Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

T

selves in some measure in this world, if we do not begin this work here, it will never be perfected hereafter; fuch difpofitions as we carry with us out of this world, ftick by us for ever. Indeed if they be good, the degree of them fhall be perfected; but if they be bad, they fhall never be altered. If the image of God be renewed upon us in this life, we shall be changed from glory to glory, in the other, by the fpirit of the Lord. But if we be utterly unlike God when we die, death will make no change in us for the better; we fhall go to our place, and inherit the portion of finners. We did not endeavour to be like Ĝod, and therefore we can never be admitted to the bleffed fight and enjoyment of him; for there is a direct and eternal oppofition between the holy nature of God, and an impure creature; and till this oppofition be removed, we can have no communion with him. And it is too late to take away this oppofition between God and an impure foul in the other world; because our condition is then concluded, and we fhall remain for ever fuch as we have made ourfelves, while we were in this world.

Now is the time, this is the day of Salvation. Now we may repent and leave our fins, and purify ourfelves; and by purity make ourselves like to God, and by our likeness to him render our fouls, capable of being admitted to the bleffed fight of him, in whofe prefence is fulness of joy, and at whofe right-hand are pleasures for

evermore.

So that we ought to refolve upon one of these two things; either to give over all thoughts of happiness in another world; or to qualify ourselves for it, by purifying ourselves, as God is pure: for till we are like God, we are not capable of enjoying him. While we live in ungodliness and worldly lufts, we are as unlike God as is poffible; and there are but two ways imaginable, whereby to bring a conformity and likeness between God and us, either by changing God or ourselves. Now the nature of God is fixed and immutable, he cannot recede from his holy nature; therefore we must leave our fins. It is certain we cannot change God; fore we must endeavour to change ourselves. Rather think of purifying thy corrupt nature, which may be VOL. VIII.

[ocr errors]

R

there

done:

done; than of making any alteration in God, with whom is no variableness, nor fhadow of turning.

Once God hath condefcended fo far, as to take our nature upon him, to bring us to a participation of his own divine nature, and make us capable of happiness: but if this will not do, we must not expect that God will put off his own nature to make us happy.

SERMON CLXXXVII.

Preached at WHITEHALL, 1686.

The wisdom of religion juftified in the dif ferent ends of good and bad men.

PROV. xiv. 32.

The wicked is driven away in his wickedness, but the righteous hath hope in his death.

S

Olomon, all along this book of the Proverbs, doth recommend to us religion, and the fear of God, by the name, and under the notion of wisdom. Chap. i. 7. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Chap. ix. 10. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wiflom; and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. Hereby fignifying to us, that religion is the fundamental principle of wifdom, by which our whole life, and all the actions of it, ought to be conducted and governed; and that all wifdom which doth not begin here, and lay religion for a foundation, and which doth not act upon fuppofition of the truth of the principles of religion, viz. the belief of a God, and his providence, of the immortality of our fouls, and the rewards and punishments of another life, is but wisdom falfly fo called; because it is prepofterous, and begins at the wrong end, and proceeds upon a falfe fuppofi

tion, and wrong scheme of things; and confequently our whole life, and all the actions and defigns of it, do run upon a perpetual mistake, and falfe ftatings of our own cafe; and whatever we do purfuant to this mistake, is foolish in itself, and will be fatal in the iffue and confequence of it.

For he that takes it for granted that there is no God, and that the world is not governed by the providence of any fuperior being, but by chance; that his foul dies with his body, and that there is no life after this: He that proceeds upon these principles, is free from all fetters and obligations of confcience, and hath no reason to regard any rule of right and juftice, of virtue and goodnefs, further, than they conduce to his own cafe and pleasure, his convenience and fafety in this world; he hath nothing to do, but to contrive his own prefent happiness, and to live as long as he can; and becaufe he knows he muft die, to compofe himself to undergo it as contentedly, and to bear the pain of it as chearfully and patiently, and to act this laft part as de-cently as he can, being fecured by his own principles ́againft all future mifery and danger, becaufe death makes an utter end of him.

This is a very confiftent theory, and hath but one fault, that it is not true at the bottom, and will fail us when we come to lay our whole weight upon it. It is juft as the prophet defcribes the staff of the broken reed of Egypt, whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand and pierce it. Such are the principles of infidelity, to all that truft in them; when they should ftand us in moft ftead, and when we come to lean hard upon them," they will not only fail us, but go into our very heart, and pierce it with fharp pain and anguifh. In the days of our health and profperity, the fpirit of a man may bear up itfelf by its own natural force and strength; and falfe principles are like anticks in a building, which feem to crouch under the weight of an arch, as if they bore it up, when in truth they are borne up by it. But when these men fall into any great calamity, or death makes towards them in good earneft, then is the trialof thefe principles, of what ftrength they are, and what weight they will bear; and we commonly fee, that

[blocks in formation]

they do not only fail those who truft in them, but they vanish and disappear like dreams and mere illufions of the imagination, when a man awakes out of fleep; and the man, that was borne up by them before with fo much confidence, can now feel no fubftance and reality in them; he cannot now be an atheift if he would; but God, and the other world, begin to be as great realities to him, as if they were prefent to his bodily eye. And now the principles of infidelity are fo far from miniftring any comfort and good hopes to him, that they fill him with horror, and anguish, and defpair; and are fo far from quieting his mind, that there is nothing but ftorm and tempelt there. The wicked is driven away in his wickedness: but the righteous hath hope in his death. The wicked, that is, the finner, the hardened and impenitent finner, is driven away; which may either fignify the fudden and violent end many times of bad men; they are carried away, as it were, by a tempeft, anfwerable to that expreffion, Prov. x. 25. As the whirlwind paffeth, fo the wicked is no more: or else the word may fignify, to be caft down and dejected; and then it imports that trouble and defpondency of mind, that anguifh and defpair, which arifeth from the guilt of a wicked life. Is driven away in his wickedness; the word in the original is, in his evil, which may either refer to the evil of fin, or of affliction and calamity, and it will come much to one in which fense we take it. According to the first fenfe of the word evil, the meaning will be, that the finner, when he comes to die, is in great trouble and defpondency of mind, becaufe of his wicked life; hath no comfort, no good hopes concerning his future ftate, according to that other faying of Solomon, Prov. xi. 23. The expectation of the wicked is wrath. If we take the word evil in the latter fense, for the evil of affliction and calamity, then the meaning is, that bad men, when they fall into any great evil and calamity, more efpecially upon the approach of death, (for that, as the laft and greateft of evils, is probably intended, as appears by the oppofition in the next words, the righteous hath hope in his death;) I fay, that bad men, when they fall into any great evil or calamity, efpecially upon the approach of death, are full of trouble and dif

quiet, by reafon of their guilt, and deftitute of all comfort and hope in that needful time. And this is moft agreeable to the oppofite part of this proverb or fentence, but the righteous hath hope in his death; that is, the good man, when any evil and calamity overtakes him, though it be the most terrible of all, death itself, is full of peace, and comfort, and good hopes; when there is nothing but storms without, all is calm within, he hath fomething which ftill fupports him and bears him up.

So that Solomon, in this fentence or proverb, feems to defign to recommend religion and virtue to us, from the confideration of the different ends of good and bad men, fo obvious to common obfervation, and generally speaking, and for the most part, which (as I have often obferved) is all the truth that is to be expected in moral and proverbial speeches; that for the molt part, the end of good men is full of peace and comfort, and good hopes of their future condition; but the end of bad men quite contrary, full of anguish and trouble, of horror and despair, without peace or comfort, or hope of any good to befal them afterwards. The righteous man hath great peace and ferenity in his mind at that time; is not only contented, but glad to die; does not only fubmit and yield to it, but defires it as much better. And fo fome read the words, the righteous defires or hopes to die: but the wicked man and the finner dreads the thoughts and approaches of death, quits life with great reluctancy, clings to it, and hangs upon it as long as he can, and is not without great violence parted from it. The good man goes out of the world willingly and contentedly; but the wicked is driven away, not without great force and constraint, with much reluctancy, and in great trouble and perplexity of mind, what will become of him for ever.

You fee the meaning of the words, that they contain a great truth, and very well worthy of our most attentive regard and confideration; becaufe, if this be generally and for the most part true, which Solomon here afferts, then this is a mighty teftimony on the behalf of piety and virtue, and plainly fhews, that the principles of religion and virtue are proof against all affaults to which human nature is liable: and that the princi

R 3

ples

« AnteriorContinuar »