one single instance could involve all mankind, past, present, and to come, in one universal and irreparable confusion P God commanded and told man what was
good, but the devil surnamed it evil, and thereby baffled the
commam.d, turned the world topsy-turvy, and brought a new
chaos upon the whole creation.
But that I may give you a more full discussion of the sense
and design of the words, I shall do it under these following
particulars: as,
First, I shall give you some general account of the nature of good and evil, and the reason upon which they are
founded.
Secondly, I shall show that the way by which good and evil
commonly operate upon the mind of man, is by those respective names or appellations by which they are notified and
conveyed to the mind. And,
Thirdly and lastly, I shall show the mischief, directly, naturally, and unavoidably following from the misapplication and
confusion of those names.
And, I hope, by going over all these particulars, you may
receive some tolerable satisfaction about this great subject
which we have now before us.
1. And first for the nature of good and evil, what they
are, and upon what they are founded. The knowledge of this
I look upon as the foundation and groundwork of all those
rules that either moral philosophy or divinity can give for




ISAIAH V. 20.]     and Force of Words.                419
the direction of the lives and practices of men; and consequently ought to be reckoned as a first principle; and that
such an one, that, for aught I see, the thorough speculation
of good will be found much more difficult than the practice.
But when we shall have once given some account of the
nature of good, that of evil will be known by consequence; as
being only a privation, or absence of good, in a subject capable of it, and proper for it.
Now good, in the general nature and notion of it, over and
above the bare being of a thing, connotes also a certain suitableness or agreeableness of it to some other thing: according
to which general notion of good, applied to the particular
nature of moral goodness, (upon which only we now insist,) a
thing or action is said to be morally good or evil, as it is
agreeable or disagreeable to right reason, or to a rational
nature; and as right reason is nothing else but the understanding or mind of man, discoursing and judging of things
truly and as they are in themselves; and as all truth is unchangeably the same; (that proposition which is true at any
time being so forever;) so it must follow that the moral
goodness or evil of men's actions, which consist in their conformity or unconformity to right reason, must be also eternal,
necessary, and unchangeable. So that, as that which is right
reason at any time, or in any case, is always right reason with
relation to the same time and case; in like manner, that
which is morally good or evil at any time, or in any case,
(since it takes its whole measure from right reason,) must be
also eternally and unchangeably a moral good or evil, with
relation to that time and to that case. For propositions concerning the goodness, as well as concerning the truth of
things, are necessary and perpetual.
But you will say, may not the same action, as for instance,
the killing of a man, be sometimes morally good, and sometimes morally evil P to wit, good, when it is the execution of
justice upon a malefactor, and evil, when it is the taking
away the life of an innocent person?
To this I answer, that this, indeed is true of actions considered in their general nature or kind, but not considered in
their particular individual instances. For, generally speaking,
to take away the life of a man is neither morally good nor




420              Of the fatal Imposture      [SERM. XXI.
morally evil, but capable of being either, as the circumstances
of things shall determine it; but every particular act of killing is of necessity accompanied with, and determined by,
several circumstances, which actually and unavoidably constitute and denominate it either good or evil. And that which,
being performed under such and such circumstances, is morally
good, can not possibly, under the same circumstances, ever be
morally evil. And so on the contrary.
From whence we infer the villainous falsehood of two assertions, held and maintained by some persons, and too much
countenanced by some others in the world. As,
First, That good and evil, honest and dishonest, are not
qualities existing or inherent in things themselves; but only
founded in the opinions of men concerning things. So that
any thing or action that has gained the general approbation
of any people, or society of men, ought, in respect of those
persons, to be esteemed morally good, or honest; and whatsoever falls under their general disapprobation, ought, upon
the same account, to be reckoned morally evil, or dishonest;
which also they would seem to prove from the very signification of the word honestus; which, originally and strictly,
signifies no more than creditable, and is but a derivative from
honor, which signifies credit or honor; and according to the
opinion of some, we know that is lodged only in the esteem
and thoughts of those who pay it, and not in the thing or
person whom it is paid to. Thus for example; thieving or
robbing was accounted amongst the Spartans a gallant,
worthy, and a creditable thing; and consequently, according
to the principle which we have mentioned, thievery, amongst
the Spartans, was a practice morally good and honest. Thus
also, both with the Grecians and the Romans, it was held a
magnanimous and highly laudable act for a man, under any
great or insuperable misery or distress, to put an end to his
own life; and accordingly, with those who had such thoughts
of it, that which we call self-murder was properly a good, an
honest, and a virtuous action. And persons of the highest
and most acknowledged probity and virtue amongst them,
such as Marcus Cato, and Pomponius Atticus, actually did it,
and stand celebrated both by their orators and historians for
so doing. And I could also instance in other actions of a




ISAIAH V. 20.]   acnd Force of Words.               421
fouler and more unnatural hue, which yet, from the approbation and credit they have found in some countries and places,
have passed for good morality in those places: but, out of
respect to common humanity, as well as divinity, I shall
pass them over. And thus much for the first assertion or
opinion.
Secondly, The second opinion, or position, is, that good and
evil, honest and dishonest, are originally founded in the laws
and constitutions of the sovereign civil power, enjoining some
things or actions, and prohibiting others. So that when any
thing is found conducing to the welfare of the public, and
thereupon comes to be enacted by governors into a law, it is
forthwith thereby rendered morally good and honest; and, on
the contrary, evil and dishonest, when, upon its contrariety to
the public welfare, it stands prohibited and condemned by the
same public authority.
This was the opinion heretofore of Epicurus, as it is represented by Gassenlus; who understood his notions too well to
misrepresent them. And lately of one amongst ourselves, a
less philosopher, though the greater heathen of the two, the
infamous author- of the Leviathan. And the like lewd, scandalous, and immoral doctrine, or worse, if possible, may be
found in some writers, of another kind of note and character;
whom, one would have thought, not only religion, but shame
of the world, might have taught better things.
Such as, for instance, Bellarmine himself; who, in his 4th
book and 5th chapter De Pontifice Romano, has this monstrous
passage: " That if the pope should through error or mistake command vices, and prohibit virtues, the church would
be bound in conscience to believe vice to be good, and virtue
evil." I shall give you the whole passage in his own words
to a tittle: "'Fides catholica docet omnem virtutem  esse
bonam, omne vitiunm esse malum.  Si autem erraret papa,
praecipiendo vitia vel prohibendo virtutes, teneretur ecclesia
credere vitia esse bona et virtutes malas, nisi vellet contra
conscientiam  peccare."  Good God! that any thing that
wears the name of a Christian, or but of a man, should venture to own such a villainous, impudent, and blasphemous
assertion in the face of the world, as this! What! must
murder, adultery, theft, fraud, extortion, perjury, drunken



422              Of the fatal Imposture       [SERM. XXI.
ness, rebellion, and the like, pass for good and commendable
actions, and fit to be practiced P And mercy, chastity, justice,
truth, temperance, loyalty, and sincere dealing, be accounted
things utterly evil, immoral, and not to be followed by men,
in case the pope, who is generally weak, and almost always a
wicked man, should, by his mistake and infallible ignorance,
command the former, and forbid the latter P Did Christ
himself ever assume such a power as to alter the morality of
actions, and to transform  vice into virtue, and virtue into
vice, by his bare word P Certainly never did a grosser paradox, or a wickeder sentence, drop from the mouth or pen of
any mortal man, since reason or religion had any being in the
world.
And, I must confess, I have often with great amazement
wondered how it could possibly come from a person of so great
a reputation, both for learning and virtue too, as the world
allows Bellarmine to have been. But when men give themselves over to the defense of wicked interests and false propositions, it is just with God to smite the greatest abilities with
the greatest infatuations.
But as for these two positions or assertions; That the moral
good or evil, the honesty or dishonesty of human actions,
should depend either upon the opinions or upon the laws of
men; they are certainly false in themselves, because they are
infinitely absurd in their consequences. Some of which are
such as these. As,
First, If the moral goodness or evil of men's actions were
originally founded in, and so proceeded wholly from, the opinions or laws of men, then it would follow that they must
change and vary according to the change and difference of
the opinions and laws of men: and consequently, that the
same action, under exactly the same circumstances, may be
morally good one day, and morally evil another; and morally
good in one place, and morally evil in another: forasmuch as
the same sovereign authority may enact or make a law, commanding such or such an action to-day, and a quite contrary
law forbidding the same action to-morrow; and the very same
action, under the same circumstances, may be commanded by
law in one country, and prohibited by law in another. Which
being so, the consequence is manifest, and the absurdity of
the consequent intolerable.




ISAUH v. 20.J     and Force of Words.               423
Secondly, If the moral goodness or evil of men's actions
depended originally upon human laws, then those laws themselves could neither be morally good nor evil: the consequence is evident; because those laws are not commanded
or prohibited by any antecedent human laws; and consequently, if the moral goodness or evil of any act were to be
derived only from a precedent human law, laws themselves,
not supposing a dependence upon other precedent human
laws, could have no moral goodness or evil in them. Which
to assert of any human act (such as all human laws essentially
are and must be) is certainly a very gross absurdity.
Thirdly, If the moral goodness or evil of men's actions
were sufficiently derived from human laws or constitutions,
then, upon supposal that a divine law should (as it often does)
command what is prohibited by human laws, and prohibit
what is commanded by them, it would follow, that either such
commands and prohibitions of the divine law do not at all
affect the actions of men in point of their morality, so as to
render them either good or evil; or that the same action,-at
the same time, may, in respect of the divine law commanding
it, be morally good; and, in respect of a human law forbidding it, be morally evil: than which consequence, nothing can
be more clear, nor withal more absurd.
And many more of the like nature I could easily draw
forth, and lay before you. Every false principle or proposition being sure to be attended with a numerous train of absurdities.
But, as to the subject-matter now in hand; so far is the
morality of human actions, as to the goodness or evil of them,
from being founded in any human law, that in very many,
and those the principal instances of human action, it is not
originally founded in, or derived from, so much as any positive divine law. There being a jus naturale certainly ante.
cedent to all jus positivum, either human or divine; and that
such as results from the very nature and being of things, as
they stand in such a certain habitude or relation to one another: to which relation whatsoever is done agreeably is
morally and essentially good; and whatsoever is done otherwise is, at the same rate, morally evil.
And this I shall exemplify in those two grand, comprehen



424               Of the fatal Imposture       [SERM. XXI.
sive, moral duties, which man is forever obliged to, his duty
towards God, and his duty towards his neighbor.
And first, for his duty towards God; which is, to love and
obey him with all his heart and all his soul. It is certain that
for a rational, intelligent creature to conform himself to the
will of God in all things, carries in it a moral rectitude, or
goodness; and to disobey or oppose his will in any thing, imports a moral obliquity, before God ever deals forth any particular law or command to such a creature; there, being a
general obligation upon man to obey all God's laws, whensoever they shall be declared,'before any particular instance of
law comes actually to be declared. But now whence is this P
Why, from that essential suitableness which obedience has to
the relation which is between a rational creature and his
Creator. Nothing in nature being more irrational and irregular, and consequently more immoral, than for an intelligent
being to oppose or disobey that sovereign, supreme will, which
gave him that being, and has withal the sole and absolute
disposal of him in all his concerns. So that there needs no
positive law or sanction of God to stamp an obliquity upon
such a disobedience; since it cleaves to it essentially, and by
way of natural result from it, upon the account of that utter
unsuitableness which disobedience has to the relation which
man naturally and necessarily stands in towards his Maker.
And then, in the next place, for his duty to his neighbor.
The whole of which is comprised in that great rule, of doing
as a man would be done by. We may truly affirm, that the
morality of this rule does not originally derive itself from
those words of our Saviour, Matt. vii. 12; Whatsoever ye
would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them: no,
nor yet from Moses or the prophets; but it is as old as Adam,
and bears date with human nature itself; as springing from
that primitive relation of equality which all men, as fellowcreatures, and fellow-subjects to the same supreme Lord, bear
to one another, in respect of that common right which every
man has equally to his life, and to the proper comforts of life,
and consequently to all things naturally necessary to the
support of both.
Now, whatsoever one man has a right to keep or possess,
no other man can have a right to take from him. So that no




ISAIAH V. 20.]    and Force of Words.               425
fnan has a right to expect that from or to do that to another,
which that other has not an equal right to expect from and to
do to him. Which parity of- right, as to all things purely
natural, being undoubtedly the result of nature itself, can any
thing be inferred from thence more conformable to reason,
and consequently of a greater moral rectitude, than that such
an equality of right should also cause an equality of behavior,
between man and man, as to all those mutual offices and intercourses in which life and the happiness of life are concerned P Nothing certainly can shine out and show itself by
the mere light of reason, as a higher and more unquestionable piece of morality than this, nor as a more confessed deviation from morality than the contrary practice.
From  all which discourse I think we may without presumption conclude, that the rationes bonti et mali, the nature
of good and evil, as to the principal instances of both, spring
from that essential habitude, or relation, which the nature of
one thing bears to another by virtue of that order which they
stand placed in, here in the world, by the very law and condition of their creation; and for that reason do and must
precede all positive laws, sanctions, or institutions whatsoever.
Good and evil are in morality as the east and west are in the
frame of the world; founded in and divided by that fixed
and unalterable situation: which they have respectively in the
whole body of the universe; or, as the right hand is discriminated from the left, by a natural, necessary, and never to be
confounded distinction.
And thus I have done with the first thing proposed, and
given you such an account of the nature of good and evil, as
the measure of the present exercise and occasion would allow.
Pass we now to the
2d, which is to show, That the way by which good and
evil generally operate upon the mind of man, is by those
words or names by which they are notified and conveyed to
the mind. Words are the signs and symbols of things; and
as in accompts, ciphers and figures pass for real sums, so in
the course of human affairs, words and names pass for things
themselves.  For things, or objects, can not enter into the
mind, as they subsist in themselves, and by their own natural
bulk pass into the apprehension; but they are taken in by




426               Of the fatal Imposture       [SERM. XXI.
their ideas, their notions or resemblances; which imprinting
themselves after a spiritual immaterial manner in the imagination, and from thence, under a further refinement, passing
into the intellect, are by that expressed by certain words or
names, found out and invented by the mind, for the communication of its conceptions, or thoughts, to others. So that
as conceptions are the images or resemblances of things to
the mind within itself, in like manner are words, or names,
the marks, tokens, or resemblances of those conceptions to
the minds of them whom  we converse with: ra dv -r- rqwvq
v@v (V  if 1vXi raOarwv -inq a oXa, being the known maxim laid
down by the philosopher as the first and most fundamental
rule of all discourse.
This therefore is certain, that in human life, or conversation, words stand for things; the common business of the
world not being capable of being managed otherwise. For by
these, men come to know one another's minds.  By these
they covenant and confederate. By these they buy and sell,
they deal and traffic. In short, words are the great instruments both of practice and design; which, for the most part,
move wholly in the strength of them: forasmuch as it is the
nature of man both to will and to do according to the persuasion he has of the good and evil of those things that come
before him, and to take up his persuasions according to the
representations made to him of those qualities by their respective names or appellations.
This is the true and natural account of this matter; and it
is all that I shall remark upon this second head. I proceed
now to the'
3d. Which is, to show the mischief which directly, naturally, and unavoidably follows froml the misapplication and confusion of those names. And in order to this, I shall premise
these two considerations:
1. That the generality of mankind is wholly and absolutely
governed by words or names; without, nay, for the most part,
even against the knowledge men have of things. The multitude, or common rout, like a drove of sheep, or a herd of
oxen, may be managed by any noise or cry which their drivers
shall accustom them to.
And he who will set up for a skillful manager of the rabble,




IBSAIAH V. 20.]   and Force of Words.              427
so long as they have but ears to hear, needs never inquire
whether they have any understanding whereby to judge; but
with two or three popular empty words, such as popery and
superstition, right of the subject, liberty of conscience, Lord Jesus
Christ, well tuned and humored, may whistle them backwards
and forwards, upwards and downwards, till he is weary; and
get up upon their backs when he is so.
As for the meaning of the word itself, that may shift for
itself: and as for the sense and reason of it, that has little or
nothing to do here; only let it sound full and round, and
chime right to the humor, which is at present agog, (just as
a big, long, rattling name is said to command even adoration
from a Spaniard,) and no doubt, with this powerful. senseless
engine, the rabble-driver shall be able to carry all before him,
or to draw all after him, as he pleases. For a plausible, insignificant word, in the mouth of an expert demagogue, is a
dangerous and a dreadful weapon.
You know, when Caesar's army mutinied, and grew troublesome, no argument from interest or reason could satisfy or
appease them: but as soon as he gave them the appellation of
Quirites, the tumult was immediately hushed; and all were
quiet and content, and took that one word in good payment
for all. Such is the trivial slightness and levity of most
minds. And indeed, take any passion of the soul of man,
while it is predominant and afloat, and, just in the critical
hight of it, nick it with some lucky or unlucky word, and you
may as certainly overrule it to your own purpose, as a spark
of fire, falling upon gunpowder, will infallibly blow it up.
The truth is, he who shall duly consider these matters, will
find that there is a certain bewitchery, or fascination in
words, which makes them operate with a force beyond what
we can naturally give an account of. For would not a man
think ill deeds and shrewd turns should reach further and
strike deeper than ill words P And yet many instances might
be given in which men have much' more easily pardoned ill
things done, than ill things said against them: such a peculiar
rancor and venom do they leave behind them in men's minds,
and so much more poisonously and incurably does the serpent
bite with his tongue than with his teeth.
Nor are men prevailed upon at this odd unaccountable rate,




428              Of the fatal Imposture         SERM. XXI.
by bare words, only through a defect of knowledge; but
sometimes also do they suffer themselves to be carried away
with these puffs of wind, even contrary to knowledge and experience itself. For otherwise, how could men be brought to
surrender up their reason, their interest, and their credit
to flatteryP gross, fulsome, abusive flattery; indeed more
abusive and reproachful, upon a true estimate of things and
persons, than the rudest scoffs and the sharpest invectives.
Yet so it is, that though men know themselves utterly
void of those qualities and perfections which the impudent
sycophant, at the same time, both ascribes to them, and in
his sleeve laughs at them for believing; nay, though they
know that the flatterer himself knows the falsehood of his
own flatteries; yet they swallow the fallacious morsel, love
the impostor, and with both arms hug the abuse; and that to
such a degree, that no offices of friendship, no real services,
shall be able to lie in the balance against those luscious falsehoods which flattery shall feed the mind of a fool in power
with: the sweetness of the one infinitely overcomes the substance of the other.
And therefore you shall seldom see, that such an one cares
to have men of worth, honesty, and veracity about him; for
such persons can not fall down and worship stocks and stones,
though they are placed never so high above them; but their
yea is yea, and their nay, nay; and they can not admire a fox
for his sincerity, a wolf for his generosity, nor an ass for his
wit and ingenuity; and therefore can never be acceptable to
those whose whole credit, interest, and advantage lies in their
not appearing to the world what they are really in themselves.
None are or can be welcome to such, but those who speak
paint and wash; for that is the thing they love; and no wonder, since it is the thing they need.
There is hardly any rank, order, or degree of men, but,
more or less, have been captivated and enslaved by words.
It is a weakness, or rather a fate, which attends both high
and low; the statesman who holds the helm, as well as the
peasant who holds the plough. So that, if ever you find an
ignoramus in place and power, and can have so little conscience, and so much confidence, as to tell him to his face
that he has a wit and an understanding above all the world




ISAIAH V. 20.]    and Force of Words.                429
besides; and "that what his own reason can not suggest to
him, neither can the united reason of all mankind put together;"* I dare undertake, that, as fulsome a dose as you
give him, he shall readily take it down, and admit the colnnmendation, though he call not believe the thing: Blanditie,
etiam curm excluduntur, placent, says Seneca. Tell him, that
no history or antiquity can match his policies and his conduct; and presently the sot (because he knows neither history
nor antiquity) shall begin to measure himself by himself, (which
is the only sure way for him not to fall short,) and so immediately, amongst his outward admirers and his inward despisers,
vouched also by a teste.meipso, he steps forth an exact politician, and, by a wonderful and new way of arguing, proves himself no fool, because, forsooth, the sycophant who tells him so
is an egregious knave.
But to give you yet a grosser instance of the force of words,
and of the extreme vanity of man's nature in being influenced
by them, hardly shall you meet with any person, man or
woman, so aged or ill-favored, but, if you will venture to conmmend them for their comeliness, nay, and for their youth too,
though "time out of mind " is wrote upon every line of their
face; yet they shall take it very well at your hands, and begin
to think with themselves that certainly they have some perfections which the generality of the world are not so happy as
to be aware of.
But now, are not these, think we, strange self-delusions,
and yet attested by common experience almost every day P
But whence, in the mean time, can all this proceed, but from
that besotting intoxication which this verbal magic, as I may
so call it, brings upon the mind of man P For can any thing
in nature have a more certain, deep, and undeniable effect,
than folly has upon man's mind, and age upon his bodyP
And yet we see, that in both these, words are able to persuade men out of what they find and feel, to reverse the very
impressions of sense, and to amuse men with fancies and
paradoxes, even in spite of nature and experience. But since
it would be endless to pursue all the particulars in which this
humor shows itself, whosoever would have one full, lively,
and complete view of an empty, shallow, self-opinioned gran* The words of a great self-opiniator, and a bitter reviler of the clergy.




430               Of the fatal Imposture       [SERM. XXI.
dee, surrounded by his flatterers, (like a choice dish of meat
by a company of fellows commending and devouring it at
the same time,) let him cast his eye upon Ahab in the midst
of his false prophets, 1 Kings xxii., where we have them
all with one voice for giving him a cast' of their courtprophecy, and sending him, in a compliment, to be knocked
on the head at Ramoth Gilead.  But, says Jehoshaphat, (who
smelt the parasite through the prophet,) in the seventh verse,
Is there not a prophet of the Lord besides, that we may inquire
of him?  Why, yes, says Ahab, there is yet one man by whom
we may inquire of the Lord; but I hate him, for he doth not
prophesy good concerning me, but evil.  Ay! that was his
crime; the poor man was so good a subject, and so bad a
courtier, as to venture to serve and save his prince, whether
he would or no; for, it seems, to give Ahab such warning as
might infallibly have prevented his destruction, was esteemed
by him evil; and to push him on headlong into it, because he
was fond of it, was accounted good. These were his new
measures of good and evil. And therefore those who knew
how to make their court better, (as the word is,) tell him a
bold lie in God's name, and therewith send him packing to
his certain doom; thus calling evil good at the cost of their
prince's crown and his life too. But what cared they P they
knew that it would please, and that was enough for them;
there being always a sort of men in the world (whom others
have an interest to serve by) who had rather a great deal be
pleased than be safe. Strike them under the fifth rib, provided at the same time you kiss them  too, as Joab served
Abner, and you may both destroy and oblige them with the
same blow.
Accordingly, in the thirtieth of Isaiah, we find some arrived to that pitch of sottishness, and so much in love with
their own ruin, as to own plainly and roundly what they
would be at; in the tenth verse, Prophesy not unto us, say
they, right things, but prophesy to tus smooth things. As if they
had said, "Do but oil the razor for us, and let us alone to
cut our own throats." Such an enchantment is there in
words; and so fine a thing does it seem to some to be ruined
plausibly, and to be ushered to their destruction with panegyric and acclamation: a shameful, though irrefragable argu



ISAIuH v. 20.]    and Force of Words.                431
ment, of the absurd empire and usurpation of words over
things; and that the greatest affairs and most important interests of the world are carried on by things, not as they are,
but as they are called.
And thus much for the first thing which I thought necessary to premise to the prosecution of our third particular.
2. The other thing to be premised is this; That as the
generality of men are wholly governed by names and words,
so there is nothing in which they are so remarkably and
powerfully governed by them, as in matters of good and evil,
so far as these qualities relate to, and affect the actions of,
men: a thing certainly of a most fatal and pernicious import.
For though, in matters of mere speculation, it is not much
the concern of society whether or no men proceed wholly
upon trust, and take the bare word of others for what they
assent to; since it is not much material to the welfare either
of government or of themselves whether they opine right or
wrong, and whether they be philosophers or no. But it is
vastly the concern both of government and of themselves too,
whether they be morally good or bad, honest or dishonest.
And surely it is hardly possible for men to make it their
business to be virtuous or honest, while vices are called and
pointed out to them by the names of virtues; and they all
the while suppose the nature of things to be truly and faithfully signified by their names, and thereupon believe as they
hear, and practice as they believe. And that this is the
course of much the greatest part of the world, thus to take
up their persuasions concerning good and evil by an implicit
faith, and a full acquiescence in the word of those who shall
represent things to them under these characters, I shall prove
by two reasons; and those such as, I fear, will not only be
found reasons to evince that men actually do so, but also sad
demonstrations to conclude that they are never like to do
otherwise.
First, The first of which shall be taken from that similitude,
neighborhood, and affinity, which is between vice and virtue,
good and evil, in several notable instances of each.  For
though the general natures and definitions of these qualities
are sufficiently distant from one another, and so in no danger
of a promiscuous confusion; yet when they come to subsist




432              Of the fatal Imposture        [SEBM. XXI.
in particulars, and to be clothed and attended with several
accidents and circumstances, the case is hereby much altered;
for then the discernment is neither so easy, nor yet so certain. Thus it is not always so obvious to distinguish between
an act of liberality and an act of prodigality; between an act
of courage and an act of rashness; an act of pusillanimity,
and an act of great modesty or humility: nay, and some have
had the good luck to have their very dullness dignified with
the name of gravity, and to be no small gainers by the mistake. And many more such actions of dubious quality might
be instanced in, too numerous to be here recounted or insisted
on. In all which, and the like, it requiring too great a sagacity for vulgar minds to draw the line nicely and exactly
between vice and virtue, and to adjust the due limits of each;
it is no wonder if most men attempt not a laborious scrutiny
into things themselves, but only take names and words as
they first come, and so without any more ado rest in them; it
being so much easier, in all disquisitions of truth, to suppose
than to prove, and to believe than to distinguish.
Secondly, The other reason of the same shall be taken
from the great and natural inability of most men to judge
exactly of things; which makes it very difficult for them to
discern the real good and evil of what comes before them; to
consider and weigh circumstances, to scatter and look through
the mists of error, and so separate appearances from realities.
For the greater part of mankind is but slow and dull of apprehension, and therefore, in many cases, under a necessity
of seeing with other men's eyes, and judging with other men's
understandings; nature having manifestly contrived things
so, that the vulgar and the many are fit only to be led or
driven, but by no means fit to guide or direct themselves.
To which their want of judging or discerning abilities, we
may add also their want of leisure and opportunity to apply
their minds to such a serious and attent consideration as may
let them into a full discovery of the true goodness and evil of
things, which are qualities which seldom display themselves
to the first view: for in most things good and evil lie shuffled
and thrust up together in a confused heap; and it is study
and intention of thought which must draw them forth, and
range them under their distinct heads. But there can be no




ISAIAH V. 20.]    and Force. of Words.               433
study without time; and the mind must abide and dwell upon
things, or be always a stranger to the inside of them.
Through desire, says Solomon, a man having separated himself,
seeketh and intermeddleth with all wisdom, Prov. xviii. 1. There
must be leisure and a retirement, solitude, and a sequestration of a man's self from the noise and toil of the world: for
truth scorns to be seen by eyes too much fixed upon inferior
objects.  It lies too deep to be fetched up with the plow,
and too close to be beaten out with the hammer. It dwells
not in shops or workhouses; nor till the late age was it ever
known that any one served seven years to a smith or a tailor,
that he might at the end thereof proceed master of any
other arts but such as those trades taught him; and much
less that he should commence doctor or divine from the shopboard or the anvil; or from whistling to a team, come to
preach to a congregation.
These were the peculiar, extraordinary privileges of the late
blessed times of light and inspiration: otherwise nature will
still hold on in its old course, never doing any thing which is
considerable, without the assistance of its two great helps,
art and industry. But above all, the knowledge of what is
good and what is evil, what ought and what ought not to be
done, in the several offices and relations of life, is a thing too
large to be compassed, and too hard to be mastered, without
brains and study, parts and contemplation; which providence
never thought fit to make much the greatest part of mankind
possessors of. And consequently those who are not so, must,
for the knowledge of most things, depend upon those who
are, and receive their information concerning good and evil
from such verbal or nominal representations of each as shall
be imparted to them by those whose ability and integrity
they have cause to rely upon for a faithful account of these
matters.
And thus from these two great considerations premised;
1st, That the generality of the world are wholly governed by
words and names; and 2dly, That the chief instance in which
they are so, is in such words: and names as, import the good
or evil of things; (which both the difficulty of things themselves,: and the very condition of human: nature, constrains
much the greatest part of mankind to take wholly upon
VOL. I.         28




434              Of the fatal Imposture      [SERM. XXa.
trust;) I say, from these two considerations must needs be
inferred, what a fatal, devilish, and destructive effect the
misapplication and confusion of those great governing names
of good and evil must inevitably have upon the societies of
men; the comprehensive mischief of which will appear from
this, that it takes in both those ways by. which the greatest
evils and calamities which are incident to man do directly
break in upon him.
The first of which is by his being deceived, and the second
by his being misrepresented. And first, for the first of these.
I do not in the least doubt, but if a true and just computation
could be made of all the miseries and misfortunes that befall
men in this world, two thirds of them, at least, would be
found resolvable into their being deceived by false appearances of good; first deluding their apprehensions, and then
by natural consequence perverting their actions, from which
are the great issues of life and death; since, according to the
eternal sanction of God and nature, such as a man's actions
are for good or evil, such ought also his condition to be for
happiness or misery.
Now all deception in the course of life is indeed nothing
else but a lie reduced to practice, and falsehood passing from.
words into things.
For is a man impoverished and undone by the purchase
of an. estate P Why, it is because he bought an imposture,
paid down his money for a lie, and by the help of the best
and ablest counsel, forsooth, that could be had, took a bad
title for a good.
Is a man unfortunate in marriage P Still it is because he
was deceived; and put his neck into the snare before he put
it into the yoke, and so took that for virtue and affection
which was nothing but vice in a disguise, and a devilish humor under a demure look.
Is he again unhappy and calamitous in his friendshipsP
Why, in this also it is because he built upon the air, and
trod upon a quicksand, and took that for kindness and sincerity which was only malice and design, seeking an opportunity to ruin him effectually, and to overturn him in all his
interests by the sure but fatal handle of his own good nature
and credulity.




ISAIAH V. 20.]    and Force:of Words.              435
And lastly, is a man betrayed, lost, and blown by such
agents and instruments as he employs in his greatest and
nearest concerns? Why, still the cause of it is from this, that
he misplaced his confidence, took hypocrisy for fidelity, and
so relied upon the services of a pack of villains, who designed
nothing but their -own game, and to stake him, while they
played for themselves.
But not to mention any more particulars, there is no estate,
office, or condition of life whatsoever, but groans and labors
under the killing truth of what we have asserted.
For it is this which supplants not only private persons,
but kingdoms and governments, by keeping them ignorant of
their own strengths and weaknesses; and it is evident that
governments may be equally destroyed by an ignorance of
either.  For the weak, by thinking themselves strong, are
induced to venture and proclaim war against that which ruins
them: and the strong, by conceiting themselves weak, are
thereby rendered as unactive, and consequently as useless, as
if they really were so. In Luke xiv. 31, when a king with ten
thousand is to meet a king coming against him with twenty thousand, our Saviour advises him, before he ventures the issue
of a battle, to sit down and consider. But now a false glozing
parasite would give him quite another kind of counsel, and
bid him only reckon his ten thousand forty, call his fool-hardiness valor, and then he may go on boldly, because blindly,
and by mistaking himself for a lion, come to perish like an ass.
In short, it is this great plague of the world, deception,
which takes wrong measures, and makes false musters almost
in every thing; which sounds a retreat instead of a charge,
and a charge instead of a retreat; which overthrows whole
armies; and sometimes by one lying word treacherously cast
out, turns the fate and fortune of states and empires, and
lays the most flourishing monarchies in the dust. A blind
guide is certainly a great mischief; but a guide that blinds
those whom he should lead is undoubtedly a much greater.
Secondly, The other great and undoing mischief which
befalls men upon the forementioned account is, by their being
misrepresented. Now as by calling evil good, a man is misrepresented to himself in the way of flattery, so by calling
good evil he is misrepresented to others in the way of slan



436               Of the fatal Imposture       [SERM. XXI.
der and detraction. I say detraction, that killing, poisoned
arrow drawn out of the devil's quiver, which is always flying
abroad, and doing execution in the dark; against which no
virtue is a defense, no innocence a security. For as by flat-.
tery a man is usually brought to open his bosom to his mortal
enemy, so by detraction, and a slanderous misreport of persons, he is often brought to shut the same even to his best
and truest friends. In both cases he receives a fatal blow,
since that which lays a man open to an enemy, aind that which
strips him of a friend, equally attacks him in all those interests that are capable of being weakened by the one and supported by the other.
The most direct and efficacious way to ruin any man, is to
misrepresent him; and it often so falls out that it wounds on
both sides, and not only mauls the person misrepresented, but
him also to whom he is misrepresented: for if he be great
and powerful, (as spies and pickthanks seldom apply to any
others,) it generally provokes him through mistake to persecute and tyrannize over, nay, and sometimes even to dip his
hands in the blood of the innocent and the just, and thereby
-involve himself in such a guilt as shall arm heaven and earth
against him, the vengeance of God, and the indignation of
men; who will both espouse the quarrel of a bleeding innocence, and heartily join forces against an insulting baseness,
especially when backed with greatness, and set on by misinformation. Histories are full of such examples.
Besides that, it is rarely found that men: hold their greatness for term of life; though their baseness, for the most
part, they do;. and then, according to the common vicissitude
and wheel of things, the proud and the insolent must take
their turn too; and after long trampling upon others, come
at length, plaudente et gaudente mundo, to be trampled upon
themselves.  For, as Tully, has it in his oration for Milo,
non semper viator a latrone, nonnuunqam etiam latro a viatore
occiditur.
But to pass from particulars to communities, nothing can be
imagined more destructive to society than this villainous praetice. For it robs the public of all that benefit and advantage
that it may justly claim and ought to receive from the worth
and virtue of particular persons; by rendering their virtue ut



ISAIAH V. 20.]       and Force of Words.                    437
terly insignificant.  For good itself can do no good while it
passes for evil; and an honest man is, in effect, useless, while
he is accounted a knave. Both things and persons subsist by
their reputation.
An unjust sentence from a tribunal may condemn an innocent person, but misrepresentation condemns innocence itself.
For it is this which revives and imitates that inhuman barbarity of the old heathen persecutors, wrapping up Christians
in the skinis of wild beasts, that so they might be worried and
torn in pieces by dogs.  Do but paint an angel black, and
that is enough to make him pass for a devil. " Let us blacken
him, let us blacken him  what we can," said that miscreant
Harrison * of the blessed king, upon the wording and drawing up his charge against his approaching trial. And when
any man is to be run down, and sacrificed to the lust of his
enemies, as that royal martyr was, even his good (according to
the apostle's phrase) shall be evil spoken of. He must first be
undermined, and then undone. The practice is usual, and
the method natural. But, to give you the whole malice of it
in one word, it is a weapon forged in hell, and formed by the
prime artificer and engineer of:all mischief, the devil; and
none but that God who knows all things, and can do all things,
can protect the best of men against it.
To which God, the fountain of all good, and the hater of all
evil, be rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all praise,
might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for evermore.
Amen.
* A preaching colonel of the parlia- Cursed be he who does the work of the
ment-army, and a chief actor in the Lord negligently. He was by extraction
murder of King Charles the First; not- a butcher's son; and accordingly, in
able before for having killed several his practices all along, more a butcher
after quarter giveir them by others, than his father.
and using these words in the doing it;




SERMON XXII.
PREVENTION OF SIN AN INVALUABLE MERCY:
OR A SERMON PREACHED UPON THAT SUBJECT ON 1 SAMUEL, XXV. 32, 88,
AT CHRIST CHURCH, OXON, NOVEMBER 10, 1678.
1 SAMUEL XXV. 32, 33. -And David said to Abigail, Blessed be the Lord God of
israel, which sent thee this day to meet me.
And blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou, which hast kept me this day from coming
to shed blood, and from avenging myself with mine own hand.
THESE words are David's retractation, or laying down of
a bloody and revengeful resolution; which, for a while,
his heart had swelled with, and carried him  on with the
highest transport of rage to prosecute. A resolution took up
from the sense of a gross indignity and affront passed upon
him, in recompense of a signal favor and kindness received
from  him. For during his exile and flight before Saul, in
which he was frequently put to all the hardships which usually befall the weak flying before the strong; there happening
a great and solemn festivity, such as the sheep-shearings used
to be in those eastern countries, he condescends, by an honorable and kind message, to beg of a rich and great man
some small repast and supply for himself and his poor harassed companions, at that notable time of joy and feasting:
a time that might make any thing that looked like want or
hunger no less an absurdity than a misery to all that were
round about him. And, as if the greatness of the asker, and
the smallness of the thing asked, had not been sufficient to
enforce his request, he adds a commemoration of his own
generous and noble usage of the person whom he thus addressed to; showing how that he had been a wall and a bul



1 SAM. xxv. 32, 33.] Prevention of Sin an invaluable Mercy. 439
wark to all that belonged to him, a safeguard to his estate,
and a keeper of his flocks; and that both from the violence
of robbers, and the license of his own soldiers; who could
much more easily have carved themselves their own provisions
than so great a spirit stoop so low as to ask them.
But in answer to this, (as nothing is so rude and insolent
as a wealthy rustic,) all this his kindness is overlooked, his
request rejected, and his person most unworthily railed at.
Such being the nature of some base minds, that they can
never do ill turns but they must double them with ill words
too. And thus David's messengers are sent back to him like
so many sharks and runagates, only for endeavoring to compliment an ill nature out of itself, and seeking that by petition which they might have commanded by their sword.
And now, who would not but think that such ungrateful
usage, hightened with such reproachful language, might warrant the justice of the sharpest revenge; even of such a
revenge as now began to boil and burn in the breast of this
great warrior? For surely, if any thing may justly call up the
utmost of a man's rage, it should be bitter and contumelious
words from an unprovoked inferior; and if any thing can
legalize revenge, it should be injuries from an extremely
obliged person. But for all this, revenge, we see, is so much
the prerogative of the Almighty, so absolutely the peculiar of
Heaven, that no consideration whatsoever can empower even
the best men to assume the execution of it in their own case.
And therefore David, by an happy and seasonable pacification,
being took off from acting that bloody tragedy which he was
just now entering upon, and so turning his eyes from the
baseness of him who had stirred up his revenge, to the goodness of that God who had prevented it; he breaks forth into
these triumphant praises and doxologies expressed in the text:
Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who has kept me this day
from shedding blood, and from  avenging myself with my own
hand.
Which words, together with those going before in the same
verse, naturally afford us this doctrinal proposition, which
shall be the subject of the following discourse: namely, That
prevention of sin is one of the greatest mercies that God can
vouchsafe a man in this world.




440                 Prevention of Sin         [SERM. XXII.
The prosecution of which shall lie in these two things:
first, to prove the. proposition; secondly, to apply it.
And first,:for the proof of it: the transcendent greatness of
this sin-preventing mercy is demonstrable from  these four
following considerations:
1. Of the condition which the sinner is in when this
mercy is vouchsafed him.
2. Of the principle or fountain from whence this prevention of sin does proceed.
3. Of the hazard a man runs, if the commission of sin
be not prevented, whether ever it will come to be pardoned:
and,
4thly and lastly, Of the advantages accruing to the soul
from the prevention of sin, above what can be had from the
bare pardon of it, in case it comes to be pardoned.
Of these in their order: and first, we are to take an estimate of the greatness of this mercy, from the condition it
finds the sinner in when God is pleased to vouchsafe it to
him. It finds him in the direct way to death and destruction; and, which is worse, wholly unable to help himself.
For he is actually under the power of a temptation and the
sway of an impetuous lust; both hurrying him on to satisfy
the cravings of it by some wicked action. He is possessed
and acted by a passion which, for the present, absolutely
overrules him; and so can no more recover himself than a
bowl rolling down a hill stop itself in the midst of its career.
It is a maxim in the philosophy of some, that whatsoever
is once in actual motion, will move forever, if it be not hindered.
So a man, being under the drift of any passion, will still
follow the impulse of it, till something interpose and by a
stronger impulse turn him another way: but in this case we
can find no principle within him strong enough to counteract
that principle, and to relieve him. For if it be any, it must
be either, first, the judgment of his reason, or, secondly, the
free choice of his will.
But from the first of these there can be no help for him in
his present condition. For while a man is engaged in any
sinful purpose, through the prevalence of any passion, during
the continuance of that passion he fully approves of what



1 SAM. xxv. 32, 33.]    an invaluable Mercy.        441
soever he is carried on to do in the strength of it; and judges
it, under his present circumstances, the best and most rational
course that he can take. Thus we see when Jonas was under
the passion of anger, and God asked him, Whether he did well
to be angry? he answered, I do well to be angry, even unto
death, Jonas iv. 9. And when Saul was under his persecuting
fit, what he did appeared to him good and necessary, Acts
xxvi. 9; I verily thought with myself that I ought to do many
things contrary to the name of Jesus. But to go no further:
than the text; do we not think that while David's heart was
full of his revengeful design, it had blinded and perverted his
reason so far that it struck in wholly with his passion, and
told him that the bloody purpose he was going to execute
was just, magnanimous, and most becoming such a person,
and so dealt with, as he was? This being so, how is it possible for a man under a passion to receive any succor from his
judgment or reason, which is made a party in the whole action,
and influenced to a present approbation of all the ill things
which his passion can suggest P This is most certain; and
every man may find it by experience, (if he will but impartially
reflect upon the method of his own actings, and the motions
of his own mind,) that while he is under any passion, he
thinks and judges quite otherwise of the proper objects of
that passion, from what he does when he is out of it. Take
a man under the transports of a vehement rage or revenge,
and he passes a very different judgment upon murder and
bloodshed from what he does when his revenge is over and
the flame of his fury spent. Take a man possessed with a
strong and immoderate desire of any thing, and you shall
find that the worth and excellency of that thing appears
much greater and more dazzling to the eye of his mind than.
it does when that desire, either by satisfaction or otherwise,
is quite extinguished. So that while passion is upon the
wing, and the man fully engaged in the prosecution of some
unlawful object, no remedy or control is to be expected from
his reason, which is wholly gained over to judge in favor of
it. The fumes of his passion do as really intoxicate and confound his judging and discerning faculty, as the fumes of
drink discompose and stupefy the brain of a man overcharged
with it. When his drink indeed is over, he sees the folly and




442                 Prevention of Sin:[SERM. XXII.
the absurdity, the madness and the vileness of those things
which before he acted with full complacency and approbation.
Passion is the drunkenness of the mind; and therefore, in its
present workings, not controllable by reason; forasmuch as
the proper effect of it is, for the time, to supersede the workings of reason. This principle therefore being able to do
nothing to the stopping of a man in the eager pursuit of his
sin, there remains no other that can be supposed able to do
any thing upon the soul, but that second mentioned, to wit,
the choice of his will. But this also is as much disabled from
recovering a man fully intent upon the prosecution of any
of his lusts, as the former. For all the time that a man
is so, he absolutely wills, and is fully pleased with what he is
designing or going about. And whatsoever perfectly pleases
the will, overpowers it; for it fixes and determines the inclination of it to that one thing which is before it; and so fills
up all its possibilities of indifference, that there is actually no
room for choice. He who is under the power of melancholy,
is pleased with his being so. He who is angry, delights in
nothing so much as in the venting of his rage. And he who
is lustful, places his greatest satisfaction in a slavish following
of the dictates of his lust. And so long as the will and the
affeotions are pleased, and exceedingly gratified in any course
of acting, it is impossible for a man, so far as he is at his own
disposal, not to continue in it; or, by any principle within
him, to be diverted or took off from it.
From all which we see, that when a man has took up a full
purpose of sinning, he is hurried on to it in the strength of all
those principles which nature has given him to act by: for sin
having depraved his judgment, and got possession of his will,
there is no other principle left him  naturally by which he
can make head against it. Nor is this all; but to these internal dispositions to sin, add the external opportunities and
occasions concurring with them, and removing all lets and
rubs out of the way, and, as it were, making the path of
destruction plain before the sinner's face; so that he may
run his course freely and without interruption. Nay, when
opportunities shall lie so fair as not only to permit, but
even to invite,, and further a progress in sin; so that the
sinner shall set forth like a ship launched into the wide sea,




SAM. xxv.:32, 33.]    an invaluable Mercy.        443
not only well built and rigged, but also carried on with full
wind and tide, to the port or place it is bound for: surely, in
this case, nothing under heaven can be imagined able to stop
or countermand a sinner, amidst all these Circumstances promoting and pushing on his sinful design. For all that can
give force and fury to motion, both from within and from
without, jointly meet to bear him forward in his present
attempt. He presses on like a horse rushing into the battle,
and all that should withstand him giving way before him.
Now under this deplorable necessity of ruin and destruction does God's preventing grace find every sinner, when it
snatches him like a brand out of the fire, and steps in between
the purpose and the commission of his sin. It finds him
going on resolutely in the high and broad way to perdition;
which yet his perverted reason tells him is right, and his will,
pleasant. And therefore he has no power of himself to leave
or turn out of it; but he is ruined jocundly and pleasantly,
and damned according to his heart's desire. And can there
be a more wretched and woful spectacle of misery, than a
man' in such a condition P a man pleasing and destroying
himself together P a man, as it were, doing violence to damnation, and taking hell by force P So that when the preventing goodness of God reaches out its arm, and pulls him out
of this fatal path, it does by main force even wrest him from
himself, and save him, as it were, against his will.
But neither is this his total inability to recover or relieve
himself the worst of his condition; but, which is yet much
worse, it puts him into a state of actual hostility against, and
defiance of, that almighty God from whom alone, in this
helpless and forlorn condition, he is capable of receiving help.
For surely, while a man is going on in a full purpose of sin,
he is trampling upon all law, spitting in the face of Heaven,
and provoking his Maker in the highest manner; so that none
is or can be so much concerned as God himself, to destroy and
cut off such an one, and to vindicate the honor of his great
name, by striking him dead in his rebellion. And this brings
us to the
Second thing proposed; which was to show, What is the
fountain or impulsive cause of this prevention of sin. It is
perfectly free grace. A man at best, upon all principles of




444                 Prevention of Sin,         [SERM. XXII.
divinity and sound philosophy, is incapable of meriting any
thing from God. But surely, while he is under the dominion
of sin, and engaged in full design and purpose to commit it,
it is not imaginable what can be found in him to oblige the
divine grace in his behalf. For he is in high and actual. rebellion against the only giver of such grace. And therefore
it must needs flow from a redundant, unaccountable fullness
of compassion; showing mercy because it will show mercy;
from a compassion which is and must be its own reason, and
can have no argument for its exercise but itself. No man in
the strength of the first grace can merit the second, (as some
fondly speak, for reason.they do not,) unless a beggar, by receiving one alms, can be said to merit another. It is not
from what a man is, or what he has done; from any virtue
or excellency, any preceding worth or desert in him, that
God is induced thus to interpose between him and ruin, and
so stop him in his full career to damnation. No, says God,
in Ezek. xvi. 6, When I passed by, and saw thee polluted irn
thine own blood, I said unto thee, Live; yea, I said unto thee,
when thou wast in thy blood, Live. The Spirit of God speaks
this great truth to the hearts of men with emphasis and repetition, knowing what an aptness there is in them to oppose
it. God sees a man wallowing in his native filth and impurity, delivered over as an absolute captive to sin, polluted
with its guilt, and enslaved by its power; and in this mnost
loathsome condition fixes upon him as an object of his distinguishing mercy. And to show yet further that the actings
of this mercy in the work of prevention are entirely free, do
we not sometimes see, in persons of equal guilt and demerit, and of equal progress and advance in the ways of sin,
some of them maturely diverted and took off, and others permitted to go on without check or control, till they finish a
sinful course in final perdition? So true is it, that if things
were cast upon this issue, that God should never prevent sin
till something in man deserved it, the best of men would fall
into sin, continue in sin, and sin on forever.
And thus much for the second thing proposed; which was
to show, What was the principle, or fountain, from whence
this prevention of sin does proceed. Come we now to the
Third demonstration or proof of the greatness of this pre



1 SAM. xxv. 32, 33.]    an invaluable Mercy.          445
venting mercy, taken from the hazard a man runs, if the
commission of sin be not prevented, whether ever it will come
to be pardoned.
In order to the clearing of which, I shall lay down these
two considerations:
1. That if sin be not thus prevented, it will certainly be
committed; and the reason is, because on the sinner's part
there will be always a strong inclination to sin. So that, if
other things concur, and Providence cuts not off the opportunity, the act of sin must needs follow. For an active principle, seconded with the opportunities of action, will infallibly
exert itself.
2dly, The other consideration is, That in every sin deliberately committed, there are (generally speaking) many more
degrees of probability that that sin will never come to be
pardoned, than that it will.
And this shall be made to appear upon these three following
accounts:
1. Because every commission of sin introduces into the soul
a certain degree of hardness, and an aptness to continue in
that sin. It is a known maxim, that it is much more difficult
to throw out, than not to let in. Every degree of entrance
is a degree of possession. Sin taken into the soul is like a
liquor poured into a vessel; so much of it as it fills, it also
seasons. The touch and tincture go together. So that although the body of the liquor should be poured out again,
yet still it leaves that tang behind it which makes the vessel
fitter for that than for any other. In like manner, every act
of sin sti-angely transforms and works over the soul to its own
likeness: sin in this being to the soul like fire to combustible matter; it assimilates before it destroys it.
2dly, A second reason is, because every commission of sin
imprints upon the soul a further disposition and proneness to
sin. As the second, third, and fourth degrees of heat are
more easily introduced than the first. Every one is both a
preparative and a step to the next. Drinking both quenches
the present thirst and provokes it for the future. When the
soul is beaten from its first station, and the mounds and outworks of virtue are once broken down, it becomes quite another thing from what it was before. In one single eating of




446                 Prevention of Sin         [SERM. XXII.
the forbidden fruit, when the act is over, yet the relish remains; and the remembrance of the first repast is an easy
allurement to the second. One visit is enough to begin an
acquaintance; and this point is gained by it, that when the
visitant comes again he is no more a stranger.
3dly, The third and grand reason is, because the only thing
that can entitle the sinner to pardon, which is repentance, is
not in the sinner's power: and he who goes about the work
will find it so. It is the gift of God: and though God has
certainly promised forgiveness of sin to every one who repents, yet he has not promised to any one to give him grace
to repent. This is the sinner's hard lot, that the same thing
which makes him need repentance, makes him also in danger
of not obtaining it. For it provokes and offends that holy
Spirit which alone can bestow this grace: as the same treason
which puts a traitor in need of his prince's mercy, is a great
and a just provocation to his prince to deny it him.
Now, let these three things be put together: First, That
every commission of sin, in some degree, hardens the soul in
that sin. Secondly, That every commission of sin disposes
the soul to proceed further in sin. And, thirdly, That to repent and turn from sin, (without which all pardon is impossible,) is not in the sinner's power; and then, I suppose, there
can not but appear a greater likelihood, that a sin once committed will in the issue not be pardoned, than that it will. To
all which, add the confirmation of general experience, and the
real event of things, that where one man ever comes to repent,
an hundred, I might say a thousand at least, end their days in
final impenitence.
All which considered, surely there can not need a more
pregnant argument of the greatness of this preventing mercy,
if it did no more for a man than this; that his grand, immortal concern, more valuable to him than ten thousand worlds,
is not thrown upon a critical point; that he is not brought to
his last stake; that he is rescued from the first descents into
hell and the high probabilities of damnation.
For whatsoever the issue proves, it is certainly a miserable
thing to be forced to cast lots for one's life; yet in every
sin, a man does the same for eternity. And therefore let the
boldest sinner take this one consideration along with him,




1 SAM. xxv. 32, 33.]    an invaluable Mercy.         447
when he is going to sin, that, whether the sin he is about
to act ever comes to be pardoned or no, yet, as soon as it
is acted, it quite turns the balance, puts his salvation upon
the venture, leaves him but one cast for all; and, which is
yet much more dreadful, makes it ten to one odds against
him.
But let us now alter the state of the matter, so as to leave
no doubt in the case; but suppose that the sin, which, upon
non-prevention, comes to be committed, comes also to be repented of, and consequently to be pardoned. Yet, in the
Fourth and last place, The greatness of this preventing
mercy is eminently proved from those advantages accruing
to the soul from the prevention of sin, above what can be had
from the bare pardon of it: and that, in these two great respects:
I. Of the clearness of a man's condition.
2. Of the satisfaction of his mind. And,
First, For the clearness of his condition. If innocence be
preferable to repentance, and to be clean be more desirable
than to be cleansed, then surely prevention of sin ought to
have the precedence of its pardon. For so much of prevention, so much of innocence. There are indeed various degrees of it; and God, in his infinite wisdom, does not deal
forth the same measure of his preventing grace to all. Sometimes he may suffer the soul but just to begin the sinful production, in reflecting upon a sin, suggested by the imagination, with some complacency and delight; which, in the
apostle's phrase, is to conceive sin; and then, in these early,
imperfect beginnings, God perhaps may presently dash and
extinguish it.  Or possibly he may permit the sinful conception to receive life and form, by passing into a purpose of
committing it; and then he may make it prove abortive, by
stifling it before ever it comes to the birth.  Or perhaps God
may think fit to let it come even to the birth, by some strong
endeavors to commit it, and yet then deny it strength to
bring forth; so that it never comes into actual commission.
Or, lastly, God may suffer it to be born, and see the world,
by permitting the endeavor of sin to pass into the commission
of it. And this is the last fatal step but one; which is, by
frequent repetition of the sinful act, to continue and persist




448                 Prevention of Sin         [SERM. XXII.
in it, till at length it settles into a fixed, confirmed habit of
sin; which, being properly that which the apostle calls the
finishing of sin, ends certainly in death, - death, not only as to
merit, but also as to actual infliction.
Now peradventure in this whole progress, preventing grace
may sometimes come in to the poor sinner's help, but at the
last hour of the day; and having suffered him to run all the
former risk and maze of sin, and to descend so many steps
downwards to the black regions of death: as first, from the
bare thought and imagination of sin, to look upon it with
some beginnings of appetite and delight; from thence, to
purpose and intend it; and from intending, to endeavor it;
and from endeavoring, actually to commit it; and, having
committed it, perhaps for some time to continue in it: and
then, I say, after all this, God may turn the fatal stream, and
by a mighty grace interrupt its course, and keep it fr.om passing into a settled habit, and so hinder the absolute completion
of sin in final obduracy.
Certain it is, that wheresoever it pleases God to stop the
sinner on this side hell, how far soever he has been advanced
in his way towards it, is a vast, ineffable mercy; a mercy as
great as life from the dead, and salvation to a man tottering
with horror upon the:very edge and brink of destruction.
But if, more than all this, God shall be pleased by an' early
grace to prevent sin so soon as to keep the soul in the virginity of its first innocence, not tainted with the desires, and
much less defioured with the formed purpose of any thing
vile and sinful, what an infinite goodness is this! It is not
a converting, but a crowning grace; such an one as irradiates,
and puts a circle of glory about the head of him upon whom
it descends; it is the Holy Ghost coming down upon him in
theform of a dove, and setting him triumphant above the necessity of tears and sorrow, mourning and repentance, the sad
after-games of a lost innocence. And this brings in the consideration of that other great advantage accruing to the soul
from the prevention of sin, above what can be had from the
bare pardon of it; namely,
2. The satisfaction of a man's mind. There is that true
joy, that solid and substantial comfort, conveyed to the heart
by preventing grace, which pardoning grace, at the best, very




1 SAM. xxv. 32, 33.1    an invaluable ~Mercy.       449
seldom, and, for the most part, never gives. For since all
joy passes into the heart through the understanding, the
object of it must be known by one before it can affect the
other. Now, when grace keeps a man so within his bounds
that sin is prevented, he certainly knows it to be so; and so
rejoices upon the firm, infallible ground of sense and assurance. But, on the other side, though grace may have reversed the condemning sentence, and sealed the sinner's pardon before God, yet it may have left no transcript of that
pardon in the sinner's breast. The handwriting against him
may be cancelled in the court of heaven, and yet the indictment run on in the court of conscience. So that a man may
be safe as to his condition, but in the mean time dark and
doubtful as to his apprehensions; secure in his pardon, but
miserable in the ignorance of it; and so, passing all his days
in the disconsolate, uneasy vicissitudes of hopes and fears, at
length go out of the world, not knowing whither he goes.
And what is this, but a black cloud drawn over all a man's
comforts P a cloud which, though it can not hinder the supporting influence of heaven, yet will be sure to intercept the
refreshing light of it. The pardoned person must not thinkto stand upon the same vantage-ground with the innocent.
It is enough that they are both equally safe; but it can not
be thought that, without a rare privilege, both can be equally
cheerful. And thus much for the advantageous effects of
preventing, above those of pardoning grace; which was the
fourth and last argument brought for the proof of the proposition. Pass we now to the next general thing proposed for
the prosecution of it; namely,
2. Its application. Which, from the foregoing discourse,
may afford us several useful deductions; but chiefly by way of
information, in these three following particulars. As,
First, This may inform and convince us how vastly greater
a pleasure is consequent upon the forbearance of sin than
can possibly accompany the commission of it; and how much
higher a satisfaction is to be found from a conquered, than
from a conquering passion. For the proof of which, we need
look no further than the great example here before us. Revenge is certainly the most luscious morsel that the devil
can put into the sinner's mouth. But do we think that
VOL. I.          29




450                 Prevention of Sin          [SERM. XXII.
David could have found half that pleasure in the execution
of his revenge that he expresses here upon the disappointment of it P Possibly it might have pleased him in the present heat and hurry of his rage, but must have displeased him
infinitely more in the cool, sedate reflections of his mind.
For sin can please no longer than for that pitiful space of
time while it is committing; and surely the present pleasure
of a sinful act is a poor countervail for the bitterness of the
review, which begins where the action ends, and lasts forever. There is no ill thing which a man does in his passion,
but his memory will be revenged on him for it afterwards.
All pleasure springing from a gratified passion (as most of
the pleasure of sin does) must needs determine with that passion. It is short, violent, and fallacious; and as soon as the
imagination is disabused, will certainly be at an end. And
therefore Des Cartes prescribes excellently well for the regulation of the passions; viz. That a man should fix and forearm his mind with this settled persuasion, that, during that
commotion of his blood and spirits, in which passion properly
consists, whatsoever is offered to his imagination in favor of it,
tends only to deceive his reason. It is indeed a real trepan
upon it; feeding it with colors and appearances, instead of
arguments; and driving the very same bargain which Jacob
did with Esau, a -mess of pottage for a birthright, a present
repast for a perpetuity.
Secondly, We have here a sure, unfailing criterion, by
which every man may discover and find out the gracious or
ungracious disposition of his own heart. The temper of
every man is to be judged of from the thing he most esteems;
and the object of his esteem may be measured by the prime
object of his thanks. What is it that opens thy mouth in
praises, that fills thy heart, and lifts up thy hands in grateful
acknowledgments to thy great Creator and Preserver P Is it
that thy bags and thy barns are fall, that thou hast escaped
this sickness or that danger P Alas, God may have done all
this for thee in anger! All this fair sunshine may have been
only to harden thee in thy sins..He may have given thee
riches and honor, health and power with a curse; and if so,
it will be found but a poor comfort to have had never so great
a share of God's bounty without his blessing.




1 SAM.xxv. 32, 33.]    an invaluable Mercy.          451
But has he at any time kept thee from thy sin P stopped
thee in the prosecution of thy lust? P defeated the malicious
arts and stratagems of thy mortal enemy the tempter P  And
does not the sense of this move and affect thy heart more than
all the former instances of temporal prosperity, which are but,
as it were, the promiscuous scatterings of his common providence, while these are the distinguishing kindnesses of his
special grace P
A truly pious mind has certainly another kind of relish and
taste of these things; and if it receives a temporal blessing
with gratitude, it receives a -spiritual one with ecstasy and
transport. David, an heroic instance of such a temper, overlooks the rich and seasonable present of Abigail, though
pressed with hunger and travel; but her advice, which disarmed his rage, and calmed his revenge, draws forth those
high and affectionate gratulations from him: Blessed be thy
advice, and blessed be thou, who hast kept me this day from shedding blood; and avenging myself with mine own hand. These
were his joyful and glorious trophies; not that he triumphed
over his enemy, but that he insulted over his revenge; that
he escaped from himself, and was delivered from his own fury.
And whosoever has any thing of David's piety, will be perpetually plying the throne of grace with such like acknowledgments; as, " Blessed be that Providence which delivered
me from such a lewd company, and such a vicious acquaintance, which was the bane of such and such a person. And,
Blessed be that God who cast rubs, and stops, and hinderances in my way, when I was attempting the commission of
such or such a sin; who took me out of such a course of life,
such a place, or such an employment, which was a continual
snare and temptation to me. And, Blessed be such a preacher,
and such a friend, whom God made use of to speak a word in
season to my wicked heart, and so turned me out of the paths
of death and destruction, and saved me in spite of the world,
the devil, and myself."
These are such things as a man shall remember with joy
upon his deathbed; such as shall cheer and warm his heart
even in that last and bitter agony, when many, from the very
bottom of their souls, shall wish that they had never been
rich, or great, or powerful; and reflect with anguish and re



452                Prevention of Sin          [SERM. XXII.
morse upon those splendid occasions of sin, which served
them for little but to highten their guilt, and at best to inflame their accounts at that great tribunal which they are
going to appear before.
In the third and last place. We learn from hence the
great reasonableness of, not only a contented, but also a
thankful acquiescence in any condition, and under the crossest and severest passages of Providence which can possibly
befall us: since there is none of all these but may be the instrument of preventing grace in the hands of a merciful God,
to keep us from those courses which would otherwise assuredly end in our confusion. This is most certain, that there is
no enjoyment which the nature of man is either desirous or
capable of, buit may be to him a direct inducement to sin, and
consequently is big with mischief, and carries death in the
bowels of it. But to make the assertion more particular,
and thereby more convincing, let us take an account of it with
reference to the three greatest and deservedly most valued
enjoyments of this life.
1. Health; 2d]y, Reputation; and 3dly, Wealth.
First, And first for health. Has God made a breach upon
that P Perhaps he is building up thy soul upon the ruins of
thy body. Has he bereaved thee of the use and vigor of thy
limbs P Possibly he saw that otherwise they would have been
the instruments of thy lusts, and the active ministers of thy
debaucheries.  Perhaps thy languishing upon thy bed has
kept thee from rotting in a jail, or in a worse place. God
saw it necessary by such mortifications to quench the boilings
of a furious, overflowing appetite, and the boundless rage of
an insatiable intemperance; to make the weakness of the
flesh the physic and restaurative of the spirit; and, in a word,
rather to save thee diseased, sickly, and deformed, than to let
strength, health, and beauty drive thee headlong (as they
have done many thousands) into eternal destruction.
Secondly, Has God in his providence thought fit to drop a
blot upon thy name, and to blast thy reputation P He saw
perhaps that the breath of popular air was grown infectious,
and would have derived a contagidn upon thy better part.
Pride and vainglory had mounted thee too high, and therefore it was necessary for mercy to take thee down, to prevent




1 SAM. xxv. 32, 33.]    an invaluable Mercy.         453
a greater fall. A good name is, indeed, better than life; but
a sound mind is better than both. Praise and applause had
swelled thee to a proportion ready to burst; it had vitiated all
thy spiritual appetites, and brought thee to feed upon the air,
and to surfeit upon the wind, and, in a word, to starve thy
soul, only to pamper thy imagination.
And now if God makes use of some poignant disgrace to
prick this enormous bladder, and to let out the poisonous vapor, is not the mercy greater than the severity of the cure?
Cover them with shame, says the psalmist, that they may seek thy
name. Fame and glory transports a man out of himself; and,
like a violent wind, though it may bear him up for a while,
yet it will be sure to let him fall at last. It makes the mind
loose and garish, scatters the spirits, and leaves a kind of dissolution upon all the faculties. Whereas shame, on the collntrary, as all grief does, naturally contracts and unites, and
thereby fortifies the spirits, fixes the ramblings of fancy, and
so reduces and gathers the man into himself. This is the
sovereign effect of a bitter potion, administered by a wise and
merciful hand: and what hurt can there be in all the slanders,
obloquies, and disgraces of this world, if they are but the arts
and methods of Providence to shame us into the glories of
the next. But then,
Thirdly and lastly, Has God thought fit to cast thy lot
amongst the poor of this world, and that either by denying
thee any share of the plenties of this life, which is something
grievous; or by taking them away, which is much more so P
Yet still all this may be but the effect of preventing mercy.
For so much mischief as riches have done and may do to the
souls of men, so much mercy may there be in taking them
away. For does not the wisest of men, next our Saviour, tell
us of riches kept to the hurt of the owners of them? Eccles. v.
13. And does not our Saviour himself speak of the intolerable difficulty which they cause in men's passage to heaven?
Do they not make the narrow way much narrower, and contract the gate which leads to life to the straitness of a needle's
eye?
And now, if God will fit thee for this passage by taking off
thy load, and emptying thy bags, and so suit the narrowness
of thy fortun9 to the narrowness of the way thou art to pass,




454:         Prevention of Sin         [SERM. XXII.
is there any thing but mercy in all this P: Nay, are not the
riches of his mercy conspicuous in the poverty of thy condition P
Thou who repinest at the plenty and splendor of thy
neighbor, at the greatness of his incomes, and the magnificence of his retinue, consider what are frequently the dismal, wretched consequences of all this, and thou wilt have
little cause to envy this gaudy great one, or to wish thyself in
his room.
For do we not often hear of this or that young heir newly
come to his father's vast estate P An happy man, no doubt!
But does not the town presently ring of his debaucheries, his
blasphemies, and his murders P Are not his riches and his
lewdnesses talked of together P and the odiousness of one
hightened and set off by the greatness of the other P Are
not his oaths, his riots, and other villainies reckoned by as
many thousands as his estate P
Now consider, had this grand debauchee, this glistering
monster, been born to thy poverty and mean circumstances,
he could not have contracted such a clamorous guilt, he could
not have been so bad: nor, perhaps, had thy birth instated
thee in the same wealth and greatness, wouldest thou have
been at all better.
This God foresaw  and knew, in the ordering both of
his and thy condition: and which of the two now, can we
think, is the greater debtor to his preventing mercy P Lordly
sins require lordly estates to support them: and where
Providence denies the latter, it cuts off all temptation to
the former.
And thus have I shown by particular instances, what cause
men have to acquiesce in and submit to the harshest dispensations that Providence can measure out to them in this life;
and with what satisfaction, or rather gratitude, that ought to
be endured by which the greatest of mischiefs is prevented.
-The great physician of souls sometimes can not cure without
cutting us. Sin has festered inwardly, and he must lance the
imposthume, to let out death with the suppuration. He who
ties a madman's hands, or takes away his sword, loves his
person, while he disarms his frenzy.  And whether by
health or sickness, honor or disgrace, wealth or poverty, life




1 SAM. xxv. 32, 33.]    an invaluable Mercy.          455
or death, mercy is still contriving, acting, and carrying on
the spiritual good of all those who love God, and are loved by
him.
To whom, therefore, be rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all
praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen.




SERMON XXIII.
AN ACCOUNT OF THE NATURE AND MEASURES OF
CONSCIENCE:
IN TWO SERMONS ON 1 JOHN III. 21, PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY, AT
CHRIST CHURCH, OXON.
THE FIRST PREACHED ON THE 1ST OF NOVEMBERS 1691.
1 JOHN iii. 21. -Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, we have confidence toward God.
A S nothing can be of more moment, so few things, so few things, doubtless, are of more difficulty, than for men to be rationally
satisfied about the estate of their souls, with reference to God
and the great concerns of eternity. In their judgment about
which, if they err finally, it is like a man's missing his cast
when he throws dice for his life; his being, his happiness,
and all that he does or can enjoy in the world, is involved
in the error of one throw. And therefore it may very well
deserve our best skill and care, to inquire into those rules by
which we may guide our judgment in so weighty an affair,
both with safety and success. And this, I think, can not be
better done than by separating the false and fallacious from
the true and certain. For if the rule we judge by be uncertain, it is odds but we shall judge wrong; and if we should
judge right, yet it is not properly skill, but chance; not a
true judgment, but a lucky hit: which, certainly, the eternal
interests of an immortal soul are of much too high a value to
be left at the mercy of.
First of all then: he who would pass such a judgment upon
his condition as shall be ratified in heaven and confirmed at
that great tribunal from which there lies no appeal, will find




1 JoHN iii. 21.] Of the Nature and Measures of Conscience. 457
himself wofully deceived, if he judges of his spiritual estate
by any of these four following measures: as,
1. The general esteem of the world concerning him. He
who owes his piety to fame and hearsay, and the evidences of
his salvation to popular voice and opinion, builds his house
not only upon the sand, but, which is worse, upon the wind;
and writes the deeds, by which he holds his estate, upon the
face of a river. He makes a bodily eye the judge of things
impossible to be seen; and humor and ignorance (which the
generality of men both think and speak by) the great proofs
of his justification. But surely no man has the estate of his
soul drawn upon his face, nor the decree of his election wrote
upon his forehead. He who would know a man thoroughly,
must follow him  into the closet of his heart, the door of
which is kept shut to all the world besides, and the inspection
of which is only the prerogative of omniscience.
The favorable opinion and good word of men, (to some
persons especially,) comes oftentimes at a very easy rate; and
by a few demure looks and affected whines, set off with some
odd, devotional postures and grimaces, and such other little
arts of dissimulation, cunning men will do wonders, and commence presently heroes for sanctity, self-denial, and sincerity,
while within perhaps they are as proud as Lucifer, as covetous as Demas, as false as Judas; and, in the whole course
of their conversation, act and are acted, not by devotion, but
design.
So that, for aught I see, though the Mosaical part of
Judaism be abolished amongst Christians, the Pharisaical part
of it never will. A grave, stanch, skillfully managed face,
set upon a grasping, aspiring mind, having got many a sly
formalist the reputation of a primitive and severe piety, forsooth, and made many such mountebanks pass admired, even
for saints upon earth, (as the word is,) who are like- to be so
nowhere else.
But a man who had never seen the stately outside of a
tomb, or painted sepulchre, before, may very well be excused
if he takes it rather for the repository of some rich treasure,
than of a noisome corpse; but should he but once open and
rake into it, though he could not see, he would quickly smell
out his mistake. The greatest part of the world is nothing




458                Of the Nature and           [CSRM. XXIII.
but appearance, nothing but show and surface; and many
make it their business, their study, and concern, that.it should
be so; who, having for. many years together deceived all
about them, are at'last willing to deceive'themselves too; and
by a long, immemorial practice, and, as it were, prescription
*of an aged, thoroughpaced hypocrisy, come at length to believe that for a reality which, at the first practice of it, they
themselves knew to be a cheat.. But if men love to be deceived and fooled about so great an interest as that of their
spiritual estate, it must be confessed that they can not take a
surer and more effectual course to be so, than by taking their
neighbor's word for that which can be known to them only
from their own hearts. For certainly it is not more absurd
to undertake to tell the name of an unknown person by his
looks, than to vouch a man's saintship from the vogue of the
world, founded upon his external behavior.
2. The judgment of any casuist, or learned divine, concerning the estate of a man's soul, is not sufficient to give him
confidence towards God.  And the reason is, because no
learning whatsoever can give a man the knowledge of another's heart. Besides, that it is. more than possible that
the most profound and experienced -casuist.in the world may
mistake in his judgment of a man's spiritual condition; and
if he does judge right, yet the man can not be sure that he
will. declare that judgment sincerely and impartially, (the
greatest clerks being not always the honestest, any more
than the'wisest men,) but may purposely soothe a man up for
hope' or fear, or the service of some sinister interest; and
so show him the face of a foul soul in a flattering glass:
considering how much the raising in some men a false hope
of another world may, with' others, serve a real interest in.this.
There is a generation of men who have framed their casuistical divinity to a perfect compliance with all the corrupt af-'
fections of a man's nature; and by that'new-invented engine
of the doctrine -of probability, will undertake to warrant and
quiet the sinner's conscience in the commission of any sin
whatsoever, provided there be but' the opinion of one learned'man to vouch it. For. this' they say, is a sufficient ground
~for the -conscience of any unlearned person to rely and to act




1 JOHu iii. 21.]  Measures of Conscience.           459
upon. So that if but one doctor asserts that I may lawfully
kill a man to prevent a box on the ear, or a calumny, by which
he would otherwise asperse my good name, I may with a good
conscience do it; nay, I may safely rest upon this one casuist's
judgment, though thousands, as lear-ned as himself, yea, and
the express law of God besides, affirm the quite contrary.
But these spiritual engineers know well enough how to deal
with any commandment, either by taking or expounding it
away, at their pleasure.
Such an ascendant have these Romish casuists over scripture, reason, and morality; much like what is said of the
stupid, modern Jews, that they have subdued their: sense and
reason to such a sottish servitude to their rabbies, as to hold,
that in case two rabbies should -happen to contradict one another, they were yet bound to believe the contradictory assertions of both to be equally certain, and equally the word of
God: such an iron-digesting faith have they, and such pity it
is that there should be no such thing in Judaism as transubstantiation to employ it upon.
But as for these casuists whom I have been speaking of;
if the judgment of one doctor may authorize the practice of
any action, I believe it will be hard to find anly sort or degree
of villainy which the corruption of man's nature is capable
of committing, which shall not meet with a defense. Aind
of this I could give such an instance frol something wrote
by a certain prelate of theirs, cardinal and archbishop of
Beneventum, as were enough, not only to astonish all pious
ears, but almost to unconsecrate the very church I speak in.
But the truth is, the way by which these Romish casuists
speak peace to the consciences of men, is either by teaching
them that many actions are not sins, which yet really are so,
or by suggesting something to them which shall satisfy their
minds, notwithstanding a known, actual, avowed continuance
in their sins: such as are their pardons and indulgences, and
giving men a share in the saints' merits, out of the common
bank-and treasury of the church, which the pope has the sole
custody and disposal of, and is never kept shut to such as'come with an open hand. So that according to these new
evangelists, well may we pronounce, Blessed are the rich, for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven. But God deliver the world




460                Of the N2ature and        [SERM. XXIII.
from such guides, or rather such hucksters of souls, the very
shame of religion, and the shameless subverters of morality.
And it is really matter both of wonder and indignation, that
such impostors should at all concern themselves about rules or
directions of conscience, who seem to have no consciences to
apply them to.
3. The absolution pronounced by a priest, whether Papist
or Protestant, is not a certain, infallible ground, to give the
person so absolved confidence towards God; and the reason
is, because, if absolution, as such, could of itself secure a man,
as to the estate of his soul, then it would follow that every
person so absolved should, by virtue thereof, be ipso facto put
into such a condition of safety which is not imaginable.
For the absolution pronounced must be either conditional,
as running upon the conditions of faith and repentance; and
then, if those conditions are not found in the person so absolved, it is but a seal to a blank, and so a mere nullity to
him.. Or, the absolution must be pronounced in terms absolute and unconditional: and if so, then the said absolution
becomes valid and effectual, either by virtue of the state of
the person to whom it was pronounced, as being a true penitent, or by virtue of the opus operatunm, or bare action itself
of the priest absolving him. If it receives its validity from
the former, then it is clear, that although it runs in forms
absolute, yet it is indeed conditional, as depending upon the
qualification of the person to whom it is pronounced; who
therefore owes the remission of his sins, not properly to the
priest's absolution, but to his own repentance, which made
that absolution effectual, and would undoubtedly have saved
him, though the priest had never absolved him.
But if it be asserted that the very action of the priest absolving him has of itself this virtue, then we must grant
also, that it is in the priest's power to save a man who never
repented, nor did one good work in all his life; forasmuch
as it is in his power to perform this action upon him in full
form, and with full intention to absolve him. But the horrible absurdity, blasphemy, and impiety of this assertion
sufficiently proclaims its falsity without any further confutation.
In a word, if a man be a, penitent, his repentance stamps




1JOHN iii. 21.]  Measures of Conscience.            461
his absolution effectual. If not, let the priest repeat the
same absolution to him ten thousand times, yet for all his
being absolved in this world, God will condemn him in the
other. And consequently, he who places his salvation upon
this ground, will find himself like an imprisoned and condemned malefactor, who in the night dreams that he is released, but in the morning finds himself led to the gallows.
4thly and lastly, No advantages from external church-membership, or profession of the true religion, can themselves
give a man confidence towards God. And yet perhaps there
is hardly any one thing in the world, which men, in all ages,
have generally more cheated themselves with. The Jews
were an eminent instance of this: who, because they were
the sons of Abraham, as it is readily acknowledged by our
Saviour, John viii. 37, and because they were entrusted with the
oracles of God, Rom. iii. 2, together with the covenants, and the
promises, Rom. ix. 4, that is, in other words, because they
were the true church, and professors of the true religion,
(while all the world about them lay wallowing in ignorance,
heathenism, and idolatry,) they concluded from hence, that
God was so fond of them, that, notwithstanding all their villainies and immoralities, they were still the darlings of heaven,
and the only heirs apparent of salvation. They thought, it
seems, God and themselves linked together in so fast, but
withal so strange a covenant, that, although they never performed their part. of it, God was yet bound to make good every
tittle of his.
And this made John the Baptist set himself with so much
acrimony and indignation to baffle this senseless, arrogant
conceit of theirs, which made them huff at the doctrine of
repentance, as a thing below them, and not at all belonging
to them, in Matt. iii. 9. Think not, says he, to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father. This, he knew, lay
deep in their hearts, and was still in their mouths, and kept
them insolent and impenitent under sins of the highest and
most clamorous guilt; though our Saviour himself also, not
long after this, assured them, that they were of a very different stock and parentage from that which they boasted of; and
that whosoever was their father upon the natural account, the
devil was certainly so upon a moral.




462                Of the Natcure and         [SERM. XXIII.
In like manner, how vainly do the Romanists pride and:
value themselves upon the name of Catholics, of the catholic
religion, and of the catholic church! though a title no more
applicable to the church of Rome, than a man's finger, when
it is swelled and putrefied, can be called his whole body: a
church which allows salvation to none without it, nor awards
damnation to almost any within it. And therefore, as the
former empty plea served the sottish Jews, so, no. wonder if
this equally serves these, to put them into a fool's paradise, by
feeding their hopes without changing their lives; and, as an
excellent expedient, first to assure them of heaven, and then
to bring them easily to it; and so, in a word, to save both
their souls and their sins too.
And to show how the same cheat runs through all professions, though not in the same dress; none are more powerfully and grossly under it than another sort of men, who, on
the contrary, place their whole acceptance with God, and indeed their whole religion, upon a mighty zeal, or rather outcry, against popery and superstition; verbally, indeed, uttered
-against the church of Rome, but really against the church of
England. To which sort of persons I shall say no more but
this, and that in the spirit of truth and meekness; namely,
that zeal and noise against popery, and real services for it,
are no such inconsistent things as some may imagine; indeed
no more than invectives against Papists, -and solemn addresses of thanks to them for that very thing by which they
would have brought in popery upon us. And if those of the
separation do not yet know so much, thanks to them for it,
we of the church of England do; and so may they themselves
too, in due time. I speak not this by way of sarcasm, to reproach them, (I leave that to their own consciences, which
will do it more effectually,) but by way of charity, to warn
them: for let them be assured that this whole scene and practice of theirs is as really superstition, and as false a bottom to
rest their souls upon, as either the Jews alleging Abraham for
their father, while the devil claimed them for his children.; or
the Papists relying upon their indulgences, their saints' merits
and supererogations, and such other fopperies, as can never
settle, nor indeed so much as reach, the conscience; and
much less recommend it to that Judge who is not to be




1 JoHN iii. 21.]   easures of Conscience.            463
flammned off with words, and phrases, and names, though
taken out of the scripture itself.
Nay, and I shall proceed yet further. It is not a man's
being of the church of England itself, (though undoubtedly
the-purest and best reformed church in the world; indeed so
well reformed, that it will be found a much easier work to alter
than to better its constitution;) I say, it is not a man's being
even of this excellent church, which call of itself clear accounts between God and his conscience. Since bare communion with a good church can never alone make a good man:
for if it could, I am sure we should have no bad ones in ours;
and much less such as would betray it.
So that we see here that it is but too manifest that men
of all churches and persuasions are strangely apt to flatter
and deceive themselves with what they believe and what
they profess; and if we throughly consider the matter, we
shall find the fallacy to lie in this: that those religious institutions, which God designed only for means, helps, and
advantages, to promote and further men in the practice
of holiness, they look upon rather as a privilege to serve
them  instead of it, and really to commute for it. This is
the very case, and a fatal self-imposture it is certainly, and
such an one as defeats the design and destroys the force of
all religion.
And thus I have shown four several uncertain and deceitful rules, which men are prone to judge of their spiritual
estate by.
But now, have we any better or more certain, to substitute
and recommend in the room of them P Why, yes; if we believe the apostle, a man's own heart or conscience is that
which, above all other things, is able to give him confidence
towards God. And the reason is, because the heart knows
that by itself, which nothing in the world besides can give it
any knowledge of, and without the knowledge of which. it
can have no foundation to, build any true: confidence upon.
Conscience, under God, is the only competent judge. of what
the soul has done, and what it. has not done; what guilt it
has contracted, and what it has not; as it is in 1 Cor. ii. 11,
What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man
which is in him? Conscience is its own counsellor, the sole




464                Of the Nature and          [SERM. XXIII.
master of its own secrets: and it is the privilege of our
nature, that every man should keep the key of his own breast.
Now for the further prosecution of the words, I shall do
these four things:
1. I shall show how the heart or conscience ought to be
informed, in order to its founding in us a rational confidence
towards God.
2. I shall show how and by what means we may get it thus
informed, and afterwards preserve and keep it so.
3. I shall show whence it is that the testimony of conscience thus informed, comes to be so authelntic, and so much
to be relied upon; and,
4thly and lastly, I shall assign some particular cases or instances, in which the confidence suggested by it does most
eminently show and exert itself.
1. And first for the first of these, how the heart or conscience, &c. It is certain, that no man can have any such
confidence towards God, only because his heart tells him a
lie; and that it may do so is altogether as certain. For
there is the erroneous, as well as the rightly informed conscience; and if the conscience happens to be deluded, and
thereupon to give false directions to the will, so that by virtue
of those directions it is betrayed into a course of sin: sin does
not therefore cease to be sin, because a man committed it
conscientiously. If conscience comes to be perverted so far
as to bring a man under a persuasion that it is either lawful
or his duty to resist the magistrate, to seize upon his neighbor's just rights or estate, to worship stocks and stones, or to
lie, equivocate, and the like, this will not absolve him before
God; since error, which is in itself evil, can never make another thing good. He who does an unwarrantable action
through a false information, which information he ought not
to have believed, can not in reason make the guilt of one sin
the excuse of another.
Conscience therefore must be rightly informed, before the
testimony of it can be authentic in what it pronounces concerning the estate of the soul. It must proceed by the two
grand rules of right reason and scripture; these are the compass which it must steer by. For conscience comes formally
to oblige, only as it is the messenger of the mind of God to




1 JonN iii. 21.]  Measures of Conscience.            465
the soul of man; which he has revealed to him, partly by the
impression of certain notions and maxims upon the practical
understanding, and partly by the declared oracles of his word,
So far therefore as conscience reports any thing agreeable to,
or deducible from these, it is to be hearkened to as the great
conveyer of truth to the soul; but when it reports any thing
dissonant to these, it obliges no more than the falsehood reported by it.
But since there is none who follows an erroneous conscience, but does so because he thinks it true; and moreover
thinks it true, because he is persuaded that it proceeds according to the two forementioned rules of scripture and
right reason; how shall a man be able to satisfy himself,
when his conscience is rightly informed, and when possessed
with an error? For to affirm that the sentence passed by
a rightly informed conscience gives a man a rational confidence towards God; but, in the mean time, not to assign
any means possible by which he may know when his conscience is thus rightly informed, and when not, it must
equally bereave him  of such a confidence, as placing the
condition upon which it depends wholly out of his knowledge.
Here therefore is the knot, here the difficulty, how to state
some rule of certainty, by which infallibly to distinguish when
the conscience is right, and to be relied upon; when erroneous, and to be distrusted, in the testimony it gives about the
sincerity and safety of a man's spiritual condition.
For the resolution of which, I answer, that it is not necessary for a man to be assured of the rightness of his conscience, by such an infallible certainty of persuasion  as
unmounts to the clearness of a demonstration; but it is sufficient, if he knows it upon grounds of such a convincing
probability as shall exclude all rational grounds of doubting
of it. For I can not think that the confidence here spoken
of rises so high as to assurance.  And the reason is, because it is manifestly such a confidence as is common to all
sincere Christians; which yet assurance, we all know, is
not.
UThe truth is, the word in the origipal, which is 7TraA&a
signifies properly freedom or boldness of sleech; though the
in translation renders it by fiducia, and so corresponds with
VOL. I.         30




466                Of the Nature and         [SERM. XXIII.
the English, which renders it confidence. But whether fiducia
or confidence reaches the full sense of 7rap)p'Ta, may very well
be disputed. However, it is certain that neither the word in
the original, nor yet in the translation, imports assurance.
For freedom or boldness of speech, I am sure, does not; and
fiducia, or confidence, signifies only a man's being actually persuaded of a thing, upon better arguments for it than any that
he canl see against it; which he may very well be, and yet not
be assured of it.
From all which I conclude, that the confidence here mentioned in the text amounts to no more than a rational wellgrounded hope. Such an one as the apostle tells us, in Rom.
v. 5, maketh not ashamed.
And upon these terms, I affirm, that such a conscience as
has employed the utmost of its ability to give itself the best
information and clearest knowledge of its duty that it can, is
a rational ground for a man to build such an hope upon; and,
consequently, for him to confide in.
There is an innate light in every man, discovering to him
the first lines of duty, in the common notions of good and
evil, which, by cultivation and improvement, may be advanced
to higher and brighter discoveries. And from hence it is that
the schoolmen and moralists admit not of any ignorantia juris,
speaking of natural moral right, to give excuse to sin. Since
all such ignorance is voluntary, and therefore culpable, forasmuch as it was in every man's power to have prevented it, by
a due improvement of the light of nature, and the seeds of
moral honesty sown in his heart.
If it be here demanded, whether a man may not remain
ignorant of his duty, after he has used the utmost means to
inform himself of it, I answer, that so much of duty as is
absolutely necessary to save him, he shall upon the use of
such a course come to know; and that which he continues
ignorant of, having done the utmost lying in his power that
he might not be ignorant of it, shall never damn him.
Which assertion is proved thus: The gospel damns nobody
for being ignorant of that which he is not obliged to know;
but that which upon the improvement of a man's utmost
power he can not know, he is not obliged to know; for that
otherwise he would be obliged to an impossibility; since that




1 JOHN iii. 21.]  Measures of Conscience.           467
which is out of the compass of any man's power, is to that
man impossible.
He therefore who exerts all the powers and faculties of his
soul, and plies all means and opportunities in the search of
truth, which God has vouchsafed him, may rest upon the
judgment of his conscience so informed, as a warrantable
guide of those actions which he must account to God for.
And if by following such a guide he falls into the ditch, the
ditch shall never drown him, or if it should, the man perishes
not by his sin, but by his misfortune. In a word, he who endeavors to know the utmost of his duty that he can, and practices the utmost that he knows, has the equity and goodness
of the great God to stand as a mighty wall or rampart between
him and damnation, for any errors or infirmities which the
frailty of his condition has invincibly, and therefore inculpably,
exposed him to.
And if a conscience thus qualified and informed, be not the
measure by which a man may take a true estimate of his
absolution,\before the tribunal of God, all the understanding
of human nature can not find out any ground for the sinner
to pitch the sole of his foot upon, or rest his conscience with
any assurance, but is left in the plunge of infinite doubts and
uncertainties, suspicions and misgivings, both as to the measures of his present duty, and the final issues of his future
reward.
Let this conclusion therefore stand as the firm result of the
foregoing discourse, and the foundation of what is to follow;
that such a conscience as has not been wanting to itself, in
endeavoring to get the utmost and clearest information about
the will of God, that its power, advantages, and opportunities
could afford it, is that internal judge whose absolution is a
rational and sure ground of confidence towards God: and so
I pass to the second thing proposed. Which is to show, How,
and by what means, we may get our heart or conscience thus
informed, and afterwards preserve and keep it so.
In order to which, amongst many things that might be alleged as highly useful, and conducing to this great work, I
shall insist upon these'four: as,
1. Let a man carefully attend to the voice of his reason,
and all the dictates of natural morality, so as by no means to




468                Of the Nature and          [SERM. XXII.
do any thing contrary to them. For though reason is not to
be relied upon as a guide universally sufficient to direct us
what to do, yet it is generally to be relied upon and obeyed,
where it tells us what we are not to do. It is indeed but a:weak and diminutive light, compared to revelation; but it
ought to be no disparagement to a star, that it is not a sun.
Nevertheless, as weak and as small as it is, it is a light always
at hand, and though enclosed, as it were, in a dark lantern,
may yet be of singular use to prevent many a foul step, and
to keep us from many:a dangerous fall. And every man
brings such a degree of this light into the world with him,.that -though it can not bring him to heaven, yet, if he be true
to it, it will carry him a great way; indeed so far, that if he
follows it faithfully, I doubt not but he shall meet with an-other light, which shall carry him quite through.
How far it may be improved is evident from that high and
refined morality which shined forth both in the lives and
writings of some of the ancient heathens, who yet had no
other light but this, both to live and to write by. For how
great a man in virtue was Cato, of whom the historian gives
this:glorious character: Eisse quam videri'bonus malebat!
And of what an impregnable integrity was Fabricius, of whom
it was said, that a -man might as well attempt -to turn the sun
out of -his course, as to bring Fabricius to do a base or a dishonest action! And then for their writings; what admirable
things occur in the remains of Pythagoras, and the books of
Plato, and of several other philosophers! short, I confess, of:the rules of Christianity, but generally above the lives of;Christians.
Which being so, ought not the light'of reason to be looked
upon:by -us as a rich and.a noble talent, and such an one as
we must account to God for P for Lit is certainly fiom him. It
is a ray of divinity darted into the soul. It is the candle of
the.Lord, as Solomon calls it, and God -never lights us up a
candle either to put out or to sleep by. If it be made conscious to a work of darkness, it will not fail to discover and
reprove it;:and therefore the checks of -it are to be revered,
as the echo of a voice from heaven; for, whatsoever conu
science binds here on earth, will be certainly bound.there too;
and it iwere a great vanity to hope or imagine, that either law




1 JoN iii. 21.]   Measures of Conscience.             469
or gospel will absolve what natural conscience condemns. No.
man ever yet offended his own conscience, but first or last it,
was revenged upon him for it.  So that it will concern a man;
to treat this great principle awfully and warily, by still observing what it commands, but especially what it forbids: andi
if he would have it always a faithful and sincere monitor to.
him, let him be sure never to turn a deaf ear to it; for notto hear it is the way to silence it. Let him strictly observe;
the first stirrings and intimations; the first hints and whispers of good and evil, that pass in his heart; and this will
keep conscience so quick and vigilant, and ready to give at
man true alarms upon the least approach of his spiritual
enemy, that he shall be hardly capable of a great surprise.
On the contrary, if a man accustoms himself to slight or.
pass over these first motions to good, or shlrinkings of his
conscience from evil, which originally are as natural to the
heart of man as the appetites of hunger and thirst are to the
stomach, conscience will by degrees grow dull and unconcerned, and, from not spying out motes, come at length tot
overlook beams; from carelessness it shall fall into a slumber,
and from a slumber it shall settle into a deep and long sleep;
till at last perhaps it sleeps itself into a lethargy, and: that
such an one that nothing but hell and judgment shall be
able to awaken it. For long disuse of any thing made for
action will in time: take away the very use of it. As I have
read of one, who, having for a disguise kept one of his eyes
a long time covered, when he took off the covering found his
eye indeed where it was, but his sight was gone. He who
would keep his conscience awake, must, be careful to keep it
stirring.
2. Let a man be very tender and regardful of every pious
motion and suggestion made by the Spirit of God to his heart.
I do not hereby go about to establish enthusiasm, or such
fantastic pretenses of intercourse with God, as Papists and
fanatics (who in most things copy from one, another, as well
as rail at one another) do usually boast of. But certainly, if
the evil spirit may and often does suggest wicked and vile
thoughts to the minds of men, as all do and must grant, and
is sufficiently proved from the devil's putting it into the heart of
Judas to betray Christ, John xiii. 2, and his filling the heart of:




470                Of the Nature and         [SERM. XXIII.
Ananias to lie to the Holy Ghost; Acts v. 3, it can not after this,
with any color of reasoii, be doubted, but that the holy Spirit
of God, whose power. and influence to good is much greater
than that of the wicked spirit to evil, does frequently inject
into and imprint upon the soul many blessed motions and impulses to duty, and many powerful avocations from sin. So
that a man shall not only, as the prophet says, hear a voice behind him, but also a voice within him, telling him which way
he ought to go.
For doubtless there is something more in those expressions
of being led by the Spirit, and being taught by the Spirit, and
the like, than mere tropes and metaphors; and nothing less
is or can be imported by them, than that God sometimes
speaks to, and converses with, the hearts of men, immediately by himself; and happy those who by thus hearing him
speak in a still voice, shall prevent his speaking to them in
thunder.
But you will here ask, perhaps, how we shall distinguish in
such motions, which of them proceed immediately from the
Spirit of God, and which from the conscience P In answer to
which, I must confess that I know no certain mark of discrimination to distinguish them by, save only in general, that
such as proceed immediately from  God use to strike the
mind suddenly and very powerfully. But then I add also,
that, as the knowledge of this, in point of speculation, is so
nice and difficult, so, thanks be to God, in point of practice it
is not necessary. But let a man universally observe and obey
every good motion rising in his heart, knowing that every
such motion proceeds from God, either mediately or immediately; and that whether God speaks immediately by himself
to the conscience, or mediately by the conscience to the soul,
the authority is the same in both, and the contempt of either
is rebellion.
Now the thing which I drive at, under this head of discourse, is to show, that as God is sometimes pleased to address himself in this manner to the hearts of men, so, if
the heart will receive and answer such motions, by a ready
and obsequious compliance with them, there is no doubt but
they will both return more frequently, and still more and
more powerfully, till at length they produce such a degree of




JOHN iii. 21.]   Measures of Conscience.             471
light in the conscience, as shall'give a man both a clear sight
of his duty and a certain judgment of his condition.
On the contrary, as all resistance whatsoever of the dictates
of conscience, even in the way of natural efficiency, brings a
kind of hardness and stupefaction upon it, so the resistance
of these peculiar suggestions of the Spirit will cause in it also
a judicial hardness, which is yet worse than the other. So
that God shall withdraw from such a heart, and the Spirit
being grieved shall depart, and these blessed motions shall
cease, and affect and visit it no more. The consequence of
which is very terrible, as rendering a man past feeling: and
then the less he feels in this world, the more he shall be sure
to feel in the next. But,
3. Because the light of natural conscience is in many things
defective and dim, and the internal voice of God's Spirit not
always distinguishable, above all, let a man attend to the mind
of God, uttered in his revealed word. I say, his revealed
word. By which I do not mean that mysterious, extraordinary (and of late so much studied) book called the Revelation,
and which perhaps the more it is studied the less it is understood, as generally either finding a man cracked, or making
him so: but I mean those other writings of the prophets and
apostles, which exhibit to us a plain, sure, perfect, and intelligible rule; a rule that will neither fail nor distract such as
make use of it. A rule to judge of the two former rules by:
for nothing that contradicts the revealed word of God is
either the voice of right reason or of the Spirit of God: nor
is it possible that it should be so, without God's contradicting
himself.
And therefore we see what high elogies are given to the
written word by the inspired penmen of both Testaments.
It giveth understanding to the simple, says David, in Psalm
cxix. 130. And that, you will say, is no such easy matter
to do.
It is able to make the man of God perfect, says St. Paul,
2 Tim. iii. 17. It is quick and powerful, and sharper than any
two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and
spirit; and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart,
Heb. iv. 12. Now what a force and fullness, what a vigor and
emphasis is there in all these expressions! Enough, one would




472                Of the Nature and          [SERM. XXIII.
think, to recommend and endear the scriptures even to the
Papists themselves. For if, as the text says, they give understanding to the simple, I know none more concerned to read
and study them than their popes.
Wherefore since the light and energy of the written word
is so mighty, let a man bring and hold his conscience to this
steady rule; the unalterable rectitude of which will infallibly
discover the rectitude or obliquity of'whatsoever it is applied
to. We shall find it a rule, both to instruct us what to do,
and to assure us in what we have done. For though natural
conscience ought to be listened to, yet it is revelation alone
that is to be relied upon: as we may observe in the works of
art, a judicious artist will indeed use his eye, but he will trust
only to his rule.
There is not any one action whatsoever which a man ought
to do or to forbear, but the scripture will give him a clear
precept or prohibition for it.
So that if a man will commit such rules to his memory, and
stock his mind with portions of scripture answerable to all the
heads of duty and practice, his conscience can never be at a
loss, either for a direction of his actions, or an answer to a
temptation: it was the very course which our Saviour himself
took, when the devil plied him with temptation upon temptation. Still he had a suitable scripture ready to repel and baffle
them all, one after another: every pertinent text urged home
being a direct stab to a temptation.
Let a man therefore consider and recount with himself the
several duties and virtues of a Christian. Such as temperance, meekness, charity, purity of heart, pardoning of enemies, patience. (I had almost said passive obedience too, but
that such old-fashioned Christianity seems as much out of
date with some as Christ's divinity and satisfaction.) I say,
let a man consider these and the like virtues, together with
the contrary sins and vices that do oppose them, and then,
as out of a full armory or magazine, let him furnish his conscience with texts of scripture, particularly enjoining the one,
and forbidding or threatening the other. And yet I do not
say that he should stuff his mind like the margent of some
authors, with chapter and verse heaped together, at all adventUres; but only that he should fortify it with some few texts




1 JouN iii. 21.]  lIeasures of Conscience.         473
which are home and apposite to his case. And a conscience
thus supplied will be like a man armed at all points; and alI
ways ready either to receive or to attack his enemy. Otherwise
it is not a man's having arms in his house; no, nor yet his
having courage and skill to use them; but it is his having
them still about him, which must both secure him from being
set upon, and defend him when he is.
Accordingly, men must know that without taking the forementioned course, all that they do in this matter is but lost
labor; and that they read the scriptures to as little purpose
as some use to quote them; much reading being like much
eating, wholly useless without digestion; and it is impossible
for a man to digest his meat, without also retaining it.
Till men get what they read into their minds, and fix it in
their memories, they keep their religion as they used to do
their Bibles, only in their closet, or carry it in their pocket;
and that, you may imagine, must improve and affect the soul
just as much as a man's having plenty of provision only in his
stores, will nourish and support his body. When men forget
the word heard or read by them, the devil is said to steal it out
of their hearts, Luke viii. 12. And for this cause we do with
as much reason as propriety of speech call the committing
of a thing to memory, the getting it by heart. For it is the
memory that must transmit it to the heart; and it is in vain
to expect that the heart should keep its hold of any truth
when the memory has let it go.
4. The fourth and last way that I shall mention for the
getting of the conscience rightly informed, and afterwards
keeping it so, is frequently and impartially to account with it.
It is with a man and his conscience as with one man and another; amongst whom we use to say that even reckoning
makes lasting friends; and the way to make reckonings even,
I am sure, is to make them often. Delays in accounts are
always suspicious; and bad enough in themselves, but commonly much worse in their cause. For to defer an account
is the ready way to perplex it; and when it comes to be perplexed and intricate, no man, either as to his temporal or
spiritual estate, can know of himself what he is, or what he
has, or upon what bottom he stands. But the amazing difficulty and greatness of his account will rather terrify than in



474                Of the _NFature and        [SERM. XXIII.
form him; and keep him from setting heartily about such a
task as he despairs ever to go through with. For no man
willingly begins what he has no hope to finish.
But let a man apply to this work by frequent returns and
short intervals, while the heap is small, and the particulars
few, and he will find it easy and conquerable; and his conscience, like a faithful steward, shall give him in a plain,
open, and entire account of himself, and hide nothing fiom
him. Whereas we know, if a steward or cashier be suffered
to run on from year to year without bringing him to a reckoning, it is odds but such a sottish forbearance will in time teach
him to shuffle, and strongly tempt him to be a cheat, if not
also to make him so; for as the account runs on, generally the
accountant goes backward.
And for this cause some judge it advisable for a man to
account with his heart every day; and this, no doubt, is the
best and sure/st course; for still the oftener the better. And
some prescribe accounting once a week; longer than which it
is by. no means safe to delay it: for a man shall find his heart
deceitful, and his memory weak, and nature extremely averse
from seeking narrowly after that which it is unwilling to find;
and being found, will assuredly disturb it.
So that upon the whole matter it is infinitely absurd to
think, that conscience can be kept in order without frequent
examination. If a man would have his conscience deal clearly
with him, he must deal severely with that. Often scouring and
cleansing it will make it bright; and when it is so, he may see
himself in it: and if he sees any thing amiss, let this satisfy
him, that no man is or can be the worse for knowing the very
worst of himself.
On the contrary, if conscience, by a long neglect of and
disacquaintance with itself, comes to contract an inveterate
rust or soil, a man may as well expect to see his face in a
mud-wall, as that such a conscience should give him a true
report of his condition; no, it leaves him wholly in the dark
as to the greatest concern he has in both worlds. He can
neither tell whether God be his friend or his enemy, or
rather he has shrewd cause to suspect him his enemy, and
can not possibly know him to be his friend.. And this being
his case, he must live in ignorance and die in ignorance;




1 JOHN iii. 21.]  Measures of Conscience.             475
and it will be hard for a man to die in it, without dying for
it too.
And now, what a wretched condition must that man needs
be in, whose heart is in such a confusion, such darkness, and
such a settled blindness, that it shall not be able to tell him
so much as one true word of himself! Flatter him it may,
I confess, (as those are generally good at flattering who are
good for nothing else,) but in the mean time the poor man
is left under the fatal necessity of a remediless delusion:
for in judging of a man's self, if conscience either can not
or will not inform him, there is a certain thing called selflove that will be sure to deceive him. And thus I have shown,
in four several particulars, what is to be done, both for the
getting and keeping of the conscience so informed as that
it may be able to give us a rational confidence towards God.
As,
1. That the voice of reason, in all the dictates of natural
morality, ought carefully to be attended to by a strict observance of what it commands, but especially of what it forbids.
2. That every pious motion from the Spirit of God ought
tenderly to be cherished, and by no means checked or quenched
either by resistance or neglect.
3. That conscience is to be kept close to the rule of the
written word.
4thly and lastly, That it is frequently to be examined, and
severely accounted with.
And I doubt not but a conscience thus disciplined shall
give a man such a faithful account of himself as shall never
shame nor lurch the confidence which he shall take up from
it.
Nevertheless, to prevent all mistakes in so critical a case
and so high a concern, I shall close up the foregoing particulars with this twofold caution.
First, Let no man think that every doubting or misgiving
about the safety of his spiritual estate overthrows the confidence hitherto spoken of. For, as I showed before, the confidence mentioned in the text is not properly assurance, but
only a rational, well-grounded hope; and therefore may very
well consist with some returns of doubting. For we know,




476                Of the Nature and          [SERM. XXIII.
in that pious and excellent confession and prayer made by
the poor man to our Saviour, in Mark ix. 24, how in the very
same breath in which he says, Lord, I believe, he says also,
Lord, help my unbelief. So that we see here, that the sincerity of our faith -or confidence will not secure us against
all vicissitudes of wavering or distrust; indeed no more than
a strong athletic constitution of body will secure a man always against heats, and colds, and rheums, and such like indispositions.
And one great reason of this is, because such a faith or
confidence as we have been treating of resides in the soul
or conscience as a habit. And habits, we know, are by no
means either inconsistent with, or destroyed by, every cantrary act. But especially in the case now before us, where
the truth and strength of our confidence towards God does
not consist so much in the present act, by which it exerts
itself, no, nor yet in the habit producing this act, as it does
in the ground or reason which this confidence is built upon;
which being the standing sincerity of a man's heart, though
the present act be interrupted, (as, no doubt, through infirmity or temptation it may be very often,) yet, so long as that
sincerity, upon which this confidence was first founded, does
continue, as soon as the temptation is removed and gone, the
forementioned faith, or affiance, will, by renewed, vigorous,
and fresh acts, recover and exert itself, and with great comfort and satisfaction of mind give a man confidence towards
God. Which, though it be indeed a lower and a lesser thing
than assurance, yet, as to all the purposes of a pious life, may,
for aught I see, prove much more useful; as both affording a
nian due comfort, and yet leaving room for due caution too;
which are two of the principal uses that religion serves for in
this world.
2. The other caution, with reference to the foregoing discourse, is this: Let no man, from what has been said, reckon
a bare silence of conscience in not accusing or disturbing
him, a sufficient argument for confidence towards God. For
such a silence is so far from being always so, that it is usually
worse than the fiercest and loudest accusations; since it may,
and for the most part does, proceed from a kind of numbness
or stupidity of conscience, and an absolute dominion obtained




1 JoHN iii. 21.]  Measures of Conscience.             477
by sin over the soul; so that it shall not so much as dare to
complain or make a stir. For, as our Saviour says, Luke xi.
21, While the strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods
rare in peace. So, while sin rules and governs with a strong
hand, and has wholly subdued the conscience to a slavish sub.
jection to its tyrannical yoke, the soul shall be at peace,
such a false peace as it is; but for that very cause worse a
great deal, and more destructive, than -when, by continual
-alarms and assaults, it,gives a man neither peace nor truce,
quiet nor intermission. And therefore it is very remarkable
4that the text expresses the sound estate of the heart or the
conscience here spoken of, not barely by its not accusing, but
by its not condemning us, which word imports properly an
-acquitment or discharge of a man upon some precedent accu~sation, and a full trial and cognizance of his cause had thereiupon. For as condemnation, being a law term, and so relating to the judicial proceedings of law  courts, must still'presuppose a hearing of the cause, before any sentence carn,pass, so likewise in the court of conscience there must be
a strict and impartial inquiry into all a man's actions, anlld:a
thorough hearing of all that can be pleaded for and against
thim, before conscience can rationally either condemn or diseoharge him: and if indeed upon such a fair and full trial he,can come off, he is then rectus in curia, clear and innocent,
tand consequently may reap all that satisfaction from himself
which it is natural for innocence to afford the person who has
it. I do not here speak of a legal innocence, (none but sots
and Quakers dream of such things,) for, as St. Paul says,
Galat. ii. 16, by the works of the law shall no flesh living be
justified; but I speak of an evangelical innocence; such an
one as the economy of the gospel accepts, whatsoever the law
enjoins; and though mingled with several infirmities and defects, yet amounts to such a pitch of.righteousness as we call
sincerity. And whosoever has this shall never be damned for
want of the other.
And now, how vastly does it concern all those who shall
think it worth their while to be in earnest with their immortal souls, not to abuse and delude themselves with a false confidence P a thing so easily taken up, and so hardly laid down.
Let no man conclude, because his conscience says nothing to




478  Of the Nature and Measures of Conscience.  [SERM. XXIII.
him, that therefore it has nothing to say. Possibly some
never so much as doubted of the safety of their spiritual estate
in all their lives; and if so, let them not flatter themselves,
but rest assured that they have so much the more reason a
great deal to doubt of it now. For the causes of such a profound stillness are generally gross ignorance, or long custom
of sinning, or both; and these are very dreadful symptoms
indeed to such as are not hell and damnation proof. When a
man's wounds cease to smart, only because he has lost his
feeling, they are nevertheless mortal for his not seeing his
need of a chirurgeon. It is not mere, actual, present ease,
but ease after pain, which brings the most durable and solid
comfort. Acquitment before trial can be no security. Great
and strong calms usually portend and go before the most violent storms. And therefore, since storms and calms (especially with reference to the state of the soul) do always follow
one another, certainly of the two it is much more eligible to
have the storm first and the calm afterwards: since a calm
before a storm is commonly a peace of a man's own making;
but a calm after a storm,.a peace of God's.
To which God, who only can speak such peace to us as
neither the world nor the devil shall be able to take from
us, be rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all praise,
might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for evermore.
Amen.




SERMON XXIV.
A FURTHER ACCOUNT OF THE NATURE AND MEASURES
OF CONSCIENCE:
IN A SERMON ON 1 JOHN III. 21, PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY, AT
CHRIST CHURCH, OXON.
OCToBER 80, 1692
1 JOHN iii. 21. -Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, we have confidence toward God.
I HAVE discoursed once already upon these words in this
place. In which discourse, after I had set down four
several false grounds upon which men, in judging of the
safety of their spiritual estate, were apt to found a wrong
confidence towards God, and shown the falsity of them all;
and that there was nothing but a man's own heart or conscience which, in this great concern, he could with any
safety rely upon; I did, in the next place, cast the further
prosecution of the words under these four following particulars:
1. To show, How the heart or conscience ought to be informed, in order to its founding in us a rational confidence,
towards God.
2. To show, How and by what means we may get our
conscience thus informed, and afterwards preserve and keep
it so.
3. To show, Whence it is that the testimony of conscience,
thus informed, comes to be so authentic, and so much to be
relied upon. And,
4thly and lastly, To assign some particular cases or instances
in which the confidence suggested by it does most eminently
show and exert itself.




480                Of t1we Nature and        [SERM. XXIV.
Upon the first of which heads, to wit, How the' heart or
conscience ought to be informed, in order to its founding in
us a rational confidence towards God, after I had premised
something about an erroneous conscience, and shown both
what influence that ought to have upon us, and what regard
we ought to have to that in this matter, I gathered the result
of all into this one conclusion; namely, That such a conscience
as has not been wanting to itself, in endeavoring the utmost
knowledge of its duty, and the clearest information about the
will of God, that its power, advantages, and opportunities
could afford it, is that great internal. judge whose absolution
is a rational and sure, ground of confidence towards God. This
I then insisted upon at large, and from thence proceeded to
the
Second particular, which was to show, How and by what
means we might get our conscience thus informed, and afterwards preserve and keep it so.
WVVhere, amongst those many ways and methods which
might, no doubt, have been assigned as highly conducing to
this purpose, I singled out and insisted upon only these four.
As,
1st, That the voice of reason, in all the dictates of natural
morality, was still carefully to be attended to by a strict
observance of what it commanded, but especially of what it
forbade.
2dly, That every pious motion from the Spirit of God was
tenderly to be cherished, and by no means quenched or
checked, either by resistance or neglect.
8dly, That conscience was still to be kept close to the rule
of God's written word; and,
4thly and lastly, That it was frequently to be examined, and
severely accounted with.
These things also I then more fully enlarged upon; and so
closed up all with a double caution, and that of no small importance as to the case then before us: as,
First, That no man should reckon every doubting or mis.
giving of his heart, about the safety of his spiritual estate,
inconsistent with that:confidence towards God which is here
spoken of in the text; and, secondly, That no man should
account a bare silence of conscience, in not accusing or dis



1 JOHN iii. 21.]  Measures of Conscience.            481
turbing him, a sufficient ground for such a confidence. Of
both which I then showed the fatal consequence. And so, not
to trouble you with any more repetitions than these, which
were just and necessary to lay before you the coherence of one
thing with another, I shall now proceed to the third of those
four particulars first proposed; which was to show, Whence it
is that the testimony of conscience (concerning a man's spiritual estate) comes to be so authentic, and so much to be relied
upon.
Now the force and credit of its testimony stands upon this
double ground.
1st, The high office which it holds immediately from God
himself, in the soul of man; and,
2dly, Those properties or qualities which peculiarly fit it for
the discharge of this high office, in all things relating to the
soul.
1. And first, for its office.  It is no less than God's
vicegerent or deputy, doing all things by immediate commission from him. It commands and dictates every thing in
God's name, and stamps every word with an almighty authority. So that it is, as it were, a kind of copy or transcript
of the divine sentence, and an interpreter of the sense of
Heaven. And from hence it is, that sins against conscience
(as all sins against light and conviction are, by way of eminence, so called) are of so peculiar and transcendent a guilt.
For that every such sin is a daring and direct defiance of the
divine authority, as it is signified and reported to a man by
his conscience, and thereby ultimately terminates in God himself.
Nay, and this vicegerent of God has one prerogative above
all God's other earthly vicegerents; to wit, that it can never
be deposed. Such a strange, sacred, and inviolable majesty
has God imprinted upon this faculty; not indeed as upon an
absolute, independent sovereign, but yet with so great a communication of something lnext to sovereignty, that while it
keeps within its proper compass, it is controllable by no
mortal power upon earth. For not the greatest monarch
in the world can countermand conscience so far as to make
it condemn where it would otherwise acquit, or acquit
where it would otherwise condemn; no, neither sword nor
VOL. I.          31




482                Of the NYature and        [SERM. XXIV.
sceptre can come at it; but it is above and beyond the reach
of both.
And if it were not for this awful and majestic character
which it bears, whence could it be that the stoutest and
bravest hearts droop and sneak when conscience frowns: and
the most abject and afflicted wretch feels an unspeakable and
even triumphant joy when the: judge within absolves and
applauds him. When a man has done any villainous act,
though under countenance of the highest place and power,
and under covert of the closest secrecy, his conscience, for all
that, strikes him like a clap of thunder, and depresses him to
a perpetual trepidation, horror, and poorness of spirit; so
that, like Nero, though surrounded with his Roman legions
and Pretorian bands, he yet skulks, and hides himself, and is
ready to fly to every thing for refuge, though he sees nothing
to fly from. And all this, because he has heard a condemning
sentence from within, which the secret forebodings of his
mind tell him will be ratified by a sad and certain execution
from above: on the other side, what makes a man so cheerful,
so bright and confident in his comforts, but because he finds
himself acquitted by God's high commissioner and deputy?
Which is as much as a pardon under God's own hand, under
the broad seal of Heaven, (as I may so express it.) For a king
never condemns any whom his judges have absolved, nor absolves whom his judges have condemned, whatsoever the people and republicans may.
Now from this principle, that the authority of conscience
stands founded upon its vicegerency and deputation under God,
several very important inferences may, or rather indeed unavoidably must, ensue. Two of which I shall single out and
speak of; as,
First, We collect from hence the absurdity and impertinence; and,
Secondly, The impudence and impiety of most of those
pretenses of conscience which have borne such a mighty
sway all the world over, and in these poor nations especially.
1. And first, for the absurdity and impertinence of them.
What a rattle and a noise has this word conscience made!
How many battles has it fought! How many churches has it
robbed, ruined, and reformed to ashes! How many laws has




I Jow iiiM. 21.]  ieasures of Conscience.           483
it trampled upon, dispensed with, and addressed against! And,
in a word, how many governments has it overturned! Such
is the mischievous force of a plausible word applied to a detestable thing.
The allegation or plea of conscience ought never to be admitted barely for itself: for when a thing obliges only by a
borrowed authority, it is ridiculous to allege it for its own.
Take a lieutenant, a commissioner, or ambassador of any
prince; and, so far as he represents his prince, all that he
does or declares under that capacity has the same force and
validity as if actually done or declared by the prince himself
in person. But then how far does this reach P Why, just so
far as he keeps close to his instructions: but when he once
balks them, though what he does may be indeed a public
crime or a national mischief, yet it is but a private act; and
the doer of it may chance to pay his head for the presumption.
For still, as great as the authority of such kind of persons
is, it is not founded upon their own will, nor upon their own
judgment, but upon their commission.
In like manner, every dictate of this vicegerent of God,
where it has a divine word or precept to back it, carries a
divine authority with it. But if no such word can be produced, it may indeed be a strong opinion or persuasion, but it
is not conscience: and no one thing in the world has done
more mischief, and caused more delusions amongst men, than
their not distinguishing between conscience and mere opinion
or persuasion.
Conscience is a Latin word, (though with an English termination,) and, according to the very notation of it, imports
a double or joint knowledge; to wit, one of a divine law or rule,
and the other of a man's own action: and so is properly the
application of a general law to a particular instance of practice. The law of God, for example, says, Thou shalt not steal;
and the mind of man tells him  that the taking of such or
such a thing from a person lawfully possessed of it is stealing.
Whereupon the conscience, joining the knowledge of both
these together, pronounces in the name of God, that such a
particular action ought not to be done. And this is the true
procedure of conscience, always supposing a law from God
before it pretends to lay any obligation upon mlan: for still




484                Of the INature and         [SERM. XXIV.
I aver that conscience neither is nor ought to be its own
rule.
I question not, I confess, but mere opinion or persuasion
may be every whit as strong, and have as forcible an influence
upon a man's actions as conscience itself. But then, we
know, strength or force is one thing, and authority quite
another. As a rogue upon the highway may have as strong
an arm, and take off a man's head as cleverly as the executioner. But then there is a vast disparity in the two actions,
when one of them is murder, and the other justice: nay, and
our Saviour himself told his disciples, that men should both
kill them, and think that in so doing they did God's service. So
that here, we see, was a full opinion and persuasion, and a
very zealous one too, of the high meritoriousness of what
they did; but still there was no law, no word or command
of God to ground it upon, and consequently it was not conscience.
Now the notion of conscience thus stated, if firmly kept to
and thoroughly driven home, would effectually baffle and con*found all those senseless, though clamorous pretenses of the
schismatical opposers of the constitutions of our church.
In defense of which I shall not speak so much as one syllable against the indulgence and toleration granted to these
men. No; since they have it, let them, in God's name, enjoy
it, and the government make the best of it. But since I can
not finld that the law which tolerates them in their way of
worship (and it does no more) does at all forbid us to defend
ours, it were earnestly to be wished that all hearty lovers of
the church of England would assert its excellent constitution
more vigorously now than ever: and especially in such congregations as this; in which there are so many young persons, upon the well or ill principling of whom, next under
God, depends the happiness or misery of this church and
state. For if such should be generally prevailed upon by
hopes or fears, by base examples, by trimming and time-serving, (which are but two words for the same thing,) to abandon
and betray the church of England, by nauseating her pious,
prudent, and wholesome orders, (of which I have seen some
scurvy instances,) we may rest assured that this will certainly
produce.confusion, and that confusion will as certainly end in
popery.




1 JoHN iii. 21.]  Measures of Conscience.            485
And therefore, since the Liturgy, rites, and ceremonies of
our church have been and still are so much caviled and
struck at, and all upon a plea of conscience, it will concern
us, as becomes men of sense, seriously to examine the force
of this plea, which our adversaries are still setting up against
us as the grand pillar and buttress of the good old cause of
nonconformity. For come to any dissenting brother, and ask
him, Why can not you communicate with the church of EnglandP  " Oh," says he, "it is against my conscience; my
conscience will not suffer me to pray by a set form, to kneel
at the sacrament, to hear divine service read by one in a surplice, or to use the cross in baptism," or the like.
Very well; and is this the case then, that it is all pure
conscience that keeps you from complying with the rule and
order of the church in these matters? If so, then produce
me some word or law of God forbidding these things. For
conscience never commands or forbids any thing authentically, but there is some law of God which commnands or forbids it first. Conscience (as might be easily shown) being no
distinct power or faculty from the mind of man, but the mind
of man itself applying the general rule of God's law to particular cases and actions. This is truly and properly conscience. And -therefore show me such a law; and that, either
as a necessary dictate of right reason, or a positive injunction.in God's revealed word: (for these two are all the ways by
which God speaks to men nowadays:) I say, show me something from hence which countermands or condemns all or
any of the forementioned ceremonies of our church, and then
I will yield the cause. But if no such reason, no such scripture can be brought to appear in their behalf against us, but
that with screwed face and doleful whine they only ply you
with senseless harangues of conscience against carnal ordinances, the dead letter, and human inventions on the one hand,
and loud outcries for a further reformation on the other;' then
rest you assured that they have a design upon your pocket,
and-that the word conscience is used only as an instrument to
pick it; and more particularly as it calls it a further reformation, signifies no more, with reference to the church, than as
if one man should come to another and say, "Sir, I have already taken away your cloak,' and do fully intend, if I can, to




486                 Of the Nature and         [SERM. XXIV.
take away your coat also."  This is the true meaning of this
word further reformation; and so long as you understand it in
this sense, you can not be imposed upon by it.
Well, but if these mighty men at chapter and verse can
produce you no scripture to overthrow our church ceremonies,
I will undertake to produce scripture enough to warrant
them; even all those places which absolutely enjoin obedience
and submission to lawful governors ill all not unlawful things:
particularly that in 1 Pet. ii. 13, and that in Heb. xiii. 17, (of
which two places more again presently,) together with the
other in 1 Cor. xiv., last verse, enjoining order and decency
in God's worship, and in all things relating to it. And consequently, till these men can prove the forementioned things,
ordered by our church, to be either intrinsically unlawful or
indecent, I do here affirm by the authority of the foregoing
scriptures, that the use of them, as they stand established
amongst us, is necessary; and that all pretenses or pleas of
conscience to the contrary are nothing but cant and cheat,
flam and delusion. In a word, the ceremonies of' the church
of England are as necessary as the injunctions of an undoubtedly lawful authority, the practice of the primitive
church, and the general rules of decency, determined to particulars of the greatest decency, can make them necessary.
And I would not for all the world be arraigned at the last
and great day for disturbing the church, and disobeying government, and have no better plea for so doing than what
those of the separation were ever yet able to defend themselves by.
But some will here say perhaps, If this be all that you require of us, we both can and do bring you scripture against
your church ceremonies; even that which condemns all will
worship, Col. ii. 23, and such other like places. To which I
answer, first, that the will worship, forbidden in that scripture, is so termed, not from the circumstance, but from the
object of religious worship; and we readily own that it is by
no means in the church's power to appoint or choose whom
or what it will worship. But that does not infer that it is
not therefore in the church's power to appoint how and in
what manner it will worship the true object of religious worship; provided that in so doing it observes such rules of de



1 JorNiii. 21.]  Measures of Conscience.             487
cency as are proper and conducing to that purpose. So that
this scripture is wholly irrelative to the case before us, and
as impertinently applied to it as any poor text in the Revelation was ever applied to the grave and profound whimseys of
some modern interpreters. But secondly, to this objection
about will worship, I answer yet further, that the forementioned ceremonies of the church of England are no worship,
nor part of God's worship at all, nor were ever pretended so
to be; and, if they are not so much as worship, I am sure
they can %not be will worship. But we own them only for
circumstances, modes, and solemin usages, by which God's
worship is orderly and decently performed: I say, we pretend
them not to be parts of divine worship, but, for all that, to
be such things as the divine worship, in some instance or
other, can not be without: for that which neither does nor
can give vital heat, may yet be necessary to preserve it: and
he who should strip himself of all that is no part of himself
would quickly find, or rather feel, the inconvenience of such a
practice, and have cause to wish for a body as void of sense
as such an argument.
Now the consequence in both these cases is perfectly parallel: and if so, you may rest satisfied that what is nonsense
upon a principle of reason, will never be sense upon a principle of religion. But as touching the necessity of the aforesaid usages in the church of England, I shall lay down these
four propositions:
1. That circumstantials in the worship of God (as well as in
all other human actions) are so necessary to it, that it can not
possibly be performed without them.
2. That decency in the circumstantials of God's worship is
absolutely necessary.
3. That the general rule and precept of decency is not capable of being reduced to practice, but as it is exemplified in,
and determined to, particular instances. And,
4thly and lastly, That there is more of the general nature
of decency in those particular usages and ceremonies which
the church of England has pitched upon, than is or can be
shown in any other whatsoever.
These things I affirm; and when you have put them all
together, let any one give me a solid and sufficient reason for




488                Of the N2ature and        ISERrM. XXIv,
the giving up those few ceremonies of our church, if he can.
All the reason that I' could ever yet hear alleged by the chief
factors for a general intromission of all sorts, sects, and persuasions into our communion is, that those who separate from
us are stiff and obstinate, and will not submit to the rules and
orders of our church, and that therefore they ought to be
taken. away.. Which is a goodly reason indeed, and every
way worthy of the wisdom and integrity of those who allege
it. And to show that it is so, let it be but transferred from
the ecclesiastical to the civil government, from church to
state; and let all laws be abrogated which any great or sturdy
multitude of men have no mind to submit to. That is, in
other words, let laws be made to obey, and not to be obeyed;
and upon these terms I doubt not but you will find that kingdom (or rather that commonwealth) finely governed in a short
time.
And thus I have shown the absurdity, folly, and impertinence of alleging the obligation of conscience, where there is
no law or command of God mediate or immediate to found
that obligation upon. And yet, as bad as this is, it were well
if the bare absurdity of these pretenses were the worst thing
which we had to charge them with. But it is not so. For
our second and next inference from the foregoing principle of
the vicegerency of conscience under God, will show us also
the daring impudence and downright impiety of many of those
fulsome pleas of conscience which the world has been too
often and too scandalously abused by. For a man to sin
against his conscience, is doubtless a great wickedness.: But
to make God himself a party in the sin, is a much greater.
For this is to plead God's authority against God's very law;
which doubles the sin, and adds blasphemy to rebellion. And
yet such things we have seen done amongst us. An horrid,
unnatural civil war raised and carried on;'the purest and
most primitively reformed church in the world laid in the
dust; and one of the best and most innocent princes that
ever sat upon a throne, by a barbarous, unheard-of violence,
hurried to his grave in a bloody sheet, and not so much as
suffered to rest there to this day; and all this by men acting
under the most solemn pretenses of conscience, that hypocrisy
perhaps ever yet presumed to outface the world with.




1 JoIN iii. 21.]  Mieasures of Conscience.           489
And are not the principles of those wretches still owned,
and their persons sainted by a race of men of the same stamp,
risen up in their stead, the sworn mortal enemies of our
church 9 And yet, for whose sake some projectors amongst
us have been turning every stone to transform, mangle, and
degrade its noble constitution to the homely, mechanic model
of those republican, imperfect churches abroad; which, instead of being any rule or pattern to us, ought in all reason to
receive one from us. Nay, and so short-sighted are some in
their politics as not to discern all this while, that it is not
the service but the revenue of our church which is struck at;
and not any passages of our Liturgy, but the property of our
lands, which these reformers would have altered.
For I am  sure no other alteration will satisfy dissenting
consciences; no, nor this neither very long, without an utter
abolition of all that looks like order or government in the
church. And this we may be sure of, if we do but consider
both the inveterate malice of the Romish party, which sets
these silly, unthinking tools a-work, and withal that monstrous principle or maxim  which those who divide from us
(at least most of them) roundly profess, avow, and govern
their consciences by; namely, That in all matters that concern religion or the church, though a thing or action be never
so indifferent or lawful in itself, yet if it be commanded or
enjoined by the government, either civil or ecclesiastical, it
becomes ipso facto, by being so commanded, utterly unlawful,
and such as they can by no means with good conscience
comply with.
Which one detestable tenet or proposition, carrying in it
the very quintessence and vital' spirit of all nonconformity, absolutely cashiers and cuts off all church government at one
stroke, and is withal such an insolent, audacious defiance of
Almighty God, under the mask of conscience, as perhaps none
in former ages, who so much as wore the name of Christians,
ever arrived to or made profession of.
For to resume the scriptures afore quoted by us; and particularly that in 1 Pet. ii. 13. Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man, says the Spirit of God, speaking by that apostle.
But say these men, If the ordinance of man enjoins you the
practice of any thing with reference to religion or the church,




490                Of the Nature and         [SERM. XXIV.
though never so lawful in itself, you can not with a good conscience submit to the ordinance of man in that case: that is,
in other words, God says they must submit, and they say
they must not.
Again, in the forementioned Heb. xiii. 17. The apostle bids
them (and in them  all Christians whatsoever) to obey those
who have the rule over them; speaking there of church rulers;
for he tells them, that they were such as watched for their souls.
But, says the Separatist, If those who have the rule over you
should command you any thing about church affairs, you can
not, you ought not in conscience to obey them; forasmuch as,
according to that grand principle of theirs, newly specified by
us, every such command makes obedience to a thing otherwise
lawful, to become unlawful; and consequently, upon the same
principle, rulers must not, can not be obeyed: unless we could
imagine that there may be such a thing as obedience on the
one side, when there must be no such thing as a command on
the other; which would make pleasant sense of it indeed, and
fit for none but a dissenting reason, as well as conscience, to
assert. For though these men have given the world too many
terrible proofs of their own example that there may be commands and no obedience, yet, I believe, it will put their little
logic hard to it to prove that there can be any obedience
where there is no command. And therefore it unanswerably
follows, that the abettors of the forementioned principles plead
conscience in a direct and barefaced contradiction to God's
express command.
And now, I beseech you, consider with yourselves; (for it
is no slight matter that I am treating of;) I say, consider
what you ought to judge of those insolent, unaccountable
boasts of conscience, which, like so many fireballs or mouthgranadoes, as I may so term them, are every day thrown at
our church. The apostle bids us prove all things. And will
you then take conscience at every turn upon its own word?
upon the forlorn credit of every bold impostor who pleads it?
Will you sell your reason, your church, and your religion, and
both of them the best in the world, for a name P and that a
wrested, abused, misapplied name P Knaves, when they design
some more than ordinary villainy, never fail to make use of
this plea; and it' is because they always find fools ready to
believe it.




I Jo1n iii. 21.]  Measures of Conscience.           491
But you will say then, What course must be taken to fence
against this imposture P Why truly, the best that I know
of, I have told you before; namely, that whensoever you hear
any of these sly, sanctified sycophants, with turned-up eye
and shrug of shoulder, pleading: conscience for or against
any thing or practice, you would forthwith ask them what
word of God they have to bottom that judgment of their
conscience uponP Forasmuch as conscience, being God's
vicegerent, was never commissioned by him to govern us in
its own name; but must still have some divine word or law
to support and warrant it. And therefore call for such a
word; and that, either from scripture or from manifest universal reason, and insist upon it, so as not to be put off without it. And if they can produce you no such thing from
either of them, (as they never can,) then rest assured that
they are errant cheats and hypocrites; and that, for all their
big words, the conscience of such men is so far from being
able to give them any true confidence towards God, that it
can not so much as give them confidence towards a wise and
good man, no, nor yet towards themselves, who are far from
being either.
And thus I have shown you the first ground upon which
the testimony of conscience (concerning a man's spiritual
estate) comes to be so authentic and so much to be relied
upon; to wit, the high office which it holds as the vicegerent
of God himself in the soul of man: together with the two
grand inferences drawn from thence. The first of them showing the absurdity, folly, and impertinence of pretending conscience against any thing, when there is no law of God mediate or immediate against it: and the other, setting forth the
intolerable blasphemy and impiety of pretending conscience
for any thing which the known law of God is directly against
and stands in open defiance of.
Proceed we now to the second ground from which conscience derives the credit of its testimony in judging of our
spiritual estate; and that consists in those properties and
qualities which so peculiarly fit it for the discharge of its
forementioned office in all things relating to the soul. And
these are three:
First, The quickness of its sight.




492                Of the Nature and          [SErM. XXIV.
Secondly, The tenderness of its sense; and,
Thirdly and lastly, Its rigorous and impartial way of giving
sentence.
Of each of which in their order. And first for the extraordinary quickness and sagacity of its sight, in spying out
every thing which can any way concern the estate of the
soul. As the voice of it, I showed, was as loud as thunder, so
the sight of it is as piercing and quick as lightning. It presently sees the guilt, and looks through all the flaws and
blemishes of a sinful action; and on the other side, observes
the candidness of a man's very principles, the sincerity of his
intentions, and the whole carriage of every circumstance in a
virtuous performance. So strict and accurate is this spiritual
inquisition.
Upon which account it is that there is no such thing as
perfect secrecy, to encourage a rational mind to the perpetration of any base action. For a man must first extinguish
and put out the great light within him, his conscience, he
must get away from himself, and shake off the thousand witnesses which he always carries about him, before he can be
alone. And where there is no solitude, I am sure there can
be no secrecy.
It is confessed indeed that a long and a bold course of
sinning may (as we have shown elsewhere) very much dim
and darken the discerning faculty of conscience. For so the
apostle assures us it did with those in Rom. i. 21, and the
same, no doubt, it does every day; but still so as to leave such
persons, both then and now, many notable lucid intervals;
sufficient to convince them of their deviations from reason
and natural religion; and thereby to render them inexcusable; and so, in a word, to stop their mouths, though not save
their souls. In short, their conscience was not stark dead,
but under a kind of spiritual apoplexy or deliquium. The
operation was hindered, but the faculty not destroyed. And
now, if conscience be naturally thus apprehensive and sagacious, certainly this ought to be another great ground, over
and above its bare authority, why we should trust and rely
upon the reports of it. For knowledge is still the ground
and reason of trust: and so much as any one has of discernment, so far he is secured from error and deception, and for




1 JoHN ii. 21.]   Measures of Conscience.              493
that cause fit to be confided in. No witness so much to be
credited as an eye-witness. And conscience is like the great
eye of the world, the sun, always open, always making discoveries. Justly therefore may we by the light of it take a
view of our condition.
2dly, Another property or quality of conscience, enabling
it to judge so truly of our spiritual estate, is the tenderness
of its sense. For as, by the quickness of its sight, it directs
us what to do, or not to do, so, by this tenderness of its
sense, it excuses or accuses us, as we have done or not done
according to those directions. And it is altogether as nice,
delicate, and tender in feeling as it can be perspicacious and
quick in seeing. For conscience, you know, is still called
and accounted the eye of the soul: and how troublesome is
the least mote or dust falling into the eye! and how quickly
does it weep and water, upon the least grievance that afflicts it!
And no less exact is the sense which conscience, preserved
in its native purity, has of the least sin. For as great sins
waste, so small ones are enough to wound it; and every
wound, you know, is painful, till it festers beyond recovery.
As soon as ever sin gives the blow, conscience is the first
thing that feels the smart. No sooner does the poisoned
arrow enter, but that begins to bleed inwardly; sin and sorrow, the venom of one and the anguish of the other, being
things inseparable,
Conscience, if truly tender, never complains without a
cause; though, I confess, there is a new-fashioned sort of
tenderness of conscience which always does so: but that is
like the tenderness of a bog or quagmire; and it is very dangerous coming near it, for fear of being swallowed up by it.
For when conscience has once acquired this artificial tenderness, it will strangely enlarge or contract its swallow, as it
pleases; so that sometimes a camel shall slide down with ease,
where at other times even a gnat may chance to stick by the
way. It is indeed such a kind of tenderness as makes the
person who has it generally very tender of obeying the laws,
but never so of breaking them. And therefore, since it is
commonly at such variance with the law, I think the law is
the fittest thing to deal with it.
In the mean time, let no man deceive himself, or think




494                Of the Nature and         [SERM. XXIV.
that true tenderness of conscience is any thing else but an
awful and exact sense of the rule which should direct, and of
the law which should govern it. And while it steers by this
compass, and is sensible of every declination from it, so long
it is truly and properly tender, and fit to be relied upon,
whether it checks or approves a man for what he does. For
from hence alone springs its excusing or accusing power: all
accusation, in the very nature of the thing, still supposing,
and being founded upon, some law: for where there is no law
there can be no transgression: and where there can be no
transgression, I am sure there ought to be no accusation.
And here, when I speak of law, I mean both the law of
God and of man too. For where the matter of a law is a
thing not evil, everylaw of man is virtually, and at a second
hand, the law of God also: forasmuch as it binds in the
strength of the divine law, commanding obedience to every
ordinance of man, as we have already shown. And therefore
all tenderness of conscience against such laws is hypocrisy,
and patronized by none but men of design, who look upon it
as the fittest engine to get into power by; which, by the way,
when they are once possessed of, they generally manage with
as little tenderness as they do with conscience: of which we
have had but too much experience already, and it would be
but ill venturing upon more.
In a word, conscience, not acting by and under a law, is a
boundless, daring, and presumptuous thing: and for any one
by virtue thereof to challenge to himself a privilege of doing
what he will, and of being unaccountable for what he does, is
in all reason too much either for man or angel to pretend to.
3dly, The third and last property of conscience which I
shall mention, and which makes the verdict of it so authentic,
is its great and rigorous impartiality. For as its wonderful
apprehensiveness' made that it could not easily be deceived,
so this makes that it will by no means deceive. A judge, you
know, may be skillful in understanding a cause, and yet partial in giving sentence. But it is much otherwise with conscience; no artifice can induce it to accuse the innocent, or
to absolve the guilty. No; we may as well bribe the light
and the day to represent white things black, or black white.
What pitiful things are power, rhetoric, or riches, when




1 JOHN iii. 21.]  J~easures of Conscience.           495
they would terrify, dissuade, or buy off conscience from pronouncing sentence according to the merit of a man's actions!
For still, as we have shown, conscience is a copy of the divine
law; and though judges may be bribed or frightened, yet
laws cannot. The law is impartial and inflexible; it has no
passions or affections, and consequently never accepts persons,
nor dispenses with itself.
For let the most potent sinner upon earth speak out, and
tell us whether he can command down the clamors and reviling of a guilty conscience, and impose silence upon that
bold reprover. He may perhaps for a while put on a high
and a big look; but can he, for all that, look conscience out
of countenance? And he may also dissemble a little forced
jollity; that is, he may court his mistress, and quaff his cups,
and perhaps sprinkle them now and then with a few Dammees;
but who, in the mean time, besides his own wretched, miserable self, knows of those secret, bitter infusions which that
terrible thing, called conscience, makes into all his draughts?
Believe it, most of the appearing mirth in the world is not
mirth, but art. The wounded spirit is not seen, but walks
under a disguise; and still the less you see of it, the better it
looks.
On the contrary, if we consider the virtuous person, let
him  declare freely whether, ever his conscience checked him
for his innocence, or upbraided him for an action of duty;
did it ever bestow any of its hidden lashes or concealed bites
on a mind severely pure, chaste, and religious?
But when conscience shall complain, cry out, and recoil,
let a man descend into himseff with too just a suspicion that
all is not right within. For surely that hue and cry was not
raised upon him for nothing. The spoils of a rifled innocence
are borne away, and the man has stolen something from his
own soul, for which he ought to be pursued, and will at last
certainly be overtook.
Let every one therefore attend the sentence of his conscience: for he may be sure it will not daub nor flatter. It
is as severe as law, as impartial as truth. It will neither conceal nor pervert what it knows.
And thus I have done with the third of those four particulars at first proposed, and shown whence, and upon what




496                 Of the Nature and          [SERM. XXIV.
account it is, that the testimony of conscience, concerning our
spiritual estate, comes to be so authentic, and so much to be
relied upon: namely, for that it is fully empowered and commissioned to this great office by God himself; and withal, that
it is extremely quicksighted to apprehend and discern; and
moreover very tender and sensible of every thing that concerns the soul. And lastly, that it is most exactly and severely
impartial in judging of whatsoever comes before it. Every
one of which qualifications justly contributes to the credit and
authority of the sentence which shall be passed by it. And
so we are at length arrived at the fourth and last thing proposed from the words; which was to assign some particular
cases or instances, in which this confidence towards God, suggested by a rightly informed conscience, does most eminently
show and exert itself.
I shall mention three.
1. In our addresses to God by prayer. When a man shall
presume to come and place himself in the presence of the
great Searcher of hearts, and to ask something of him, while
his conscience is all the while smiting him on the face, and
telling him what a rebel and a traitor he is to the majesty
which he supplicates, surely such an one should think with
himself, that the God whom he prays to is greater than his
conscience, and pierces into all the filth and baseness of his
heart with a much clearer and more severe inspection. And
if so, will he not likewise resent the provocation more deeply,
and revenge it upon him more terribly, if repentance does not
divert the blow? Every such prayer is big with impiety and
contradiction, and makes as odious a noise in the ears of God
as the harangues of one of those rebel fasts, or humiliations in
the year forty-one; invoking the blessings of Heaven upon
such actions and designs as nothing but hell could reward.
One of the most peculiar qualifications of a heart rightly
disposed for prayer is, a well-grounded confidence of a man's
fitness for that duty. In Heb. x. 22, Let us draw near with a
true. heart, in full assurcance of faith, says the apostle. But
whence must this assurance spring?  Why, we are told in
the very next words of the same verse: having our hearts
sprinkled from an evil conscience: otherwise the voice of an
impure conscience will cry much louder than our prayers, and




1 JOHN ii. 21.]  Measures of Conscience.            497
speak more effectually against us than these can intercede,
for us.
And now, if prayerbe the great conduit of mercy, by which
the blessings of heaven are derived upon the creature, and
the noble instrument of converse between God and the soul,
then surely that which renders it ineffectual and loathsome to
God, must needs be of the most mischievous and destructive
consequence to mankind imaginable; and consequently to be
removed with all that earnestness and concern with which a
man would rid himself of a plague or a mortal infection. For
it taints and pollutes every prayer; it turns an oblation into
an affront; and the odors of a sacrifice into the exhalations of
a carcass. And, in a word, makes the heavens over us brass,
denying all passage either to descending mercies or ascending petitions.
But on the other side, when a man's breast is clear, and the
same heart which indites does also encourage his prayer,
when his innocence pushes on the attempt, and vouches the
success; such an one goes boldly to the throne of grace, and
his boldness is not greater than his welcome. God recognizes
the voice of his own Spirit interceding within him, and his
prayers are not only followed, but even prevented with an
answer.
2dly, A second instance, in which this confidence towards
God does so remarkably show itself, is at the time of some
notable trial or sharp affliction. When a man's friends shall'desert him, his relations disown him, and all dependencies fail
him, and, in a word,-the whole world frown upon him, certainly it will then be of some moment to have a friend in the
court of conscience, which shall, as it were, buoy up his sinking spirits, and speak greater things for him than all these
together can declaim against him.
For as it is most certain that no hight of honor, nor
affluence of fortune, can keep a man from being miserable,
nor indeed contemptible, when an enraged conscience shall
fly at him, and take him by the throat, so it is also as certain
that no temporal adversities can cut off those inward, secret,
invincible supplies of comfort, which conscience shall pour in
upon distressed innocence, in spite and in defiance of all
worldly calamities.
VOL. I.         32




498                 Of the Nature and         [SERM. XXIV.
Naturalists observe, that when the frost seizes upon wine,
they are only the slighter and more waterish parts of it that
are subject to be congealed; but still there is a mighty spirit
which can retreat into itself, and there within its own compass
lie secure from the freezing impression of the element round
about it. And just so it is with the spirit of a man, while a
good conscience makes it firm and impenetrable. An outward
affliction can no more benumb or quell it, than a blast of wind
can freeze up the blood in a man's veins, or a little shower of
rain soak into his heart, and there quench the principle of
life itself.
Take the two greatest instances of misery, which, I think,
are incident to human nature; to wit, poverty and shame, and
I dare oppose conscience to them both.
And first for poverty. Suppose a man stripped of all, driven
out of house and home, and perhaps out,of his country too,
(which having, within our memory, happened to so many,
may too easily, God knows, be supposed again,) yet if his
conscience shall tell him that it was not for any failure in his
own duty, but from the success of another's villainy, that all
this befell him, why then his banishment becomes his preferment, his rags his trophies, his nakedness his ornament;
and so long as his innocence is his repast, he feasts and banquets upon bread and water. He has disarmed his afflictions,
unstung his miseries; and though he has not the proper happiness of the world, yet he has the greatest that is to be enjoyed in it.
And for this we might appeal to the experience of those
great and good'men who, in the late times of rebellion and
confusion, were forced into foreign countries, for their unshaken firmness and fidelity to the oppressed cause of majesty
and religion, whether their conscience did not, like a fidus
Achates, still bear them  company, stick close to them, and
suggest comfort, even when the causes of comfort were invisible; and, in a word, verify that great saying of the apostle
in their mouths: We have nothing, and yet we possess all things.
For it is not barely a man's abridgment in his external
accommodations which makes him miserable, but when his
conscience shall hit him in the teeth, and tell him that it was
his sin and his folly which brought him under these abridg



1 JOHN iii. 21.]  Measures of Conscience.           499
ments. That his present scanty meals are but the natural
effects of his former over-full ones. That it was his tailor,
and his cook, his fine fashions, and his French ragouts, which
sequestered him; and, in a word, that he came by his poverty
as sinfully as some usually do by their riches; and consequently, that Providence treats him with all these severities,
not by way of trial, but by way of punishment and revenge.
The mind surely, of itself, can feel none of the burnings of a
fever; but if my fever be occasioned by a surfeit, and that
surfeit caused by my sin, it is that which adds fuel to the fiery
disease, and rage to the distemper.
2dly, Let us consider also the case of calumny and disgrace; doubtless, the sting of every reproachful speech is the
truth of it; and to be conscious, is that which gives an edge
and keenness to the invective. Otherwise, when conscience
shall plead not guilty to the charge, a man entertains it not as
an indictment, but as a libel. He hears all such calumnies
with a generous unconcernment; and receiving them at one
ear, gives them a free and easy passage through the other:
they fall upon him like rain or hail upon an oiled garment;
they may make a noise indeed, but can find no entrance. The
very whispers of an acquitting conscience will drown the voice
of the loudest slander.
What a long charge of hypocrisy, and many other base
things, did Job's friends draw up against him! but he regarded it no more than the dunghill which he sat upon, while
his conscience enabled him to appeal even to God himself;
and, in spite of calumny, to assert and hold fast his integrity.
And did not Joseph lie under as black an infamy as the
charge of the highest ingratitude and the lewdest villainy
could fasten upon him P Yet his conscience raised him so
much above it, that he scorned so much as to clear himself,
or to recriminate the strumpet by a true narrative of the matter. For we read nothing of that in the whole story: such
confidence, such greatness of spirit, does a clear conscience
give a man; always making him more solicitous to preserve
his innocence than concerned to prove it. And so we come
now to the
Third, and last instance, in which, above all others, this
confidence towards God does most eminently show and exert




500                Of the Nature and           [SERM. XXIV.
itself; and that is at the time of death. Which surely gives
the grand opportunity of trying both the strength and worth
of every principle. When a man shall be just about to quit
the stage of this world, to put off his mortality, and to deliver
up his last accounts to God; at which sad time his memory
shall serve him for little else but to terrify him with a sprightful review of his past life, and his former extravagances stripped
of all their pleasure, but retaining their guilt. What is it
then that can promise him a fair passage into the other world,
or a comfortable appearance before his dreadful Judge, when
he is there P Not all the friends and interests, all the riches
and honors under heaven, can speak so much as a word for
him, or one word of comfort to him in that condition; they
may possibly reproach, but they can not relieve him.
No, at this disconsolate time, when the busy tempter shall
be more than usually apt to vex and trouble him, and the
pains of a dying body to hinder and discompose him, and the
settlement of worldly affairs to disturb and confound him;
and, in a word, all things conspire to make his sick-bed
grievous and uneasy: nothing can then stand up against all
these ruins, and speak life in the midst of death, but a clear
conscience.
And the testimony of that shall make the comforts of
heaven descend upon his weary head, like a refreshing dew
or shower upon a parched ground. It shall'give him some
lively earnests and secret anticipations of his approaching
joy. It shall bid his soul go out of the body undauntedly,
and lift up its head with confidence before saints and angels.
Surely the comfort which it conveys at this season is sometliing bigger than the capacities of mortality; mighty and unspeakable, and not to be understood till it comes to be felt.
And now, who would not quit all the pleasures, and trash,
and trifles, which are apt to captivate the heart of man, and
pursue the greatest rigors of piety and austerities of a good
life, to purchase to himself such a conscience as, at the hour
of death, when all the friendships of the world shall bid him
adieu, and the whole creation turn its back upon him, shall
dismiss his soul, and close his eyes with that blessed sentence,
Well done, thou good aizd faithful servant, enter thou into the joy
of thy Lord!




1 JoN iii. 21.]   Mesures of Conscience.              501
For he whose conscience enables him to look God in the face
with confidence here, shall be sure to see his face also with
comfort hereafter.
Which God of his mercy grant to tus all; to whom be rendered
and ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and
dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen.
END OF VOL. I.