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shall have occasion to treat under the discussion of the third general head.

3. We may deny Christ in our actions and practice; and these speak much louder than our tongues. To have an orthodox belief, and a true profession, concurring with a bad life, is only to deny Christ with a greater solemnity. Belief and profession will speak thee a Christian but very faintly, when thy conversation proclaims thee an infidel. Many, while they have preached Christ in their sermons, have read a lecture of atheism in their practice. We have many here who speak of godliness, mortification, and self-denial; but, if these are so, what means the bleating of the sheep, and the lowing of the oxen; the noise of their ordinary sins, and the cry of their great ones? If godly, why do they wallow and steep in all the carnalities of the world, under pretence of Christian liberty? Why do they make religion ridiculous by pretending to prophecy, and when their prophecies prove delusions, why do they blaspheme?* If such are self

deniers, what means the griping, the prejudice, the covetousness, and the pluralities preached against and retained, and the arbitrary government of many? When such men preach of self-denial and humility, I cannot but think of Seneca, who praised poverty, and that very safely, in the midst of his riches and gardens; and even exhorted the world to throw away their gold, perhaps (as one well conjectures), that he might gather it up; so these desire men to be humble, that they may domineer without opposition. But it is an easy matter to commend patience, when there is no danger of any trial, to extol humility in the midst of honours, to begin a fast after dinner. But, oh, how Christ will deal with such persons, when he shall draw forth all their actions bare and stripped from this deceiving veil of their heavenly speeches! He will then say, it was not your sad countenance, nor your hypocritical groaning, by which you did either confess or honour me: but your worldliness, your luxury, your sinister partial dealing; these have denied me, these havewounded me, these have gone to my heart; these have caused the weak to stumble, and the profane to blaspheme; these have offended the one, and hardened the other. You have indeed spoke me fair, you have saluted me with your lips, but even then you betrayed me. Depart from me, therefore, you professors of holiness, but you workers of iniquity.

And thus having shown the three ways by which Christ may

* A noted Independent divine, when Oliver Cromwell was sick, of which sickness he died, declared that God had revealed to him that he should recover, and live thirty years longer, for that God had raised him up for a work which could not be done in less time. But Oliver's death being published two days after, the said divine publicly in prayer expostulated with God the defeat of his prophecy, in these words: "Lord, thou hast lied unto us; yea, thou hast lied unto us.'

Very credibly reported to have been done in an Independent congregation at Oxon.

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be denied, it may now be demanded, Which is the denial here intended in the words?

Answer (1.) I conceive if the words are taken as they were particularly and personally directed to the apostles, upon the occasion of their mission to preach the gospel, so the denial of him was the not acknowledgment of the deity or godhead of Christ; and the reason to prove, that this was then principally intended is this; because this was the truth in those days chiefly opposed, and most disbelieved; as appears, because Christ and the apostles did most earnestly inculcate the belief of this, and accepted men upon the bare acknowledgment of this, and baptism was administered to such as did but profess this, Acts viii. 37, 38. And indeed, as this one aphorism, "Jesus Christ is the Son of God," is virtually and eminently the whole gospel; so, to confess or deny it, is virtually to embrace or reject the whole round and series of gospel truths. For he that acknowledges Christ to be the Son of God, by the same does consequentially acknowledge that he is to be believed and obeyed, in whatsoever he does enjoin and deliver to the sons of men; and, therefore, that we are to repent and believe, and rest upon him for salvation, and to deny ouselves; and within the compass of this is included whatsoever is called gospel.

As for the manner of our denying the deity of Christ here prohibited, I conceive, it was by words and oral expressions verbally to deny and disacknowledge it. This I ground upon these

reasons:

1. Because it was such a denial as was "before men,” and therefore consisted in open profession; for a denial in judgment and practice, as such, is not always before men.

2. Because it was such a denial or confession of him as would appear in preaching; but this is managed in words and verbal profession.

But now, (2.) If we take the words as they are a general precept equally relating to all times, and to all persons, though delivered only upon a particular occasion to the apostles (as I suppose they are to be understood), so I think they comprehend all the three ways mentioned of confessing or denying Christ; but principally in respect of practice; and that, 1. Because by this he is most honoured or dishonoured. 2. Because without this the other two cannot save. 3. Because those who are ready enough to confess him both in judgment and profession are for the most part very prone to deny him shamefully in their doings.

Pass we now to a second thing, viz., to show,

II. What are the causes inducing men to deny Christ in his truths. I shall propose three.

1. The seeming supposed absurdity of many truths: upon this

foundation heresy always builds. The heathens derided the Christians, that still they required and pressed belief; and well they might, say they, since the articles of their religion are so absurd, that upon principles of science they can never win assent. It is easy to draw it forth and demonstrate, how upon this score the chief heretics, that now are said to trouble the church, do oppose and deny the most important truths in divinity. As, first, hear the denier of the deity and satisfaction of Christ. What! says he, can the same person be God and man? the creature and the Creator? Can we ascribe such attributes to the same thing, whereof one implies a negation and a contradiction of the other? Can he be also finite and infinite, when to be finite is not to be infinite, and to be infinite not to be finite ? And when we distinguish between the person and the nature, was not that distinction an invention of the schools, savouring rather of metaphysics than divinity. If we say that he must have been God because he was to mediate between us and God, by the same reason, they will reply, we should need a mediator between us and Christ, who is equally God, equally offended. Then for his satisfaction they will demand, to whom this satisfaction is paid? If to God, then God pays a price to himself; and what is it else to require and need no satisfaction, than for one to satisfy himself? Next comes in the denier of the decrees and free grace of God. What! says he, shall we exhort, admonish, and entreat the saints to beware of falling away finally, and at the same time assert that it is impossible for them so to fall? What! shall we erect two contradictory wills in God, or place two contradictories in the same will? and make the will of his purpose and intention run counter to the will of his approbation? another concerning the scripture and justification. What! says the Romanist, rely in matters of faith upon a private spirit? How do you know this is the sense of such a scripture? Why, by the Spirit. But how will you try that spirit to be of God? Why, by the scripture; this he explodes as a circle, and so derides it. Then for justification. How are you justified by an imputed righteousness? Is it yours before it is imputed, or not? If not, as we must say, is this to be justified to have that accounted yours, that is not yours? But again, did you ever hear of any man made rich or wise by imputation? Why then righteous or just? Now these seeming paradoxes attending gospel truths, cause men of weak, prejudiced intellectuals to deny them, and in them, Christ; being ashamed to own faith so much, as they think, to the disparagement of their reason.

Hear

2. The second thing causing men to deny the truths of Christ, is their unprofitableness. And no wonder if here men forsake the truth, and assert interest. To be pious is the way to be poor. Truth still gives its followers its own badge and livery, a despised nakedness. It is hard to maintain the truth, but much

harder to be maintained by it; could it ever yet feed, clothe, or defend its assertors? Did ever any man quench his thirst or satisfy his hunger with a notion? Did ever any one live upon propositions? The testimony of Brutus concerning virtue, is the apprehension of most concerning truth; that it is a name, but lives and estates are things, and therefore not to be thrown away upon words. That we are neither to worship or cringe to any thing under the Deity, is a truth too strict for a Naaman; he can be content to worship the true God, but then it must be in the house of Rimmon; the reason was implied in his condition, he was captain of the host, and therefore he thought it reason good to bow to Rimmon, rather than endanger his place; better bow than break. Indeed sometimes Providence casts things so, that truth and interest lie the same way; and, when it is wrapped up in this covering, men can be content to follow it, to press hard after it, but it is, as we pursue some beasts, only for their skins; take off the covering, and though men obtain the truth, they would lament the loss of that; as Jacob wept and mourned over the torn coat when Joseph was alive. It is incredible to consider how interest outweighs truth. If a thing in itself be doubtful, let it make for interest, and it shall be raised at least into probable; and if a truth be certain, and thwart interest, it will quickly fetch it down to but a probability; nay, if it does not carry with it an impregnable evidence, it will go near to debase it to a downright falsity. How much interest casts the balance in cases dubious, I could give sundry instances; let one suffice, and that concerning the unlawfulness of usury. Most of the learned men in the world successively, both heathen and Christian, do assert the taking of use to be utterly unlawful; yet the divines of the reformed church beyond the seas, though most severe and rigid in other things, do generally affirm it to be lawful. That the case is doubtful, and may be disputed with plausible arguments on either side, we may well grant; but what then is the reason that makes these divines so unanimously concur in this opinion? Indeed I shall not affirm this to be the reason, but it may seem so to many; that they receive their salaries by way of pension, in present ready money, and so have no other way to improve them; so that it may be suspected that the change of their salary would be the strongest argument to change their opinion. The truth is, interest is the grand wheel and spring that moves the whole universe. Let Christ and truth say what they will, if interest will have it, gain must be godliness; if enthusiasm is in request, learning must be inconsistent with grace. If pay grows short, the university maintenance must be too great. Rather than Pilate will be counted Cæsar's enemy, he will pronounce Christ innocent one hour, and condemn him the next. How Christ is made to truckle under the world, and how his truths are denied and shuffled with for profit and pelf, the clearest proof would be

by induction and example. But as it is the most clear, so here it would be the most unpleasing; wherefore I shall pass this over, since the world is now so peccant upon this account, that I am afraid instances would be mistaken for invectives.

3. The third cause inducing men to deny Christ in his truths, is their apparent danger. To confess Christ is the ready way to be cast out of the synagogue. The church is a place of graves, as well as of worship and profession. To be resolute in a good cause, is to bring upon ourselves the punishment due to a bad. Truth indeed is a possession of the highest value, and therefore it must needs expose the owner to much danger. Christ is sometimes pleased to make the profession of himself costly, and a man cannot buy the truth, but he must pay down his life and his dearest blood for it. Christianity marks a man out for destruction; and Christ sometimes chalks out such a way to salvation, as shall verify his own saying, "He that will save his life shall lose it." The first ages of the church had a more abundant experience of this; what Paul and the rest planted by their preaching, they watered with their blood. We know their usage was such as Christ foretold, he sent them to wolves, and the common course then was Christianos ad leones. For a man to give his name to Christianity in those days, was to list himself a martyr, and to bid farewell not only to the pleasures but also to the hopes of this life. Neither was it a single death only that then attended this profession, but the terror and sharpness of it was redoubled in the manner and circumstance. They had persecutors whose invention was as great as their cruelty. Wit and malice conspired to find out such tortures, such deaths, and those of such incredible anguish, that only the manner of dying was the punishment, death itself the deliverance. To be a martyr signifies only to witness the truth of Christ, but the witnessing of the truth was then so generally attended with this event, that martyrdom now signifies not only to witness, but to witness by death. The word, besides its own signification, importing their practice. And since Christians have been freed from heathens, Christians themselves have turned persecutors. Since Rome from heathen was turned Christian, it has improved its persecution into an inquisition. Now, when Christ and truth are upon these terms, that men cannot confess him, but upon pain of death, the reason of their apostasy and death is clear; men will be wise, and leave truth and misery to such as love it; they are resolved to be cunning, let others run the hazard of being sincere. If they must be good at so high a rate, they know they may be safe at a cheaper. Si negare sufficiat, quis erit nocens? If to deny Christ will save them, the truth shall never make them guilty. Let Christ and his flock lie open, and exposed to all weather of persecution, foxes will be sure to have holes. And, if it comes to this, that they must either renounce their

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