BEi

:00

4%

K

'<<-,

«

-s^Cv^

«f^

^-cfc«Eg

JL* <•<.<&-<«

«L«

C-'C

<•<

"<«3C«f fc "

c

«L«

TV»eo\

THE

WORKS

OF THE

RIGHT REVEREND

WILLIAM WARBURTON, D.D.

LORD BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER.

A NEW EDITION, IN TWELVE VOLUMES.

TO WHICH IS PREFIXED

A DISCOURSE BY WAY OF GENERAL PREFACE-,

CONTAINING

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE, WRITINGS, AND CHARACTER OF THE AUTHOR;

BY RIC HA RD HURD, D.D.

LORD BISHOP OF WORCESTER

VOLUME THE TENTH.

Printed by Luke Hansard £ Sons, near Lincoln s-Lm Fields,

POR T. CADELL AND W. DAVIES, IN THE STRAND,

1811,

CONTENTS

OF

VOL. X.

SERMONS AND DISCOURSES ON VARIOUS

SUBJECTS AND OCCASIONS.

DEDICATION to Lady MANSFIELD - - p. xv.

SERMON XVIII.

»

Preached at Lincoln's-Inn Chapel, on the first public Fast-day after the Calamity of Lisbon, 1755.

NATURAL AND CIVIL EVENTS THE INSTRUMENTS OF GOD'S MORAL GOVERNMENT.

Luke xiii. i . 2, $c.

There were present, at that season, some that told him of the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answering, said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered such things ? I tell you, nay : but, except ye repent, ye shall all ,; likewise perish.

A3 Or

vi CONTENTS OF TENTH VOLUME.

Or those eighteen upon whom the Tcwer of Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were

sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem ? I tell you, nay : but, except ye repent, ye shall all

likewise perish. - - - - r - - - p. i.

SERMON XIX.

Preached before the Right Honourable the House of Lords, January 30, 1760.

Isaiah xix. 13, 14.

The princes of Zoan are become fools, the princes of Noph are deceived', they have also seduced Egypt — The Lord hath mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof. - - - - - p. 17

SERMON XX.

Preached before the Incorporated Society for the

Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts,

on Friday, Feb. 21, 1766.

Revelation of St. John, x. 11.

And he said unto me, Thou must propliesy again, before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings. --------- p. 39

POSTSCRIPT

P-59

CO XT EN TS OF TENTH VOLUME. Vll

SERMON XXL

ANSWER A FOOL ACCORDING TO HIS FOLLY.

Prov. xxvi. 4, 5.

Answer not a fool according to his folly*, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to .his folly, lest he be 'wise in his own conceit, p. 61

* SERMON XXII.

Preached before the King, in Lent, 1761.

Prov. xiv. 9. pools make a mock at sin. - - - - - p. 79

SERMON XXIIL

Preached before the King, in Lent, 1 765.

i Cor. ix. 24.

Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one rccciveih the prize ? So run that ye may -obtain. ---------- p. o/i

SERMON XXI V.

SALVATION BY FAITH ALOXE.

Matt. xxii. 12.

And he said unto him, Friend, how earnest thou in hither, not haying a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then the king said to his servants. Bind him hand and foot, and take him

away. ~ - - - ~- p. 101

A4

VlJl CONTENTS OF TENTH VOLUME,

SERMON XXV.

THE BENEFITS OF HERESY.

i Cor. xi. 19.

There must be also heresies amongst you, that they which are approved may be made manifest amongst you, » „ w „ ---p. 113

SERMON XXVI.

Preached at Bristol, Nov. 29, 1759;

being the Day appointed for a Public Thanksgiving

for Victories obtained by the British Anns.

Ezekiel xxxvi. 22.

For thus saith the Lord God, I do not this for your sakes, O House of Israel, but for my holy •names sake. •, - - p. j 3 1

SERMON XXVIL

THE FALL OF SATAN.

Matt. iv. 24.

they brought unto him all sick people that 'were taken 'with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those

Which were lurMc; and he foaled them. p. 139 1

CONTENTS OF TENTH VOLUME.

DISC. XXVIII.

THE RISE OF ANTICHRIST. 2 Pet 1. l6 — 21.

JVe have not followed cunningly -devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eve-witnesses of his majesty.

for he received fronf God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent Glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

And this voice which came from Heaven we heard, when we were with him in the Holy J\ fount.

We have also a more sure word of prophecy ; where- unto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a tight that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts :

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the serif* ture is of any private interpretation.

For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man ; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, - - - - p. 1 65

DISC. XXIX.

ON THE RESURRECTION.

i Cor. xv. i 7.

If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain ; ye arc. yet in your sins. - - - - - - - p. 207

CONTENTS OF TENTH VOLUME,

TWO CHARITY SERMONS PUBLISHED BT

THE AUTHOR. - And,

THREE SERMONS ON DIFFERENT SUB JECTS, first printed in 1788.

SERMON XXX.

Preached before the Governors of the Small-Pox Hospital, 1 755 ; and published at their request.

Psalm xli. J, 2, 3.

'Blessed Is he that consider eth the poor — The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing: Thou 'wilt mike all his bed in his sickness, p. 239

SERMON XXXI.

Preached before the Governors of the London Hos pital, i 767 ; and published at their request.

i Con xiii. 1 3.

reatest of these is charity. - - p. 251

SERMON XXXII.

Preached before the King, at Kensington, October 27, 1754.

CHRIST'S LEGACY OF PEACE TO HIS DISCIPLES.

Gospel of St. John, xiv. 27.

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you : not as the world g'weth, give I unto you, p. 267

CONTENTS OF TENTH VOLUME. Xi

SERMON XXXIII. Preached at Lincoln's-Inn, November 11, 1759.

INIQUITY THE CAUSE OF UNBELIEF.

Matt. xxiv. 1 2.

And because 'iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. -------p. 277

SERMON XXXIV.

Preached before the King, March 12, 1769.

TRUE CHRISTIANS THE SALT OF THE EARTH,

Matt v. 13.

Ye are the salt of the earth : But if the salt have, lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted?- It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden underfoot. - - p. 289

A DISCOURSE

CONCERNING THE NATURE AND END OF THE

SACRAMENT OF THE LORD'S SUPPER.

p. 301.

DIRECTIONS FOR THE STUDY OF THEOLOGY. P- 355-

S .E R M O N S

AND

DISCOURSES

Off

VARIOUS SUBJECTS

AND

OCCASIONS,

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

THE LADY MANSFIELD,

MADAM,

You ought not to think strange of an address of this kind from a Churchman, to the Grand-daughter of that great Magistrate, who, while he held the Seals for the King and Constitution, besides the most exemplary attention to the proper business oi his Office, was elegantly ambitious to give the last polish to his Country, by a patronage of Learning and Science. Into this equal passion, he resolved all his private satisfactions. He took early into his notice, and continued long in his protection, every great Name in Letters and Religion, from CUD- WORTH, who died in the reign of Charles the Second, to PRIDEAUX, who lived under George the First. It was the care and culture of an Age : and in spite of a dissolute, abandoned Court, he made the reign of Charles the Second to be, what it is now likely to be always esteemed, OUR GOLDEN AGE OF LITERATURE.

Tbi

XT DEDICATION.

The glory of bearing this relation to $Q faithful a Guardian of the human Faculties in their non-age, Providence, in reward of your virtues, hath doubled, in a still nearer relation to One, who, in las high Station, may with the same justice be esteemed the great support of Civil Liberty; and is now engaged in the like generous task for the very BEING of a free Community, which the other so successfully accomplished for that chief Ornament of it, LITE RATURE and SCIENCE.

But the honours you derive from others, you pre serve untarnished, by the splendor of those you have acquired for yourself, in the course of a sober and enlightened Piety ; which makes you an example to the best of year Sex, as the patriotic Virtues of your illustrious Consort will make him, lo the wisest of his.

I have the honour to be, MADAM,

Your LADYSHIP'S biiged and faithful Servant,

W. GLOUCESTER-

Dec. -24, i75ee.

SERMON XVIII.

Preached at Lincoln s-Inn Chapel t on thejirst public Fast- day after the Calamity of Lisbon, 1755.

NATURAL AND CIVIL EVENTS THE INSTRU MENTS OF GOD'S MORAL GOVERNMENT.

LUKE xiii. i, 2, &c.

THERE WERE PRESENT, AT THAT SEASON, SOME THAT TOLD HIM OF THE GALILEANS, WHOSE BLOOD PILATE HAD MINGLED WITH THEIR SACRIFICES.

AND JESUS ANSWERING, SAID UNTO THEM, SUP POSE YE THAT THESE GALILEANS WERE SIN NERS ABOVE ALL THE GALILEANS, BECAUSE THEY SUFFERED SUCH THINGS?

I TELL YOU, NAY : BUT, EXCEPT YE REPENT, YE SHALL ALL LIKEWISE PERISH.

OR THOSE EIGHTEEN UPON WHOM THE TOWER OF SILOAM FELL, AND SLEW THEM, THINK YE THAT THEY WERE SINNERS ABOVE ALL MEN THAT DWELT IN JERUSALEM?

I TELL YOU, NAY: BUT, EXCEPT YE REPENT,

YE SHALL ALL LIKEWISE PERISH.

HPHIS solemn reproof hath been commonly un- •*- derstood, and often quoted, as a condemna tion of the opinion which ascribes " the general VOL. X. B calamities

3 SERMON XVIII.

calamities effected by natural or civil causes, to God's displeasure against sin ;" but surely with little reason ; for that opinion is founded in the very essence of Religion. What the text condemns is the superstitious abuse of it, which uncharitably con cludes, that " the sufferers in a general calamity are greater sinners than other men."

That this was the case, I shall endeavour to shew — from the character of the speaker — from the state and circumstances of the hearers— and from the very words of the text itself.

i . He who goeth about to instruct others in the knowledge of God, whether commissioned from Hea ven or prompted by his own Charity, must needs conceive that the moral Governor of the universe, whose essential character it is, not to leave himself without a witness, doth frequently employ the phy sical and civil operations of our system, to support and reform the moral. For such a Governor will manifest his dominion in whatever world he is pleased to station and exercise his accountable and proba tionary creatures. In man's state and condition here, natural and civil events are the proper instruments of moral government. The teacher therefore of. Reli gion, or of a moral Governor, will be naturally led to inculcate this truth, that general calamities, though events merely physical or civil, were (amongst other ends) ordained by the Author of all nature to serve for the scourge of moral disorders. For to suppose, that physical or civil events, whether friendly or ad verse, such as peace or war, fertility or dearth, health

or

SERMON XVIII. 3

or pestilence, are the proper instruments of reward and punishment, and yet, that God doth not so em ploy them, but will rather have recourse to what we call miraculous operations, is an unwarranted and indeed disrespectful notion of divine Wisdom ; as im plying a kind of incapacity in the Almighty to fit the natural to the moral system in such a manner as to make the former a ready instrument for the regu lation of the latter.

2. If, from the character of the speaker, we turn to the state and condition of the hearers, we shall see further reason to acquiesce in this conclusion. The Jews, of all people upon earth, were best justified in ascribing national calamities to the anger of offended Heaven. They were of a Race long accustomed to receive rewards and punishments through the instru mentality of Nature ; and of a Religion which more solemnly and exactly dispensed them ; for the most part indeed, they were miraculously enforced ; yet frequently too, administered in the common order and course of Nature : so that such a people, whose sacred books bore testimony in every page to the pu nishment of crimes by pestilence, by famine, and the sword, could never hesitate a moment to conclude, that the calamities of the wicked Galileans were a mark of God's displeasure against sin.

3. Lastly, the very words of the reproof [ — except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish], evidently im ply, that amongst the many ends effected in the ad ministration of Nature, this was one, to express God's displeasure at human iniquities, in order to bring men to REPENTANCE — except ye REPENT, ye shall

B 2 all

4 SERMON XVIII.

ail likewise perish : that is, perish for the same cause (jour sins), and by the same instrument (the Roman power). In which it appears, that our blessed Lord alluded to his own prediction, of the exterminating vengeance impending over the whole Nation by the arms of Vespasian.

But now, if the belief of a moral end, in these general calamities, be a principle of Religion, proper to be' inculcated, to support the reverence due to the moral Governor of the world; What was it, you will ask, that could deserve so solemn and so severe a reproof as our Lord's words are confessed to con vey, on this occasion?

The answer is easy. It was that detestable su perstition, which so often accompanies, and so fatally infects, this generous principle of Religion ; the super stition of ascribing public calamities, not to God's displeasure against sin in general, but to his ven geance on the persons of the unhappy sufferers; who. for some fancy or other, this Superstition con cludes to be greater sinners than other men.

This deserved all the severity of our Lord's cen sure, as it implied gross ignorance in the nature of the punishment; and betrayed a malignity of heart which defeated the very end of the dispensation.

i. When Sodom and Gomorra were destroyed by a fire from Heaven, and the idolatrous inha bitants of Canaan extirpated by the command of God, who furnished the instruments, which he em ployed, with extraordinary powers for their destruc* tion, the people of God were authorized to con-

S E R M O N XVIII. 5

elude, that those nations were sinners above all other men ; and, consequently, that their punishment was inflicted for their own immeasurable iniquities, as well as for a warning and example to the rest of mankind. But when God, by the admirable direc tion of his general providence, so adjusts the cir cumstances of the natural and moral systems, as to make the events in the former to serve for the regu lation of the latter, we must, in all reason, conceive that such events are principally designed as alarms and warnings to a careless inattentive world ; and that their moral purpose was rather general example than particular vengeance : for the attaining of which end, it is sufficient for us to believe, that those who suffer are sinners deserving punishment; not that they are greater sinners than those who have es caped ; possibly much less, as the preservation of these was necessary for the carrying on some other great and inscrutable design of Providence, in the more general government of the moral world.

From all this, it appears, that though, indeed, we be allowed, on the soberest principles of reason, to consider such unhappy sufferers as the criminal object of an offended Master; yet are we by no means authorized on any principles, either of reason or religion, to conclude that they are more criminal than others,

2. This leads me to another reason of the severity

of our Lord's reproof ; the extreme uncharitableness

of this wicked superstition : For when once we begin

to estimate the degree of demerit by the frequency

B 3 or

6 SERMON XVIII.

or severity of the punishment, and the degree of God's disfavour in proportion to the demerit, these our distressed brethren will be no longer the object of our pity, but of our scorn and aversion, as the abandoned and the outcasts of Heaven. And when superstition is once got into this train, so frequent and general are the calamities of human life, that Christian communities, from a brotherhood of love, would soon degenerate into a desperatecrew of mis creants, each rejoicing in the pains, and triumphing in the miseries, of others.

3. A third reason of the severity of the reproof is, That this superstition has a direct tendency to de feat the very end of the chastisement. It is inflicted to rouse, to wake, and to alarm a drowsy, inatten tive world ; to beget, in those who have escaped, humility and circumspection ; which, by a timely re pentance, may avert the vengeance hovering round them. But when men, by this wretched error, are become so debauched as to fancy, that the unhappy, on whom the evil falls, are sinners above all others, they no longer consider the punishment as a warning of some approaching mischief, but as a passed ven geance, in which themselves are but remotely con cerned, and have therefore no need to scrutinize their own conduct, or disturb their quiet with self-appre- hensioris. Thus the gracious purpose of Heaven being defeated, and the hand of Mercy stretched out in vain, an exterminating vengeance follows, and the dreadful scene closes in a final destruction.

This was the case of these very men to whom the *5 reproof

SERMON XVIII. 7

reproof of Jesus was addressed. They were far gone in the superstition here condemned. They had long considered general disasters in this absurd and im pious light : and the suffering Galileans supported them in the satisfaction they took in their own ways. Exemplary warnings became lost upon them ; and every fresh gleam of divine mercy only served to ripen them into the speedy objects of his justice. Things were now at a crisis ; and the last warning-

o o

voice from Heaven was given in the case of the Ga lileans, suffering by that very scourge, the Roman power, which stood ready at the door to drive and sweep away their very name and nation. And now the gracious Saviour of the world exerts this last effort of his goodness towards them, in an explanation of the nature of these punishments : He shews that their principal purpose was for their admonition and amendment, to awake them to repentance, and an abhorrence of their ways ; which if neglected or de layed, they too should perish, and in a more general desolation.

But the day of grace was past : they were deaf to Reason, to Nature, and to Religion. Their doom was now pronounced ; and that instrument of God's vengeance, the Imperial eagie> scenting the carcass* from afar, came down with an exterminating wing on this devoted Nation, already more than half de stroyed by its intestine vices and corruptions.

The contemplation of this aw-ful judgment is at this time so peculiarly useful to Us, that 1 almost scruple to call you away from an attention to it, * Matt. xxiv. 28.

B 4 though

8 SERMON XVIII.

though it be to set before you a view of the wonders of Divine Providence, which this PRINCIPLE pre sents and opens to us.

For what I proposed, after explaining my text, was to shew, that the doctrine of it, which ascribes

THE GENERAL CALAMITIES, ARISING FROM NA TURAL CAUSES, TO GOD'S DISPLEASURE AGAINST

SIN, displays his glory in the fairest colours, and es tablishes man's peace and happiness on the most solid foundations.

And, secondly, that the present fashionable opi nion, THAT NATURAL EVENTS PROCEED NOT FROM A MORAL RULER, AND HAVE NO RELATION TO MORAL GOVERNMENT, is the source of perpetual disquiets and alarms to the abandoned and forlorn inhabitants of the earth.

i . First then, we may observe, that the applica tion of natural events to moral government, in the common course of Providence (a disposition of things to be distinguished from that whereby God, in the constitution of universal nature, hath annexed hap piness to virtue — and to vice, distress and misery) connects the character of Lord and Governor of the' intellectual world, with that of Creator and Preserver of the material : A consideration of great use, as for other religious purposes respecting God's glory, so particularly for this, that it redresses the old Mani- chean impiety, so derogatory to it, which makes an evil Principle a sharer with him in the direction of the Universe : For the constant undisturbed course of the natural system, when compared with the disorders of

tht

SERMON XVIII. 9

the moral, first gave birth to that monstrous imagi nation. Now this doctrine, of the PRE-ESTABLISHED HARMONY, the direction of natural events to moral government, obviates all irreligious suspicions ; and not only satisfies us that there is but one Governor of both systems, but that both systems are conducted by one scheme of Providence.

To form the constitution of Nature in such a man ner that, without controlling or suspending its laws, it should continue through a long succession of ages to produce its physical revolutions, as they best con tribute to the preservation and order of its own sys tem, just at those precise periods of time when their effects, whether salutary or hurtful to man, may serve as instruments for the government of the moral world; e. g. that a foreign enemy, amidst our intestine broils, should desolate all the flourishing .works of rural in dustry ; that warring elements, in the stated order of natural government, should depopulate and tear in pieces a high-viced city, just in those very moments when moral government required a warning and ex ample to be held out to a careless world, is giving us the noblest as well as most astonishing idea of God's GOODNESS and JUSTICE.

Had the government of the moral system generally required the control and alteration of natural laws in that sensible effect wirch we call a miracle *3 it

* We can see but two necessary occasions of this ex traordinary dispensation; — ^the one, to attest and support the truth of a new Religion coming from God; the other, to administer a Theocratic government. These are occa sions worthy the divine Wisdom, and necessary in the of things.

might

10 SERMON XVIII.

might have argued defect of wisdom. Had the govern ment of the natural system required the operation of such laws as would be always disturbing and deieat- ing the sanctions of the moral, it might have argued defect of power. But where the stated laws of Physics, while they are promoting their own purpose, are, at the same time, so contrived as to support, invigorate, and enforce the sanctions of Religion, this, I say, must needs give us the noblest, as well as most asto nishing idea, of God's WISDOM and POWER.

Nor do the glories of this Dispensation afford less consolation and comfort of security to the truly pious man. For when it is understood, that the course of nature was, by the laws imposed upon it from the foundations of the world, so contrived as to co operate with the laws of moral government, such an one, on the appearance of any of these public warnings to awake the nations from their lethargy of vice, will never be terrified and distracted with the vain apprehensions of an undistinguishing deso lation, which is out of his power to avoid ; as being well assured, from the nature of the judgment, that a sincere purpose of amending the public manners will he able to avert the approaching vengeance.

Nor let men so rationally instructed in the ways of God suffer their well-placed confidence to be shaken by this plausible sophistry, " That it is utterly unphilqsophical to suppose that a present and instantaneous change in our conduct can stop or avert a natural event, established by a strong con nected series of causes, which have kept operating ever since the foundations of the world." We can

tell

SERMON XVIII. n

tell these pretending reasoners that our religious confidence is not derived from so absurd a principle, a principle erected on the narrow and unfaithful ground of superstition. Our conclusions are drawn from the most reasonable conceptions that man can entertain of his Creator and Lord : Who, when he made the world (in which all time was as an instant before him), the free determinations of the human Will, and the necessary effects of Laws physical, were so fitted and accommodated to one another, that a sincere repentance in the moral world should be sure to avert an impending desolation in the natural; not by any present alteration or suspension of its established Laws, but by originally adjusting all their operations to all the foreseen circumstances of moral agency : So as to make Matter and Motion (besides their other purposes) to serve for the regula tion of the Understanding and Will. We should blush, let me tell them, to be thought so uninstructed in the nature of Prayer as to fancy it can work any temporary change in the dispositions of the Deity, who is the same yesterday, t o-day, and for ever : Yet we are not ashamed to maintain, that God, in the chain of causes and effects, which not only sustains each system, but connects them all with one another, hath so wonder fully contrived, that the temporary endeavours of pious men shall procure good and avert evil, by means of that PRE-ESTABLISHED HARMONY which he hath willed to exist between moral actions and natural events.

Thus we see, these two essential doctrines of Re ligion, " God's JUDGMENTS in physical and civil

events,"

)2 SERMON XVIII.

events," and u the efficacy of the good man's PRAYER," stand equally on one and the same Principle, the belief of that original connexion be tween the natural and moral World.

And here let me expostulate with those unhappy men, who, from a confessed truth that these more general • desolations proceed entirely from natural causes, have too confidently concluded that they cannot be esteemed the warnings of a moral Go vernor: and therefore, after having been most alarmed by them while they were impending, have been the first to ridicule their own imbecility; which had led them, before they were aware, to the very brink of repentance. An instance of this unmanly conduct we saw amongst ourselves, when Heaven, in mercy, not long since shook a guilty land. A repetition of the stroke so alarmed and terrified its inhabitants, that, in their fright, they seemed in haste to give a specimen of their contrition and reformation. But a third shock not coming at the expected interval as that between the first and second, the rash project of amending their manners vanished like a morning mist; and they returned with equal speed to their accustomed follies and dissipations. And to what was all this owing but to a double blunder, unbe coming a nation of Philosophers ? They had first entertained a false idea of these Warnings, as if they were phenomena out of nature, prodigious and miraculous ; and when they came to understand that they were only the' effects of physical causes, they then, by as shameful an ignorance, concluded that they had nothing in them formidable or threa tening

SERMON XVIII. 13

tening to an impenitent World. Whereas a mo derate share of NATURAL THEOLOGY would have taught them, that though these warnings hy disasters •were indeed the operations of the physical system, yet they were providentially connected with the moral, and pre-ordained to support its sanctions. But where was the worrier that that which began in Superstition should end in Irreligion ? for, by a strange and monstrous kind of conception, extremes, in the moral world, are always begetting their opposite*.

2 But now, in the last place, let us take a view* of the state and situation of those men, who suppose that God does not uphold the World as the moral Ruler of it, but as the physical Dispenser only ; and it is certain, that those, who deny these natural dis asters to be connected with the moral system, can have no other idea of God's Government.

Such men, amidst all these dreadful warnings of alarming Nature, will find their condition to be most disconsolate and forlorn; their Principles hav ing bereft them of those hopes which are ever springing in the breast of the religious man ; who is taught botli by Reason and Revelation to conclude, that these etlccts of God's displeasure against sin may be averted by sincere repentance. For though the irreligious Naturalist acknowledges a Governor of the universe, yet, as he supposes this Governor to direct all things by his natural attributes ofpozcer and wisdom, and not by his moral, of goodness and justice, his acknowledgment of a God affords him

14 SERMON XVIII.

no more security against his fears than if there were no God at all ; and that the universe lay entirely at the mercy of Chance or Destiny ; because a mere physical Director having no respect to the system of Rationals, their preservation or destruction will not be dependent on their behaviour, but on the purposes of the physical system ; the support of which (for aught this Philosopher can tell) may re quire the destruction of Mankind, instead of their preservation : and the very next shock of the dis ordered Globe work those necessary changes in Matter and Motion which may conclude in the ruin and annihilation of its inhabitants.

Thus the hapless Unbeliever, while disordered Nature is sounding in his ears, hath no where to fly for refuge from his terrors : he sees himself in a fatherless and abandoned World, exposed to all tha rage of deaf and unrelenting Elements : He may find, indeed, support and comfort in Religion ; but it is below the dignity of his Philosophic character to seek it along with the superstitious herd : it being unworthy a man of Science to suppose, that the system of Nature was created, and is conducted, to serve any other Purposes than its own ; or that the

SUBLIME PRINCIPLE OF ATTRACTION" Was im-

pressed upon Matter to bring about any other revolutions than of those vast bodies which are the objects of his learned contemplation,

In a word, every rational reflexion serves to es tablish the religious Principle of my text, as here explained.

It is shewn to be agreeable to Reason and to Re ligion, under the present constitution of things.

It

SERMON XVIIL 15

It is shewn to tend most to the glory of God, and to the peace and happiness of Man.

It is shewn that that vain philosophy, which dis cards tliis Principle from its creed, dishonours Pro vidence, and most distresses Human life.

What have we then to do, but to regulate our practice, and repose our confidence, on a Principle so well established. A sincere, a speedy, and a per fect reformation will not fail to avert the anger of the Lord, now gone out against the sinful in habitants of the Earth. I mean, a reformation of the general manners, w here each of us, in our several stations, must concur to heal the breaches made in our excellent Constitution by our party-follies ; to oppose the enormous progress of avarice and corruption; to check the wasting rage for pleasure and amusement ; to shake off those unmanly luxuries crept into domestic life, some for the gratification of our appetites, but more, for the display of our vanities.

When we have done this, we have done our part And then these terrors of the Lord will cease ; or they will become harmless and even salutary to us. We shall, if it be our lot to meet that great day of his coming, foretold by our sacred Oracles, not only stand, with the man of morals, serene and fear less amidst the crash of falling worlds, but, with the religious man, become partaker of the glories of the Lamb, rise triumphant over them in those happier regions of perpetual stability and peace.

SERMON XIX.

Preached before the Right Honourable the House of Lords, January 30, 1760.

ISAIAH xix. 13 — 14.

THE PRINCES OF ZOAN ARE BECOME FOOLS, THE PRINCES OF NOPH ARE DECEIVED; THEY HAVE ALSO SEDUCED EGYPT — THE LORD HATH MIN GLED A PERVERSE SPIRIT IN THE MIDST THEREOF.

Prophet is here foretelling the disgraces -*- and calamities which God was then about to bring upon a sinful People, at that time the most renowned for the wisdom of their civil Policy. — The Counsel of the wise Counsellors of Pharaoh is become brutish, saith the Prophet : for the JUDG MENT was attended with all those circumstances of savage brutality, which most disgrace Civil Wis dom : / will set (says GOD) the Egyptians against the Egyptians ; and they shall Jight every one against his Brother, and every one against his Neighbour •; City against City, and Kingdom against Kingdom. How great a resemblance this denunci- X, C ation

i8 SERMON XIX.

ation of divine vengeance bears to the history of the grand Rebellion,, every man, who is not an utter stranger to the most disgraceful epoch of our history, will readily perceive ; when Brothers of the same House, and Neighbours of the same City, hos- tilely separated into opposed Camps ; when the In habitants of adjoining Counties divided, in mutual enmity, under their respective Leaders ; and when the two Kingdoms of Scotland and Ireland re nounced the protection of their common Sovereign, and insulted and invaded his imperial crown. For when a breach is once made in a well-framed Con stitution, perfected by the wisdom, and regulated on the experience of ancient Policy, the confusion which follows it is always more outrageous, and frequently more incurable, than disorders arising in the looser and less perfect Forms of Govern ment.

The miseries foretold in this Prophecy are repre sented as inflicted by the avenging hand of GOD. — Behold, the Lord rideth upon a swift cloud, and shall come into Egypt— The Lord shall smite Egypt. The mercy which followed is equally represented as the work of his all-gracious hand — He shall SMITE anduEAL it*.

And thus the total destruction of our Constitution, and the sudden and surprising recovery of it, when things were most desperate, have been ever consi dered, by serious men, as a manifest indication of the hand of GOD, which first in justice smites, and then with equal mercy, heals and restores.

* Vex. 22.

Indeed,

SERMON XIX. 19

Indeed, all who believe the moral government of GOD, how much soever they may differ concerning his mode of administering it among Particulars, and how obscure soever his ways may appear in the tracts of private life, yet concur to acknowledge and to revere his visible interposition in the revolutions of States and Empires.

In the early years of this returning solemnity, while men's thoughts and expressions were under the influence of recent passions; the whole of the celebration might not, perhaps, so well answer the ends of a public humiliation : when Characters on the one hand intemperately painted, and Compari sons^ on the other, impiously invented, turned an act of Worship into a day of Contention. But these were the unruly workings of a storm just then subsided. Time, which so generally corrupts other religious Rites, hath given a sobriety and a purity to the returning celebrations of This.

And as Providence is commonly seen, even in its most uncommon Operations, to work by second Causes, the sagacity and prudence of those who have of late supplied this Place, have been more usefully employed in investigating and collecting these Causes : From whence, more salutary lessons may be gathered, for the use of civil life, than are to be met with in any History of public revolutions, where mere human agency is supposed to have dene most.

James the 1st received the crown of England, with the seeming advantage, bnt indeed with the real inconvenience of succeeding to a line of impe-

c 2 nous

so SERMON XIX.

rious Monarchs, who, by a concurrence of various accidents, had been enabled to make bold incroach- ments on the liberty of the Subject, and the old genius of the Constitution. These incroachments had been almost sanctified by .Ihe regal glories of the last of that haughty race. But James, instead of providing against the impending mischiefs of so critical a situation, when a new interest then rising called loudly to set the balance even, took advan tage of the Crown's over- weight to advance those- occasional acts of intemperate Prerogative into a re gulated System of arbntary power.

# In these Mysteries of State he took early care to initiate his Son : who received them when he came to the succession, with much more good faith than they were delivered to him by his Father ; and (as on that account it happened) with more fatal conse quences to himself. For, what was only Policy in James, became Religion in the Martyr Charles : and King-craft is made of much more ductile stuff than Church-bigotry ; at least it knows when to yield and Vhen to act inflexibly; whereas the Po licy which is not cf this world, nor, I am afraid of the other, is apt to do both, unskilfully and per versely. Thus James favoured the Hierarchy, as it was a buttress to the Crown, Charles revered it as the Ordinance of Heaven : The Son therefore, to preserve the Order itself, fatally consented to ex clude the Bishops from their seat in Parliament : but the Father would have avoided this error, and stopped the ruin in its first movement, si-ice Bishops out of Parliament, he knew, could be of little ser vice

SERMON XIX. 21

vice to his Prerogative. And, on the same principle, we may conclude, that, had he found them already out of Parliament, he would never have risked his Crown for their preservation. Yet this, the virtu ous Son resolved to do ; and he stood the des perate hazard with the greatest complaisancy of Conscience.

If the civil rights of the People had for a long time been ill understood, or little regarded, the wonder was the less that the rights of Religion had been so grossly violated. These Princes held that all were to conform to the Religion of the State ; and that, for every man to worship GOD in his own way, the Father thought was a factious, and the Son, an impious invasion of the Supremacy.

Least of all shall we think it strange that, amidst these errors in Government, neither of these Princes attended to that large accession of property and power, which was silently, but rapidly, devolving on the People. So that by the time Charles was most intent to push forward his Father's despotic System, the People were become rich by a long com mercial peace : and therefore less disposed to bear, and more able to repel, what they deemed to be oppression.

Under these circumstances, for fourteen years together, they modestly and constitutionally prose cuted the Claim of their Rights, in the Courts of Justice and in the Courts of Legislature. They sought redress by Law, but the fountain of Justice, by running through the Palace, was become cor rupted. They sought redress in Parliament, which

c 3 was

22 SERMON XIX.

was often obtained ; but as often violated or evaded as it was obtained ; till, at length, the very door of redress was shut against them, and a long remis sion of Parliament deprived them of the last sup port of the miserable, the very hope : of being re lieved. For the ill-advised Sovereign chose to reign without Parliaments ; poor and needy, in the style of a Cappadocian Monarch,

Mancipns locuples, egens <£ris —

rather than be the opulent Head of a free and a free-giving People.

The Treasury having been long exhausted, and thus kept unreplenished, all men foresaw that on the least commotion, whether at home or abroad, a Parliament would be forced upon the Court. And the Country Party, as it was called, did not neg lect to accelerate this remedy, by taking advan tage of the indiscretions of a great Churchman, to kindle and inflame the liturgic heats in Scot land.

But as what was then called PURITANISM (which, in the subsequent confusions, split into many Sects of various denominations) was so intimately con nected with this quarrel, and did so largely contri bute to the confusions it produced, it may not be improper just to recount its origine and progress; the claims it made, and the treatment it received.

In the early times of Reformation, unhappy scru ples arose amongst the Clergy concerning the Go vernment of the national Church. But these cap* tious men understood so little of religious rights,

that

SERMON XIX. 23

that they had no sooner formed a Party, than they thought themselves obliged in conscience to over throw the established Hierarchy ; and to erect what they called, the DISCIPLINE, in its place. Their first attack was by remonstrances to Parliament : and when that failed, by entering into criminal cabals, to extort, what, they found, would not be readily given up to them. But this factious Spirit, meeting with the able and vigorous administration of Eliza beth, was timely suppressed ; and the very attempt to disturb so popular a Government brought upon them a general Odium. And here, in passing, it may not be amiss to observe, that while these Eng lish PURITANS, who embraced the abominable opinion of Calvin concerning Predestination, were struggling with the State for an Establishment, the Dutch REMONSTRANTS, who were raised, at the same time, by Providence to free the Church of Christ from the impiety of this Doctrine, never con tended for more than a Toleration.

Hitherto the fault lav entirely on their side; who, in a seditious way, aimed at more than was their due. But they paid dearly for their folly ; for, in this unsuccessful struggle, they lost, as is commonly the case in party- quarrels, what they had the best pretence to demand. For when their Enthusiasm, as a new Sect, was reasonably abated, and their factious temper, as an old one, had been vigo rously opposed ; they seemed well content to ac cept what they had at first wantonly rejected. But, they now met with an exasperated Government (too ready to return their insults), wkich; instead of

c 4 complying

24 SERMON XIX.

complying with this more sober request, enacted a number of penal statutes, to compel their confor mity to the established Worship.

When James succeeded to the Crown of England

?~> *

he came South with much prejudice against these Disciplinarians ; from whose Brethren in the North he had undergone the most scandalous indignities ; so that he was sufficiently indisposed to remit or soften the rigour of these penal Laws. His Son detested the Puritans, as they were the declared enemies of his Favourite Prelacy ; and therefore, throughout the former p?rt of his reign, treated them with such seventy, (the Laws having made their er> :!^s their judges, or, at least, their judges were become their enemies) that many of them aban doned their native Country for new settlements in America.

Men's civil and religious rights being thus equally trampled on, it is natural to believe, that, when the Country-interest first made head against the Court, the Patriots and the Puritans would meet half-way, to act in concert against oppressive Authority : Their GRIEVANCES for violated rights, and, what is more, their PRINCIPLES in favour of the doctrine of re sistance, being precisely the same.

And now, Religion and Liberty become the united cry, the fatal Scene began to open. The dis turbances in Scotland forced the King back upon Parliaments. The first he called was ready to re store the Constitution, and preserve the rights of the Crown, when he unskilfully dissolved it. The 24 next,

SERMON XIX. 1 5

next, into whose hands he fell, never remitted of their remorseless vengeance till they had destroyed the King, the Constitution, and Themselves.

It unfortunately happened, that the Sovereign's frequent breach of faith had mat's the Patriots so diffident of his Word, that they would find no ground on which to begin a reformation, but that vvh reon, if ever tciey became factious, they might erect a Ty ranny of their own: I mean that fatal, unconstitu tional Law, which irnpowered the Parliament to sit till it should be pleased to dissolve itself.

When this point was secured, tiiey began indeed as if they had no other intention than to reform those gross enormities of Prerogative, which had well nigh overturned our free Constitution, and rendered it despotic. And in this generous labour the greatest and wisest in those two august assemblies heartily concurred : All they who afterwards became the tem porary Guard and most shining Ornament of that unhappy Monarch's military Court. And what was ineffectual to the safety of their Master ; they gained for themselves that lasting glory in there- cords of History, which disinterested Virtue only can procure.

The King had now made ample satisfaction for all his former miscarriages : And our free State was fully vindicated, in a regular and parliamentary way. The two Houses had now obtained all the security for the enjoyment of their recovered rights, which the nature of the Constitution would afford ; and were, therefore, in all reason, now to perform their

promises,

*6 SERMON XIX.

promises, of " making the King, as soon as he should be pleased to give them this security, the greatest and most glorious Monarch of his time"

But the King made his concessions with so ill a grace, that they only served to remind the Public of his former breaches of faith, and to revive their dif fidence in the royal Word.

This supplied the Demagogues of the House with a shew of necessity for somefurther security against the King's return to his old mode of Government But all, which, by the nature of the Constitution, could be given, had been given already. Yet this would not induce these men to desist : they held it pardonable if they themselves made one breach in the Constitution, when it was to prevent the Crown from ever making more ; and therefore, with great confidence in their Cause, they demanded the MILITIA.

When Charles, who, till now, kept granting all they required, had got them at this advantage, the making breaches in the Constitution (the very thing which gave them all their credit against him), he suddenly stopt short. He found himself in a con dition to divide the People with them ; and, what was more to his reputation, to draw the wiser and worthier part of the Parliament along with him. An appeal was now made to the Sword, and a war immediately ensued.

At this sad period, when Patriotism had dege nerated into Faction, the King for once acted ably, and seized the lucky opportunity of putting his Par liament in the wrong.

And

SERMON XIX. 27

And in the wrong they surely were. Yet, in the majority of those who demanded this unconstitutional security, there was not any formed design against the Monarchy, it was rather an ill-timed provision

and overcare for their own safety *.

»/

I suppose it to be a truth unquestioned in Politics, " That the UTMOST SECURITY which a Consti tution can give for the observance of a public regu lation, is a GOOD SECURITY." The indemnity of Particulars, the private safety of Those who extorted these royal concessions, is another matter. The Patriots plainly understood they had mortally of fended a vindictive King ; for though the Martyr could forgive, yet the Monarch was of a different temper ; and that, sooner or later, they or their fa milies might fall a sacrifice to his resentments : For well they knew, that, although the People would be still likely enough to interpose in behalf of Pa- triotism against the violation of Parliamentary Esta blishments ; yet there were small hopes that they would ever be brought to move in Court quarrels, on the private complaints of the Patriots.

This was Policy, indeed ; but a Policy disclaimed by Public Virtue. For when the question is re duced to this, Whose interest is to take place ; that of the Public, or of Particulars ? the true Patriot will not hesitate in his choice. But the False did here, what is the essential of his Policy to do, he

* One who perhaps had this formed design speaks the very sense of those who had it not, in these words— if a war of this nature must be determined by treaty, &c, Ludlow, fol. eel, p, 52 at the top.

covered

28 SERMON XIX.

covered his own interest under that of the Public : and being well persuaded that himself was in danger, he endeavoured to persuade others, that the Con stitution was so likewise. And he was but too suc cessful in the imposition.

This may seem strange ; for nothing is more pla cable than a provoked People, when they have brought their Governors to reason. But we must remember, the Patriots had a powerful Ally in this quarrel ; who having yet received no satisfaction at all, were well disposed, and at the same time well able, by the nature of their Profession, to keep up the rage and apprehensions of the People. This neglect of their so trusty Coadjutors may, at first sight, appear still more strange ; That they, who had united in a common quarrel ; whose several rights had been alike invaded ; who had laboured under equal saflbrings; and who, from their first con federacy, had served the CAUSE with equal zeal and success ; that of these confederated Parties, the One should have gained every thing which Patriots could desire, and the Other only (which, but to the ma lice of a Puritan, could be no satisfaction at all) the exclusion of the Bishops from their seat in Parlia ment. For what less could be expected, when the Patriots had procured the abolition of illegal and tyrannic Courts ; a Declaration of the People's Rights ; and a triennial Parliament ; than that the Puritans should recover, what the law of nature itself had given them, a full Toleration for their Discipline and mode of worship ? But so little was this part of natural law understood, that it is very

probable,

SERMON XIX. 29

probable, had a Toleration been demanded by the Patriots, the King and his Divines would have broken with the Parliament on that Point, just as they afterwards did, on the abolition of Episcopacy. It is very certain, that had the King offered a To leration to the Puritans, they would have rejected it on the very same principle : For it was an axiom in the Theology of both, THAT TO CONNIVE AT

ERROR WAS TO PARTAKE IN THE GUILT OF IT.

Hence the King was naturally inclined to perse cute Sectaries ; and the Puritans to overturn Esta blishments. Now, things being in this train, when the Patriots, anxious for themselves, as before for the Public, insisted on further security for the royal concessions, they found an easy way of bringing the Puritans (who as yet had gained nothing) into their measures ; which was, by making one of their unconstitutional securities to be, the ABOLITION of EPISCOPACY.

But the sword was already drawn ; and not in behalf of the CONSTITUTION on either side; for the King, who now professed to defend it, still mistook his own Administration for it ; and the Par liament, which levied war on a point unconstitu tional, was soon governed by m?n who professed to overthrow it; so that the sword \vas not likely to be sheathed, till Tyranny on the one hand, or Anarchy on the other, had introduced a new species of slaughter in place of the old ; and Judicial murders had succeeded to the Military.

It is true, that in the course of this mutual car nage, each Party, in its turn, offered and accepted

proposals

30 SERMON XIX.

proposals for peace. But this was not from any real desire or hope of obtaining it, but to cajole the Peo ple to whom that side would have been extreme odious, which had appeared averse to laying down their arms. However, partly through the experienced calamities of war, and partly from men's better knowledge of one another, by means of those reci procal messages for peace, the better sort of Cour tiers grew more averse to despotic rule, and the ho- nester Patriots more disgusted with popular devices ; \vhich might have produced some good effect, had not these dawnings of returning sense and sobriety been suddenly overcast by the unexpected appear ance of a New Party, rising out of the ferment of the SELF-DENYING ORDINANCE; A swarm of armed Enthusiasts, who out-witted the Patriots, out-prayed the Puritans, and out-fought the Ca valiers ; and, with the most rapid progress, over turned and desolated all before them, in their ex treme haste to set up the fifth monarchy of King

Jesus.

Thus fell the unhappy King in a popular storm ; raised, indeed, by himself; but inflamed by his enemies, even after he had corrected the disorder of those unruly Elements which gave it birth, and were now ready, as he saw too late, to bear down all things in their course.

The King had many Virtues, but all, of so un sociable a complexion as to do him neither service nor credit.

His Religion, in which he was sincerely zealous, was over-run with Scruples : and the simplicity, if

not

SERMON XIX. 31

not the Purity, of his Morals, was debased by Casuistry.

His natural affections (a rare virtue in that hi^h station) were so excessive as to render him a slave to all his Kin : and his social, so moderate as only to enable him to lament, not to preserve his friends and servants.

His Knowledge was extensive, though not exact : and his Courage clear, though not keen : yet his Modesty far surpassing his magnanimity, his Know ledge only made him obnoxious to the doubts of his more ignorant Ministers : and his Courage, to the irresolution of his less adventurous Generals.

In a word, his Princely qualities were neither great enough nor bad enough to succeed in that mosf difficult of all attempts, the enslaving a free'' and jealous People.

The full conviction of this truth made LAUD (who was not so despicable a Politician as we com monly suppose him) upon seeing his Coadjutor, STRAFFORD, led out to slaughter, lament his fate in these emphatic and indignant words,— He served a Prince who knew not how to be, nor to be made Great*.

The execrable Parricide which followed, cannot, indeed, in strictness of speech, be charged upon the Patriots and Puritans ; who, when it was too late, did all in their power to prevent it : However, without changing the nature of things, they cannot be totally acquitted of that horrid impiety ; since their rejecting, from selfish and perverse motives,

* History of his owa Life and Troubles, p, 178.

the

32 SERMON XIX.

the full reparation the King had made to the Public; because he would not agree to an unconstitutional security for THEMSELVES, was the unavoidable oc casion of all the mischiefs that ensued. For though no man shall be made to answer for the evils which, through human perversity, arise from the faithful discharge of his duty : yet no casuistry will acquit him, even of the undesigned mischiefs which spring naturally from his unjust pursuits*.

These confusions kept increasing, under different Forms, each more ridiculous or more horrid than the other, till this miserable Nation, now become the scorn and opprobrium of the whole Earth, at length grew tired, rather than ashamed, of its re peated follies. In this temper they hastily recalled the Heir of the Monarchy : And as the cause of all their miseries had been the insisting on unreason able conditions from the Crown, they did like men driven out of one extreme, who never take breath till they have plunged themselves into another, they

* Col. Axtel, one of the Regicides, said at the Gal- lows,-—" I must truly tell you that before these late wars, " it pleased the Lord to call me by his grace, through the « work of the MINISTRY ; and afterwards keeping a day « of humiliation in fasting and prayer with MR. SAMUEL « ASH, MR. LOVE, MR. WOODCOCK, and other Mi- « NISTERS in Laurence Lane, they did so clearly state « the cause of the Parliament, that I was fully convinced in " my own conscience of the justness of the war, and there- " upon engaged in the Parliament service, which (as I "did and do" believe) was the CAUSE OF THE LORD ; « I ventured my life freely for it, and now DIE FOR IT."

State Tryals, vol. II. 3^ ed. p. 4*5*

strove

SERMON XIX. 33

strove to atone for their unjust demands upon rhe virtuous Father by the most lavish concessions to his flagitious Son; who succeeded to the Inheritance with all those advantages of an undefined Preroga tive, which an ambitious Prince could wish for the foundation of an arbitrary System. A sad presage to the Friends of Liberty, tiiat their generous la bours were not yet at an end ! Indeed, within less than half a century, the old family-projects, taken up again by the two last princes of this line, revived the public quarrel. But it was conducted under hap pier Auspices, not by the assistance of SECTARIES, but by the NATIONAL CHURCH : and concluded in the final establishment of a free Constitution.

And now, to reflect a little on this melancholy Story. Never did Piety and Politics, in their friendly association for the public service, project any thing more useful to Church and State, than the institu tion of this annual Solemnity ; which serves to keep awake an awful sense of Providence, to create an ab horrence of licentiousness, and to cherish a generous but sober affection for Liberty.

Nor was there ever any period in the English Story so fruitful of important Lessons for the use of civil Life as that which, with so much shame, we now commemorate ; and which, but for this use, the wis dom of Government would, I conceive, have, long ago, buried in oblivion.

Of the various instructions, which both PATRIOTS

and MINISTER? may gather from these crimes and

Vor. X, D follies

34 S E R M O N XIX,

follies of our Forefathers, I shall beg leave just to mention two or three of the most im portant.

I. The PATRIOT may learn, from the immediate cause of the War, that when, at any time, his brave and successful struggles for his Country have re stored again the disordered balance of power in a free Community, he may learn, I say, to be con tent with that Security for the enjoyment of his labours which the nature of the Constitution affords ; and not think of demanding such branches of the Prerogative in hostage, which, if given, would destroy that very balance, for the preservation of which, he pretends to require them. On this rock the Patriots- of that time ran ; which cast them, stript of their popularity, on the unfaithful and abandoned ground of their Adversaries : for what material difference is there between acting UNCONSTITUTIONALLY for the sake of monarchic power, and acting thus for the sake of popular ? And whenever the Patrons of liberty shall give this advantage to the Enemies of it, as much of that popularity which the first lose, the other will gain ; and so, the contest becoming more equal, Force alone must decide : which can not but end in the ruin of the Constitution, after it is become a principle with both, to alter and unsettle it.

II. The PATRIOT may learn from the SELF- DENYING ORDINANCE, to beware of all innovations eot strictly constitutional, how right soever they may appear to the friends of Justice, or equal to

the

SERMON XIX. 35

the friends of Liberty. And could any thing be more specious than that fair distribution of power and profit, in what was called the NEW MODEL ? The members of the two Houses had ingrossed to themselves all the posts andsoffices in the Military. This raised suspicions amongst their people, that men who got so greatly by the war would never be Very forward to pat an end to it. Hereupon the Parliament, in a fit of affected generosity, passed an Ordinance, which separated the interests of the two bodies, by not permitting a Member of either House to receive a Commission in the Army. But what was the effect of this separation ? A deluge of in dependent Republicans broke at once into that Camp, which was formed, or pretended to be formed, for the defence of King and Parliament. Such was the sad issue of an UNCONSTITUTIONAL INDE PENDENCE arising from the new model ! And all this was, to avoid the imaginary danger of a depen dence strictly constitutional : that is, a dependence of the parts on one another ; a dependence as ne cessary for the regular motions of the civil machine of free Government, as any the like subordinate combinations in physical or artificial bodies.

I. Again, MINISTERS OF STATE may learn, from the faults of Charles's administration, not to dispense with the royal Word for the sake of some present convenience ; which (besides the public mischiefs that attend the violation of a thing so sacred) is in deed the cancelling THEIR OWN best security. When the King's ablest servant had, in the great wants of D a the

3& SERMON XIX.

the Treasury, encouraged his Master to break his faith, so often pledged to his Parliament, never more to exert any of those branches of baleful Preroga tive, which they had so often fulminated ; he little suspected that he was opening the way to his own ruin, by habituating his royal Master to think slightly of his promises, ia the number of \vhich was pro tection to himself. And when he understood the whole severity of his fate, which this policy had brought upon him, it was with no good grace that he exclaimed, Put not your trust in Princes, far there is no FAITH in them.

II Another lesson MINISTERS OF STATE may learn from the transactions of those times, of no less importance to their Master's interest, and their own honour, which is, never in their Sovereign's distresses to throw their own miscarriages upon Him, and to turn all his graces upon themselves. A faithful servant to his Prince (arid such a one the two Charles's had) will procure friends for his Master ; and provide for himself only through his Master's favour : sueh a Servant will give honest Counsels ; yet if others be followed, he will excuse, with all his wit and authority, the share his Master had in pro moting them. But it was the hard fate of the Martyr Charles to be commonly served by Minis ters so ungenerous, that they were the first to decry unsuccessful Counsels though given by themselves, and to throw them upon the obstinacy, the bigotry, and the uxorious folly of the Sovereign. A baseness of conduct which contributed as much to make the King

odious

SERMON XIX. 37

odious to the Public, as all the intrigues of the Long Parliament. It is no wonder that these unfaithful Servants took the advantage of his misfortunes to press him for dignities and places of trust and power, at a time when such things afforded little benefit to themselves, yet were of infinite disservice to their Master. For these ill-timed honours exasperated the personal enmities of the Leaders in Parliament against these Ministers, and indisposed them to any terms of accommodation with the King : For they had reasonably laid their account to share with the Courtiers, in the Sovereign's good graces, whenever \i Peace should be brought about : but now they ^vere made desperate, by finding that the King had nothing left to give.

In the last place, I would observe, that this strug gle between King and Parliament, before each side dew to Arms, will serve to confirm a general truth of much importance to all Parties, That, in civil contentions, the OPPOSITION (to use a modern term) is much apter to degenerate into faction, than a MINISTRY to run into despotic measures. For the very attempt to decry an Administration, will, •by degrees, render it sage ; but the application of , ministerial power against an Opposition, makes Oppo sition popular at once ; and popularity presently runs into licence. Thus, in fact, it happened here. Before either side had taken the field, the Kind's Administration was grown public-spirited, and the Parliament was become a Faction.

To conclude all, Let no lover of his Country be too

ready to take scandal at the contentions to which

JD 3 free

38 SERMON XIX.

free States are so obnoxious. Civil commotions have the same use, in the moral world, that stormy and tempestuous seasons have in the physical. In the stagnation of a continued calm, the best sys tem sickens and decays ; but these periodic agita tions stifle corruption in the seed, give new vigour to the languid Constitution, and enable the vital Principles of it to perform their destined operations. It is true, indeed, when a storm is let loose upon either System, it ravages and destroys what it was meant to support and actuate. The System of Na- ture has the Providence of God to curb the blind violence of stubborn matter, which else, in the im petuosity of its course, would soon reduce itself to its former Chaos. The Political System has nothing but the Providence of Government to sustain it against its own fury, from falling into Anarchy, But the Providence of Government is weak and bounded; and needeth all the assistance of good subjects to strengthen its hands, and enforce obedi ence to its insulted Authority. It was the rejection of this salutary duty in some, and the careless dis charge of it in others, which, at the fatal period we tiow commemorate, was the last cause of all the desolation that ensued.

SERMON XX,

Preached before the Incorporated Society for the propa gation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts ; on Friday , February 2j; 1766. •

REVELATION of St. JOHN, chap, x. ver. 11.

AND HE SAID UNTO ME, TKOU MUST PROPHESY AGAIN, BEFORE MANY PEOPLES, AND NA TIONS, AND TONGUES, AND KINGS.

Q, O and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, was the great Commission intrusted by our Divine Master to his Disciples. And we know how faithfully they discharged their trust ; these latter ages of extended Commerce having disco vered the most evident marks and traces of their footsteps, in every Region, how remote soever, of the then known World.

But there was a NEW WORLD to be disclosed, another Hemisphere to be explored ; though re served for those daring Adventurers who in these later times have pierced through the trackless waste of the great Atlantic Ocean.

D 4 And

40 SERMON XX.

And for this Orphaned World the Holy Spirit made the like charitable provision. — Where the fu ture fortunes of the Church, from its humble Cradle to its inthronization in glory, are foretold to St. John, in a regwlar series of Prophetic visions, enig matically represented, the Apostle sees a mighty angel descend from Heaven ; a rainbow surrounding his head-, his face like the Sun, and his feet as pil lars of fire *. In this so graphical a description of the Son of God, clothed in all the pomp and majesty of his Father, the attitude is most observable ; His

RIGHT FOOT WAS ON THE SEA, and hlS Itjt OH the

Earth -J-: An altitude expressive of his ready Pro vidence addressed, in the fulness of time, to unveil this NEW WORLD so long concealed in the bosom of the Deep ; and pointing out to his Church the reli gious use that was to be made of this discovery. For the angel having sworn (which denotes the revelation to be a matter of high importance) and intimated (by the words, there shall be time no longer) that the consideration of time is not to be taken in J, the Subject being of a distant period ; he addresses him self to St. John, who here represents the Church, in the words of my text— Thou must prophesy AGAi>7 before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and Kixgs. — As much as to say, " The Church hath been faithful to her great Trust, in all things \vhi jh have been hitherto in her power to discharge. But a time will come, when this mighty labour, so

* Rev. chap x. ver. i. t Ver. 2.

on o'vjj «« craw ETI. ver. 6.

success-

SERMON XX. 41

successfully undergone, in the conversion of the Old World, is to be repeated in the New. For the Church mustPiiopHESY AGAIN, or preach the Gos- for the second time to many new-discovered People and Nations." To prophesy, signifying here what it does in many other places of the New Testament; to preach the glad tidings of the Gospel.

Hence it appears, that to preach the Gospel to the new World when discovered, is not a mere act of simple Charity, but a work of indispensable duty.

The providential Discovery was at length made ; and though, in itself, replete with all the seeds of tem poral and spiritual Blessings, 'yet was it the im mediate occasion of the most infernal mischiefs. For as in the old World the Devil stept in to inter cept, the first fruits of Creation due to the all- bounteous Author, so was it, in the new : While, under the mask of Religion, if ever Popery might be said to wear that mask, the Evil One excited his Agents to desolate this late-discovered Continent, by the butchery and sacrifice of millions ; and all, for having more gold than they knew bow to use, and more land than they knew how to cultivate. But while these Dogs of Hell were crying havock, and the Inhabitants of the new World on the brink of extirpation, God raised up his chosen Instruments in the old to restore Christianity to its health and purity, then labouring in its last pangs under popish tyranny and superstition. For the Gospel, long se questered and shut up, was of necessity to be known again before it could be preached AGAIN. The

REFQU-

42 SERMON XX.

REFORMATION OF RELIGION once more opened this living Source. And then it was that the Sense of my Text became apparent ; and that the Church first addressed itself to this undertaking.

Nor was this the only benefit. The Church of Rome itself, in order to support its shaken usurpa tion, was obliged in this, as in other palliations of its abuses, to vie with us in the discharge of this second Mission, in which our venerable Corporation has borne so large a Share.

I am but little acquainted with the history of its pious Establishment ; but I reasonably suppose it to have been founded in obedience to this SECOND CALL: and, consequently, that the peculiar objects of its exalted Charity were the barbarous Ameri cans, so long kept hid in the Shadow of Death.

I, Our Colonies, indeed, opened the Door to this spiritual Enterprize ; and were, in reason, to be paid for their pains with some portion of the heavenly Manna ; not so much for relief of their own wants, as for the wants of their Posterity. Our Colonies were formed and first peopled by religious and con-> scientious men ; who, made uneasy at home by their intolerant Brethren, left the Old World, to em joy, in peace, that first and chief prerogative of Man, ' the free worship of God according to his own Con science : At one time PURITANS driven over by the Episcopal Church; at another, CHURCHMEN forced thither by the Presbyterian Faction ; just as the re volutions of State threw the civil power into one or the other hand. For it must be remembered (though

to

SERMON XX. 43

to the opprobrium of humanity) that, of all the errors of that Antichristian Church from which the GOS PELLERS were, with derision, expelled, this most abominable of all, PERSECUTION FOR OPINIONS, stuck the fastest; and after having tarnished the splendor of almost every Protestant Community in its turn, was the latest, and with most difficulty, shaken off.

Now, amongst the general JVants of new Colo nies, composed of such kind of -Men, RELIGION is rarely one. Of this our Colonists carried over an ample Cargo ; sufficient for themselves and their Posterity : and might therefore have been safely left to live upon their own Stock.

So that had this been all, our important Mission had not stopped at the Door, but only taken ad vantage of its opening, to address ourselves directly to the Gentiles.

But though the zeal of the first Colonists (re kindled by this violent remove to the other Hemi sphere) kept Religion alive and active, yet their Po verty disabled them from supplying fuel to the vital flame; I mean, provision for A PREACHING MINIS TRY. Insomuch, that, without the kindly assistance of their Mother-Country, this new Christian Com monwealth had been, as the Roman historian ex presses it of the imperial City in its Cradle, Res unius JEtatis. Against this danger, a timely aid was to be provided. And the Founders of our Society not being Fanatics, would not intrust the care to Fanatics : a People always ready, yet never fitted for orje of these spiritual Enterprizes ; indeed, so for ward

44 SERMON XX.

forward as to go out upon a second call, naked and pennyless like those holy men, who, with the large viaticum of Miracles, went out upon the first. It was thought fit therefore to assign a decent mainte nance for these late labourers in the Lord's Vine yard ; who, having stood all the day idle, were called, at the last hour, to their work. To this the Charter of Incorporation alludes ; where, speaking of the purpose of the Society to appoint Missionaries to the Colonies, it adds— which, by reason of their po verty r, are destitute and unprovided of a MAIXTE- XAXCEybr Ministers, and the public worship of Gcd.

This purpose hath been hitherto soberly pursued,: our Missionaries to America having carefully avoid ed the Conduct of those of Rome, into the Levant ; whose principal design hath hitherto been to reduce the distressed Churches of Greece and Asia to a submission to the Papal Tyranny.

Notwithstanding this sage and decent conduct, certain of the Colonies, where the Established Church is Presbyterian, and still in its antient spirit of PURITY, have taken offence at our Mis sion exercised in their quarters, though only for the service of the dispersed Members of the Epis copal Church, residing amongst them.

Such a behaviour in a People, where wealth and Civil Faction have, as usual, inflamed religious zeal, is enough to remind us of that crisis, when the Dis ciples of Jesus are directed to shake off the dust of their feet for a testimony against them.

Nor would such a Secession lead us from the

proper

S E R M O N XX. 45

proper business of the SOCIETY. For though a Mission to the Colonies was first in the execution, yet, as appears from what hath been said, it was only secondary in the original Scheme.

Here, then, we might well leave these contentious People to themselves, did not a miserable circum stance still call for our rejected Chanty : I mean, the spreading GENTILISM in the Colonies them selves. Not a brutal ignorance of God, as amongst the savage Natives; but a blasphemous contempt of his holy dispensations, amongst our Philosophic Colonists. The Origine of which folly was, how ever, no more than this

The rich product of the Plantations soon sup plied the Colonists with all the conveniencics of life. And men are no sooner at their ease, than they arc ready addressed to pleasure. So that the second Venture of our Colonists was for the hwuries of social life : amongst which, the Commodity called FREE-THINKING was carefully consigned to them, as that which would give a relish and seasoning to all the rest. For in this close union of Sense and Reason in our Nature, the Man is at unrest, tii! each part be properly accommodated. While the body is content with a temperate enjoyment of its appropriated Good, the mind finds its pleasure in the pursuit of Knowledge, and in the practice of Virtue. But when the body plunges into the lux ury of Sense, the mind will extravagate through ail the regions of a viciated Imagination. And these corporeal and intellectual Vices supporting one

another,

46 SERMON XX.

another, ttie ravages they make of Humanity arei not to be controlled.

Thus it came to pass, that the very People, whose Fathers were driven for conscience-sake into the waste and howling Wilderness, is now as ready to laugh at that BIBLE, the most precious relick of their ruined Fortunes, as at their Ruffs and Collar-bands.

Against this outrageous Folly (the sure prognostic of a falling State) the dearest Charity requires us to oppose all our spiritual endeavours, before we go on upon the great Duty to which we are summoned in my text.

II. This brings me to that point, which I next proposed to consider, Our Mission to the Gentiles. And here, in entering on the subject, it may not be unuscful to observe the advantages which Popery hath over the Reformed, in training up their La bourers to this Harvest. For we should be unjust to ROME not to acknowledge its zeal to be equal to that of other Churches, in displaying the Chris tian Banner throughout the habitable world.

.To see their advantages in a true light, we should consider what are the proper qualifications of one of these Soldiers of Christ — What he is disposed to do, and what he is ready to suffer, in this religious warfare, amongst Heathens, whether civilized or barbarous — He must have an ardent zeal and un wearied diligence ; Appetites subdued to all the dis^ tresses of want, and a All ad superior to all the ter-* rors of mortality.

rsow, tiiese qualities and habits, their several

Orders

SERMON XX. 47

Orders of Religious (from whence their Missionaries are taken) very early labour to inculcate. One quality is more deeply implanted by this Order, another by that ; and the most necessary and essential are form ed in all : thus all the monastic Institutions kindle and keep alive that exalted charity which ends in a Self-sacrifice for the salvation of our Brother.

The JESUFTES subdue the Will by the severe dis cipline of blind obedience : to stand wherever they are placed, and to run wherever they are called. The CARTHUSIANS subdue the appetites by a tedious course of bodily labours and mortifying abstinences : and the Order called THE CONGREGATION OF ST. PAUL, subdues the whole man : For, in a sense as peculiar to them as to their holy Patron, they die daily, the observance of their whole rule consisting in one continued meditation on the King of Terrors.

Nor is this all. The several Orders, like Work men who travel separately on the various parts of the same Machine, each of them to be disposed by the Master-Artist, in its proper place and to its destined use ; the Orders, I say, send their Subjects, thus prepared, to the College DE PRO PAGANDA FIDE, to receive their last finishing by instruction in the Languages, the Manners and the Customs of the barbarous Nations, to whose conversion they are appointed and addressed. And, indeed, without so long and regular a preparation, it is net in Nature, whatever Grace may effect, for any man chearfully, and, at the same time, soberly to undergo all the accumulated distresses, ever ready to overtake a faithful Missionary.

For

48 SERMON XX.

For want of these advantages, a Protestant So ciety, like ours, hath been too frequently obliged to take up with subjects^ from amongst men of ruined fortunes ; such, whose impotency of mind have shewn them unable to bear either Poverty or Riches. Or else from amongst heated Zealots, totally unqua lified for every sober and important work.

And, indeed, when we consider the greatness of our wants in this kind, we should be tempted to wish for a COLLEGE, destined for the supplial of a suf ficient number of able Missionaries in constant succession, brought up, from their early youth, in such a discipline as may be judged best fitted for such a service. And here it may not be im pertinent to observe, that should the Governors of that famous UNIVERSITY, to which a munificent Benefactor hath bequeathed a large estate for the erection of a NEW COLLEGE, be at a loss to exe cute his intention in such a manner as may give new vigour to the decayed Spirit of Learning and Religion, they may find in a COLLEGE DE PROPA GANDA FIDE, an establishment which would in terfere with no other, and would give additional sanctity to all the rest.

Having premised thus much, I come more di rectly to Our Mission to the Gentiles ; considered in obedience to the Command, to Prophesy AGAIN btfore many peoples and nations ; that is to say, Barbarians bond and free. These latter, the Abori gines of the Country, Savages without Law or Religion, are the principal Objects of our Charity. Their temporal, as well as spiritual conditions calls

loudly

SERMON XX. 4g

loudly for our assistance ; and more especially as civil izing will be found a necessary step to conversion. The benevolent Spirit of Antiquity, which set their Heroes and Lawgivers on reforming the savage manners of their barbarous Neighbours, and com municating to them the blessings of CIVIL LIFE, as divine as it appears, hath been yet outdone in the Charity of these later times, which sends Mission aries amongst the wild inhabitants of the new World, with the greater blessing of the Gospel. But the constant ill success of this glorious Undertaking, hath been a long time matter of grief to all good men. Something therefore must needs be much ajniss, to defeat a purpose which Grace and Nature conspire to advance. And, if we search carefully into it, we shall find it to be this, the preaching of it to savage and brutal Men. For the GOSPEL, plain and simple as it is, and fitted in its nature for what it was ordained to effect, requires an intellect something above that of a Savage to apprehend. Nor is it at all to the dishonour of our holy Faith, that such a one must be taught a previous Lesson ; and first of all instructed in the emollient arts of life. And it is not one of the least benefits of SOCIETY, that, at the time it teaches us to improve every bo dily accommodation, it enlarges and enlightens the understanding by the activity which the mind exer cises in improving those accommodations.

For want of this previous culture, it hath hap pened, that when, by the unwearied labour of the Missionary, numbers of these Savages have been baptized into the Faith, such Converts have never VOL. X, E long

50 S E R M O N XX.

long preserved, nor were they able to propagate among their Tribes, the Christianity they had been taught ; but successive Missions have found, the

to *

work was ever to begin a-new.

From whence we conclude, that they set out at the wrong end ; for, to make the Gospel understood, much more to propagate and establish it, these Barr barians should have been first taught the civil arts of life. And, indeed, to civilize a barbarous People is, in itself, a work of such exalted charity, that to find it neglected, when a further and far nobler end than the arts of life may be procured by it, is matter of infinite astonishment.

We justly censure the Popish Missionaries for their ill-directed zeal in propagating a C&mmcn- iitious Gospel, for pure and genuine Christianity. But then we must be so fair to confess that, in the preparatory part of their Mission, their conduct and address have been so humane and rational, as to be well worthy of our imitation. Nor need this give scandal to any good Protestant, Our great Master himself hath recommended to the Children of light the Example of the Children of this World, because, says he, these are wiser in their generation-, that is, they are more skilful than the Children of light, in

ADAPTING MEANS TO ENDS.

This learned Audience easily understands that, by the Children of this World, I mean the JE- SUITES: they are emphatically so. Now these men, have, both in South and North America, success fully practised the method I here presume to re commend : which is, first of all, to CIVILIZE the

subjects

SERMON XX. 51

subjects of our Mission. The steps they took to effect this great purpose were no less judicious than the project itself was noble and benevolent. They began with teaching the Savages the Art of AGRICULTURE; of all the civil arts, the most essential, as it soonest reduces men from a roving wandering life into settled

^- O

habitations, the first great bond of the Social State. The Provinces of Paraguay and the Island of Call" fornia do, for this blessing, proclaim them the Bene factors of Mankind : And had they but taught the ETERNAL G os PEL in its purity, at the time they taught the transitory arts of life in their integrity, they would have deserved all the praise, and much of the Power they aspired to.

But in all this affair, the awful Justice of Provi dence on the Instruments is no less conspicuous than his Blessing on the Work ; which, when consi dered together, will afford an useful warning to Mankind.

This SOCIETY OF JESUS, as is too well known, had, from their very first establishment, in direct op position to the professed end of their institution, and in defiance of the sacred name they had assumed, im- merged themselves in the worst part of civil intrigues ; which they carried on in so flagitious a manner, that there is hardly a Court in Christendom (into most of which they had insinuated themselves) where they have not left manifest traces of their Antichris- tian Politics, in seditions and assassinations, sanc tified and supported on the two main pillars of their system, relaxed Morals and Papal Omnipotency.

At length, after having rioted in these disorder? £ 2 for

52 SERMON XX.

for a century and an half, they conceived, either out of humanity or avarice, the noble project of civil izing the inland Inhabitants of South America; whom the Spaniards and Portuguese, on the East and West, had, by their diabolic treatment, ren dered, so outrageous against their Persecutors, that the fiercest beasts of prey were a more desirable neighbourhood.

In this condition the Missionary Jesuites found these persecuted Indians: and, for the ease and safety (as they pretended) of the Christian Colonies on each side, they set upon the desperate project of taming them to humanity : which at length indeed they effected ; though with infinite labour and pro digious slaughter of the brethren of the Order.

However, the attempt succeeded : and the Je suites, out of these wild and rabid tribes, founded so equal and powerful a Republic, as by their vir tues to disgrace -the neighbouring Colonies, and by their Policy to give umbrage to the two Catholic Monarchs, to whom those Colonies belong.

For the FATHERS, now Fathers indeed, and worthy of their name, the Fathers of a People, seeing the morals of the surrounding Colonies incurably corrupt, could find no other effectual means of securing the infant virtue of their new establishments from the contagion of Spanish and Portuguese manners, than by a total exclusion of all comm erce and commu nication between them.

This served for a pretence to the two monarchs (whose sovereignty over Paraguay the Fathers ac knowledged) to take to themselves the fruits of that

Sovereignty,

SERMON XX. 53

Sovereignty, now become a morsel delicious enough to excite a regal appetite.

They therefore entered into a kind of Partition- Treaty to share Paraguay between them ; a Treaty which is likely to end in the ruin of this long-envied and detested Order : Indignant Providence seeming to have decreed, as a lesson to mankind, that while, for the sake of Humanity, this glorious work should be preserved, that yet for the sake of divine Justice, these unworthy instruments, who with impunity had so long wantoned in civil mischief, and confounded and insulted all things sacred and profane, should at length fall by their first virtuous project.

But we, who have GOD and the Monarch on our side, have nothing of this to fear. On the contrary, we have every thing to encourage us in this arduous task ; which is now rendered more promising and easy, by the large dominions lately acceded to the British empire in America. Our 'entrance into the heart of these barbarous Nations being now no longer interrupted and traversed by the frauds, the false insinuations, and the malicious Tales of our Euro pean Rivals.

The spiritual benefits .arising from the labour of civilizing are many and substantial. At present, the Savages, (who have sense enough to see that the Europeans keep many things from them of high im portance to their wellare) observing in us, while busied only in our Gospel Mission, a total dis regard to their temporal interests, are difficultly brought to think, that the spiritual matters, pressed upon them, are of much importance either to them-

E selves

54 SERMON XX.

selves or their Teachers. But when they have been first of all so sensibly obliged by us as to be re deemed from the miseries of a brutal life, and set at ease by the security, and made happy by the ac- cojnmodations of Society, they will naturally give a grateful and serious attention to their Benefactors, instructing them in sublimer truths, and directing them to still more substantial happiness. In a word, From merciless enemies, ever addressed to ravage and desolate the borders of our Colonies, we shall make them our cordial Friends, ready to em brace peace ; a peace, not forced upon them by the terror of our arms, or feigned by them through the allurements of treacherous Presents, but immovably established by gratitude and love, and further sup ported by the mutual advantages of HONEST COM MERCE.

But, alas ! we are yet far from this glorious Term of our labours. The hinderances have been many — Partly from the qualities of the Missionaries, and in. part from the ravenous pursuits of our Colonists.

Of the Missionaries, some have been over-heated with that Fanaticism which disposes men to an utter contempt of worldly things : so that, instead of teaching the Savages the benefits of social life, and recommending civil manners to their roving Tribes, they are much rather inclined to throw aside their own, and accommodate themselves with the dried skins and parched corn of the Natives. Others of a cooler turn and lower form of Superstition, took it into their heads, that the Vices of improved life (as they may be now gathered in their full bloom, 23 amongst

SERMON XX. 55

amongst the Colonists) would more indispose the Americans to the precepts of the Gospel, than their present state of brutality incapacitate them from ap prehending the doctrines of it : and therefore, on the whole, thought it best to keep their Converts shut out from the advantages of so dangerous a society.

But, without question, the obstinate perseverance in this fatal measure is chiefly owing to the false and inhumane policy of the Colonists, A policy common to them all, which makes them despise and set at nought even the horrors of a Savage War> for the sake of an unequal Traffic between the improved and unimproved gifts of all- bounteous Nature.

From t he Free, I come now (the last point I propose to consider) to the Barbarians in bonds.

By these I mean the vast multitudes stolen yearly from the opposite Continent, and sacrificed by the Colonists to their great Idol, the GOD OF GATX. " But what then ? (say these zealous Worshippers of Mammon) it is our own Property we offer up." What ! Property in your Brethren, as in herds of Cattle? your Brethren both by Nature and Grace, Creatures endowed with all our Faculties, possessing all our qualities but that of colour? Does not this equally shock the feelings of humanity, and the dictates of common sense ? But, alas ! what is there in the infinite abuses of Society which does not shock them !

In excuse of this violation of all things civil and sacred (for Nature created Man free, and Grace invites him to assert his freedom), it hath been pre tended, That " though, indeed, these miserable Out- TL 4 casts

56 SERMON XX.

casts of the Race of Adam be torn from their homes and native Wilds by force and fraud, yet this vio lation of the rights of humanity improves their con dition and renders them less unhappy." But who are You, Mho pretend to judge of another man's happiness f that State, which each man, under the instinctive guidance of his Creator, forms for him self; and not one Man for another? To know what constitutes mine or your Happiness, is the sole pre rogative of Him who made us, and cast us in so various and different Moulds. Did these your Slaves ever complain to you of their unhappiness amidst their native woods and desarls ? or, rather, let me ask, did they ever cease complaining of their condition under you, their Lordly Masters ? where they see, indeed, the accommodations of Civil life ; but, the more to embitter their miseries, see them all pass by to others, themselves unbenefited by them. Be so gracious then, ye petty Tyrants over human freedom, to let your Slaves judge for themselves, what it is which makes their own happiness* And then see whether they do not rather place it in the Return to their own Country, than in the con templation of your Grandeur, of which, their dis tresses make so large a part. A Return so pas sionately longed for, that, despairing of happiness amidst the Chains of their cruel taskmasters, they console themselves in the fancy that their future state will be a return to their own country ; where the equal Lord of all things will recompense their sufferings here. And I do not find, their haughty Masters have yet concerned themselves to invade

this

SERMON XJC. 57

this last refuge of the miserable. The less hardy of them indeed wait for this consolation till overwearied Nature sets them free; but more resolved tempers have recourse even to self-violence, to force a spee dier passage.

But it may be still urged, " that although what is called human happiness be of so fantastic a nature, that each man creates it for himself, yet human misery is more substantial and uniform through out all the tribes of Men. Now, from the worst of real miseries, the savage Africans (say their more savage Masters) are entirely secured by these forced emigrations ; such as the being per petually hunted down, like beasts of prey or profit, by their more fierce and powerful Neighbours.'' — In truth, a, blessed change ! from the being hunted to the being caught. But who are they that have set on foot this general HUNTING ? Are they not these very civilized violators of humanity, themselves? who tempt the weak appetites, and provoke the wild passions of the fiercer Savages to prey upon the rest. However, in favour of an established enormity it is fit that all that can be urged should be enforced! Something, I own, indeed not much, may be saicl in favour of this traffic. The TRADING IN MEN was the staple Commodity of the most early times : for, as the Poet observes,

Proud Nimrod first the bloody chase be^an, A mighty Hunter, and his prey was MAN.

But, to bring this nice consideration home to our selves. We of this Corporation, by the ceaseless

change

58 SERMON XX.

change of Property, are become the innocent par takers of the fruits of so iniquitous a traffic ; a very worthy benefactor having bequeathed unto us in trust, for the Propagation of the Gospel, A PLAN TATION STOCKED WITH SLAVES. An odd Legacy to the promulgators of the Law of Liberty ! But intended, perhaps, as a kind of compensation for these violations of it. And, if so, I am certain it will fully answer the pious intention of the Donor. God, out of this Evil (according to the gracious way of his Providence) having made us the honoured Instruments of producing Good.

The cruelty of certain PLANTERS, with respect to the temporal accommodations of these poor wretches, and the irreligious negligence of others with regard to their spiritual, is become a general Scandal.

Now this singular Donation will enable us to re dress both the inhumanity and impiety of this con duct within the limits of our own Property. But this is the least part of the advantages we shall reap from it. What is of infinite more importance is the EXAMPLE we shall be enabled to hold out to the Colonies at large; an Example to invite or shame all tyrannous Masters into a more compassionate treatment of their fellow -creatures by Nature and their Brethren by Grace.

It would be impiety to suspect that the Society \vill not persevere in making this use of so fortunate a circumstance ; since their duty more particularly exacts it, and their means of all kinds enable them to do it with effect,

To

SERMON XX. 59

To conclude, From what hath been said may be Been how faithfully this incorporated Society have laboured to discharge their Trust.

1 have ventured to hint at what appears to me the best means of perfecting the Work, by setting before you (though far unable to do it to advantage) the new encouragements we have to Prophesy AGAIN before many Peoples y and Nations, and Tongues, and Kings,

POSTSCRIPT.

SINCE the printing this, a pamphlet has been pub lished, intitled, A brief Narrative of the Indian Charity-School in Connecticut, New-England; in which is a Letter from the Indians of Onohoquage to the Directors of this Chanty; curious enough, pn many accounts, to be here transcribed.

Utsage, July 31, 1765.

BRETHREN,

WE were informed by our Messenger that we sent to you last Spring (Gwedelkes, or Peter Jgwiron- dongwas), that you would not only assist us by send ing us Ministers to teach us Christianity, but also that you would assist us in setting up Husbandry, by sending a Number of white People to live with us ; who, when come, should build us Mills, teach us Husbandry, and furnish us with Tools for Hus

bandry, <§r,

We

60 POSCRIPT TO SERMON XX.

We greatly rejoiced at Bearing of it, and expected them this Spring, but are disappointed ; at which we are very sorry : But we hope that we may yet receive them, and should much rejoice in it, should you send them to us.

We would have you understand, Brethren, that we have no Thoughts of selling our Land to any that come to live among us. For if we should sell a little Land to any, by and by they would want to buy a little more, and so our Land would go by Inches, till we should have none to live upon. — Yet as those that come to instruct us must live, we have no Objections against their improving as much Land as they please ; yet- the Land shall remain ours.

We have, Brethren, never petitioned to you yet for any to assist us, but only those that come with GOD'S News (L e. the Gospel) ; yet, as you have

offered to assist us likewise in teaching us Husbandry,

./ '

we greatly rejoice in it, AND THINK THAT THEY SHOULD GO TOGETHER, the one as well as the other, and that we want Instruction in both. Brethren, we send our kindest Love to you, and remain your Brethren.

Isaac Dakaycmnscre.

Adam Waoonwanoron.

SERMON XXL

ANSWER A FOOL ACCORDING TO HIS FOLLY.

PROV. xxvi. ver. 4, 5.

ANSWER NOT A FOOL ACCORDING TO HIS FOLLT, LEST THOU ALSO BE LIKE UNTO HIM. ANSWER A FOOL ACCORDING TO HIS FOLLY, LEST HE BE WISE IN HIS OWN CONCEIT.

THE contempt of Religion soon followed the abuse of it : and the abuse of this sacred In stitution is almost coeval with the thing itself: fov that corruption of heart, whose disorder Religion was ordained to cure, hath been ever struggling against its remedy.

I. In the days of Solomon, when Wisdom was at its height, Folly, as we learn from many passages of that regal Sage, kept equal paces with it. Hence it was, that, after exhibiting many lively paintings of the irreligious Scorner, he subjoined directions to the generous Advocate of Piety and Virtue, how best to repress their insolence and vanity. ANSWER NOT a Fool, (soys he) according^ to his Jolly > lest

thou

62 SERMON XXI.

thou also be like unto him. ANSWER a Fool ac> cording to his folly, kst he be wise in his own conceit.

Short isolated sentences were the mode in which ancient Wisdom delighted to convey its precepts, for the regulation of life and manners. But when this natural mode of instruction had lost the grace ot novelty, and a studied refinement had new coloured the candid simplicity of ancient converse, these in structive Sages found it necessary to give their moral maxims the seasoning and poignancy of Paradoxes. In these lively and not useless sports of fancy, the Son of David, we are told, greatly excelled. We find them to abound in the writings which bear his name : and we meet with frequent allusions to them, in . all the parts of Sacred Writ, under the names of Riddles, Parables, and Dark-sayings.

Now of all the examples of this species of in struction, there is none fuller of moral wisdom than this Paradox of my Text, or which in the happiness of the expression hath so artfully conveyed the Key for opening the treasures of it. But as a dark con ceit and a dull one have a great proximity in modern Wit ; and a nice difference is not distinguished from a contradiction in modern reasoning ; this Paradox of the Sage hath been mistaken by his Critics for an absurdity of some of his Transcribers, who forgot the negative in the latter member of the sentence ; and so is to be set right : and at an easier expense, than unfolding dark sentences of old, namely, ex changing them, for clearer, of a modern texture; which TIMS may make ancient readings-, and which

a careful

SERMON XXI. 63

a careful collation of its blunders may hereafter make the true *.

II. But they who choose to receive Scripture in its antique Garb, will perhaps venture with me, to

try

* So again, Prov. xviii. 12. Whoso Jindeth a Wif* (says the Wise man) Jindeth a good thing', and obtaineth favour of the Lord. But so bold an assertion hath re volted the more experienced Critics. They presume that Solomon expressed himself according to those venerable MSS. which read — Whoso Jindeth A GOOD WIPE Jindeth A GOOD THING; and obtaineth favour of the Lord. And this out of regard to the truth of things. But Solomon sure was never sent into the world to make this discovery. It was a fitter exploit for the old Hermit of Prague, the Poet speaks of, who although he never saw pen and ink, yet by mere dint of penetration discovered, that what ever is, is. And had these Critics reflected (which would have required but little more reach of thought) that the Wise man was here only characterizing the divine Ordi nance of Marriage itself, as instituted by God in Para dise, on this great Principle — that it was not GOOD for man to be alone, their doubts concerning the integrity of the text had been easily relieved: Solomon's asser tion being simply this, " That whoever endeavours to " conform himself to the order of Providence, in sup- " porting this Institution, endeavours to obtain a good " thing." It is not the Woman, whether good or bad, that hath here this appellation : but the Wife figuratively, too, employed for the holy Institution of Marriage itself. And to this sense the concluding words might have led them — and obtaineth favour of the Lord. For why doth he who Jindeth a wife, obtain God's favour? Surely because he hath complied with, and promoted, the Ordi nance

64 SERMON XXI.

try whether the seeming contradiction in the common text cannot be fairly unriddled without any other aid than of the words themselves in which the dark say Ing is conveyed.

Had the Folly of these Fools been only of one condition or denomination, the advice to answer, and not to answer, had indeed been repugnant to itself ; but as thejblly, by the Wise Man's own ac count of it, is seen to have been of different kinds, in some of which, to answer might offend the dig nity of Truth ; and, in others, not to answer, might hurt its interests; To answer, and not to answer, is a consistent, and may, for aught these Critics know, be a very wise direction.

Had the advice been given simply and without circumstance, to answer the Fool, and not to answer him, a Critic who held the Sacred Text in reverence, would satisfy himself in supposing, that the different directions referred to the doing a thing in and out of season. But \\hen, to the general advice about answering, this circumstance is added, according to his folly, that interpretation is excluded ; and a dif ficulty indeed arises; a difficulty, which hath made those, who have no reverence for the text, accuse it of absurdity and contradiction.

But now, to each direction, reasons are subjoined,

tvhy

nance of God. The Fool indeed may say, according to his folly, that'" it is here insinuated, 'A good wife is such a tarity that a successful search after her must be ascribed to the special favour of God." But if he does say so, he deserves no answer, were it only for supposing that Solo mon was here trifling in the modern Tein of trivial satire,

SERMON XXI. 6$

why a Fool should, and why he should ?iot, be an swered: reasons, which, when scttogeth ran ! com pared, are, at first sight, sufficient to make the Critic suspect that all the contradiction Iks in his own in cumbered ideas,

1. The reason given why a Fool should not be answered according to his folly, is lest he [the An swerer] be like unto him.

2. The reason given why the Fool should~bc an swered according to his felly ', is lest he [the FoolJ be wise in his own conceit.

The cause assigned of not answering therefore, forcibly insinuates that the Defender of Religion should not imitate the Insulter of it in his modes of disputation ; which may be comprised in sophistry, bujfoonry, and scurrility. For what could so much assimilate the Answerer to his Idiot- Adversary as the putting on his Fool's coat, in order to captivate and confound the Rabble ?

The cause assigned of answering, plainly intimates, that the Sage should address himself to confute the Fool upon the Fool's own Principles, by shewing, that they lead to conclusions very wide from the im pieties he would deduce from them. And if any thing can prevent the Fool from being wise in his atcn conceit, it must be the dishonour and the ridi cule of having his own Principles turned against him ; while they are shewn to make for the very contrary purpose to that for which he had employed them.

The high Wisdom conveyed in the two precepts Vox. X. F of

66 SERMON XXI.

of this unravelled Paradox will be best understood by explaining the mischiefs avoided and the advan tages arising from the observance of each of them.

III. We are not to answer a fool according to his folly, lest we also be like unto him. — This is the rea son given ; and a good one it is ; sufficient to make any sober man decline a contest, where even Vic tory would bring dishonour with it Now if our answer be of such a nature that we also (though with contrary intentions) do injury to Truth, we become like unto him in the essential part of his Character. And surely Truth is never more insulted, nor its Advocates more debased, than when they employ the foolish arts of Sophistry, Buffbonry and Scurrility, in its defence.

I. To use fallacious and inconclusive arguments in support of Truth, a trick that hath been too often practised, is doing it infinite discredit.

It tends to make men suspicious that the pre tended Truth is falsehood, when it finds support in the common arts of Impostors. The most favour able, and perhaps fairest inference which will be made is, that the Truth is defended, not for its own sake, but for the sake of the Defender. Hence we become less attentive to the issue, and more jealous of the good faith of the Reasoner. Hence our re verence for the Cause is lessened, and our prejudices against the Advocate increased. It tends to bring the two parties of Wisdom and Folly on a level, when they stand on the same unfaithful and fallacious

,: ground,

SERMON XXI. 67

ground. It tends to erase the distinction between true andy#/«y£, and at length makes all terminate in that most inveterate speeies of folly, Pyrronic doubt and uncertainty.

2. To employ Btiffbonry in this service is vio lating the Dignity of Truth, which can enforce its influence amongst men no longer than while the sanctity of its Character is kept safe from insult.

Buffbcmry deprives Truth of the only thing she wants, in order to come off triumphant ; I mean, a fair hearing. To examine, men must be serious : and to judge, they must be attentive to the argument. Buffbonry gives a levity to the mind, which makes it seek entertainment, where it should find only in struction. But let this poor bastard-talent be taken at its utmost value, the practice of it will still raise a suspicion that the Advocate of Religion hath his Cause little at heart, while, in the very heat of this important Controversy, he can allow himself to be amused and diverted by buffoonry, tins spurious Counterfeit of Wit ; since in matters which are un derstood to concern us most, we are wont to appear, as well as to be, most in earnest : And this scandal given by the Advocate will always bring prejudice on the Cause.

3. Again, PERSONAL ABUSE, that favourite colour which strikes most in the Fool's, as well as in the Knave's, Rhetoric, is carefully to be avoided. For nothing can make the Answerer so much resemble the Fool he is confuting, as a want of Candour and Chanty ; which this mode of anzivering so openly

F 2 betrays,

68 SERMON XXI.

betrays. Whatever pretence the Fool makes to Candour — to Charity he makes none. His very at tempt is an avowed violation of it. He would de prive the World of what he himself confesses to be most useful to Society ; and most pleasing to the natural sentiments of man ; I mean Religion. He would break down this Barrier against Vice ; and rob us of this best consolation against the evils of human life. And in such a service he follows but his nature and his office, when he vilifies and ca lumniates all who set themselves to oppose his im pious attempts.

One mi'iht wonder that the Wise man, who gives this caution to the Friends of Religion, could suppose that they should stand in need of it. But he well knew of what stuff we are all made ; — that the ir regular passions frequently operate alike, whether in pursuit of truth or falsehood ; and that the arms fabricated and naturally employed in defence of error, are unnaturally taken up, to skirmish in a better cause.

For as all men strive to be on the laughing side, so all affect Wit to support themselves in it. Now Wit being the portion but of one in a million, every pretender to Wit mistakes JSuffoonry for it, or hopes at least that his Reader will mistake it.

A well-urged argument is, perhaps, as rare an effort as a well-turned piece of wit, and makes an Adversary, against whom it is pointed, as much out of humour. So thi.t such a one \\ill be apt to supply his want of sense v.ith his abundance of scurrility ; which is the same succedaneum to good

Argument

SERMON XXI. 69

Argument that Buffbonry is to true Wit ; and will serve the user, who appeals to the taste of a preju diced Cabal, full as well.

These are the various modes of answering which are to be avoided, lest the Advocate of Religion become like the vain Caviller, whom he addresses himself to confute.

But, under the reason here given for not answer ing, there is another insinuated— We are not to answer the Fool, lest we should be like to him in Character. This is the reason given. The reason insinuated is — lest we should be like to him in the issue of his Inquiries. What that is, Solomon tells us in this same Book of Proverbs — THE SCORNEH

SEEKETH WISDOM AND FINDETH IT NOT*. For

Scorner is the name here given to the Fool, with reference to his arts of controversy, carried on by so phistry, buffoonry, and scurrility, anatomized above; all of them the mark? of scorn and insolence. Now if this be true, that the Scorner's search after wis dom is vain and fruitless, we have here another reason why we should not imitate his practice ; or, in other words, why we should not answer the Fool according to his folly.

That no other issue of his search is to be expected, I shall now shew you.

The Fool, turned Scorner, places the perfection of Wisdom rather in laughing at what is wrong than in pursuing what is right : and, of all the seeker* after Truth, is, both by his disposition and his method of inquiry, least likely to find it, * Chap. xiv. 6.

*3 i. PRIDE

70 SERMON XXI.

i. PRIDE and VANITY are the foundation of the Scorner's Character ; they consist in a presump tuous conceit of superior knowledge ; Pride disposes him to receive homage from himself; Vanity > to demand it from others. But, of all the Passions, these most effectually keep hid from us that imbe cility and incurable ignorance of our Nature, which, in our search after truth, ought always to be present to us, both to excite our industry, and to awaken our caution. For without industry we can make but small advances ; and without caution we. shall be perpetually deviating from the right track.

As the Scorners opinion of his own abilities is so ill founded, his Vanity will always be seeking homage from others, for those excellencies which his Pride has created in himself : to gratify which, is the only thing he aims at in the display of his self-imputed wit. And though true wit and true zvisdcm were meant for each other's aid, yet this spurious Conceit, which the Scorner so much cul tivates and indulges, serving only to raise ill-timed rnirth, or to gratify the malignity of his depraved temper, drives Wisdom from so polluted a quarter.

This species of Vanity brings on a levity of mind ; which, in its first stages, corrupts the Judgment in our estimate of the importance of Truth : and, as it grows habitual, occasions a total indifference to its interests.' Indeed, nothing so enervates and effemi nates the Reason as the immoderate indulgence of Ridicule ; for as the Wise man observes, in another place of this book: — the end of this mirth is heavi-? wess : that is, it sets in DULNESS,

Now>

SERMON XXL 7l

Now, this indifference to Truth and Falsehood shews itself, first of all, in a malignant pleasure the Scorner takes in embarrassing and perplexing every subject he pretends to handle and examine. Nor is this the worst. His indifference concludes, at length, in a total Scepticism. For when once a man can bring himself to be indifferent to Objects so im portant as those of good and evil, the labour required in discriminating their natures will so offend his easy delicacy, that he will gladly take refuge in a set of Principles which shorten his search, and persuade him that the inquiry is in vain; that truth and false hood, are Chimeras ; or that if they have a real ex istence, yet, the light in which they are objected to our contemplation is so obscure, and the human Intellect so dull by Nature and so narrowed by In stitution, that we perpetually mistake them for one another, in the indistinct and cloudy light in which they are presented to us.

2, The Scorner & method of inquiry is another cause of his never finding IVkdom. Pie begins with detecting and exposing Error. And, indeed, In quirers of more sobriety often find it necessary to do the same ; because these errors often lie in their way ; obstruct their search, and retard their progress. But then, this method leading the Detector into a large field for the display of his pleasantry ; and for the exercise of his wit, if he has any ; the Scorner grows so enamoured of Buffwmry> that here he stays, and spends all his time in this trifling amusement, when his business was only to stop till he had cleared tiie F 4 road,

72 S E R M O N XXI.

road, that he might proceed with fresh vigour in his search. So that this, which, at best, is bat the first step to Wisdom, the Scorner makes the last.

But it is not only the pleasure he takes in laugh ing at folly and error, hut his aversion for those regions of severe Truth where Wisdom resides, which keeps him so self-satisfied in these jovial vanities.

Besides, were he never so much disposed to push on his search to the very Throne of Wisdom, his Talents, and the habitual use to which he puts them, would render his inquiry fruitless and ineffectual. To see and to expose the ABUSE OF THINGS, by which scorn is ingendered, requires little more than a quick sertse of what is wrong, and a lively imagi nation to expose it : but, to penetrate to their REAL NATURE, demands strength and application of mind, rarely found, where the exercise of a. lively fancy hath been long indulged. True Wisdom consisting in the knowledge of the use of things, -just as idle wit subsists in laughing at their abuses.

Thus we see, why the Scorner affects to seek Wisdom ; and how it happens that he never finds it.

All which considered, the wise man advises us, not to answer a fool according to his folly, lest we also be like unto him.

IV. But then, lest the Fool should be wise in his own conceit, we are, at the same time, bid to give him an Amwcr. Now, how this can be done in the man ner here directed, namely, according to his folly, and yet, the Answerer not become like unto him, but, on the contrary, able thertby, to produce the effect

here

SERMON XXI. 73

here intimated (viz. the cure of the Fool's vain con ceit of his superior V. isdom), is a difficulty indeed ; a difficulty worthy the Advocate of Truth to un dertake.

And, a Master of his Subject may hope to over come this difficulty by contriving to contuie the Fool on his own Principles, by shewing that they lead to a Conclusion very destructive of those free conse quences he has laboured to deduce from them.

To give an instance or two. A capital objection to what we call REVELATION, is the innumerable pretensions to it by Impostors in all ages : Every Founder of the National Religion assuming a divine

o o

Mission, supported by Prodigies and Wonders. Yet this favourite Principle of Infidelity may he fairly turned upon the Objectors themselves.

1. For first, the abundance of these pretended Revelations strongly eviiices the need which men were conscious they had of the extraordinary direc tion of Heaven, to aid the feeble glimmering of na tural light, and to support those capital and general Truths which are so obscurely and imperfectly dis covered by it. For the craft of one of these Impos tors is always directed to take advantage of the com mon turn of the People. He is too well acquainted with human nature to think of giving it a new bias. His skill consists in applying what he finds most prevailing in it, to the aid of his Politics.

2. Secondly, True Revelation is essentially dis^ tinguished from all the Species of the false, by this circumstance, that the false have all of them subor dinate

74 S E R M O N XXL

dinette Deities for the object of their Worship ; and consequently all have the complaisance to acknow ledge the truth of one another's pretensions. Whereas true Revelation claiming its origin from the first Cause of all things, the Creator and Governor of the Universe, condemns, by necessary consequence, all the national Religions of Paganism, as Impostures.

2. Another instance — and then enough \\ill be said to explain my meaning on this head. The Christian Dispensation is accused of falsehood for its abounding in MYSTERIES. These Fools sup pose, that " if God hath indeed revealed himself to Mankind, every thing contained in his Dispensation must be plain and evident." — But, in this judgment, they seem only to provide for their own infirmities, without any regard to the honour of their Maker. They forget that, though the Receivers be Men, yet the Giver is the Lord. And that, therefore, though the fundamental Doctrines of such a Dispensation should be adapted to the weakness and narrowness of the human Capacity, yet the Creator and Go vernor of all things should mark the Religion for his own, by such sublime traits, which, at the time that they express the shining features of the Divinity, hum ble the vain arrogance*of human Reason ; the perfect comprehension of these transcendent Truths, not essential to the profession of our Faith here, being reserved for our reward hereafter.

Nor is this Principle or Objection of Solomon's Fool less subject to retortion than the other.

To the pretended Friend of Natural Religion, the Believing Answerer would say, " You % with

affright

SERMON XXL 75

affright from Revelation at the sight of its Mysteries, yet these Mysteries meet you again in Natural Religion, in which you have taken refuge. For Freewill reconciled to Prescience is as inexplicable a Mystery as any our holy Religion holds out to us, to exercise the submission of our Reason, and keep it in due subordination to Faith. And the force of it holds as strongly against you, as any Gospel Mys tery against a Believer : since if you be, indeed, a friend or Follower of Natural Religion, you must confess, that man is free, since without freedom he could not be accountable ; you must confess that God foresees, since without the prescience of the actions of free-agents he could not be omniscient.

As for the Fool who hides his Atheistic Natu ralism under the cover of Natural Religion, the Believer easily retorts his objection to Mysteries, from the State of the Material World, where only, the Fool seeks, and expects to find, real Knowledge, let he must confess all that concerns MATTER to be an explicable Mystery. I pass its creation out of nothing; because I am in doubt whether the Na turalist holds or rejects this Truth, and will only urge him with its divisibility, its expansion and con traction, its inert force, and all those incompre-r hensible qualities which the Newtonian Philosophy hath revealed.

With the same force as in these two instances, may all the Fool's Principles be returned upon him. And sure if any thing can dissipate the vain vision of being wise in his own conceit, it must be the sense pf such a dishonour. For what can be more hu miliating

76 SERMON XXI.

miliating than to have his own Principles shewn to be destructive of his Conclusions? What more mortifying than to have those Principles, in whose invention he so much gloried, or in whose use he so much confided, fairly turned, by the unerring rules of good Logic, to the credit of the Religion he was attempting to overthrow ? Nor is the Partisan of Falsehood more humbled than the Cause of Truth is advanced by thus answering a Fool according to his Folly : For that victory, where our Opposite is made to contribute to his own overthrow, is always held, in common estimation, to be most complete : That System being reasonably judged despicable, whose most plausible support draws after it the ruin of what it was raised to uphold.

On the whole, It is thus (as the Wise man directs) that this forward Fool is to be treated ; whether it be by SILENCE or CONFUTATION.

V. That his Folly is to be repressed according to the dictates of true Wisdom, the nature of the thing sufficiently instructs us. There was no need of a particular direction to enforce the expediency and necessity of such a conduct.

But then, it sometimes happens that the interests of Truth may require that lie should be answered even according to his folly : And, as in discharge of our duty here the execution is very liable to abuse, it was fit and proper to obviate the danger. This, we may observe, the Sacred Writer hath done; and with much art, and elegance of address.

It may iadeed be said, " Why this practised ob liquity

SERMON XXL 77

liquity in defence of Truth ? Is not the purity of her nature rather defiled, than her real interests advanced, by this indirection? And doth not Wisdom seem to say, that it best suits her dignity to repress Tolly by those Anns only which Wisdom herself hath fabricated and tempered : that Truth, by the information of her own light, points out the straight road to her abode ; and forbids us to wriggle into her presence through blind by-paths, and the cloudy . medium of falsehood ?"

But they who talk thus magnificently, do not sufficiently reflect on the ccndit'on of our weak- sighted nature, w'hich can ill bear the bright and un shaded light of Truth : Nor do they seem to see the beauty of that contrivance in the Order of things, whereby Folly ^ by thus administering to her own defeat, is made to bring us back again into the ways of Wisdom, from which she had seduced and misled us.

The REDEEMER of the world, in condescension to the infirmities of those whom he came to save, hath taken this very advantage which this established order of things afforded him. For, more effectually to silence those Tools who rose up against him, he answered them according to their folly, that is, he demonstrated to them the truth and reason ableness of the Gospel on their own ideas, of the nature and end of the LAW ; ideas formed on Rab binical Traditions, and the reveries of Greek Phi losophers; and urged by them in discredit, of his Mission and his Office. The pure and unabated splendor of Tru'.h, ushered in, in all the solemn

State

yg SERMON XXL

State of Wisdom, would have only increased their judicial blindness. To bear this effusion of light undazzled, they had need of the instant aid of that SPIRIT OF TRUTH which was not yet come, but only promised to be sent.

Indeed, when this sacred Guide, who was to lead men into all truth, came down from above, and while he continued, in an extraordinary manner, to enlighten the Understandings of the Faithful, there was no occasion for this enforced Ministry of Folly to contribute to her own overthrow : And there fore, the first Ministers of the Gospel proceeded to the Establishment of Truth in a direct line, and on the solid principles of Wisdom only. Yet now again, in the ordinary effusions of the Holy Spirit, this direction of Solomon will be as useful as ever to the interests of Virtue and Religion — ANSWER A

FOOL ACCORDING TO HIS FoLLY, LEST HE BE WISE IN HIS OWN CONCEIT.

SERMON XXII.

Preached before the King, in Lent, 1761. PROVERBS, Chap. xiv. ver. 9.

FOOLS MAKE A MOCK AT SIX.

THIS strange impiety, the Wise man fairly marks as the utmost ex cess of Folly: For, having just before told us, that Fools despise wisdom^ and that they hate knowledge, he completes their character, by observing, that they make a mock at Sin.

By the terrnj^o/, in common life, we understand one whom the powers of Reason have forsaken ; but Religion gives it to that still more unhappy Being, who forsakes Reason', to that miserable Man who, rejecting the Guide which God and Nature have ap pointed for his direction, suffers himself to he misled by various Impostors, who have ridiculously usurped her name and office.

The Young are generally borne away by the Pas* sions and Affections; the Old are mostly drawn aside by Habit and Custom ; and ail ages, both Young and Old, groan under the slavery of FASHION ; \\hich

yet,

80 S E R M O N XXIL

yet, with all its airs of superior importance, at last resolves itself into a servile compliance with the caprices of others. ' ,

The Passions and Affections make the. fiercest attack upon human Virtue ; but Reason being then upon its guard, in its full vigour, and unimpaired by those prejudices, which a long commerce with the World hath made us to contract, if men yield to the sudden violence of the Appetites, they have suffered themselves to be betrayed by indolence, cowardice, a false selfishness, or from some cause w-hich true Wisdom disavows and condemns.

As the Passions overpower and trample upon Reason; so Habit, by gen tie and insensible degrees, throws it into a kind of Lethargy, which makes it insensible of right and wrong. But whenever it does so, it is by our own fault, a shameful neglect in not calling upon Reason to try and examine our habits, by the test she offers ; which would presently shew us, what is permitted, and what is to be condemned. The last and most impudent Impostor of all, is what men call FASHION, which imperiously enjoins sub mission to the Fancies of others. And this Dominion over fools is far more extensive than the other two. Our love of pleasure makes us confederate with the Passions, against Reason ; our lore of ease inclines us to fall in with habit against Reason ; but it is Vanity alone which draws us to follow the FASHION, against her : And Vanity having a more general, as well as more lasting sway, over the human heart, than either appetite or custom, it follows, that more are misled by the fashion^ which Others give us, than either by

the

SERMON XXII. 81

the passions, which Nature gave us, or by the habits, which we give ourselves.

Let us see then the sentiments of each of these slaves of folly, with regard to this mortal enemy of our Nature, SIN.

1. The man who is borne away from reason and virtue by the violence of his Appetites, has often, during that tempestuous Season, a true sense of his condition ; and is ready to confess or to com plain, in the words of St. Paul— The good, which I would, that I do not ; but the evil, which I would not, that I do. Such a one will be so far from mocking, or being disposed to make himself merry with the idea of Sin, that he will look on it with horror, from the mischiefs which he sees it ready to produce ; and on himself with resentment and con tempt, for the baseness of his subjection to it : So that, while this unequal struggle continues between his Passions and his Reason, he will have very little disposition to preposterous mirth.

2. But when once the criminal gratification or his passions is grown into a Habit, the abhorrence of sin is at an end. He looks upon it, in its daily temptations, with the same unconcern that he re ceives the services of a deformed Domestic ; who, at first perhaps, was never seen without dislike or hor ror, which a familiar converse has long since worn out. — But still, mere use and habit will never carry the pliant perversity of our Nature much further : It will never bring us to make a jest of our Misery, or to try if we can laugh Sin out of its nature ; and,

VOL. X. G while

82 SERMON XXII.

-while its dreadful effects still object themselves to our senses and experience, to ridicule it as an empty Pl.antom, conjured up between the Nurse and the Priest.

3. No. To arrive at this perfection in Folly, \ve must have made the opinion of other men the standard of our manners ; or, in plainer words, we must have become the FOOLS OF FASHION.

Now, in the polite World, Vice is entertained very differently from the reception it finds amongst Little People : who sin, and are ashamed, and so turn Hypocrites to men ; who sin, and are absolved, and so turn Hypocrites to God : While the part of the Man of Fashion is to sin bravely : to regard the natural bashfulness attending the breach of God's commandments, as the ill-bred shame of the Rustic; and repentance, as a kind of poltronery, in which bis honour and reputation suffer. So that when ever a serious remonstrance is made to one of these, of the iniquity of his ways, this Fool of Fashion makes a mock at Sin, as deriving its fanciful ex istence from nothing but the sly contrivances of our Civil and our Spiritual Governors.

But as, in the numerous tribe of polite Vices, there are still some higher in the fashion than others, and therefore capable of a livelier defence, and de serving of a stronger ridicule on the Reprover ; a cur sory view of .them will be sufficient to shew in which quarter the folly lies; whether under the mask of 'formal wisdom, where these Gentlemen direct us to seek it, or in the barefaced pleasantry of their own darling ridicule.

SERMON XXII. 83

The violation of God's holy name by profane swearing ; the abuse of his blessings by a beastly in temperance ; and the pollution of his sacred Image (in which we were created) by vague Lust ; are the three Sins, which the polite world are most disposed to make a mock of.

Yet if we be to judge of them by their causes and effects (on which Reason teaches us to esti mate moral matters) we must conclude, that no^ thing can be more offensive to God, more abusive of our own Nature, or more injurious to our fellow- creatures.

God hath vouchsafed unto us the use of his Sacred Name, to convey our praises and suppli cations to the Throne of Grace ; and, on solemn and public occasions, to add a sanction to Truth and Right. — But, in the horrid practice of profane swearing, men employ this ever-sacred Name for the garniture of their vanity ; to give importance to their pride ; or to add terror to their brutal passions, their rage, their hate, or their revenge. They call upon God to uiiness, and, in effect, dare him to punish, all their silly, lewd, and lyinor conversation ; all that their self-importance, their interest, or their malice, can provoke them to invent, and then, to impose upon their companions. Cnn we now con ceive a greater insult on the violated majesty of Heaven than this diabolic intemperance of speech ? surely none, unless it be to hear these Sons of per dition mock and ridicule the Reprover of their blas phemies.

Luxury or, Infemperance is another of these G 2 fashionable

84 SERMON XXII.

fashionable vices, which the Polite rather make the matter of their reputation than their shame. It con sists in turning the blessings of Providence to abuse; and the sustentation of nature to its destruction ; whereby our very eating and drinking become cri minal. But fashion sways throughout. The in temperance of our Fathers went one way ; the in temperance of their Sons goes another. But it is of small moment which of these brutalities, whether gluttony or the bottle, deprives us of our reason and our health. Either of them is sure to do it ; for the certain issue of both is a legion of follies, and an hospital of diseases. Yet so small account does the polite Debauche make of these two noblest gifts of God and Nature, TRUTH and HEALTH, that he is ready to throw them both away for the vain and frivolous reputation of a well-spread Table, or a social Cup : For, Truth, the greatest of intellectual goods, is the produce of undisturbed reason ; and Health, the greatest of the corporeal, is the blooming fruit of temperance : and yet, we can be content to be deprived of both, for the sordid pleasure of a riotous, unmeaning jollity. And, when Religion calls that a Sin, which we miscall urbanity and social life, we are ready to mock at the Gospel- morals, as an institution impolite and rustic, and a foe to the elegancies of life.

The fashionable Man as loudly proclaims his folly, when he treats the reproof of Incontinence or vague Lust with levity and contempt. This Sin, whether it be the robbery of innocence, or the keeping the miserable object of his Luxury enslaved

to

SERMON XXII. 85

to impurity and vice, is (amongst other mischiefs) the most atrocious injury to our fellow-creatures.

The dearest treasure of life is Innocence. With this, all the benefits of Fortune receive a double lustre ; and with this, we are enabled to bear the worst of her disgraces : for innocence softens the rigours of the seasons; relieves the distresses of poverty; and makes even languor smile upon the bed of sickness. How cruel, then, is that Spoiler who robs the weak and easily-deluded virgin of this greatest' blessing and ornament of life. It is a cruelty that sums up all the injuries he can do his neighbour in one. It violates the person ; it blasts the reputation; and brings on inevitable distress and penury.

But this Sin rarely stops at the mere destruction of Innocence : it generally completes its progress, by keeping the unhappy victim of its Luxury chained down to vice and misery, in a continued state of prostitution ; preventing, by the basest contrivances, Religion, Reputation, and even common Prudence, from having any force to draw them back again, from their ruinous condition, into the paths of vir tue and repentance. Yet this is the Sin which the Fool makes his pastime ; the subject of his mockery; nay even of his boast and triumph.

But the most insolent species of these profane Mockers is still behind. For there are of these, who, not content to mock in the common mode of folly, love to heighten their buffoonery by the mask of philosophic gravity ; and, in the wantonness of change, feel their idle humour best gratified, when

e 3 they

86 SERMON XXII.

they act the voluptuousness of Clodius under the stoical countenance of Cato.

In this temper, they shove the Teacher from his Chair ; and teil us that musty Moralists mistake their office ; that the blessings of Providence were given us to use, and not to cast away; that they were given us to enjoy, and not to quarrel with ; that the mea sure of their use should be regulated by the APPE TITES ; as the appetites only have the art of making that use an enjoyment : And, for Pedant REASON- to assume the office of judging between good and evil, because it is intrusted to decide between right and wrong, is as if the Taste should pretend to judge between straight and crooked, because it can dis tinguish between sweet and bitter. Each Faculty (say they) hath its several department ; and with that, all, but Reason, are content. This Usurper inter feres in every circumstance, and claims the vUiole government of civil life. Hence the rights of Nature are no less violated in the use of Persons than of Things, by this assuming Judge and Director ; who, in confederacy with her spurious issue, LAW, hath contrived to make more than mutual consent neces sary for the possession of the fust and general blessing bestowed on man in Paradise. Where neither the Parent Reason, nor her stern Progeny, the Laws, will commiserate discordancy of temper, or distress of circumstances ; but, with relentless rigour, combine to fasten that fatal yoke, which these victims of their cruel policy mustsubmit to wear, till as merciless a Deliverer sets them free. Again (say they) how absurd is it for Reason to control the Appetites at all, even in the

general

SERMON XXII. 87

general pursuit of pleasure ? PLEASURE their pecu liar object, their native department ; for which, all their functions are so properly contrived, and for which all their sensations are so admirably fitted. Reason has no feelings, and therefore should have no jurisdiction in the measme of the enjoyment.

This is the language of the more refined Mockers, tricked up in the prostituted gaib of Science.

One might answer these fools according to their folly ; one might tell them (though to tell them would only make them mock the more) " That this envied Station of imperial Reason is no usurpation : that this authority was given her, to secure Humanity in its na tive dignity : that \hsAppetiles mistake their use ; they were not given to regulate the enjoyment of good, but to excite us in the pursuit of it : for, one spe cies of good tending to the preservation of the Indi vidual, and another, to the continuance of the Kind, were we not sensually swayed, as well as rationally directed. Inclination would be frequently too slow to answer the temperate calls of nature : therefore has all-wise Providence implanted in its heedless creature, Man, this instinctive impulse of the sen sual Appetites. Within these limits tbey may fairly act; but should go no further. They have the ofiice of Monitor, but not of Judge. This last requires a discernment which blind Appetite hath not ; who knows no mean nor measure ; can form no ideas of the present, from the past or future ; a provision- ary faculty necessary to prevent the abuse of good, and its conversion into evil : And this being in the district of Reason only, it follows, that she, and *he G 4 alone,

88 SERMON XXII.

alone, was placed by the Author of Nature as a Curb and Guide to impotent and blind Instinct. And in our use of good, should Reason be silent till the Appetites call to take away, abstinence would then come too late ; for sensuality demands much more than the body can dispose of, or properly distribute, for the functions of life and health. Nor is it at all strange, when the Appetites prove thus headstrong, that Reason should call in Law to her assistance ; not the Confederate of her usurpation, but the right ful Associate of her Office, to support her just au thority, and to correct what she alone was unable to restrain. And if, in so important a circumstance as connubial relation, they have made the tye thus strong, it was done with the highest moral fitness, as it best tended to promote and to improve the benefits of domestic and civil life. Discordancy of temper would never try to reform its own perversities, while so licentious a relief was still at hand. — And what stronger spur to industry, in the distresses of fortune, than the various Charities of conjugal relation ? which, when impaired and weakened, by an easy separation, carry away with them all that manly vir tue by which both States and private Houses are supported.

As to pleasiire in general, the only idea which the Appetites can form of it, are the different degrees, with which the several kinds strike upon the Senses. But admitting the Appetites could go further, and comprehend both its nature and effects, yet still the biibery of those pleasing sensations would so much bias the inclination as to corrupt all integrity of 24 judgment

SERMON XXII. 89

judgment. Now, in the indulgence of pleasure, many nice and distant respects are to be taken in ; which no faculty but Reason can investigate and col lect ; or when collected, can set together and com pare, in order to assign to each its just weight and moment. What faculty but Reason can discern the various effects, which the use of pleasure hath upon the mind and body ; or the consequences of it to those with whom we stand related by domestic, civil, or religious connexions ? Whether, according to this or that degree of it, it doth not enervate the body, obstruct the agency of the mind, impoverish our Fa milies, debauch the Public, or violate the duties of Religion ? All these are necessary considerations ; for on these, HAPPIN ESS, that is real pleasure, essen tially depends. Now reason only being capable of- forming a true judgment in these matters, we con clude, that she, and not the Appetites, is the proper Director in the pursuit of Pleasure.

Thus have I here adventured to expose the egre gious folly, and to unmask the extreme corruption of heart, which can assume the Buffoon or the Phi losopher indifferently, to laugh at misery and death, and make a mockery both of La\v and Religion. For the Sins, which the fashionable Person commits with so much ease, and confesses with so much gaiety, the Laws bqth of God and man have been caretul to forbid, and vigilant to punish ; as actions destruc* tive of our present, as well as future happiness, ilovv both may resent it, these impious Triilers would do well to consider. For there is so much seditious

go SERMON XXII.

insolence with respect to the Civil Magistrate in making a mock at Sin, that he will probably think the fittest place for them is Bedlam ; and so much impiety towards God, that if the place reser ed for reprobate Spirits will admit of any other Guests, they must ne-eds be such as those who most resem ble them in their Conditions, such as make a jest of Sin and Misery, and a mockery both of God and Man.

SERMON XXIII.

Preached before the King, in Lent, 1765.

1 COR. ix. 24.

/

KNOW YE NOT THAT THEY WHICH RUN IN A RACE KUN ALL, BUT ONE RECEIVETH THE PRIZE? SO RUN THAT YE MAY OBTAIN.

~^HE Apostle, proposing to shew to his Converts -*- of Corinth the advantages which they, who contend for a heavenly prize, have over those who aspire no higher than an earthly one, illustrates his Argument by a similitude taken from their so ce lebrated Olympic Games ; which contains a reasoning to this effect—

" Worldly attainments (says he) are like the Con tentions in your Olympic Games-, where, though the Athletes be man)?, and the struggle great, yet the prizes are extremely few, and the Success very un certain ; for that every Adventurer hath an Adver sary in every other; who all strive to cross, to retard, to circumvent him in his Course. On the contrary, they, who aspire to that immortal crown, which Religion holds, out, as the reward of Faith and

Charity,

92 SERMON XXIII.

Charity, are all sure to win, and be victorious ; the rewards being many, as coming from the all-boun teous hand of our heavenly Father j and the assist ance great, as afforded by the kind encouragement of our Christian Brethren running the same race with us. Therefore (says the Apostle) do you Co rinthians put in for this Prize, which no accidents of time or fortune, nor any thing but your own fault, can hinder you from obtaining : and throw behind you all worldly ambition for that agonistic glory, where you have so small chance of coming off either with honour or advantage/'

This the Apostle urges as one motive for pre ferring heavenly pursuits to earthly. In the words which follow my text, he enforces another — And every man (saith he) who sir wet h for Mastery is TEMPERATE in all things : Now They do it to obtain a corruptible Crown, but JVe, an incorruptible. — For this purpose, adds he, I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection. As much as to say, Cf The pursuit of a heavenly Crown hath not only these advantages of certainty above that aspired to, at the Olympic Games, but they are without any peculiar drawback, since the preparation for the spiritual prize is not more severe than the preparation for the earthly." Jf I (says he) a follower of Christ, keep under my body, and bring it into subjection ; the Olympic Racer observes as strict a Discipline — he is temperate in all things.

Such is the force of the Apostle's fine persua sive, to induce the followers of Christ, to prefer the pursuit of spiritual things to things temporal.

AH,

SERMON XXIII. 93

All, therefore, I shall have to do, will be only to draw out and develop the reasoning of my text, in such a manner as to impress the force of it on the mind of every serious Hearer. Let us there fore attend to these two important Truths —

1st, That Worldly advantages, when they come to be so considerable as to deserve the name of a prize, are of the most uncertain and difficult attain ment. And,

Ilndly, That the immense rewards, which Re ligion holds out to its faithful Servants, are within the reach of every one : where, every honest and sincere Aspirant to the prize is sure not to be dis appointed : for, as in the Words following my text — the Christian Racer runs not as uncertainly ; he so fights, not as one that beateth the air.

And here let me observe, that the Apostle turned the fairest side outwards, in this representation of worldly pursuits, when he .compared them to the contentions in the Olympic Games : for in those Games superior Skill and Address bade fairest for the highest prize : but in the world at large the prospect is much less favourable.

Wisdom and Industry, the qualities designed both by Providence and by Nature, to procure, for the WORTHY, the fruits of their honest labours, are so crossed and traversed by what the Ignorant call Chance, in the disposition of human affairs, that Folly, and random Starts, often get to the goal before them, and snatch away the prize from them.

Wiuie Solomon, the wise, considered; but in spe culation

94 SERMON XXIII.

dilation only, the natural connexion there is be tween merit and success, he was ready to conclude, that the Rewards ot Providence constantly attended the Efforts of Wisdom and Virtue : But when he turned his Contemplations outward, and observed what was doing amongst Men, he gave a very dif ferent account of these matters; / returned (that is, from speculation, and an ideal World), and then I saw under the Sun (that is, in practice and in the affairs of men) that the race is not to the Swift, nor the battle to the Strong ; nor yet bread to the Wise ; nor yet riches to men of Understanding ; nor yet favour to men of Skill : But time and chance hap- peneth to them all.

However, let us take this matter at the best, and throw sucii untoward circumstances aside : Let us suppose, Wisdom and Industry to be as necessary and as successful, in affairs at large, as Diet and Exercise to an Olympic Racer ; and then see, what the Man of the World is to struggle with ; what opposition he is to encounter ; and how many ways his fairest endeavours are likely to be defeated.

In private Stations, the deserving Candidate for the World's favour is eternally crossed by those two capital enemies of Merit, IGNORANCE and ENVY. It is hard to say, whose malignancy is most baleful. For if Ignorame be less active, its ill" influence operates soonest. Rising merit requires early protection and support. Ignorance is the Winter of the moral World ; which fixes the finer and gentler Spirits in a torpid inactivity ; and either destroys, or greatly retards, th& earliest -and most

vigorous

SERMON XXIIf. 95

vigorous productions of the human mind. And " those natures of a mere hardy texture, which can struggle through its inclemencies, scarce ever attain to half their growth or maturity : While those, who, by a rare felicity in their early culture, escape the severity of this frost of Ignorance, no sooner begin to rise high in the view of men, than they are as saulted from the quarter opposite, from the Do^-star rage of Envy.

Nor are the Deserving to expect better treatment from the patronage of their Judges; from those whose condition enables them, or whose stations intrust them to confer these Rewards. They are often ignorant; and as often corrupt. And even- such of them who have good intentions, are com monly of so narrow minds and contracted views, as never to seek, or never to reach, a merit become eminent; but content themselves with giving that to Mediocrity, which is due only to superior Talents : while the Corrupt are even vigilant to suppress merit, as a tiling troublesome to them, both in their natural dispositions and civil pursuits.

If we turn from private to public life, we shall find, that the ambitious Adventurer has still more formidable Dangers to encounter. Here, every man has every other leagued against him; and all ranged under the banners of those leading passions, Malice and Selfishness. Malice will leave no means of calumny and slander untried or unemployed, to arrest him in his course : and Selfishness will secretly put in practice every art of fraud and hypocrisy, to divert and draw him from the goal,

Such

96 SERMON XXIII.

Such is the common issue of human affairs : And hence hath arisen, in every age and place, that uniform complaint of defeated virtue, and of merit neglected ; of integrity vainly struggling with cor ruption, and of wisdom succumbing under the bauble of folly.

Now St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, a Peo ple well versed 111 the knowledge and ways of men ; taught, by long experience, the instability and va nity of human grandeur, wearied out by disastrous tugs with Fortune, and their attention now strongly drawn, by the opening view of better things; St Paul, I say, takes advantage of this favourable si tuation, to turn their passions from human objects, so unsuccessfully pursued, towards heavenly, where their well-meant endeavours would always bring them off more than Conquerors.

And here, my argument leads me to shew, that, in the pursuit of spiritual acquirements, all things are as promising and easy, as they are discouraging and difficult in the disastrous projects of worldly Ambition. Instead of anxiety, toil, labour, oppo sition, oppression, and final disappointment; all Here is peace and pleasure ; joy in believing, divine assistance in obtaining, and full security in pos sessing. For,

1st, A struggle for celestial Honours has the ad vantage of the worldly, in this, that All win the prize who have the noble ambition to contend for it. In the worldly Race below, all run (says the Apostle) but one receweth theprizs; And (says history and

experience)

SERMON XXIII. 97

experience) THAT ONE is, generally, the most worth less of the contenders.

2dly, In pursuit of worldly matters (as hath been observed) all our concurrents are our enemies, and do all they can to hinder and divert us in our course. In the pursuit of spiritual things, all our concur rents are our friends— are our coadjutors. The only strife amongst good men, in the race to Hea ven, is, who shall lend the best assistance to his labouring brother : The slow is helped forward ; the weak is supported; the backward reproved; the de^ spending encouraged ; and the fallen raised up.

3dly, The third advantage which the Aspirant to divine felicity has over the vain seeker after earthly honours, is the proper qualification of the Adventurers. In worldly pursuits, when all other impediments are away, there is need of great and uncommon abilities, either of mind or body ; such as health, courage, activity, industry, vigilance, and a capacity of knowledge and eloquence. In spiritual concerns, our success depends solely on ourselves ; in meaning well, and acting honestly. This sup ports our confidence, and secures us from all irre solute anxiety ; the bane of life, which clogs our endeavours, im bitters our sweetest prospects, and frequently defeats our best-laid schemes of hap piness.

4thly, The last difference, so infinitely to the Advantage of religious pursuits, which I shall beg Jeave to enforce, is in the stability of the things aimed at. — Could the successful aspirant after * Vox, X, U earthly

9S SERMON XXIII.

earthly things secure to himself the possession of the prize he has obtained, for any reasonable time ; or spend, what is called, a Life in the enjoyment of it; some little might be said in his excuse — nothing, indeed, to justify the wisdom of his choice; yet something, however, to excuse the folly of his prevention. But, alas ! the case is much other wise. His glory shrinks like a shadow from his gripe, even while he is attending to the acclama tions of his triumph. Either the time, em ployed in the pursuit, hath drawn out life to its dregs ; or the fatigues, attendant on the contest, have broken and destroyed the basis of his Frame and Constitution; so that the Garland, woven to cele brate his Victory, serves only to ornament his Herse. Or, if haply he succeed while in the full vigour of life, he is then often to undergo a second struggle, as hazardous, and generally more toilsome, than the first — to preserve from the Envious what

he had fairly won from his Emulators.

But he who runs the race which Religion sets be fore us, is subject to none of these reverses of fate

or fortune. All is peace, and joy in believing here

below; and hereafter the sure possession of an eternal

Crown of 'Glory.

Since then it is so clearly seen on which side the advantage lies, let us act like Men ; like such who know how to form a reasonable Choice ; and make our greatest interest our principal concern.

But then, in this spiritual Adventure, let us cany with us our worldly prudence : Let us not so run (to use the Apostle's expression) as one that beatetk

the

SERMON XXIII. 99

the air. Let us not give ear either to the delusions of Bigotry, or Fanaticism. Let us not deceive our selves, with the fancy that we may, on the one hand, obtain the prize, by the observance of idle and superstitious Ceremonies; or, on the ether, by the delusive feelings, or ecstatic visions of Enthusiasm : but let us, as the same "divine Guide directs us, so run that ice may obtain : that is, advance steadily in that sober Course, which the Gospel has marked out to us— of repentance towards God, and Faith in our Lord Jem$ Christ ; under the guidance, and with the assistance of the Holy Spirit.

M

.;;;,;':.;• SERMON xxiv, ;?i

SALVATION BY FAITH ALQNE. MATT. chap. xxii. ver. 12.

AND HE SAID UNTO HIM, FRIEND, HOW CABIEST THOU IN HITHER, NOT HAVING A WEDDING- GARMENT? AND HE WAS SPEECHLESS. THEN" THE KING SAID TO HIS SERVANTS, BIND HIM HAND AND FOOTj AND TAKE HIM AWAY. — •

IN this Parable of the marriage -feast of the King's Son, a select company was first bidden ; and they refusing the invitation, every wanderer that occurred was indiscriminately entertained. The Pa rable was told by our blessed Master, to shadow out the nature and fortune, of his Gospel ; first offered to the chosen people of God, the Jews ; and, •on their rejection of it, laid open to the acceptance of the Gentiles of every denomination. So far con cerning the general fortune of the Gospel.

But in that part of it from whence the words of my text are taken, its peculiar nature is, in a very lively manner, set before us. The bidding to a mar riage-feast is a free and gracious favour ; and that

" 3 Guest

102 SERMON XXIV.

Guest was deemed unworthy of it who did notcoine in such a habit as was the customary mark of his re ceiving the honour done him, with reverence and gratitude. The Wedding Garment was the symbolum which admitted him to the Feast : to be found with out it was an evidence of his being an Intruder ; and justly subjected him to the resentment of the Lord and Founder of the entertainment. For in ancient times it was the custom for him who was bidden to a marriage, to come in a robe of ceremony, so fashioned and adorned as to be expressive of the Characters and Circumstances of the wedded Pair, by which it became a badge denoting the relation he bore unto them.

Now, this Marriage was the Marriage of Christ with his Church : and the Feast to which the Elect were invited, was life find immortality. So that if we consider the state and condition of things, the Wedding Garment will appear to mean nothing but FAITH in Christ the Saviour ; this sacred badge being peculiarly characteristic of the nature and genius of the Gospel. So that the worthy bidden Guest was he who was clothed upon (as the Apostle expresses it) icith Christ Jesus.

In its more general turn, the Parable was fitted to represent every age of the Church. Some who were bidden would not come ; and some who ac cepted the invitation would come irreverently and profanely ; would be so far from complying with the terms of the invitation, as insolently to affix to it different terms of their own.

But no Age hath so well exemplified the disobe dience

SERMON XXIV. 103

ilience and insult, held forth in the Parable, as that in which we live. Most of those who are bidden now, slight the invitation ; and many of those who con descend to come, dishonour the Feast Uy rejecting the condition on which they are to be received, FAITH IN THE MESSIAH, the Wedding Garment of the Church of Christ.

We read, in the text, that when he, who came without the appropriated Robe, was reproved for his neglect, he was speechless. But the Ministers of the Gospel must not expect to have our irreligious Con victs at this advantage. They are ready addressed to reason with us, and shew that " the crime we lay lay so much stress upon, is at worst only the re jection of a new-fashioned Garb ; that though they be without their Robe of ceremony, yet their Heart is right ; they honour the Lord of the feast, and re verence his Son ; they so square their life, as" to be worthy of God's favour and friendship : and for the rest, they are sure, he will never quarrel with them for a punctilio." In a word (to speak out of the terms of the Parable) the new-fangled modern Chris tian is sure, he says, that " the man who observes the moral Lau\ shall, without any more ado, be en titled to the favour of Iris Makec, and consequently, to all the benefits of Christ's Gospel : for howfoith In Jesus CBXI justify him, or be the very tiling which shall entitle him to eternal life, he cannot compre hend : that it may be of use as a viaticum here, he will not deny, since Jesus has more clearly explained the nature and rectified the practice of the moral Zflsr, and so is his best Instructor in its righteous-

K 4

104 SE11MON XXIV.

mss;' but how this Faith should be the only Intro ducer to God's presence hereafter, while the moral wan, laden deep with good works, is kept without — •• credat Jud&us ApeUa" — Such is the confident talk of the PHILOSOPHERS of our time. Yet justification by faith alone is the constant language of the Gospel.

And to shew that it is not the Language of Fa naticism, I shall endeavour to evince the reason ableness of the Christian doctrine of JUSTIFICA TION E Y FAim, and of the necessity of FAITH to obtain the promises of the Gospel. By which the egregious folly of expecting to obtain them on any other condition will amply appear.

Let us then, in compliance with the false notions of these men, suppose that a strict and uniform obe dience to the moral Law will entitle us to erer- lasting life; and the rather, because St, Paul, in his reasoning with the Jews, seems to concede (though by way of argument ad homines) that had they ob served a strict and uniform obedience to the Law, it would have given life; and righteousness, as he expresses it, had been of the Law : but that, failing in this, they were brought into a state of death ; from which they could be redeemed only by faith in Jesus.

Now, were this strictly true, what would the race of Adam be the better for so vain a title ? For who of us, except him who was the Son of God as well as of Adam, ever preserved his integrity inviolate, and did not frequently deviate from moral rec titude ? though he might as often recover himself, and by repentance and amendment put in again

°

SERMON XXIV. 105

for God's mercy and favour; yet still man had irre vocably forfeited all claim to eternal life, even though eternal life had, indeed, been attendant on strict uni form obedience.

Nor let any one imagine, from what he thinks he can collect of the light of Nature, concern ing God's readiness to pardon a returning sinner, and to receive him into his favour, that this grace consists in a restoration to eternal life. Such a fancy is founded in a mistaken notion that eternal life is the debt or wages, or covenanted reward, of our sin cere and careful endeavours to obey the moral Law of God. The light of Nature gives us a very different view of things. It sets before us the infinite dispa rity between our imperfect obedience, in this momen tary state, and the reward of eternal life in a better. If we will believe the Apostle, it teaches this, and this only, that God is a rewarder of them who dili gently seek him ; and that the good moral mem who misses of his reward here, will find it hereafter : that the reward, indeed, will be abundant ; for though we be 'unprofitable Servants, yet is he a most bountiful Master. But abundant and eternal belong to differ ent systems.

This Truth, so clearly deduced from natural Rea son, Revelation supports and confirms. Eternal life in this Dispensation never being so much as once represented in Holy Scripture as the constitutional reward of the virtuous man's practice, but always as the free gift of God.

The consequence of which truth is, that if this free gift were offered on Condition (and that it was, all

sides

106 SERMON XXIV.

sides are agreed), the Condition must be of a thing different from that virtuous life which hath God's favour naturally annexed to it.

Accordingly we find, that the condition \vas, in fact, different. "When life and immortality was first offered to Adam, the condition was the observance of a positive command, not to cat of the forbidden fruit : and when, after the forfeiture of this free Inheritance by the first man's disobedience, we were restored to life by the death and sufferings of Christ, the condition was another positive com- m%nd,foith in the Messiah. And here the goodness and compassion of the Godhead to miserable man are most eminent. Eternal life was, as we say, first given on the observance of a positive command, a command to do or to forbear doing ; and therefore was almost as soon forfeited as it was bestowed. And we may reasonably conclude, from the weak ness and perversity of human nature, that as often as it was bestowed on the same condition, it would be as often forfeited. To secure, therefore, so pre cious a gift to the forfeited Offspring of Adam (for a condition was not annexed, to tantalize our hopes, but to exercise our obedience) God hath finally revealed the condition of eternal life, to be some thing to be believed, instead of something to be ob served. From henceforth the gift was no longer pre carious, but secure i nd certain. So much order, rea son, and beauty, are to be found in the various Dis pensations of Religion !

And here let me observe, that the not distin guishing between the Rewards objected to the en*

couragement

SERMON XXIV. 107

couragement of obedience by natural, and t-iose by revealed Religion, hath been the sole cause of those dark and endless Debates concerning Justification by Faith : For while one Party explained away this fundamental Principle of the Gospel, the Other supported it by arguments which debase human Rea son, and dishonour the divine Attributes. In the mean time, this distinction alone (equally founded in Reason and Revelation, and confounded between folly and sophistry) would have relieved the labour ing cause of Truth from all the absurdities and im pieties employed in its defence. — But, how the Doc trine of Salvation by FAITH ALONE, can consist with the other, of the necessity of good works to ob- tain the favour of Gody and how that which hath a condition annexed, and a price paid, can be called a FREE GIFT, will be shewn at large in another place. It sufficeth at present, that the Key to this Mystery is here intrusted to your keeping;

And now, to apply this Scripture-Doctrine of Eternal life by Faith, to the consideration of all who call themselves Christians.

I will presume, that the aim of all such is to obtain the Gospel-rewards : for, though, in the fashionable language of the mere moral Christian, tliey ask no more than the favour of God, yet they consider this favour as only another name for eternal life. But this moral Christian must have a very high opinion of the perfection of his Morals, if he can imagine that, because natural Religion tells him, it will entitle him to God's favour, that therefore it will en title

*68 SERMON XXIV.

title him to eternal life ; a free gift, which Revelatioil brings to light, and offers on a different condition* namely. Faith in the Messiah. Such a fancy is in deed attempting the Kingdom of heaven by force. But it is not that force which Scripture recom- jneuds^ of faith and prayer, but the profane vio lence of human presumption. And of what is mi serable man so vain ? — The morality of his actions. Yet are these, for the most part, little better than his more shining frailties. And an ancient Father, if he considered them in the concrete rather than the abstract, did not calumniate, when he called them splendida peccata.

Let a man examine the Condition of his Morals, and he will find such bias of appetite, such heat of passion, and such obliquity of self-interest, as cannot but stain and sully all the purity of Virtue. Or if it escape this pollution, yet the silent influences of Habit and Constitution so mix themselves with the true motive to moral practice (the sense of duty) that he will find its intrinsic value greatly alloyed. If he consider the Qualification of his Morals, he will generally find them pushed too far, or else stop ping short of the point of perfection. If he consider the Uniformity of his Morals, he will find them re ceiving perpetual interruption, from negligence and inattention, from secular cares and pursuits, from strong appetites, and from stronger temptations : and if, after this, he will still persist in thinking such Morals deserving of an eternal reward, he will give us, in his Modesty > a still stronger evidence of the futility of human Virtue,

But

SERMON XXIV, 109

But he will say, *' It is not so much human merit, as the mercies of God (which Natural Religion teaches to be infinite, those mercies which Divines call the uncovenantcd) whereon he relies for the at tainment of eternal life"'

It is certain, that God's goodness and mercy are infinite : and had we only these to bring into the account, we might perhaps be left to conclude, that when God thinks fit to reward, he rewards in pro portion to them, that is, Infinitely^ ou at least so abundantly, as to surpass all human conception, But we reckon too fast, and, in our estimate, forget, that though his goodness and mercy be infinite, his Wisdom and his Justice are so likewise : And what abatement the consideration of these latter attributes may make in the rewards due to human Virtue, we have seen already. Nay, though his Justice might not exact a severe balance on the account, yet his Wisdom might. It may (for aught natural Reason hath discovered to the contrary) be necessary to the moral Government of the Universe, that the most severe example should be made of man wil fully wicked. And nothing can clear up this dark and doubtful prospect, and set the overwearied mind at rest, but REVELATION ; Which, by teaching the atonement of Christ once offered on the Cross, shews us that God's Justice, from which we had reason to expect such dreadful abatements in the rewards due to human virtue, is appeased and disarmed ; and by proposing eternal life through faith, satisfies us (that his Wisdom, in the government of the Universe, $oes not require the severest punishment for Sin.

Vet

no SERMON XXIV.

Yet our modern Masters of reason think it a high point of philosophic wisdom, rather to rely on the uncovcnanted mercies of God, which Natural Reli gion so obscurely holds out to us, than on those covenanted mercies which the Revealed hath so openly and clearly laid before us.

But now, these men perhaps may say, " We rest perfectly satisfied with the Reward, whatever it may prove, which Natural Religion tells us we shall re ceive at the hand of God, for our sincere endeavours to deserve his favour and protection."

But, I am afraid, this false modesty will be found as absurd as it is impious ; and that those who will not labour for the whole reward, which Revelation offers, will lose even that which Natural Religion may encourage them to seek.

Those without the Church of Christ may be dis tinguished and divided into such who have never been sufficiently informed of the saving name of Jesus ; and such who, on a sufficient proposal of it to their acceptance, have thought fit to reject it

How those will be dealt with who lie bound in invincible ignorance, the grace and benignity of our holy Religion does more than intimate. It expressly teaches, that the merits of Christ's death and passion have a retrospect to all times and ages since Adam, on whose trespass this Redemption rises. It was for the whole Race of mankind that Christ died. So, it seems most equitable, that those, whom his name never reached, should have the same right to the benefits of his death, by their morals, that those who believe in him have by their Faith,

A*

SERMON XXIV. in

As this best suits the gracious nature of an uni versal Religion, so it seems necessary that, for the support of its dignity, those who, after a sufficient invitation to accept the terms of salvation by Jesus, have, by the misguidance of their passions, wilfully and knowingly rejected it, should, together with that, lose all their claim to what Natural Religion (the foundation on which Revelation stands) had encou raged them to expect.

Our Moralists then, if indeed they aspire to the favour of God, are reduced to this distress, either to call in FAITH to procure for them eternal life ; or else, if they will admit no Associate to their Morality, to rest contented with what the disin- tere'sted pursuit of Virtue can afford them. — All that we can do further for them is to pray to God to direct them in their choice.

SERMON XXV,

THE BENEFITS OF HERESY,

i COR. xi. 19. ljf

THERE MUST BE ALSO HERESIES AMONGST YOU, THAT THEY WHICH ARE APPROVED MAY BE MADE MANIFEST AMONGST YOU.

IN this observation, the Apostle hints at one con dition of the moral World, inseparable, as it is at present constituted, from its existence, a mixture of truth and falsehood, analogous to things salutary and noxious in the Natural. But, in both Worlds, the GOOD produced by this mixture is so eminent as fully to support the trite observation, that Evil was suffered for the sake of a greater good. Yet was God so far from constituting evil in the moral world for the sake of that good which it occasioned, that the whole of this Ordinance was good : out of which the folly and perversity of Man produced evil. If it be asked, how God came to suffer this perversion ? The answer is, the subject viv& free- agency, which was not to be controlled. All that, according to*our ideas, could be done? without impinging upon it, was VOL. X, I done,

T i-4 SERMON XXV.

done, by God's turning the natural tendency of evil to the production of new good. So that God and Man have been perpetually at strife ; the One to produce good out of evil ; the other, to produce evil out of good.

The greatest good ever vouchafed ungrateful Man was Salvation by the Gospel of Jesus. Yet was he no sooner possessed of this blessing than he abused it, by the production of Heresies and false Opinions. Out of which evil, God again, according to his gra cious way of working, produced new good ; a spe cies of which is here mentioned in my text, the ma nifestation of the approved. — There must be Heresies amongst you, that they which are approved may be made manifest amongst you.

I shall therefore consider these two particulars, Who are meant by the approved ; and what is the nature and end of their manifestation.

I. The false Opinions obtruded on the Church of Christ, and taught as articles of Faith, which the Apostle calls Heresies, made their fortune amongst the People, either by flattering the levity of their minds, or by soothing the corruption of their hearts. They either pretended to clear up mysteries, to re solve difficulties, and by new lights, to lead us further into Truth ; or else to allow of practices, to vvhich the written Law of the Gospel, and the received dis cipline of the Church, gave no indulgence. In a word, to be wise above what is written, and to be set at large from what is commanded.

Now the Teachers of such Doctrines would not

fail

SERMON XXV. 115

fail of willing Hearers. All the vain and the vicious ; the lovers of novelty and the lovers of pleasure ; all who prided themselves in thinking with the Few ; or had degraded themselves by acting with the Many. All such would he easily caught in these well-baited traps of Heresy,

The only security from these snares was MO DESTY or VIRTUE. The modest man would remain pure from the itch of novelty, and an over-eager appetite for those sublime Doctrines which the an cient Heretics pretended to have received in trust for the use of their followers : And the virtuous man would become prejudiced against all Practices which opened a door to libertinism and concupiscence. All these would be naturally led to make com parisons between the rank Doctrines of their new Teachers, and the simplicity, the clearness, the ra tionality, and the purity, of what was delivered in the Gospel. And the parallel w:ould end in a more full conviction of the Truth, and a warmer adhe rence to its interests. To These, the Apostle gives the name of the APPROVED.

II. But the great good here hinted at, as arising from the evil of Heresies, is that the Approved may be made MANIFEST: Of which manifestation we are now to consider the nature and the end,

i. Its nature is seen, first, in a constant and public adherence to the doctrines of the Catholic Church ; in affording no countenance to the dis turbers of its peace, either by neglecting the public offices of the established worship, or by frequenting

I 2 the

n6 SERMON XXV.

the assemblies of Separatists : and, ot the same time, in shewing (if they be able) the reasonableness and defending the truth of the orthodox opinions, and in laying open the sophistry and absurdity of here tical novelties.

2. Secondly, It is seen in the exercise of the most perfect Charity to the persons of Heretics : em ploying only brotherly persuasion, enforced by manly reasoning, to draw them from their errors, and bring them back to the sheepfold of Christ. And when these prove ineffectual, then to leave them to the righteous judgment of God ; neither employing co ercive power ourselves, nor willingly suffering it to be employed by others. In a word — to use, for their reduction, no severity but that of Reason, and no force but that of Prayer.

The benefit to the Church, in this manifestation, respects both the approved themselves, and also their Christian Brethren of the same Community.

i . The profession of our Faith is represented in Scripture as a warfare with the World ; and that the life and immortality brought to light by the Gospel is the reward of our Victory in this Contest. It was fit therefore that so great a gift should be earned by some proportionate labour and hazard. Hence every age of the Church hath had its trials : At one time, Persecutions ; at another, Heresies and Schisms ; and at another, a general Defection from the Faith. All for the accomplishment of the wise ends of Providence : many of them inscrutable

to

v SERMON XXV. 117

to us : of some, Reason directs us to form probable conjectures ; and of some again we have a full knowledge, from Revelation : Of this last sort is the truth recorded in my text, that there must be. Heresies, that they which are approved may be made manifest.

Amongst the various conflicting evils of the Church, this of Heresies was one of the first. And its use to the Approved consists in its being a severe and salutary trial of their FAITH and VIRTUE.

The mind of man is naturally delighted with Novelties : and if the Novelties be such as do not directly oppose, but pretend only to explain ai.d rectify his received opinions, he will be tempted to regard them with a favourable eye.

A pretence to sublimer knowledge, which is ever the boast of Heresy, will strongly incline Humanity, naturally vain, and aspiring to things beyond its reach, to listen to these seducers.

Doctrines which flatter the corruption of the heart, and humour the perversity of the will, as heretical doctrines always do, will be apt to gain a ready entrance into the unfortified and unguarded Mind.

But they are not only our Vices but our Virtues likewise which expose men to the delusions of Heresy.

Humility, or a low opinion of ourselves, disposes us to give ear to all such who, with the confidence of authority, offer to teach us things important, and, till now, unknown to us : And Modesty, sure at tendant on humility, is apt to interpret that con fidence into a mark of certainty of knowledge.

I 3 Charity

ii8 SERMON XXV.

Charity will not suffer us to suspect that those who cast aside all temporal consideration for them selves, can have any other view than the interests of truth : And Christian Simplicity, the offspring of Charity, leads us to conclude, that when such men suffer all kind of evil for the support of their Opi nions, nothing less than the power of truth can sup port them in such a conflict.

In a word, the love of Virtue itself inclines us much in favour of men who, as Heretics frequently do, lead a life of temperance, chastity, justice, and beneficence.

When, therefore, botli our worst and our best qualities equally conspire to betray us into heretical opinions, it must be a more than ordinary fortitude in Faith, and sobriety in Virtue, which can preserve us safe from these delusions, and bring us off, as the Apostle says, approved.

And as, in the course of this trial, the faith of the approved must needs be rectified and established, and their virtue purified and perfected, the good produced by it makes sufficient amends to God's Church for the ill permitted in these tares of heresy thus sown by the Eril one.

But still, this is not the whole good produced in thus manifesting the approved through heresies. Another, and indeed the principal, is the useful EX AMPLE oftheapp-roved, to the Church or Congrega tion of the faithful ; the gross body of which have nei ther understandings nor hearts of sufficient strength to detect, or defend themselves from, the arts of cunning and industrious seduce ss, such as the Leaders

SERMON XXV. 119

in Heresy generally are. Or if, haply, they have been taught to keep out of their snares, they are too apt to run into the opposite extreme, violating all the rules of justice in their treatment of these Disturbers of the Church's peace.

Now the EXAMPLE of the approved is of great use to the body of the Faithful in both these re spects ; to fortify their reason against delusion ; and, when that is done, to restrain their passions against the deluders.

The strongest argument with the People for the truth of their religious Opinions, is the seeing them maintained and supported by men, whose learning, parts, and piety, they hold in reverence. This is a species of moral evidence most flattering to the ca pacity of the Vulgar ; such of the Vulgar, I mean, whose natural modesty, or conscience of their own -weakness, is not quite effaced by the heat and fumes of Enthusiasm. — An argument founded in the eternal nature of things, and formed on the rules of severe logic, is, in their gross conceptions, a slippery support to their Faith; and, in comparison of an argument which rises on a great name and a spe cious authority, very cloudy and evanid.

The influence, therefore, which the example of great and good men has on the minds of the People, is exceeding powerful.

Nor is the CONDUCT of the approved towards He retics and Schismatics less serviceable to the Church of Christ Moderation is not the lot of the People, They approve and execrate ; they love and hate with violence : and when once they have condemned I 4 the

120 SERMON XXV.

the innovation, which they are readily induced to do, on observing it to be condemned by those they most esteem and venerate, they are easily led to oppose the Innovators with a violence which both natural equity and the genius of Christianity forbid. Now r;ere again the Example of the Ap proved is of sovereign efficacy to teach them cha rity and moderation. And this Example is so pow erful, that there is no instance to be found of a per secuting spirit which hath long continued, or arrived to any height, but where the men in most credit for their stations, abilities, and dazzling virtues, have encouraged and led it on. And whenever such have, by their conduct, been seen to disapprove of violent measures, the folly and rage of the People have pre sently subsided.

Thus amply rewarded are the Approved of my text, for all they undergo in this trial, by the benefit they procure to the Public in their EXAMPLE. And thus is the evil of heresies, by the gracious disposi tion of things, turned to good, and heresy, by a con trary exertion, made to produce those two capital Gospel-virtues, FAITH AND CHARITY. So admi rable a vindication of God's general Providence does the sense of my text contain — there must be here- sies amongst you, that they which are approved may be made manifest amongst you*

SERMON XXVI.

Preached at Bristol, 'November igth, 1759, being the day appointed for a Public Thanksgiving for Victories ob tained by the British Arms.

EzEKIEL XXXvi. 22,

FOR THUS SA1TH THE LORD GOD, I DO NOT THIS FOR YOUR SAKES, O HOUSE OF ISRAEL, BUT FOR MY HOLY NAME'S SAKE.

GOD, by his Prophet, having here foretold the unmerited blessings which he had in store for the House oj Israel ; lest this wretched People should become vain in their imaginations, and fancy that these mercies were reserved for them, as the pecu liar Favourites of Heaven, thought fit to mortify their folly in the words of my text — I do not this for your sakes, O House of Israel, but for my holy name's sake. As much as to say, " Be careful not to mistake the purpose of these promised blessings, as if they were the reward of your Virtues; for, by your repeated Crimes you have long since forfeited all claim to my

special

122 SERMON XXVI.

special protection : nor yet mistake them for the effects of any partial fondness which your vanity may make you presume I have for you. I employ you only as the Instruments (and this is an honour you little deserve) for carrying on the grand system of my moral government ; which requiring that some one Nation should be set apart for the Repository of the knowledge of the true God, I have, in honour of my faithful Servant, your Father Abraham, chosen you for the Ministers of this sacred Trust,"

To this purpose does the Divine Majesty of Hea ven speak to his chosen People in the words of my text. Arid as all Scripture is written for our instruc tion, to whom the ends of the world are come, let us conceive that, to the same purpose, he now speaks to us on this joyful occasion ; which the piety of Go vernment has thought fit to sanctify, by the appoint ment of a public thanksgiving for the late great mer cies bestowed upon this Nation, in a seasonable Plenty and civil harmony at home ; and in the un paralleled successes of the British Arms abroad.

The nature of these domestic blessings, after having been for some time alarmed with a suspension of them, in penurious Harvests and divided Councils, is best understood by the happy difference in our feel ings. As to the high importance of our successes abroad against the Common Disturber of the peace of Europe — • this is a matter to be left to the Poli tician. On this occasion, I presume, I shall dis charge my duty better, in attempting to explain to you those dispositions and sentiments of piety with which you should possess yourselves, to make this

grateful

SERMON XXVI. 123

grateful offering acceptable to your gracious Pro tector.

If therefore you be more ready to HEAR, than to give the sacrifice of Fools, you should consider, Far whose sake, Treason tells you, these great blessings have been conferred upon you : for, on this you are to regulate the testimony of your gratitude. Now Reason will never direct you to conclude, that they were given for your sakes, unless there be a greater portion of sobriety, virtue, and religion amongst yourselves, than is to be found in the rest of the Christian world. Now if this rare series of good fortune hath not quite intoxicated you (as good for tune is too apt to do), a slight view of the moral con dition of these Kingdoms would soon cure you of all such vain imaginations. For where is the holy Faith in Jesus more openly despised by the Great, or more vilely ridiculed by the little People, than in this our Island ? A love of the Public is now laughed at, as the Chimera of the young and unex perienced : a general Corruption, under the name of Prudence, walks barefaced ; and as general a pur suit of Pleasure, miscalled Happiness, bears down before it all the relations and charities of civil and domestic life. Christian candour, therefore, will not be offended, if, on this view of things, I address you, my Countrymen, and Brethren, in the words of the Prophet — Thus saith the Lord God, I do not this for your sakes, but for my holy name's sake.

If we turn from the merits of the Contenders to the merits of the Cause, neither Party, I am afraid, will have reason to expect any very distin guished

124 SERMON \XVL

guished interposition of Providence in their favour. Let us estimate the original claim of European Na tions to American possessions, on the severe Prin ciples of Natural and Civil Laws ; and then lay our hand on our heart, and ask it seriously, Whether the unadjusted claims of the contending nations to desarts of their own making, in the new world, be such a quarrel, as that in w^hich the Creator of all men, the equal Father of the human race, is likely, in any extraordinary manner, to interfere ? Let us do this, and we shall hardly have an answer much to the satisfaction of our vanity.

We should, therefore, seek for a cause of these uncommon mercies, more worthy the Majesty of Heaven. And we should seek for it somewhere in the course of God's general Providence, in the moral government of the world. And if there we find it, we shall soon see, that the blessings bestowed were not for our sakes, but for his holy name's sake.

God, for the great ends of his universal provi dence, inscrutable to us, was pleased to station his favoured creature Man in a world abounding with natural and moral evil.

But this gracious God, whose mercies are over all his works, hath, as a curb and check to these evils, which it is man's duty, as well as interest, to oppose ; and his merit as well as happiness to sub due; instituted two capital ordinances, CIVIL GO VERNMENT and RELIGION : Supports as necessary for the Moral World, as the SUN and MOON for the Natural : the One, to sustain and cheer us in this vale of miseries ; the Other, to direct our be nighted

SERMON XXVI. 1*5

flighted footsteps towards the happier regions of light and immortality.

We may be certain, therefore, that the same Pro vidence, which keeps the celestial orbs in their courses, will be ever watchful that these two MORAL LIGHTS suffer no extinction or irretrievable decay. For as neither Comets above, nor Ignis fatui below, can supply the use of those Luminaries, so neither can despotic rule or wild fanaticism supply the use of these.

Yet as the moral world, for very obvious reasons, is infinitely more subject to disorder than the na tural, it may sometimes happen that these moral lights shall surfer such dreadful eclipses, and have their splendor so polluted and impaired, as to shine purely no where, and brightly only in some small obscure corner of the Globe. Thus, for instance, the blessing of Civil Liberty, the source of all human happiness, was, for many ages, totally extinct ; and the knowledge of the Deity himself, the fountain- head of Truth, w^, for as many more, confined within the narrow limits of the )and of Israel.

Now this being the precarious condition of the moral world in general, let us see what may be the actual state of CIVIL GOVERNMENT and RELIGION at present on the earth.

As to the former; if we look round us, from the nearest to the remotest Continent, we shall no where find a Society founded on the true Principles of Civil Liberty. Either the nature of its Convention hath been so ill conceived (as in the East) that the absolute despotic Form hath been mistaken for the

immediate

126 SERMON XXVI.

immediate Institution of Heaven; and, consequently, every species of free Government, for essential Li cence and Impiety: or else, where the rights of mankind have been better understood (as in the JVest\ where the three legitimate Forms, the Mo- n^rchic, the Aristocratic, and the Popular, have been truly discriminated, yet men seeing that civil freedom was naturally confined, to these three Forms, er roneously concluded, that each of them separately, and unmLred with the other two, was able to sustain all the rights and advantages of it : not considering that, while they operate singly, they are but the same Tyranny in a different shape : For while each Form exists alone, the whole Sovereignty resides in a part only of the Community, which subjects the rest to despotic rule.

But true and lasting Liberty results from the skilful combination of the three Forms with one another ; where each of the Orders, which governs absolutely in each Form, hath its due share of the Sovereign Power, and no more. Here all impotency of rule is eternally excluded ; for no man, or body of men, can exercise Tyranny over itself.

A Government, thus truly free, is like one of those sovereign Medicines, so much spoken of, where each of the various ingredients of which it is com posed, does, together with its virtues, contain such noxious qualities, that, if used simply and alone, might occasion great disorders, but when skilfully intermixed with the rest, the whole hath corrected the noxious qualities and exalted the salutary vir tues of each part.

Whenever

SERMON XXVI. 127

Whenever such a well-composed Society becomes" despotic, it must be by the silent dissolution of its complex Form; a* when one Order usurping on the rest, hath gotten the whole of the Sovereignty to itself. With so happy a Constitution of Government hath it pleased Divine Providence to bless this Island ; the honoured Repository of sacred Freedom, at a time when almost all the other civilized Na tions have betrayed their trust, and delivered up civil Liberty, the most precious gift of Nature, for a prey to their fellow-creatures.

Now the preservation of this sacred Ordinance being no less necessary to the temporal welfare of man, than the knowledge of the true God is to his spi ritual, we must conclude, that the same gracious Pro vidence would be now no less watchful for the pre servation of the British Nation, than it was of old, for the Jewish : yet still speaking the same language to both — / do not this for your sakes, but for my holy name's sake.

If we turn from Government to RELIGION, we shall have the same reason to adore the gracious Majesty of Heaven still working for his holy name's sake, that is, for the general good of mankind. For though it would be vanity to boast, in this case as in the other, that true Religion, like civil Liberty, is to be found only in Great Britain, when we, be hold the Protestant Faith, professed in the purity of the Gospel, in so many of our kindred Churches on the Continent, yet this we cannot but declare, and should always acknowledge with the utmost gratitude, that the CHURCH OF ENGLAND, by

means

123 SERMON XXVI.

means of the mighty power of its Imperial is become the Fortress and Bulwark of the Pro testant profession throughout the world ; and there fore, we may be assured, the object of God's pe culiar regard ; whose special Providence works chiefly for general ends.

In the course of this quarrel, it hath been some times said, that the present combustion in Europe \vas to be regarded in the light of a RELIGIOUS WAR, against a Confederacy animated by Romish Superstition and Tyranny : and sometimes again, that it broke out and was carried on only for the discussion of our civil Interests. But in whatever shifting lights it may suit the ends of Politicians to present it, the Lord of Hosts himself, by so visibly Jightmg our battles, hath fully decided the question, and in the midst of victory hath declared it to be indeed a RELIGIOUS WAR : for human prei&mption itself will never venture to account for such distin guished mercies to a sinful nation any otherwise, than by considering Great Britain in the light, as of the sole remaining Trustee of Civil Freedom, so of the great Bulwark of Gospel Truth.

Let us, therefore, on this day of Triumph, and perhaps more suitably on this day than any other, humble ourselves before the Sovereign Majesty of Heaven, confess our total unworthiness of these distinguished mercies, and echo back again to the Throne of Grace those awful words which once pro ceeded from it — " We confess, O Almighty Father, that the great things which thou hast done for us, were not done for our sakes, but for thy holy name's sake."

Nor

SERMON XXVI. 129

Nor will this consideration abate, but, on the contrary, increase our Gratitude and Joy.

Our Gratitude, for the honour done us, in being made the Instruments, in the hand of God, for sup porting and carrying on the great System of his moral Government.

Our Joy, in the most enlarged exercise of Chris tian Chanty; while we consider Great Britain as become, by God's special appointment, the common Benefactor of Mankind.

But these sentiments are not suitably expressed by the mere explosions of our mouth, in solemn praises easily discharged : they are to be manifested in the service of our lives, which now becomes doubly due; a service regulated on the nature and end of the Blessings bestowed : for, without the knowledge of these blessings, our praises may be presumption, and our service but a busy impertinence.

To assist you, therefore, my Brethren, in youi; good purposes, I have kept you thus long, in ex plaining what I take to be the true nature and design of the blessings we now commemorate. If we be made sensible that they were bestowed for the sake of this Repository of Civil Liberty, this Bulwark of the Christian Faith, we shall easily understand what returns we ought to make for then).

If Civil Liberty, the source of all worldly Good, be so precious in the sight of God, and yet its in* fluence, in the revolutions of state, so contracted, and its very existence so precarious, How great should be our care, with whom the small remains of VOL. X. K

i3o SERMON XXVI.

it are now intrusted, that we ourselves contribute nothing to the further diminution of it !

By what hath been already observed to you, it is manifest that this glorious fortress of British Liberty can never be taken by storm ; however liable it may be to the silent decays of Time, and to the secret undermine of wicked men.

To provide therefore against these mischiefs, we should discountenance and oppose ourselves to PUB LIC CORRUPTION of every kind, whether it affect the Liberty of the Subject, or the Prerogative of the Crown. Both sorts are now grown so numerous and excessive, that the limits of this Discourse will only permit me just to mention a capital instance of each.

Amongst those which affect the liberty of the Subject, is that profligate venality now become uni-* versal in the choice of our Representatives to Par liament; and against which, no Laws human or divine, hath yet been able to put a check.

Let us once then, for a trial at least, encourage a careful choice of able and honest men ; and support