pake the word of God with boldness-and with great power SERM. gave the Apoftles witness of the refurrection of the Lord XXIX. Jefus. Which things being weighed, it will appear impoffible ομεν, διὸ καὶ 13. that the attefters of this fact (supposing them in their wits and fenfes; and certainly they were fo, as prefently we'H fhall fhew, and as the thing itself plainly speaks) could not λαλῶμεν. be ignorant therein, or mistaken about it. For if all the 2 Cor. iv. fenses of so many persons in a matter fo grossly fenfible, fo often, and for fuch a continuance of time, can be diftrufted; if the Apostles could imagine they faw their friend and Mafter, whom they fo long had waited upon, when they did not fee him; that they heard him making long discourses with them, when they did not hear him; that they did walk, eat, and drink with him, did touch and feel him, when there was really no fuch thing; what affurance can we have of any thing moft fenfible? what teftimony can be of any validity or use? On that hand, therefore, the teftimony is impregnable, the witnesses cannot be accounted ignorant or mistaken in the cafe; for number, or for ability, they cannot be excepted against. It must be therefore only their seriousness, honesty, or fidelity, that remains questionable in them; they must be faid to have wilfully deceived and impofed upon the world; felf-condemned hypocrites, impudent liars, and egregious impoftors they must have been, if their teftimony was falfe but that they were not such persons, that they could not, and would not do so, there are inducements to believe, as forcible as can be required, or well imagined, in any fuch cafe. 1. They were perfons who did (with denunciation of moft heavy judgments from God on the contrary practices) preach and press constantly and earnestly all kinds of goodness, veracity, and fincerity, together with humility, modefty, ingenuity, and equity, as main points of that religion, which they by this teftimony confirmed. All their difcourfes plainly breathed a most serious and fprightly goodness and charity toward men, very inconfiftent with a base plot to delude them; their doctrine ut Gal. vi. 10. Tit. ii. 2. 1 Pet. ii. 1. 15. Col. iii. 9. 20. SERM. terly condemned all malice, all falfehood, craft, and hypoXXIX. crify, detruding into the bottomlefs pit all that love or Rev. xxii. make a lie. Confider these sayings and rules of theirs: 15. xxi. 27. As we have opportunity, let us do good unto all men: Let Phil. iv. 5. your moderation (or equity) be known to all men: Shew all meekness to all men: Laying afide all malice, and all guile, and hypocrifies, and envies, and evil speukings, as new-born babes, defire the fincere milk of the word, that ye Eph. iv. 25, may grow thereby: Putting afide all lying, Speak every man truth with his neighbour: Lie not one to another, fee1 Cor. xiv. ing ye have put off the old man with his deeds: Brethren, Tit. ii. 7, 8. be not children in understanding: however in malice be ye children, but in understanding be perfect men. Such were their precepts, discountenancing all malice and all fraud; propounded in a manner as ferious and grave and fimple as can be imagined; all the tenor of their doctrine confenting to them: wherein also they earneftly declare against and prohibit all vanity of mind and perverseness of humour; all affectations of novelty and fingularity; all peevish factiousness and turbulency; all fond credulity, ftupidity, and precipitancy; all instability and giddinefs of mind; all fuch qualities, which dispose men without most fure and evident grounds either to introduce or to embrace any new conceits, practices, or ftories: fuch was their discourse, nowife founding like the language of impoftors; deceit could hardly fo disguise or so thwart and fupplant itself. 10. 2. Their practice was anfwerable to their doctrine, exemplary in all forts of virtue, goodness, and fincerity; fuch indeed whereby they did in effect conciliate much respec 1 Theff. ii. and authority to their words: Ye are witnesses, (they could, appealing to the obfervers of their demeanour, and to the all-knowing God, fay,) and God alfo, how holily, and juftly, and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you that believe: and, We have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifeftation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's confcience in the fight of God. Such a lively fense of goodness shining forth in 2 Cor. iv. 2, 6. ii. 17. Phil. iii. 17. a long courfe of practice; fo to bridle appetites, fo to mo- SERM. derate paffions, fo to efchew all the allurements of plea- XXIX. fure, profit, and honour; to bear adverfities fo calmly and fweetly; to exprefs fo much tender kindness and meeknefs toward all men; to be continually employed in heavenly difcourfes and pious works; exhorting men by word, leading them by example, to all forts of goodness indifputably fuch: to live thus, long and conftantly, doth nowife fuit unto perfons utterly debauched in mind, and of a profligate confcience; who had devised, and did then earneftly drive on the propagation of a vile cheat. The life, I fay, they led was not the life of wicked impoftors, but worthy of the divineft men; fit to countenance and carry. on the best design, such as they pretended theirs to be. ii. 5, 6. 18. 1 Pet. ii. 11. 3. Farther, they were perfons of good fenfe; yea, very wife and prudent; not in way of worldly or fleshly wifdom; in fkill to contrive or compafs projects of gain, ho- 1 Cor. i. 20. nour, or pleasure to themselves; to the commendation of 2 Cor. i. 12. them and of their teftimony, they disclaimed being wife or xi. 6. skilful that way; having no practice therein, nor caring for it; (for they looked not much on things temporal and 2 Cor. iv. tranfitory; they did not mind earthly things; they had Col. iii. 2. not their converfation, or intereft, here, but above, as citi- Phil. iii. 20. zens of another world, deeming themselves as but fojourners and pilgrims here;) but endued they were with a wifdom, as in itself far more excellent, fo more fuitable to the persons they sustained; with great perfpicacy and found judgment in the matters they difcourfed about, and in the affairs they pursued: fuch their writings, according to acknowledgment of innumerable most wife and learned per- 2 Cor. xi. 6. fons, fraught with admirable wisdom and heavenly philo-1 Cor. ii. 1, sophy, (rude indeed and fimple in expreffion, but most exact and profound in fenfe,) do manifeft them to have been; fuch the tenor of their doctrine evidenced them, fhining with that luftre and beauty, compacted with that ftrength and harmony, that whoever will not confefs it to have proceeded from God, muft, upon confideration, however allow, that it could not have been devised by idiots or mean perfons, but did come from perfons of much 13. Πῶς αὐτὸ κατώρθωσαν &c. Chryf. in 1 Cor. Or. 5. elegantiffime. SERM. fubtilty and great reach: they must be no fools who XXIX. could frame a religion merely by its own plaufibility, without any external help, able presently to fupplant all the religions in the world; and to ftand durably firm upon the foundations laid by them. Such also the notaμαινόμενοι κ ble conduct of their great affair, (notwithstanding fo mighty , difadvantages and difficulties,) together with the prodigious efficacy their endeavours had upon men, do evince them to have been: they furely could not be weak men, who in a plain and peaceable way confounded all the wit and policy, all the learning and eloquence, all the force and violence that withstood them. Experience did attest A&s vi. 10. to the truth of what St. Paul faith; The weapons of our 1 Cor. i. 27. warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; cafting down imaginations, and every thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Chrift. 2 Cor. x. 4. Vid. Chryf. ibid. 4. So were they qualified in their minds: it must be farther alfo confidered, as to their purposes in this case, that, in falfely venting and urging this teftimony, they could not have any design gainful or beneficial to themfelves; but muft therein to no end be mischievous to themselves and others; abufing others indeed, but far more harming themselves; they must be supposed voluntarily to have embraced all forts of inconvenience, and defignedly to have rendered themselves miserable; courting adverfity, choofing naked and barren evil for its own 1 Theff. ii. fake: For our exhortation was not of deceit, nor of uncleanness, nor in guile: for neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloke of covetousness; God is witnefs: neither of men fought we glory. Profit, honour, or pleasure, (thofe baits which entice men to do evil, and fet them upon wicked attempts,) or any worldly advantage thence to accrue to themselves, they could have no defign upon; for all those things wittingly and willingly they did abandon; for the fake of this very testimony incurring extremities of lofs, of difgrace, and of pain. They did plainly foresee what entertainment their 3, 5. xvi. 2. 2 Tim. iii. teftimony would find, and how in profecution thereof they SERM. fhould be forced to endure all kinds of indignity, of da- XXIX. mage, and of hardship from men; that in this world they John xvi. Should have tribulation; that men fhould deliver them up to 33. xv. 20. be afflicted, and should kill them; and that they should be Matt. xxiv. hated of all nations for his name's fake: their Mafter ex- Luke xxi. prefsly had forewarned them, that all who would live god- 12. lily in Chrift Jefus (that is, all profeffors of faith in him, 12. efpecially the teachers thereof) must fuffer perfecution ; and muft through much tribulation enter into the kingdom A&ts xiv.22. of God; that bonds and imprisonments did abide them in xx. 23. every place; that God had fet forth the Apostles as ap- 1 Cor. iv. 9. pointed unto death, and exposed them as fpectacles of fcorn and obloquy to the world; that they were called to fuffer- 1 Pet. ii. 21. ing, and appointed to this very thing, as to their office and Theff. iii. their portion: these were the rules and measures they went by; these the expectations they had from the world: according unto which it did in effect happen to them; Even to this prefent hour we both hunger and thirst, and 1 Cor. iv. are naked, and have no certain dwellingplace; and labour, 11, 12, 13. (2Cor.iv.8.) working with our hands: being reviled, we blefs; being perfecuted, we fuffer it; being defamed, we intreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and as the offscouring of all things unto this day. So doth St. Paul describe the Apoftles' condition. 1 3. 5. All these afflictions, as they knowingly did object themselves to for the fake of this teftimony, fo they did endure them with contentednefs and joy; when they had been beaten, they departed, rejoicing that they were counted A&s v. 41. worthy to fuffer fhame for the name of Jefus; rejoicing that 1 Pet. iv. 13. they were made partakers of Chrift's fufferings; deeming Heb. x. 34. it a privilege that was given them, not only to believe in Phil. i. 29. him, but to fuffer for his name; thinking themselves happy 1Pet. iv. 14. in being reproached for the name of Chrift; taking joyfully the Spoiling of their goods; counting all things but lofs for Phil. iii. 9. the excellency of the knowledge of Jefus Chrift their Lord, (1 Pet. i. 6. for whom they fuffered the loss of all things. 6. Whence it is evident enough, that the fatisfaction of their confcience, and expectation of future reward from Rom. v. 3. Jam. i. 2.) |